Leadership By Design
Tuesday, September 30, 2003The Ontario election is this Thursday. It is my right and my privilege to vote, and I find like any voter, I like to be well informed on what the political world likes to call “the issues”.
What issues affect me, the young, urban designer? Education? I’m done school and I don’t have any kids. Taxes? I don’t own any property, nor am I a corporation. Auto Insurance? I don’t own a car. I’m not a senior, a child, First Nations, a woman, a Francophone, homosexual, or homeless.
Well, dear God, what issues am I supposed to find important? I guess I could base my decision on the quality of their web design. That would at least tell me which party has an eye for colour and aesthetic. That’s important in a global economy, isn’t it?
So let’s get down to it:
The Liberals
Well, it’s not hideous. But it’s nothing too special. The Reds’ site is well laid out, information is easy to find, and I dare you to tell me that Dalton McGuinty isn’t a happy-looking fella. He sure is that.
They seem to have videos available, so the Libs are embracing the technology at least. Unfortunately, it’s Windows Media and Real Video. I’m not even gonna touch it. Yecch.
All in all, get rid of the messy hard-to-read top banner and you’ve got yourself a perfectly functional site!
The Conservatives
Yowza! What’s worse—a splash page with bad typography, or a splash page with Ernie Eves’s smiling mug? How about a splash page with both!
Once inside, the PC’s site has a crisp corporate look to it. Coincidence? We have a useless piece of flash throwing buzzwords at me like “strength” and “leadership”, and the site is laden down with reams of information all displayed in an unnattractive manner. It’s a good thing these guys are such pricks or else I’d feel bad that they have such a sucky website.
Maybe one of the MP’s told Ernie, “Hey, I got a nephew who knows computers!” and that’s how this mess was made. Who knows. Either way, the design looks like it was left over from the dot com crash when everyone wanted to look corporate and respectable. “We’re profitable! No, really!”
The New Democrats
Am I seeing things correctly? Attractive site design, good typography, simple intuitve navigation… the NDP’s on the right track!
Video in Quicktime! And with thumbnail previews! And MP3s, too… nothing like a little street cred!
If I can find only one real problem with the site it’s that the photo of Howard Hampton that’s on EVERY page makes it look like he has to take a crap. Lighten up, Howie! Take a page from the book of McGuinty and smile a little!
The Green Party
Oops! Another splash page! That, plus Frank de Jong telling us all at the debates to go out and vote on the 3rd (hint: the election is on the 2nd), the Green Party isn’t off to a good start.
Now, I appreciate and understand the message of the Green Party, but does the website have to look like it belongs to a landscaping company?
Another problem I’m finding is that several links take me to a pop-up window with information from what looks like a previous site design. So bonus points for social justice and environmental responsibility, but a couple demerits for consistency in design. I know you hippies hate looking corporate, but even raging against the machine can benefit from proper branding.
The Communist Party, the Libertarian Party, the Family Coalition, and the Freedom Party are all equally hideous in ways that are best left unsaid. Go take a look and see for yourself.
Heck, the Provincial Confederation of Regions Party has a “404 Page Not Found” for its site. Way to campaign, guys. I mean, if you can’t even keep a website running, how can I trust you to provincially confederate my regions?
The Result:
The winner by a long shot is the NDP! Following them are the Liberals, then the Green Party, and trailing at the end are the Tories (not including all those ugly “lesser” parties, of course).
But, as far as non-partisan election-related sites go, Elections Ontario is pretty slick. Contemporary typography, professional photography, and the understanding that a website needs to be more than a bunch of Word documents with the same background colour and some clipart make this site the real winner. It’s a great looking site. Too bad I can’t vote for them!
Brand X
Monday, September 29, 2003In a move reminiscent of the release of Windows XP, OS X, and Macromedia’s MX suite, Adobe has tagged on some pointless acronyms to its product line-up in lieu of actual version numbers.
The latest versions of its creative products will be named Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, etc…
CS stands for Creative Suite, so at least there’s no X in the acronym.
On the plus side, Illustrator (I’m sorry, Illustrator CS)will finally have some built-in 3D features.
Peanuts! Get Yer Peanuts!
Monday, September 29, 2003It’s news like this that makes me squeal “Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!” like a little kid.
Fantagraphics is going to be reprinting every single Peanuts strip from its entire 50-year run in a series of chronological hardback volumes! I can’t even tell you how excited I am at the thought of this.
At two volumes per year, it will take 12 and half years for the entire set to be completed. And according to the article, half of the first volume has never been reprinted since its debut back in 1950. That’s a real treat for me because I particularly love the earliest strips. Schulz’s drawing style hadn’t yet evolved to its simplistic shaky perfection, the gang was more innocent and childlike, and Snoopy actually looked like a dog.
