as day becomes night
and the hemlocks fade from view
the song of wind chimes
This is an experiment with animations in Adobe Spark. I like how this turned out. What do you think?
Category: Design Work
Early Morning Fog: A Haiku
Early morning fog
Autumn diffusing the dawn
Delightful silence
Design Exploration in Adobe Illustrator
A barista at my favorite local coffee shop had this phrase on her t-shirt yesterday: “What Goes Around Comes Around”. That inspired me to create this one in Illustrator. I haven’t used it as much as I’d like, so finding reasons to open it and mess around always feels good.
Design Matters Podcast Featuring Fanny Singer
I’ve been following Debbie Millman’s “Design Matters” for years (I’ve written about previous episodes before). She’s a brilliant interviewer with a great gift for finding interesting guests. With a focus on creatives and the life of being a creative, I find her guests to be inspiring and fascinating. I love seeing a new podcast in my feed.
Today’s episode features Fanny Singer, author, art historian, and, perhaps, most famous for being the daughter of restauranteur Alice Waters, proprietor of Berkley’s Chez Panisse.
I must confess my ignorance of Dr. Singer, Ms. Waters, and Chez Panisse before today. Even though I have an affinity for Berkeley that started in the mid-80s when I was a music student. One year we went to the West Coast Jazz Festival, hosted by Berkeley. I loved the campus and the city and seriously wanted to head there. But, well, life happened. With all that, I’m disappointed in myself for this ignorance.
I highly recommend taking the time to listen to the podcast. For some reason, the podcast is only showing up on the Design Matters Soundcloud feed. Maybe it just takes some more time to ripple out to iTunes, Google’s Podcasts, etc. But, hey, Soundcloud is awesome!
The episode references a few things that I thought I’d add links (for your convenience).
- Fanny’s Instagram
- Alice Water’s Instagram
- Alice’s Egg Spoon: A classic tool that, well, looks like fun to use. Not cheap, but I’m sure hard-core foodies will find it indispensable.
- Debbie and Alice discuss the fun cooking videos make together during the pandemic. You can see them on their IGTV channels on Instagram (here are their direct links for your convenience: Fanny & Alice). Also, they put together a few YouTube videos through Knopf’s YouTube Channel. Here are the videos (finding them is a bit of a pain):
Colophon: Dr. Singer’s dissertation focused on the British Pop artist Richard Hamilton, who I hadn’t heard of before this podcast (I learned a lot this one). Their description of him makes me extremely intrigued so I intend to research him further. In particular, his cutting edge computer-generated art seems very intriguing.
Some Design Observations
I have a couple of design considerations/mediations today.
- I just found this gem on Pinterest. A clever use of the fire extinguisher. It draws your attention to it, but not in an obnoxious way.
- Related to the above:
- Lastly, here’s a little experiment I created for my church. Sort of an computer based doodle.
Famous Moments in History, Reimagined By Centrists
Here’s a comic from The Nib that gave me pause. What are the bounds of free speech? A what point does “centrism” enable the destructive forces of hate?
Comics provide a unique voice in the modern political climate that I value. This particular series was created by Kasia Babis. The link will take you to a large list of their work. You really should check them out.
Haiku, July 30, 2020
walking in sunlight life’s
beauty singing to me
the scent of the shore
Another day in the summer sun. Most of it spent in front of my computer. More visual basic into my skull. I try to focus deeply, for coding is a key part of my future.
Exercise and health are other parts. Ones I’ve neglected, sadly. I’m slowly clawing that back. Slowly.
Walked in the early afternoon sun. After a few hours of exploring code, went down to Edmonds to run a few errands then go for a short walk. Always a happy thing for me, downtown Edmonds.
I hope you find your bliss and tranquility these fine summer days.
Fun Design: Do Not Disturb Sign
Every Tuesday I am in a Zoom call. I thought I’d create my own Do Not Disturb sign. And, as a Star Wars fan, when I hear the word “disturb” I think of Darth Vader’s line in a New Hope “I find your lack of faith disturbing”. So, here you go.
Haiku, Minimalism, Modernism, Design
Posted this haiku on my Instagram page this morning. Exploring minimalism, the essence of haiku, combining it with a modernistic design. To accomplish this, I opted for a Helvetica-esque font, right alignment, and no ornamentation. I hope you like it.
A Haiku About Whitespace
As a designer and fan of simplicity and modernism, I have come to greatly appreciate both white space and haiku. So, I created this quick poem to capture that essence. I hope you enjoy!