Dripping with a tango
“Dripping with a tango the roadhouse melted pink like a block of icecream.”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925.
whitebright bluebright copperbright
“He was crumbling plaster with something that rattled achingly in his chest, she was an intricate machine of sawtooth steel whitebright bluebright copperbright in his arms.”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925.
pistachiogreen bubbles of twilight
“They are walking up the Mall in Central Park. . . .
She is walking in her wide hat in her pale loose dress that the wind now and then presses against her legs and arms, silkily, swishily walking in the middle of great rosy and purple and pistachiogreen bubbles of twilight that swell out of the grass and trees and ponds, bulge against the tall houses sharp and gray as dead teeth round the southern end of the park, melt into the indigo zenith.”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925. My spellchecker is going crazy here! Dos Passos was an influence on Jack Kerouac and it shows. They both made up new words whenever they needed them. So did Shakespeare!
a primitive revolution
There
are signs in the graphic design community of a reaction against the
slick digital look of ”the future“ that I am going to call a primitive
revolution. This low-budget hand-rendered look “works” because it
stands out from the pre-processed competition. It is visually startling
and often witty and refreshing. Art directors like the primitive
revolution because it is effective, at this point in time, in the
marketplace. Graphic designers like the primitive revolution because it
raises interesting questions about our culture’s values, because it
reaffirms their humanity, and because it’s fun.
I mention all this because of a website that I ran into today: Hijackyourlife.com. Hijackyourlife and Hand Job: A Catalog of Type,
are two of the fullest expressions of this primitive revolution that I
know. One of them comes the Netherlands and the other from the United
States. It it too much to think that this intensely personal revolution
may be occurring internationally? (Thank you Johnny B for the brilliant link.)
40+ Excellent Freefonts
By student demand, here is a link to the article at SmashingMagazine.com entitled 40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design. (ATTENTION STUDENTS: Please choose and use these fonts with care. There are some good typefaces here, and perhaps some great ones, but I think the word ‘excellent’ in this context may be a slang appeal to youth culture, or the youth market, and does not necessarily connote excellence in the classic typographic sense of preeminence. In other words, you may have to pay for your preeminent fonts.) (Thank you Bryan Briggs.)
unusual wallpapers and repeats
Dan Funderburgh makes unusual wallpapers and repeats.
skyblue and smokedsalmon and mustardyellow
“A small bearded bandylegged man in a derby walked up Allen Street, up the sunstriped tunnel hung with skyblue and smokedsalmon and mustardyellow quilts, littered with second hand gingerbread-colored furniture.”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925.
tinfoil stairs
“The cabin boy lay on his back looking at the clouds. They floated from the west, great piled edifices with the sunlight crashing through between, bright an white like tinfoil. He was walking through tall white highpiled streets, stalking in a frock coat with a tall white collar up tinfoil stairs, broad, cleanswept, through blue portals into streaky marble halls where money rustled and clinked on long tinfoil tables, banknotes, silver, gold.”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925.
a green hand
“‘Thought I could git a work as a longshoreman, ma’am, but they’re layin’ men off down on the wharves. Mebbe I kin go to sea as a sailor but nobody wants a green hand. . . .’”
—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925.
his mauve and lavender portfolio
“He pulled out letters and memoranda at random from his collection . . . ‘I’ll read you one among many’ . . .
He kept all these admiring letters in his mauve and lavender portfolio.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Death on the Installment Plan, translated by Ralph Manheim, 1966.