As a bonus coup, Toronto cartoonist Seth will be designing the books. Other than maybe Chip Kidd who designed the gorgeous Art of Charles M. Schulz book I can’t think of a better choice than Seth. Apart from being a known collector of comic art and comic-related books, Seth’s own artwork itself harkens back to the 1950’s with its Saturday Evening Post look (I also just read news somewhere that Schulz’s pre-Peanuts comics from said magazine will be published in the coming year as well!)
Fantagraphics is currently putting out complete reprints of George Herriman’s Krazy Kat. With Peanuts on the way in 2004, I wonder if we can expect any other complete archival projects like this.
I’ll cross my fingers for Walt Kelly’s Pogo and EC Segar’s Thimble Theatre (aka Popeye). I’ll also be on the lookout for this heavy brick of a book.
I’m going to need to get a new bookshelf. Good Grief, Charlie Brown!
The Sketchbook Journal:
Who Are the People in Your Neighbourhood?
Friday, September 26, 2003
Here’s an entry from my revamped sketchbook journal. Instead of documenting my oh-so-exciting life in comic format, I’ve decided that every day I will draw someone that I’ve seen on the street, on the subway, at work… Here’s the lady that prompted the idea:
In my previous journal I had to think back through the day to what I could turn into a comic. This new journal makes me contantly aware of the people around me—I’m always looking at faces, thinking of who and how to draw them. So for that reason alone I think that this is a much better project. Anything that makes me constantly think of drawing is a good thing. I’m off to a Bingo parlour tonight which should prove to give me some interesting faces to work with.
Seek and Ye Shall Find (But Be Careful What of What Ye Seek)
Thursday, September 25, 2003Like all bloggers I can’t help but be amazed and amused (amuzed?) at some of the search terms people are using to find my site.
Of course, some of the searches are relevant to my site and its posts. For example, my name yields the number one (and number 5) search result on Google. Various combinations of the words “Shatner”, “Crest”, and “Dancing” similarly get the the topmost ranked results for my post about the Star Trek star’s teeth-whitening commercial.
But then there are the odd ducks. The non-sequiturs. The ones that don’t make quite as much sense. And I’d be remiss not to note that most of these searchers are on the hunt for material a little more, shall we say “questionnable” than I have to offer.
With that, I now present to you, my top ten favourite search terms that good, honest surfers like you yourself employed to find my site:
10. “man enticing donkey”
9. “free porn and cartoons without having to sign up or anything”
8. “signs of cheating teens”
7. “robotic fetish”
6. “picture of monkey spanking”
5. “delightful cocktease”
4. “adult male spanking”
3. “boobery”
2. “Ben Affleck jerking off”
And my number one favourite, which makes no sense at all, since I don’t think any of these words have ever appeared on my site:
1. “santorum is a mixture of lube and fecal matter”
After doing some searching, it appears that these words (santorum being a term created by Dan “Savage Love” Savage to defame anti-gay senator Rick Santorum) magically appear in the search results of other bloggers as well. How, I do not know, but it’s amuzing nonetheless.
Putting all these terms in one post like this will no doubt serve to muddy Google’s results even further. But in all honesty I can’t wait until someone finds my site searching for “Ben Affleck’s donkey santorum”.
Dude, you’re getting a…. Dell?
Thursday, September 25, 2003So Dell is coming out with a competitor for the iPod called the Dell Digital Jukebox. Looks kinda familiar.
The name’s a little dull, wouldn’t you say? Even now if someone says the word “iPod” heads turn and ears perk up. It’s cool. It’s sexy. It’s it. I can barely get the words “Dell Digital Jukebox” out of my mouth without stumbling over my own tongue.
With any luck it will be as successful as the e-Power.
Touched By An Angle
Wednesday, September 24, 2003Earlier this week, someone bought me The Samurai Jack premiere movie from my wishlist. I had never seen it before, but always knew it was something I would like. And last night I purchased the new Disney Sleeping Beauty DVD.
One movie is a timeless fairy tale with a princess, a dragon, and chirpy forest critters. The other is a violent kung-fu action movie set in the future. They are different movies for different audiences, but they have one thing in common that draws me to them—the stylized art direction and character design.
Both films employ a very unique sense of design with sharp angles and stylized graphic backgrounds. More than most other animated films, watching these is truly like watching moving illustrations. The look of the films are unapologetically flat and two-dimensional and in this age of vibrant computer-generated 3D animation, this retro look (or in the case of Sleeping Beauty, modern) is a welcome distraction.
