This afternoon as I ate my burnt (yet amazing) grilled chicken sandwich, I decided to watch CNN International and that is when I saw one of the most amazing news stories I've ever seen. Flying Asian carp have invaded the Mississippi River system. Yes, it's true. Crazy flying fish that jump so high and hard and fast that they have broken people's noses. It was hilarious and wonderful: Watch and learn!.

I also stumbled upon this slightly scandalous, a tad inappropriate, and incredibly funny eCard site. These are some of my favorites:













There are so many more. I could go on for a while. Check it out for yourself. But, be forewarned, not all of them are "suitable for work."

Posted by Heather Grace at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

I promise a longer post sometime soon. But, until then, you probably ought to vote for South Carolina's new license plate simply because you can. It's an amazing experience that, as a designer, is completely depressing. The old one is so much nicer, cleaner, and more professional. Alas. I voted for the orange one. Although I really feel the same about the first two. The last one is just odd. It looks like the tree is a rocket ship flying to the moon.

Oh, and just for fun, I did the back cover and spine:

Posted by Heather Grace at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

I feel like it's incomplete, like I need to change some things. But, I haven't figured out what exactly to do yet. So here it is:

Posted by Heather Grace at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments

It's amazing how quiet it is at 1:30 in the morning when everyone is asleep, the dishwasher has already finished its cycle, and I'm finished listening to the Relevant podcast. Today I found out that the internship position I interviewed for last week has been filled by someone else. My work wasn't commercial enough, and I have too many illustrations... not enough photos (or stock photos, in their case). It's true, their assessment of my work, that is. And, I knew it was true before I interviewed with them. Most of my work is highly illustrative and I tend to do more handwork than editing in Photoshop. The problem is, though, that whenever I work in Photoshop I am less satisfied than when I draw it out by hand or work in Illustrator. Photoshop feels very grungy to me, and I need to learn how to use it more.

I have been thinking about why I was so disappointed when I got the confirmation email today that I won't be interning there this summer, and I don't think it has much to do with me not being able to intern with them. Their work is pretty nominal to slightly good at best, but their complaints about my work are the same complaints I'd have about theirs except in reverse: They only solve their design challenges in one or two ways with little real variety. Their work seems too flashy and filtered to me and although some of it is good, a lot feels very cliche. And, I'm not saying that because I didn't get the internship. I felt that way before I even interviewed with them. The real reason I'm disappointed is because it makes me afraid that I won't be able to get a job next year when I really need one... I've sent my work to five different organizatons in the past couple of months and had face to face interviews with four of those. The only one that really worked out is the place where the people who I'll be working with aren't even graphic designers. It just worries me. Each place had nice things to say about my work, but that wasn't enough to get me the job, even with my "girlish good looks and charming personality." ;) (I stole that last bit from an encouraging letter my boyfriend in high school wrote to me when I went to interview for my first job. Ah, high school.)

I feel good about the summer though. And, I can only live right now in this time and place. I've already lived the past, and the future will crash into me soon enough. One day at a time. That's what people say right? ...

So, today I lived and built a tiny city, photographed it, uploaded it, and started working on a new cover for this book. The city is sitting on my nightstand right now and it makes me smile a lot!

Posted by Heather Grace at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments

Last Friday I had the privilege of seeing a documentary film on the type face Helvetica. Of course I've always known that Helvetica is widely used all over the world, but I didn't realize how ubiquitous it really is until seeing hundreds of different clips spliced together advertising a myriad of products and companies or as street signs and directions. It's incredible. Helvetica is so amazingly popular that we don't even notice it any more.
The film presented several different viewpoints on the virtues and vices of Helvetica. Some argued that although perhaps it is overused, it could be seen as the perfect sans serif because of its neutrality and the lack of real improvement that can be made upon it. Others found its overuse to be disgusting and disturbing. Paula Scher, partner at Pentagram in New York City, even joked about having a moral objection to the use of Helvetica due to the fact that when she was a student Helvetica represented corporate America which to her also represented the Vietnam war. She went onto joke about how Helvetica can now be blamed for the Iraq war as well. I wish the clip were online... very funny. Michael Beirut, another partner at Pentagram, was also very entertaining. Other big name designers included: Neville Brody, Stefan Sagmeister, David Carson, Rick Poynor, Massimo Vignelli (who designed the original NY subway map and signs), Jonathan Hoefler, and Tobias Frere-Jones, among others. It was simply delightful. Check out some clips on the Helvetica Film website.
They are selling buttons that say either "I love Helvetica" or "I hate Helvetica," but I think (being the clever person that I am) they ought to also sell buttons that say "Helvetica makes me feel neutral" or "I am neutral towards Helvetica." It would be just hilarious.

Speaking of design, I spent much of today working on redesigning this very unfortunate book cover:

My version with type set in Frutiger (not Helvetica, thankyouverymuch) looks like this (front and back cover shown):

Posted by Heather Grace at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments