Eternal Love

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_5180263

This Lenten season I am devoted to fighting for better healthcare for all families, particularly the children, teens, and adults I grew up with who suffered terrible abuses in private that were caused by the illnesses of others around them, without us having any recourse (besides the systems of Child Welfare and Foster Care, two horrors I would never submit to, nor would any of my native New York friends), which means I won't be doing the exact same type of pilgrimage as those of you who frequent church, but you still have to go. Sorry, though not very much so, because that's the deal: I take on the world, you take on our faith. This covenant extends to our entire faith, as well as those of you who have remained our dear faithful around the world. You are not alone.

In addition to today's message of hope, love, and mercy (during Our Most Holy Father in Rome's aptly titled "Year of Mercy"*, a time of great reconciliation and forgiveness for all of us, worldwide), I wanted to share some fun facts with you, too. We don't just work hard. We also work hard to enjoy each others company as well, both in celebration of St. Valentine's** legacy of eternal glory through love, and our continued recognition of the weekly Sabbath, as necessary breaks from our labors, so ordained for us to maintain our balance with communal care.

During my almost daily acts as a publisher, I scan through thousands and thousands of images. In my expertise, you learn to see the truth behind a great image that's immediately recognizable as art, and then you see all the rest. For a time, I "pinned" the ones I liked onto a public board for all of you to enjoy, until that application stopped the practice, intimidated as they are by the image-makers who make it great. It came to a head one afternoon for me, when I came upon the strikingly beautiful image of a native Indo-European boy from a prominent New York tribe. I did the customary actions I usually did with that software, went back to my home screen and POOF! He was gone. I mean, his image wasn't there for me and my subscribers to see.

I began a protracted and deliberately frustrating online chat with their "IT" support, along with the other users who complained about this big change in their successful company practices thus far. My subscribers could only see the image if they "liked" the category subfolder I placed it in, but the beauty and symmetry behind my purposefully and excellently designed stream of images on my home page that was done with my expert eye was gone, and that's what did it in for them with me. They couldn't find anyone better to design "their" advertising-sponsored boards that they wanted to re-route my audience to, hijacked as they were by far better talents than they, as a group of computer programmers and "webbies", will ever be. I knew it was done with a timing that speaks to both a love and a prejudice that hasn't died with the ages, enmeshed as he and I are in this timelessness.

I went on the warpath after that, furiously complaining and writing about their exposed hack onto our boards designed with "their" software, in this petty show of envy that hasn't dulled with time. C'est la vie. The image I was drawn to of a pair of lovers buried together will endure long after trendy social media apps come-and-go with an amazingly quick frequency in our fast human time that is dwarfed by both geological and universal time. After a while, it became irrelevant in the face of my daily life, a forgotten social footnote that probably won't make design history like I will, so who are they? They are no one to you and I because here we are together again, and that's what counts.

Besides, sexiness is found in far more places than some obscure image app, and heart-shapes mean way more than some bland teenager's cartoon emoticon easily placed but devoid of any real meaning. Care to dicker with my assertions? Oh, please do! It's what every parent lives for; schooling kids who know a lot less. See it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_%28symbol%29. "Happy Hearts" to you and your loved ones this holiday weekend made for love, because in any century or time, love is always the greatest answer you can have as a human being. Love is the key.

*  http://wwwmigrate.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/jubilee-of-mercy/ **  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine 

My man, St. Francis! What's up?!

A spot I hadn't noticed that before.

I took up the practice of Roman Catholicism again several years ago, after leaving the faith of my youth for many years. After my parents divorced (a huge "no-no" for strict Catholics), my mother asked me to continue with my religious studies until Confirmation, the rite of passage that marks our early teens, after which I would decide for myself whether or not I wanted to continue with church and religious practice. I didn't continue, for a bunch of reasons. I was a teen, I needed a parent to drive me, and during that time, both of my parents were uneven, sporadic churchgoers at best.

What is that? A statue?

But it had always been my intention to fold it back into my life later on: after school, work, and travel, I would return home and settle down, at which time I would become reacquainted with my faith, in order to practice it alongside my future husband and children. Despite a brief marriage that was not my choice by design, I've held on to that life plan. I hadn't really considered getting married until 40, long after I'd seen the world as an artist, and so it has come to pass.

Yep, it is. Lemme guess, who could it be?

I wanted to reintroduce myself to Catholicism, so I could discuss and lead the conversation with my family, building a common base of values, ethics, culture, traditions, and practices that would continue long after I was gone, and so that will be, too. We are in the year two thousand and fourteen, in reflection of that very same practice amongst our followers. Because our faith is among the strictest branches of religious practice, it was something I deferred picking up until later, which I did at a parish in Brooklyn, named after a saint in the tradition of my man Francis.

