[null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4vVzi2vWiZE/T0vWc3wUhZI/AAAAAAAAA7g/zRjqX-3ybb4/s400/ALRB+131611.jpg", "src": "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4vVzi2vWiZE/T0vWc3wUhZI/AAAAAAAAA7g/zRjqX-3ybb4/s400/ALRB+131611.jpg", "formatted_filename": "ALRB", "rendered_width": 400, "rendered_height": 287}, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aGpj4p5ly1g/T0qT0pUkQJI/AAAAAAAAA7I/yNQILMvo3xk/s400/Grapes+of+wrath+122411.jpg", "src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aGpj4p5ly1g/T0qT0pUkQJI/AAAAAAAAA7I/yNQILMvo3xk/s400/Grapes+of+wrath+122411.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Grapes of wrath", "rendered_width": 400, "rendered_height": 305}, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcOFIJXMjtM/T0qUcF7nDKI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/PpE26DBNAG8/s400/Grapes+of+wrath+122711.jpg", "src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hcOFIJXMjtM/T0qUcF7nDKI/AAAAAAAAA7Q/PpE26DBNAG8/s400/Grapes+of+wrath+122711.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Grapes of wrath", "rendered_width": 400, "rendered_height": 276}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--LQM26erfVU/T0KEMOeQ1uI/AAAAAAAAA6o/0QpMS9o9eFs/s1600/Auditory+damage+121011.jpg", "src": "http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--LQM26erfVU/T0KEMOeQ1uI/AAAAAAAAA6o/0QpMS9o9eFs/s1600/Auditory+damage+121011.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Auditory damage"}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O7gX15ytiG0/Tzw_t-QTWEI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/04ZV_EZe2Zc/s1600/Max+redo+22712.jpg", "src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O7gX15ytiG0/Tzw_t-QTWEI/AAAAAAAAA3Y/04ZV_EZe2Zc/s1600/Max+redo+22712.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Max redo"}, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VnD5EHLSZqM/Tz3BulH1uzI/AAAAAAAAA4o/qo0pz5lyllY/s1600/Superhero+team+3+112612.jpg", "src": "http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VnD5EHLSZqM/Tz3BulH1uzI/AAAAAAAAA4o/qo0pz5lyllY/s1600/Superhero+team+3+112612.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Superhero team"}, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vIu005uHpBE/Tz_yqsfYa4I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/q_SkzuybPbo/s1600/Virtue+card+final+12812.jpg", "src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vIu005uHpBE/Tz_yqsfYa4I/AAAAAAAAA5Q/q_SkzuybPbo/s1600/Virtue+card+final+12812.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Virtue card final"}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bnP-zv8YNcc/Tz0QOMjRIwI/AAAAAAAAA4Q/vCb3ot1tfNo/s1600/zenichi1984.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bnP-zv8YNcc/Tz0QOMjRIwI/AAAAAAAAA4Q/vCb3ot1tfNo/s1600/zenichi1984.jpg", "formatted_filename": "zenichi"}, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qellv2hc3LQ/Tz0PylcE4CI/AAAAAAAAA4I/t7EffIsYvL8/s1600/Atha+2+121612.jpg", "src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qellv2hc3LQ/Tz0PylcE4CI/AAAAAAAAA4I/t7EffIsYvL8/s1600/Atha+2+121612.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Atha"}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gR_l2Rq67A0/TznK5Ryr0wI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/rQFFsWBYw3M/s1600/GOOB+stop+122807.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gR_l2Rq67A0/TznK5Ryr0wI/AAAAAAAAA2Q/rQFFsWBYw3M/s1600/GOOB+stop+122807.jpg", "formatted_filename": "GOOB stop"}, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MxIl-ie9L7A/TzpvdAISYKI/AAAAAAAAA2o/W2ase22AkTo/s1600/GOOB+back+121212+3807.jpg", "src": "http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MxIl-ie9L7A/TzpvdAISYKI/AAAAAAAAA2o/W2ase22AkTo/s1600/GOOB+back+121212+3807.jpg", "formatted_filename": "GOOB back"}, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5v2_j6_Ruw8/TzNAYRC3akI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/80DfqK26epw/s1600/Scrawled+Shawn+12812.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5v2_j6_Ruw8/TzNAYRC3akI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/80DfqK26epw/s1600/Scrawled+Shawn+12812.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Scrawled Shawn"}, null, null, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jW_h9gFmy_E/Tynekn7WFPI/AAAAAAAAAzo/YayYk8_iKNA/s1600/Raptor+exhibit+22112.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jW_h9gFmy_E/Tynekn7WFPI/AAAAAAAAAzo/YayYk8_iKNA/s1600/Raptor+exhibit+22112.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Raptor exhibit"}, null, {"document_url": "http://shawndrawn.blogspot.com/2012/02/", "unformatted_src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X-BjInx225s/TynkQzacPYI/AAAAAAAAAzw/6R5XhCbX67o/s1600/Raptor+6+2112.jpg", "src": "http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X-BjInx225s/TynkQzacPYI/AAAAAAAAAzw/6R5XhCbX67o/s1600/Raptor+6+2112.jpg", "formatted_filename": "Raptor"}, null, null, null, null, null]

