I Let My Fists Do The Talkin’

I ordered 1000 Cakey vinyl stickers. I did the design the last two days, first thinking of using a different printer I had used before to make red/black/white stickers…

But they can’t print very thin lines or small text, which is a drag. I did a quick google to see if there was a place that could print very thin lines without a hassle, and found stickerobot.com. They not only don’t seem to care about line-width or small fonts, they do full CMYK, die-cuts, and high-gloss finish for the same ballpark price as the red/black dealie. So, I redid the sticker—

—and put in the order, which unfortunately will probably take more than a month to process. Doooiiing!

Additionally… I need ideas of how to promote these better. I was thinking of doing a flyer or a vinyl sticker or something. Feel free to leave me thoughts in the comments.

Should I enter this?

http://www.adcyoungguns.org/home/

This is last year I am eligible, but I don’t think my body of work is particularly exceptional compared to someone who went to design/art school and does it 100% of the time. There’s also the $125 entry fee… and the fact that most design competitions are scams (I assume. I’ve never entered one).

I’m doing prep work for the print materials for this year’s DCM. I try to do something different every year, just ‘cause it’s basically the same info and the same “sell” every year and I’ve done it ten times now. I always want to be more ambitious with it… a little slicker, better-looking final product, but I never manage to get it where I want it and some of the previous years ones I’m embarrassed by. (Caveat: I feel that way about 90% of my output.)

We did a photo shoot yesterday which I think will be really cool and different “image” to represent the show, and I want to combine that with hand-drawn text. Yes, I’m going to letter all of the flyer’s content by hand… all twelve billion hours of show names. Hand-lettering seems to be the “it” thing recently… just walking around this morning, I spotted three different national poster campaigns with all hand-lettered (or faux-hand-lettered) signage.

I’ve been doing my research (read: building a swipe file) I came across this designer—Parra—who seems mainly to work in the European skateboard/hiphop mileu. I mostly like his letterforms but the bird-headed vulva-bearing vixens look like refugees from a Ralph Bakshi-directed remake of Yellow Submarine—cute and offensive at the same time.

Bonus: Here’s a charmingly-monickered blog’s tour of his studio from last year.

It’s been a rollercoaster of expectation and frusteration, but magically SuperDeluxe has decided to post Cakey!

Please watch, comment, and pass it on…. especially if you want them to publish our four new ones that they still haven’t approved.

The CD art for the Kung Fu Monkey’s singles and rarities that I’ve been working on and off for the past three years came out LAST WEEK and I highly recommend it. This is what it looks like:

You can order it at Whoa-Oh Records, for the low-low price of $10 (for 41 tracks! Less than a quarter a song)

Additionally, I did a very long and very lispy (hot mic) interview with label honcho Johnny Whoa-Oh. If you want to hear me talk about the history of the UCB Theatre and my involvement with it, all the record covers I’ve done for Whoa-Oh, as well as recollections of the Kung Fu Monkeys, click here (or get Whoa Oh Podcast 17 from iTunes)

The quizzes on Sporcle have become an obsession, particularly naming the countries of Africa (always forget at least two, but a different two each time), Europe (can’t spell Liechtenstein), and US Presidents (damn you, Millard Fillmore).

I have not taken a science class in 15 years, but this is still a bad showing. Remembered only through half-recall of Tom Leher’s Elements Song and the Metal Men from DC Comics.

To celebrate Will Hines fixing my flickr badge on the sidebar, I present Baroque Obama, part II

The first one wasn’t that hot, so I bend to public pressure to put a wig on him.

(Hair borrowed from composer Henry Purcell)

I’m sure tons of people have already seen this video linked elsewhere (particularly those who browse to graphic design blogs), but I’m grateful to see lastFM did the legwork of researching the specific 1980s station idents/production company logos/early CGI wankery being graphically namechecked here.

What I wonder is if the swooshes, whirrs, and other associated “logo noises” are actually on the song itself.