Yep, it's my main man St. Francis as a birdbath, ever tending to animals.

It is more than a series of "rules", though to an uneducated outsider I could see why it seems so restrictive. It is an intellectual tradition. We attend school during the day through the state, and after hours, we attend parochial schooling: that's double than the American average, something I forget until I start conversing with someone who lacks the discipline and foundation that comes with a rigid and difficult educational background. Now that I practice it again, it's no surprise to me that these deeply held values have re-emerged in my life to manifest my commitment anew: I've been abstinent and celibate for years, a sort of baptism back into my faith, where once the doors were closed to my college partying and city lifestyle. Some coincidence.

Compassion, beauty, nature, gardens, a love for the outdoors. Yep, that's me.

Since then, I've had more of these supposed "coincidences" come into my life, like finding an almost hidden devotional garden tucked into a development near me that I hadn't seen for many months, even though I walk past the apartment complex almost every day. Usually I cross the street at a certain point, but one day I didn't, and then I saw it: a garden with a statue, tucked under some pine trees in a courtyard with table and chairs.

Hey! I bet whoever made this is like me!

So here he is, the leader of our Franciscan tradition, a movement so powerful, we continue to uphold his principles today: serving to love and protect the animals that reside within this garden that is our planet Earth, refashioned for us to reflect on as a birdbath. It's something me and my main man, the patron saint of animals, would do anyway; we'd provide a welcoming environment for all G-d's creatures to dwell in. It has affected every aspect of my life, even when I don't actively look for it. That's the power of mythology, the pull of a story so strong, it endures until it becomes an almost human type of forever.

You ain't gonna top that, honey, so don't even try it with me. Someone's got my back, big time: http://franciscantradition.org/about.

The DNA of Our XYZ: RISD by Design

Natural instincts, and other magical gifts.

Being a RISD grad (pronounced RIZZ-DEE) is like dropping the Harvard bomb into casual conversation at a cocktail party: the music stops with a sudden scratch of a needle across a record (you remember those, right?), like the person opposite you has just spied spinach caught conspicuously between your front teeth, as is now deciding whether or not to tell you the truth about your appearance based on your relatively new, and brief, acquittance. How to proceed? Alarm, dread, surprise, or maybe a kind of slow-creeping dawn of recognition widens their eyes, and those are just the people who know the truth about who we are.

I do not (nor have I ever) resemble a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, just like I don't resemble the stereotypical, movie version of an artiste, or the square-framed, shy, passive-aggressive, arrogant, know-it-all book designer, like your average, working class, boogie-down New Yawker, or your typically self-righteous Catholic girl, though I am, in fact, all of those things: an artist, a book designer, a native New Yorker, a person of faith, and that's just scratching the surface. Like my ethnicity, the story of who I am is not the Dummy Guide to the Self or a CliffNotes version of reality, though I am far from pretentiously complex, nor purposely difficult to pin down, like some pompous hipster living high on the hog in Williamsburg (look it up).

Nature, and also, design.

Through time, I found myself to be exactly who I think I am, and that my experience at RISD was exactly what it was supposed to be: hard, brutally hard, and not something I would ever contemplate doing again, because my purpose was (and is) to go out in the world to share my work and my vision as a leader in the world, and as a woman of the world. It was a "one of a kind" type of thing, just like my time as a student was.

I now see my time there as something akin to the cinematic version of the combined Harry Potter books: a magical sort of place that doesn't actively seek out students (nor should they, because RISD has the lowest acceptance rate in the world), but simply draws to it the beautiful and gifted like another type of magnet, that Sorting Hat of Potter fame. As much as I didn't "fit" in (and who would, at such an extraordinary place?!), I found over time that I am exactly what they wait for at RISD: a type of intellect that can cross barriers, jumping lightly over divides to make previously unseen connections, building almost impossibly beautiful bridges seemingly out of thin air.

Human animals, and other topics of interest.

Because, just like one of my professors admitted, we are this era's Leonardo da Vinci's (and every era's ever after), as we always have been, and we always will be: not easy, not trendy, not "alternative" for the sake of a short term sale, but rather to become enduring, lasting, classic, innovative, a type of forever that's also human and achievable. It's kinda like being the stuff that books are made of: once bound and sewn by hand, then printed on paper by a press with movable type, and now rendered into a computer programming language for the Digital Age. Yeah, like that.  Come, see for yourself.  http://issuu.com/risd/docs/risdxyz_spring2014_final_single_pag#

Revolutions in the making, and other brilliant feats of typesetting.

Type: Movies, Mad Men, and Lemonade Stands

The "Mysterious Mr. Moto", in an American kind of Chinese.