With traditional animation slowly being overshadowed by CGI, I think animation designers should continue to experiment with unique styles to keep things fresh. As poor as Disney’s recent films have been doing financially I give them credit for a few inspired designs, specifically the Al Hirschfeld-inspired stint in Fantasia 2000 and the Mike Mignola-styled character design in Atlantis.
The same goes for 3D features as well. If I want realism I’ll see a live-action movie. Animation offers limitless potential, and for a medium that’s almost 100 years old, there’s still a lot that can be done.
So keep pumping out singing animal movies.
I’ll be watching the Powerpuff Girls.
One Bug Down
Wednesday, September 24, 2003I just fixed a bug with the site that wasn’t allowing cookies to work properly on the comments page. So if you’re a regular commenter you should see that the “Remember personal info” button now works properly and you won’t have to continue typing in your email addy.
However, for some reason now with Safari there is a new bug in which the page area below the main top graphics is a few pixels too long on the right side so that the white area juts out a little. The site looks fine with Explorer on the Mac… any other browsers seeing this?
That will have to wait for another late-night coding session.
This Font Needs a Name
Monday, September 22, 2003I’ve been working on a new pixel font loosely based on the typeface seen in the opening credits of the original Italian Job. I say ‘loosely’ because when watching it I hurriedly scribbled down some of the letters I liked onto a scrap of paper. The word I scribbled down was ‘Oakhurst’ as in Oakhurst Productions, and it’s since been the working title of this font.
But if you know me you’ll know that my font titles are rarely that normal sounding. Any suggestions?
“I’m Alex and I’m here to help you…”
Friday, September 19, 2003My pal Luc Latulippe has a pretty cool animated illustration on the frontpage of the newly redesigned Portfolios.com.
Hurricane Hurrah!
Friday, September 19, 2003It’s Friday and Hurricane Isabel is diligently soakin’ up this soggy city. Time for a little rainy day fun!
I’m sure many of you have visited Orisinal before, but it’s worth a return visit, don’t you think? Their flash games are simple, addictive, and beautiful.
In the mood for something less visual? Something to stimulate your pulsing mega-brain? Wordplays offers some great word games.
And what seems to have an endless supply of completely unrelated but nonetheless addictive little games, jokes, facts, and all around Internet whatsits, MIStupid will gladly help you waste some of those precious minutes at work.
Finally, here’s a site that I could waste an entire day looking at: Worth 1000. It’s a Photoshop contest site which holds daily Photoshopping exercises that invite users to doctor, mangle and paint given images in creative ways. Surely it doesn’t respect copyright in any way whatsoever, but it’s a heckuva lot of fun and some of these people’s work is fantastic.
Hey Kids!
Friday, September 19, 2003At work I’m working on a special on underground comics for BookTV. While scanning in textures and images from some old comic books I couldn’t help but admire one of those old ads for gags and prizes.
This particular ad, “Super Prizes or Cash” had many things I could trade in for selling Christmas cards and giftwrap to my close friends and family.
The best item? X-Ray specs? Hot Pepper Chewing Gum? 2-Man Mountain Tent?
The choice is clear. None of those items even come close to this:
The Sketchbook Journal: Ch-ch-ch-changes
Wednesday, September 17, 2003I began my journal 2 and a half months ago and have drawn an entry for every single day, but I’ve since lost the drive to create daily entries. When I began, I needed a new creative outlet, and the book was just what I needed. But it’s growing stale.
Not that I don’t think I’m incredibly handsome as a big square-headed cartoon character, but I’m basically drawing the same picture of myself over and over again, and it’s become a bit boring.
But I’m not going to put an end to my sketchbook journal. I’m just going to change its content. The current book is now full so I’ve begun a new book in which I’ll continue to draw something for every day of the year in order to continue honing my chops—just not comics starring myself.
I’ll explain more later when I post an entry from this new journal. Until then, here is the final entry in Book #1:
The Sketchbook Journal: Horror Movie Day
Wednesday, September 17, 2003This weekend friends and I saw the Australian zombie movie Undead as part of the Toronto International Film Festival and then went to see Cabin Fever:
Top 10 Signs Your Apostle is Cheating on You
Tuesday, September 16, 2003In regards to yesterday’s post, some new evidence has come to light suggesting that this book has the most depressing cover of the year, and not MTV’s Wuthering Heights.
P.S. Spiritual Facials? I bet there’s already a Usenet group in the works…
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RobotJohnny.com is the personal weblog of Toronto illustrator and cartoonist John Martz. Read more...
The blog is made up of regular entries, Cinema Toast movie reviews, and Warm-Up Drawings.
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