space rocks, and so do you!!

SPACE ROCKS

Yo. Before I forget, there are many miscellaneous things you should know. I will now list them.

  • Bryan and I were up very late indeed making and installing the SPACE ROCKS! poster (as you see above), and it would be great if you came! It’s next Saturday at the GSD, and a bunch of graphic designers and artists, etc, will be speaking about SPACE. And how it ROCKS, no doubt… the full info is here. Indeed!
  • In the course of the making of this poster, I paired Johnston ITC with Mr. Barnbrook’s Bastard Fat, which I am like rilly pleased with in some perverse way. I can’t explain that shit. Rilly, you tell me:

johnstonbastard00.jpg

  • The day after that, though, I got totally busted by the Mason building’s sysadmin for circumventing the school’s print system. He had documentation of how much ink I had (allegedly!) used, down to the microliter or somesuch. So I am now in some serious trouble. Whoops.
  • I love ffffound. My paean to it has been up on SpeakUp for a little while, so maybe you knew that, but still. It’s fucking awesome. Yeah.
  • My show went up. I call it “my show”, which is wrong, really; I was one of many many participants in what was the graphic design graduate show, which I curated along with Jerlyn and Hoon. So not at all entirely mine (although I did do the identity posters for it) but in my mind I still call it “my show”, however erroneous that might be. Erm. It was a blast, I’ll have you know, yis.
  • Through all of these things, I took copious notes on tumblr, where I post both thesis-related and non-thesis-related miscellaneous shit. In the course of our space rocks work bender, Bryan asked me what the value-add of tumblr was, and I described it much as I described ffffound’s allure: more of a value-subtract, really; the lack of control over minutia that you have with most bloggy things (tags, comments, RSS, APIs, etc) make it kind of a pleasure to use. Many of my friends have been using them, because who cares about most blog features? I, for one, could give less of a shit, for the most part, and so yeah hey.
  • I got the thirty-inch monitor, like finally, and the ipod touch, on an impulse. Laura pointed out that these are exactly the things I’d throw out my window, if I wanted to make a Yaz record… but frankly I like “Situation” and its ilk as they are, for the moment. The one thing I will always go gaga for is a bigger fucking monitor, and I think I can safely say with this one that I’m good for a little while w/r/t monitor envy and whatnot. Ok. Yes!
  • Looking for thesis advisors. Need to find them, like this week. Can’t I summon my recently graduated friends???? Argh.
  • Sleep cycle is pretty fucking abnormal. As such I will kill this list now, cuz bleah. But yeah I have to churn out the writing for thesis, so there will be more drivel here soon, I will warn you. Yis!

love ya

-fish



Comment (5 so far) / Permalink
11/06/2007 05:39:48 EST •  tags: allmyfriends, architecture, art, blech, design, ffffound, fuckedtypecombos, goodmorning, images, links, myshit, newtoys, rocks, sleep, space, spacerocks, thesis, typography, writing, yis, yo
your instructions for tonight

hi little guy

here’s what you do. it’s dead simple, and it worked for me:

  1. put on an architecture in helsinki album
  2. look at this picture of an owl, or maybe some other owl or bird picture, what have you, whatever works
  3. drink a glass of green label
  4. smoke a cigarette out your window
  5. think about all types of big vague interesting important stuff: time, things, love, people, things you might say, stuff you might want to do, et cetera.
  6. go to sleep, maybe have some dreams

… I am about to perform the last step. I will be right back with all sorts of incisive observations about design and whatnot, but yeah that’s where I’m at right now. yes. love you. goodnight.

-fish



Comment (2 so far) / Permalink
01/12/2007 01:17:52 EST •  tags: cigarettes, dreams, owls, sleep, takeafuckingbreakokyeah, whiskey
back by popular demand

what I looked like freshman year high school

Hi! Back at my mom’s house. The semester almost killed me, it had be against the wall and my energy bar was down to a mere 3%, but I have returned and I am roughly ten thousand times more powerful as a result. Ditto all my friends; it was true trial by fire for reals.

But anyway yeah, I got some sleep at my mom’s and whatnot; I’m headed to New York for the requisite New Years’ nonsense. I keep meaning to synopsize it all meaningfully here, writing little summaries in my head while I walk around here getting coffee and feeding the cats, etcetera, but I can’t remember any of it. So until I get my shit together, here’s my rework of “losing my edge” from like a year and a half ago, and now it’s dedicated to all those entering Doug Scott’s “History of Graphic Design” class this spring. Fuck yes. Happy chanukkah, motherfuckers!

-fish


yeah I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge
the kids
are coming up from behind

I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge
to the kids
from yale
and from sciarch

but I was there

I was there in 1898
I was there at the first punchcutting of aksidenz-grotesk

I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge
to the kids
whose footsteps I hear
when they pin up their work

I’m losing my edge
to the internet seekers
who can tell me
every draftsman
from every good firm
from 1962 to 1978

I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge
to all the kids
in tokyo and berlin
to the art school brooklynites
with little moleskines
and borrowed nostalgia for unbuilt saint petersburg

I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge

but I was there

I was there
I was there

I’m losing my edge
I’m losing my edge

I can hear the footsteps
every night at the computer

but I was there
I was there in 1975 at the first publication of the push pin graphic
I was working on the kerning, with much patience
I was there when martin venezky started up his first firm
I said “don’t do it that way, you’ll never make a dime”
I was there
I was the first guy showing lot/ek
to the deconstructivists
I showed ‘em at cooper union
everybody thought it was crazy
we all know, I was there

I was there

I’ve never been wrong
I used to work at phaidon
I saw everything before everyone
I was there at weimar with johannes itten
I was there at the GSD during great debate between christopher alexander and peter eisenman
I woke up face on the keyboard after final GSAPP crits in 1997

but I’m losing my edge
to bettter looking people
with better ideas
and more talent
who are actually really really nice

I’m losing my edge

I heard you have a bookshelf with every good book
every great poster by tschischold
all the modernist hits
all of the archigram maquettes
I heard you have a test print of every mike cina poster on epson semimatte
I heard you have an autographed copy of every koolhaas book from 75, 89, 98
I heard you have an online scan archive of every good art nouveau lithograph
and another flat file from de stijl

I hear you are buying a drafting table
and a bone folder
and throwing your computer out the window
because you want to make something real
you want to make a gehry coffetable book

I hear that you and your firm have sold your CAD workstations and bought powerbooks
I hear that you and your firm have sold your powerbooks and bought CAD workstations

I hear that everybody that you know is more relevant that everybody that I know

max bill, griffo, jenson, OMA, louis sullivan, HHR, milt glaiser, cecil balmond and arup, SOM, kusama, bonnard, gordon matta-clark, widen and kennedy, superbad, didot, ogilvy, paul rand, richard neutra, agfa monotype, josef albers, herzog and demuron, skolos/wedell, bucky fuller, taki 183, jeremy bernstien, john maeda, banksy, bodoni, richard meier, jessica helfland, designers republic, dave eggers, moholy-nagy, mies van der rohe (LESS IS MORE!), rafael vinoly, sanford kwinter, fontshop, LARS MUELLER PUBLISHERS!! gregor schneider, mutabor, mariko mori, die gestalen verlag
font bureau
art deco
karel martens
karel martens
karel martens
karel martens

we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want
we all know what you really want

what is that?



Comment (8 so far) / Permalink
12/26/2006 15:35:17 EST •  tags: chanukkah, hello, jamesmurphy, lyrics, music, nerdery, oldshit, retarded, sleep, talksoon
fish, at gmail, dot com