Unfinished business

Monday marked John Steinbeck's 110th birthday, churning up bittersweet memories. 

at 6:00 AM 1 comment: 


Wierdest assignment ever 

at 6:00 AM No comments: 


Merciful Minerva! New work

Ain't nothing bad about superheroes. 


Pink dog! Go, quick! Shawnie has fallen down the well!

That didn't take long: The pink dog finds its master!

News comes from Bob Dahlquist, a graphic designer's graphic designer, insightful conversationalist, friend and free thinker, that The Rest Stop's mascot is the creation of an artist named Rod Atha.

Atha, whom Bob says signs his fine art "Zenichi," must have created the dog for the original owners of The Rest Stop, Larry and Yvonne Robinson.

Sometime shortly after Greg Archer bought the store, Bob put me in touch with Greg about helping with promotion.

For many years since, I have had the fun of promoting not only The Rest Stop before it closed, but also Greg's bicycle repair business and ancillary martial arts endeavors (and here) he's involved in.

Bob had worked on some of The Rest Stop materials too, and this trip backward has made me realize that screwing around with the pooch isn't anything new.

This sample (left) shows Bob's trademark care with typefaces, but also some canine haberdashery with the flowing striped tie.

I hadn't seen the old art files for The Rest Stop in years, if I saw them at all. Back then, my computer and computer skills were much more rudimentary than now, so I might have had trouble even looking at them. When I restored the separations on Bob's card, the pink shape in the dog was smaller and off register. Bob said "the off-reg wasn't meant to be, but it works out anyway."

Bob said he'll send along some early iterations of the dog, which hard sharper features originally, more akin to Antonio Prohías' "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoons.

In the meantime, Bob sent me pieces of Rod Atha/Zenichi's work in his collection; both are to be displayed thusly. The top image was created in 1984, around the time Bob says the pink dog got its start. Got any more information about Rod Atha? Please let me know. at 6:19 AM No comments: Labels: Antonio Prohías, Bob Dahlquist, Rod Atha, Spy Vs. Spy, The Rest Stop, Zenichi


My Medici, Part II: And a little pink dog shall lead them

Microscopically speaking, Greg Archer has been to me what the Medici family was to Michelangelo, a great patron making his art possible.

Microscopic in scale, not in passion. Michelangelo had tour bus-sized blocks of Carrara marble; I had 4 1/2- by 6-inch glossy cardstock.

{Maybe a better analogy — though still grossly out of scale — would be Walter Paepcke and the Container Corporation of America, and the Westvaco paper company (now Mead Westvaco), and the role those companies played in advancing American graphic design in the middle of the 20th Century.}

Greg's role as patron was the same as those giants: "Here is your design playground. Have fun!"

One difference: "Oh, and take the dog with you."

Greg needed a regular flow of printed marketing materials to alert bicycle enthusiasts to his shop, The Rest Stop, on a shady street near downtown Sacramento. And he wanted to amass a collection of useful textiles tying The Rest Stop to customers' daily lives. Sacramento is a bicyclists' city with its own amazing playground, a paved trail that snakes more than 30 miles from the Sacramento River up along the banks of the American River toward Folsom Lake and beyond.

From the beginning, Greg gave me wide flexibility in designing his promotions. The one constant: each had to include a pink dog, the mascot Greg inherited when he bought the shop from Larry and Yvonne Robinson.

I don't know if the dog has a name or who created it (if you have information, you'd feature prominently in a future blog post!) It's bright pink, and its bug eyes remind me of the logo for the Mooneyes speed-performance car parts company I knew from childhood (as the world's worst builder of Revell model hot rods, even of the SnapTite® kind).

Though likely created in the early 1980s, the dog has an earlier feel, as if a stray from underground comics or psychedelic rock posters. I love that it has nothing to do with bicycles or bicycle parts, and would love to know its genesis.

Tiny and unassuming, the dog was nonetheless the 800-pound gorilla of every design, innocently but relentlessly imposing itself. Rather than grouse about it, I had to decide early how to incorporate it creatively. So I rebuilt it digitally in order to dismember and manipulate it.

A cardinal tenet of graphic design is that a business logotype is — usually — sacrosanct, with strict rules about its use, size, placement, color, typeface, and association with other logos should they appear together in the same promotional material. All for good reason: Brand identity is the most powerful and succinct public face of an entity, and deviations can send off or conflicting messages.

