Hard at work on the Jan/Feb film guide. It prints Wednesday and still lots to do! I stopped by one of my secret spots for grabbing high res. movie images and spotted the poster above. I can't decide if this poster nailed the concept it was going for, or totally failed. I think the perspective on the key vs. the perspective of the door lock just keeps knocking my brain a little. I think the idea was kind of doomed from the start if they really wanted to feature that much of the key, you know? Perspective. I think the motif works a little better without the pictures mucking it up.

The thing is, I still really quite like the picture version though.

Okay, okay, this poster is even better! Why is Shirley MacClaine's head so BIG?

Wow, and things get even weirder here.

11.5 hours at work today. Film guide almost done. More finishing up going on in the house. Pictures maybe to come soon. Tiring times. Looking forward to Christmas for sure.
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Speaking of work, the back side of this coin makes me think of 'work'. Not bad, tiring, annoying modern work, but solid, honest, work, good strong handshakes, that kind of work, you know? Anyway, I keep going back to look at that coin. It's a fine piece of work. Proud, Canadian work.
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Regardless of my own beliefs, any story about a church being defaced or destroyed always gets to me. Just the thought of doing that is repulsive to me. The destruction of something with such age, history, and meaning is just terrible in so many ways. I was listening to an interview with the minister at that church on my way home from work tonight, and I just keep thinking about it, and how that whole community must feel right now. Appalling to think that someone may have done that. What a shame.

Apparently blogging fell apart on me last week as we found ourselves shopping for house stuff every evening.

This weekend, as the image above indicates (which was an awesome project to get to do, by the way), was Marc & Celene's wedding, which was a great time. Good people to hang out with all over the place. And now that it's over I can finally wear my groomsman shoes out and about. Got 'em on right now.

Hopefully I'll get back to posting more now, but we'll see, it's film guide time at the Princess right now...
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Jenna sent me this one and my only response was 'DAMN.' Nice stuff.
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Sometimes I just don't know what to make of Richard Linklater. I really want to love him. He made one of my favourite movies, employed some great sounding practices while doing so, and has also made a number of other interesting films. But then he's also made some crap.

I guess I didn't realize that Me and Orson Welles is one of his, but when I saw this poster for it, it just made me think that he's out to make some money, you know? I do think that the movie could be good, but the marketing is just so lacklustre and pandering feeling, you know? Citing School of Rock (mainstream, fun movie) and Before Sunset (romance!) is obviously toeing the mainstream line, versus the possible tag of 'From the Director of Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, and A Scanner Darkly,' which would definitely get ME to watch the movie. It's just hard to know what to make of such fluctuations.
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Speaking of artists fluctuating back and forth from mainstream to underground, Shepard Fairey designed the program for the Grammy's? Seriously? It's like, the worst award show.
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Somewhat entertaining, definitely tragic: Tacos exploding in slow motion

Hot off the (quarkx)presses. Just finished this poster and I had to share it. It's been kicking around in my head (and in my Field Notes) since last week, but I finally got it done. At least I think it might be. I'm not even sure of how it will print. Who knows, maybe this won't make it up like this, but right now I'm pretty happy with it, so here you go. Hope you like it! Actually, I really hope the Cons like it.
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Here's one I figured out pretty quick when I started doing film related layout: Trajan is the Movie Font. Fer realz.
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I've been watching a lot of CNBC lately. I figured out a few years ago that I get pretty interested in business related stories. Not the money related parts, but the human related parts. For example, while I do enjoy flipping through the newpaper's business section, I never read an entire article, because the ends always just seem to devolve into numbers.

Anyway, I recently watched a nice little special on Coca-Cola (did you know they were down to almost a 1/4 of the market when they released "New Coke," and then, after the furor that ensued, when they re-introduced Coca Cola Classic, they went back to dominating the market?). There was definitely some talk about the bottle design, so it was nice to come online and see its evolution presented here.
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This book looks creepy and awesome. Nicely done.
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Tumbleweed Tiny Houses. These things look awesome. I would love to go inside one. Could I ever live in one? Size-wise, at 6'6" 220+lbs, it might be a bit of a comedy of errors, but doable I think. Love of things and possessions and collections and stuff-wise, no.
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The Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising. Wow. Lots of amazing looking stuff there.

Also, I feel like Turtle, and Mock Turtle, Soup has come up a number of times recently. All I can say about that is, if there's one type of soup you will definitely never catch me trying, it's probably Turtle Soup. I don't know, I just don't think I could do it.

