random humor

ok so my dad called me, as he normally does with his witty comment of the day. today was good enough to share. go to www.google.com. click on 'maps' go to 'get directions'. type in 'atlanta, ga' for the starting point and 'paris, france' for the destination. scroll down and read line item number 21...
HA HA.. ha ha. programers do have a sense of humor!

title for book

so not feeling like scanning in the comp but here is the title i've been kicking around for my book. my book is going to be on different songs having to do with paper. it will be focusing on images the lyrics convey. like the title, not sure if i like the idea of make the word 'note' into a note somehow. that might be too corny. hmmm...

no pictures

i'm trying to get use to the idea that i don't have to post a picture and talk about it every time that maybe i could use this like other people use blogs and just vent. at the risk of sounding like i'm trying to get sympathy i feel compelled to say that my father is having heart surgery. i just found out about a week ago. a week after my sister's wedding. he is scheduled for May 3rd. Ironic, huh? Regardless, i am still looking forward to my grandma's ninetieth birthday in the desert this month. i've never felt so swamped with things that i'm not even doing. it's not my birthday, nor my surgery but all i'm all stressed about it. wondering if distraction is showing in my work. i'm hoping not and now realizing i should probably be working on that instead of typing this. not very good about personal stuff so if anyone has read this far, thank you and i would appreciate you not confronting me. that you read this you have done more than enough.

other two ads

figured i should probably show these with the other ad for comparison.

second idea

just trying to fix those things i was complaining about. i like the black background better since it ties more into my other ads. but i do miss that white space i had going on in the first one. no ribbon, so wondering if this means i need to rework my other ads or keep trying at this one. maybe both. anyway like the way the text falls into that picture, but not crazy about my copy otherwise. nothing particularly memorable about it. might have to call it a night soon, my puppy dog wears me out!

something i was playing with

so feeling a little clueless on the large ad. went back tried to introduce another element while still keeping the ad tied in. obviously this one is just a draft. don't like the rag on the paragraph text or how the image is 'blurry' doesn't speak well for a printing/paper company. even if i do like to visual effect. so on to new ideas... maybe pause to work more on the book. i'm quite excited about my book, i know all the images i want to take... now i just have to figure out how to pull them all off. this should be fun.

vegas design

i guess what i learned is that vegas is the home of both great and horrible designs. here are some things i noticed.
so where to start... the first couple pictures were taken inside the wynn hotel. the coasters were really cool. they looked like they were embossed, but they weren't. the only thing i kept wondering was why they didn't just replace the period at the end of 'wynn' to the "r" trademark.. it felt redundant to have those two shapes at the end the same size.
the parasol up, parasol down was the cafe. that picture was the cover of the menu. i really like how it shows restraint, and still feels elegant and fancy.
'the buffet' was a cafe inside the hotel as well. this particular shot was on an add in the elevator. i don't mind how they playfully threw the type in a bowl, but they could have at least payed attention to the layering of the letters. there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order. and i can't put my finger on why, but the colors seem off to me.
lol. and next is AHH the mosaic floor. this huge EXPENSIVE hotel has this mosaic throughout. i couldn't figure out why, but i saw carpet with the same pattern. so, i'm assuming they were inspired by it or something. however it totally threw me off. this elegant hotel on the outside and then i felt like i stepped into maybe latin america?
moving on.. random logos i enjoyed. MESA grill chopped off a little, interesting i thought. Fendi nicely backlit. and the window display were F's, not genius, but still good clean design.
OH, but then the STACKED type. ahh, why... they could so easily have just... not done it. ha ha. thought the directional columns were interesting with small caps... i'm assuming replicating roman capitals of the time.
coming to a close there was the chocolate store that makes all sorts of exotic chocolates. ones with weird things in them like grits, tobacco, and other interesting ingredients. anyway the design was so beautiful. they showed restraint and payed attention to every detail. the shelves were backlit and lit from underneath to really show off each product which wasn't crammed all together. The boxes were made to resemble everyday things such as DVD boxes, hat boxes, chinese take-out boxes and lots more. i really enjoyed the store.
last but not least, caesars palace. i don't mind it since it kinda fits with the whole gimmick, but the way the the stroke on the p hits the stem of the p really bothers me. that tiny little gap doesn't show up in any other letters. it just feels weird.