My son, with many design opportunities already, notes that the design dictates BMW automobiles imposes on its logo use and placement offers no flexibility for alternative designs for a dealership campaign he worked on. Choose any BMW website and you'll see the same gray banner and precise placement of the circular checkered blue-and-white car medallion.

Greg liked breaking that tenet. Though the dog's presence was paramount, no fences were built around where it was and what it did. Even the carefully drafted typographic treatment for The Rest Stop could be manipulated.

As a result, the dog became hero and jester in promotions, a silent Teller (and customers were Penn Jillette), for no reason more important than sending the message: This is a business for and about fun; come on in, visit.

Market forces, including Internet sales, compelled Greg to close The Rest Stop. He re-emerged with Archer Bicycle Repair, for which I was fortunate to design logos.

Though our business relationship grew to include design for a jujitsu program Greg helped teach, and by extension his business partner's jujitsu camp, The Rest Stop's closure spelled the end of design laboratory, to experiment for public scrutiny. And Greg had more ideas than market forces allowed; but that's another blog post to come.

Here are some of the many promotions I got to help with: All good things having to come to an end, it seemed fitting that the last things customers would see were the searing, earnest eyes of the faithful, put-upon pink dog. Labels: American River, BMW, Container Corporation of America, Greg Archer, Medici, Michelango, Mooneyes, Penn and Teller, Revell, Sacramento, The Rest Stop, Walter Paepcke, Westvaco


For good men to do nothing

A funk permeates the week, for reasons concrete and ineffable. 

I've been thinking, and that's dangerous.

Where ya been? 


If you're just joining us, we may or may not exist

When working from home, I surrender to National Public Radio, letting the talk shows palaver over me all day. Mostly it's white noise, but I learn about my world through osmosis, judging by the surprising tidbits of news that fall from my mouth at dinner time.

One of my favorite shows is Fresh Air, with Terry Gross, a Philadelphia talk show host who often devotes her daily hour broadcast to in-depth interviews with interesting people about fascinating topics.

On occasion it's ear candy — interviews with some of my favorite creatives, such as Tom Waits or Art Spiegelman — and sometimes it's dense and hard to digest. Most of the time the interviews are revelations on new ideas —string theory! email etiquette! misguided forces bent on controlling our government for their own dark agendas! — and my brain cells, when listening, dance.

The show is perfect.


Terry Gross, bless her, does this really annoying thing, over and over and over, show after show: In the middle of interviews, or when she comes out of a station break, she says, "If you're just joining us, my guest is _______ …"


"If you're just joining us?!?" For me, it's the aural equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

I want to shout at the radio, "And if I've been with you since the start of the show, who is your guest?!"

I want it to be a different guest each time, just to make her absurd grammar true. We English nerds call the proper use the conditional real verb tense; for example, "If I get off work early, I'm going to swim."

Terry Gross commits the improper use, what could only be called the conditional surreal tense.

Her guest hosts do the same thing, as if trained so. Maybe it's printed on a sign on the studio wall.

But why? Why, why why? In a show so edifying, why muck it up?

Why not simply, "My guest is ________ …?" That covers it all. I'd even allow, "Welcome to Fresh Air, my guest is ________," each time. I'm no foe of marketing, just bad grammar.

I wrote Fresh Air once to complain; after, it seemed like the Gross and the other hosts did it more to spite me.

This reached its absurd apex when Gross' guest was comedian Demetri Martin, who makes fun of just this sort of thing.

He had finished his bit about a waitress telling him, "'If you need anything, my name is Jill.' Oh, my god, I've never met a woman with a conditional identity before," he said.  "What if we don't need anything, who are you? 'If you don't need anything, my name is Mike.'"

Two-second pause. Then on cue, Terry Gross said, "If you're just joining us, my guest is Demetri Martin." I could almost hear Martin's eyes roll.

It's a cross I bear, putting up with this linguistic slaughter. Others around me must bear it too, because I hardly ever let pass an utterance of the conditional surreal.

"If you're hungry, there's lunch meat in the fridge," my wife will say, to which I will answer, "And if I'm not hungry, what's in there?"

"Oh for God's sake," or something worse, she says, "It's just conversation. It's just the way people talk. Why can't you leave it alone?"

Really, why can't I?

If you've read this far, I'm hungry. Can you get me a sandwich?

at 6:00 AM 2 comments: Labels: Art Spiegelman, Demetri Martin, Fresh Air, National Public Radio, Terry Gross, Tom Waits


For all to see 

at 6:03 AM No comments: Labels: Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Lisa Park, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Old Sacramento