We finally went out and bought pumpkins yesterday. 6 of them. Yes, 6. I have plans for 4 of them; one big themed pumpkin set. Let's hope it works out. The thing I'm not looking forward to? Cleaning them all out. Definitely the worst part of pumpkin carving.

Gotta do some costume shopping tonight. I do love me some Halloween.
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Spotted the new version of the Youth in Revolt poster today. Blah.
Original version.
New version.
On the surface, they don't really look that much different, I know, but they really are. With it's more painterly style, the original version had so much more character. The new version is clearly a little more mainstream. The painting style is pretty much totally gone, in favour of just a softening of the image, and the girl, of course, highlights the love story aspect. Small changes, but big. You know?
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Jenna showed me these salt & paper shakers, and they are awesome. If they weren't so dang expensive, I would totally buy them. I've see a couple shaker sets lately that stick together to form a larger whole. Smart thinking for sure.
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Jessica Hagy hit 'good design' right on the nose with this one. Her blog, Indexed is frequently clever and entertaining (and sometimes confusing if you don't always understand graphs...).
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Here's another one Jenna sent me today. I saw the video on MTV this morning, but am very glad to know the woman got charged. Bad driving really bugs me. I get irritated if someone in front of me turns without signaling. Ever since my accident last year, I am also very aware of when people's headlights aren't on, which really bothers me too. Particularly if it is grey out at all. If your car doesn't have daytime running lights, you should be aware of that, and turn your lights on!

Safety people!

(Now, I'm not saying I'm a perfect driver, but I like to think I'm better than some people.)

Just finished that poster above earlier tonight. Not sure if it's printing as is, but I felt like sharing. Definitely a show to look forward to as well. I've been itching to see Angus and Brad's new project and Ace Kinkaid is always enjoyable.
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Back on my very Canadian day, when I was at the NFB I was looking around, really hoping they'd have a shirt with the classic NFB logo on it. They didn't then, but it turns out that now they do! Wish it wasn't on white, but I might need one...
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Bunny garbage bin. Cute.
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Speaking of cute, at work today I was looking up stuff on upcoming movies and found Paper Heart. SO CUTE. Seriously. There's some other stuff I'm looking forward to coming up (Brothers Bloom, 500 Days of Summer [could be crap, but Zooey Deschanel is a big draw for me. Actually Joey Gordon Levitt is a pretty good draw too...], and of course Away We Go [though Jenna says I just am excited for this because I think John Krasinski looks like me in it]), but none of those trailers have made me smile nearly as much as this one did. Adorable.
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I have come to realize that sometimes the images on the front are old patterns are amazing. This is one of those cases. I have an even better one saved up for potential future use that maybe you'll get to see. Mini Magnum is all I have to say...
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I never knew that they made Chuck mids, but now I really want a pair. Nice.
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I'm sadly pretty excited to buy my Miracle Whip in this new packaging. Really hope that this part of the write up about it becomes more and more true as time goes by: "Apparently all the thrift shopping of vintage stuff by the 18- and 34-year-olds has finally paid off and that oldish look can feel new again." Seriously, all a company really needs to do is just reintroduce their classic packaging and will be so looking forward to buying it. Sad but true.
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Big things to come next Friday. Can't wait.

Charley Harper at Old Navy? A shopping trip this weekend yielded that surprise. You can bet I was excited to see him out in public more, even if it is at Old Navy. The printing on the t-shirts isn't very good, and all of the books and whatnot are cheaper on Amazon (what isn't?), but you have to assume that a lot more kids could end up learning their abc's from Charley's beautiful art now. We actually didn't buy any of it, due to the aforementioned better prices on Amazon, but still... What I did buy was this pretty great pair of pj pants.
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Google is hosting the Life magazine photo archives, which is a pretty crazily large collection of some amazing photography (article about it). I haven't gotten a chance to look too much into it, but photos keep showing up in other places, like this great picture of the first enclosed shopping mall on Shorpy.
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Did you know that the distinctive Coke bottle shape was designed by a Canadian? Neither did I. Okay, so technically he was an American living in Toronto, but you know, close. Anyway, box vox posted the original patent application for the bottle shape, which is kind of neat to see.
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Some movies I'm looking forward to/hoping to get to see at some point:
The Brothers Bloom (Brick director Rian Johnson's new one)
Dear Zachary (I feel like I would likely cry through a good chunk of)
Beautiful Losers (I've mentioned this before, but I really want to see it!
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I've got more stuff sitting in tabs I've been meaning to mention, but it's time for work!