the mehallo blog. beta.

‘escaping the norm’

Just finished up my Friday night beginning type course – and final projects can take any form. Last night, Christopher Gianni-Embrey showed up for class with an old computer monitor.

Inspired by a recent viewing of The Shawshank Redemption, Christopher visualized the word ‘escaping’ using Morris Fuller Benton’s Bank Gothic.

Not on screen, but in screen.

The final piece was Christopher’s first ever attempt at model making. It was crafted from mostly found materials. As he put it, ‘driving around town, there’s a lot of stuff people throw away.’

In the process, he ended up with a bunch of dead computer monitors – just in case the first attempt didn’t pan out.

My next Friday night type course is scheduled for Fall 2011 at American River College. Course number: ARTNM 303.

Tags: art, design, design history, education, fonts, typography by steve
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The work of Skyler McDonald, London Hairdresser of the Year 2010.

More award winners here.

Tags: design, fashion by steve
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Nicky Bradwell survived my typography and design history classes and is now making music. Each month, he’ll have a new FLAVOR on Soundcloud.

Facebook page here.

MarchFLAVOR by superhumanyouth

TripleRainbowMix by superhumanyouth

Tags: cool finds, design, education, music by steve
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‘Here are four contenders for future moral condemnation: Our prison system; industrial meat production; the institutionalized and isolated elderly; the environment’

Often I just look at the news and wonder how fucking stupid we’re going to look to future generations.

We have a lot to answer for. I found a great breakdown in The Washington Post. Read it here.

and
Above – just to contrast – is Walt Disney’s original plan for EPCOT, outlined in a 1966 short film. Made a couple months before Disney’s death.

Tags: design history, thoughts by steve
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‘Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto has created a beautiful, undeniably scary time-lapse map of the 2,053 nuclear explosions which have taken place between 1945 and 1998.’

Over the years, the US has set off over a thousand nukes. Something I never really knew.

Skip thru to the early 1960s and the multiples of blasts end up looking like Christmas lights.

Found via Marian Bantjes

Tags: design history, education by steve
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‘I was working on maintaining the quality of Bernhard’s handdone type while taking a new and different approach to it’

Student Lesley Gaesser’s large scale final project from my experimental type course at The Art Institute of California Sacramento.

Lesley did an 11 week study on the work of designer Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972) – which culminated in a final linocut-inspired project.

Bernard’s Antiqua type was traced onto Speedball carving blocks, cut by hand, inked and printed on large sheets of watercolor paper.

My next experimental course begins April 8.

If student hangs roughs low on the wall, one can only critique if lying on the floor; Photo by Daniel Mendez

Tags: design, design history, education, fonts, photography, typography by steve
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‘This is an experiment in carving one linocut letter per day in an attempt to complete an entire alphabet by March 31st. Chosen typeface: Champion Gothic by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Lightweight was chosen based on a deep rooted affection with its ampersand.’

And so concludes Aymie Spitzer’s March of Letters. Blog here. Calendar archive here.

Found via Campbell BrownKorbel

Tags: cool finds, design, education, fonts, typography by steve
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‘Hillbillies, long misunderstood and maligned as isolated and backward, actually have a 300-year history of achievement and success that has contributed significantly to our national identity.’

I caught this doc last year on the History channel.

Hillbilly: The Real Story (2008) – hosted by Billy Ray Cyrus – is a great overview of the ‘Appalachian American’ subculture that brought us moonshine whiskey, labor unions, NASCAR and country music.

Stream Hillbilly here. DVD here.

Pictured up top: An original ‘painter’s piss’ runner, found via theTHROTTLE

related
Also, Hillbilly does a pretty good job of setting the stage for Oscar nominated Ozark kin drama Winter’s Bone (2010). Incredible performance by Jennifer Lawrence, below. Review here.

Tags: cool finds, education by steve
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Former student takes design class. Former student notices my work in his textbook. Sends me an email. Photo, above.

Mike Dunkl spotted my 2003 ‘Make Jobs Not War’ poster in his copy of Design Basics: 8th Edition – with some academic text explaining how my visual works (below). Aside from the pencil illustration, I lifted the gothic type directly from a 1912 American Type Founders specimen book. (The green color means ‘money,’ btw) (And there are two ls in ‘mehallo’)

In 2003, jobs were drying up and we were about to go to war on some really flimsy evidence. I felt I had to say something, so I did. My poster – among others – became available for free download at Another Poster For Peace.

At the time, anti-war statements were not the popular thing. Though for me, it was the right thing to do. When the war started, I was following a young Iraqi’s ‘live from Baghdad’ blog up until he stopped posting. Never knew what happened to him – another innocent lost to history.

I still stand behind my poster. Evidence of why we ended up in Iraq in the first place has turned out to be far more flimsy than imagined  . . .  and today, we’re still at war. And the jobs have simply gone away.

Tags: design history, education, thoughts, typography by steve
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‘AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials dating from the 1950s to the 1980s’

Website here.

Found via Daniel Will-Harris

Tags: design, design history by steve
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‘The Influencers is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.’

Trailer above. Watch the film here.

Tags: art, cool finds, design, fashion, music, photography by steve
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