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Mangled Metaphor

The announcer on the CBC just blurted out the mother of all mixed metaphors while commentating on the Olympic triathlon:

Maybe he’s got another trick up his bag of cards

I tried searching for his name (to embarrass him fully) but no luck.

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Typecasting Strikes Back

In the spirit of Mark Simonson’s Typecasting and Son of Typecasting…

By now every filmgeek knows that George Lucas will be reintroducing even more changes to his Star Wars trilogy when they are released on DVD later this year.  While, like most people, I believe the original untouched version should be preserved and available to fans, not all of the changes are as horrendous as “Greedo shooting first”.  This particular change I like; it’s from the scene in which Obi-Wan Kenobi shuts down the tractor beam of the Death Star:

The last time I watched the movie this close up of the computer console made me laugh a little - that it was not only written in English but that it was set in Akzidenz Grotesk.  No offense to Günter Gerhard Lange, but it’s nice to see his typeface replaced with something suitably more alien.

Akzidenz Grotesk was indeed designed “a long time ago” (in 1896), but Germany hardly qualifies as “a galaxy far, far away”.

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Tricks of the Trade

There’s an article over at the Morning News called Tricks of the Trade which is a pretty fun read.

The bit about graphic design is right on the money.  I do it all the time—I often make the font size or logo intentionally smaller than it should be because invariably clients always ask for fonts and logos to be bigger, so this way I anticipate their changes.  If I had to just pick one thing that I hate most about this profession it’s creating work for people who need to make changes to things just to exercise authority and power.

Another trick I like to employ is what I call “The Scotty”.  Basically you tell the client, “I canna recharge the Dilithium crystals in less than 3 days, captain!” and then you turn around and complete the task in a couple of hours, relax a little, have a cup of tea, and then come off looking like the hardest-working Starfleet engineer this side of Rigel VII.

Any other design or illustration-related “occupational secrets” out there?

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Linky linky!

A bunch of new additions to the bookmarks this week:

Tirade
A blog written by Ronnie del Carmen, a story artist and illustrator for Pixar, and a self-publisher of comics.

CartoonBrew
A fantastic cartoon blog by animation historian Jerry Beck and publisher Amid Amidi.  There is a LOT of stuff to eat up at this site.  It’s like candy.

Fwak!Blog
A blog maintained by the crew of Fwak! animation, the team that brought us ‘Much Lucha!’

Veer: Ideas
There’s maybe something a little impure about a stock house running a blog, but they do offer some great links and they’re not all just ads for their own products.

Tween
Whaddya know—a blog devoted to motion and broadcast graphics.  The site’s blogroll of motion designers will keep you busy for hours.

Paul Giambarba
Finally, cyberpal Paul has been keeping a blog of his political cartoons and caricatures.  Lots of good stuff.  He’s also keeping a blog chronicling his days of creating the visual identity of Polaroid: The Branding of Polaroid.  (Instead of reverse-chronological order, he suggests you read it in sequence, like a book.)

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Introducing CinemaToast

Ladies and gentlemen: meet CinemaToast.

Part of my absence over the past week was due to me finishing this new site.  It’s part blog, part film journal.  I’m a full movie geek, and wanted to keep track of everything I watched.  I thought about creating a physical paper film journal, but turning into a blog was the ultimate result.  Since it’s a movie journal and not an actual review-site, I’m writing about movies as I see them, whether they be on video or in the theatre.

Instead of MovableType this time, I’m using Textpattern.  The reason is that I needed content-management software that gave me more entry fields other than ‘title’ and ‘body’ (for the movies’ year, director, rating, etc.).  I tried Wordpress and hated it.  Textpattern doesn’t fully support multiple entry fields (yet?), but a handful of plugins did the trick.  The site needs some tweaking still, but it’s suitable for public consumption.  I haven’t fully tested it out on different browsers, but a trial BrowserCam trip fixed any glaring errors… let me know if it breaks your browser.

The code is probably the quickest (and cleanest) I’ve ever written, especially since I designed the layout specifically so I could write the HTML without any browser hacks.  The real trick was learning Textpattern, which is still in gamma and has no manual.  And like the Incredible Hulk (also in gamma) it’s a little unruly at times.

Anyway, you know the drill; bookmark it, baby.  Also, can anyone recommend any additional “flavours”?  (Red October?  Blue Lagoon?  Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid?)

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Audioscrobbling

A few weeks ago I signed up for Audioscrobbler which, with the help of a plugin for your audio-player of choice (iTunes here), aggregates your listening habits and then, via Last.FM, creates for you a personalized radio station made up entirely of songs that match your musical tastes.

Pretty nifty stuff.  Friend and co-worker D has already pointed out that its ability to find other users with similar tastes coincidentally linked us to each other unknowingly.  Here’s my page where you can view my profile and listen to my radio station.

The plugin is far less invasive than KungTunes, which I’ve previously been using to update the currently-playing song on the sidebar over there and which uploads the track information via ftp to my server every 5 minutes.  So I rarely have KungTunes running anymore since it always seems to slow my system down.

Anyone know a way to get Audioscrobbler’s “currently playing song” info onto my site via RSS, PHP or other three-letter acronym?

(I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with some type of HAM-radio HAMburglar and “Scrobble! Scrobble!” joke, but to no avail...)

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Another Font Sighting

So now that I’ve stopped pointing fingers at the LCBO, do I now need to hunt down the folks at The Food Network?

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More Hogwash

Sorry for the inactivity ‘round these parts lately.  Here are some more embarrassing cartoons from my youth:

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Time for a Retraction

In a recent post I offhandedly remarked that the LCBO used one of my fonts without complying with the conditions of the font’s agreement.

Well the LCBO apparently wasn’t happy with that post, and word got back to the designers, who, in turn, contacted me.  (All hail the power of the Internet and the might of the squeaky wheel)

Of course, the LCBO had nothing directly to do with the choice of typeface for its beer promotion, nor were they privy to any usage rights issues.  So a full apology to the LCBO—sorry guys!  You’ve never let me down before, so I’m rather ashamed of myself.  In fact, I have you (and the fine makers of Fireball Whisky) to thank for my headache this weekend.  Well done!

The artwork’s design firm and I have come to an understanding; they are now free to use my fonts from here to eternity ad infinitum et cetera et cetera, and I hereby encourage all of my readers to run to the LCBO, buy yourselves some alcohol, and drink yourselves blind (but responsibly).

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At Home with Letterpress

There’s a nice little video on the art of the letterpress worth watching (via Ordinary Life).  I love seeing craftspeople like this, dedicated to a (dying?) art.  I also just love anything printed on a letterpress—that tactile feel left from lead letters being punched into the textured landscape of the paper that you don’t get with any other kind of printing.

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Time for a Beer

I was in the LCBO last night (the booze store, for you non-Ontario folk), and lo and behold, their Time for a Beer campaign uses my font Big Fish Ensemble.

Let it be known that the Liquor Control Board doesn’t pay for its shareware.

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Hogwash #2

Another from the vault. DISCLAIMER: These cartoons were created by a younger, dumber, high-school aged Robot Johnny.  Quality varies from bad to very bad.

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The Hogwash Archives

When I was in highschool I had my very first website—a webcomic called Hogwash.  I recently found the entire batch of comics I had online, and will begin posting them here in all their embarrassing glory!  (There’s a new Hogwash archive category now, too).

They are a disgusting amateur mess, but I love them.  I’ll post a new one every couple of days until the full batch of 40 or so runs out.  Be kind—I was but a foolish child.

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