Today's post is a set of shots I've been collecting over the past few weeks, so I decided to post them in one, big, fat, font post. Yay! 
The first example comes to you via the Movies! channel, courtesy of the classic movie Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938), with Peter Lorre. I'm a sucker for cheesy pseudo-Asian fonts, especially authentically retro ones like these, redolent of a white guy made up in poorly drawn Chinese eye makeup; it fools no one. A fine specimen of typecasting gone wrong, and cultural appropriation. Please to enjoy!

Uh oh. "Devil's Island". That sounds bad, in a good way.

The map is cartography perfection, though. Nothing wrong or off here. A gorgeous movie opener, overall.

Good advice!

The next type sample comes off the back of a coupon I clipped, now expired, and then flipped over to reveal this gem of a tagline from your friendly neighborhood advertiser. Sage advice, indeed.

Organic is just good all around, type included.

This fontography sample came to me from the fridge one fine morning, friendly and inviting, with the perfect cheerful "Good Morning, Sunshine!" message facing me from the back of a hastily placed half and half carton sitting on the top shelf. It really is a beautiful piece of typesetting, a complete type block set right, and it's interesting, too. That's how you do "inviting" and "pretty" with black display type: it's a gorgeous piece of work on it's own that also fits the artwork just so. The former (M)ad Man in me is pleased. I'm not alone in my cause for good, healthy products, and you can see that the designer cared enough to take the time to craft a package the consumer can enjoy and also feel proud of, through an organic purchase that can feel unjustly costly at times. Nice job!

Classic Americana: the homemade lemonade stand sign, now discarded on the sidewalk, like a kid's dreams about money and enterprise

Like a children's toy abandoned in a yard, this discarded lemonade sign I saw on the sidewalk one afternoon took me back to my own childhood in the country, boringly slow and stingy when it came to money and Scout badges. We never earned enough to justify the time we spent on our pursuit, because there's one car every hour or so on Hudson Valley back roads, which is a good lesson in of itself. It served me and my brother's well when we entered the supposedly hallowed and sacred halls of Big Business in the Big Apple, which is actually our second home, thanks to our very own "Mad Man", our Dad (shhh...don't tell anyone our big "secret"). We don't waste time, because time is a commodity you can't buy or get back once it's gone, like your health. Clever, right?

The infamous Saul Bass, in movies now and forever.

I grabbed my fine, photo-taking device when this famous Saul Bass opener flashed across the t.v. screen, again from the classic movie channel. It's simply one of the best graphics I've ever seen in my life, and you should see it very, very soon. Google Anatomy of a Murder, and be dazzled. It's a humbling piece of art because it really is perfect: on posters and packaging, as motion art, as a set of static images, and a shining example of the power a great graphic has: simple and unforgettable.

"Bye bye", translated into jazz hands and Oscar worthy graphics.

Many a graphic design student feels awe seeing it for the first time, which is why I'm so glad I was technically an Illustration major while at R.I.S.D.: "flawless" can be so very daunting to a youngster taking it all in, trying to learn and keep up at the same time you're desperate to figure it all out: how can I be an artist? What is my style? Will I ever be capable of doing something like that? Dare I hope and dream, even with hours of studio time and practice? What about all that money spent? IS it (and am I) worth it?! We didn't know what awaited us in the world or how it comes together for us as designers, thinkers, intellectuals, and dreamers, and that's a scarier prospect than any business meeting could ever be, on any given day of the week.

The oft-avoided bestseller (for obvious reasons), but the book is set well.

Finally, here's a nicely done chapter opener, something I don't often do as a book designer and art director, because covers are huge, colorful and expensive marketing pieces that take up most of my time, but I appreciate their quiet strength when I see them just the same. When I do find myself in a position that affords me the time to typeset a page that goes with my cover design, I relish it for the synchronicity I so often don't find in business, because of the conflicting production schedules we have in trade publishing. Sigh....oh, well.

Design is hope made visible.

 That's it for now. See ya next time. Y'all come back now, ya here? 

Old Cars: Thunderbird

Wow! Some car.

I've written prior about my love of old cars, for their great lines and cool designs, (http://mariedoucette.blogspot.com/2013/10/old-cars.html), and I'm not someone who's typically into retro for retro's sake. It's just that the designs were simply better in the past. Anyway, since I see so few cars that reflect my taste, I become a big fan when I finally spot one I like. It's like discovering while channel surfing one day that you've always liked NASCAR but you never knew it. 

The perfect robin eggshell blue.

I don't, but that's the rare feeling I get when I discover an automobile that flashes "cool": I didn't even know I liked those kind of cars until I saw one in person. Great design, like great designers, achieve a kind of commonplace, every day immortality that's also shockingly stand-out different, too. 

Check out the lines...

Someone once wrote that a being famous designer is like being a famous dentist, and the same can be said about automotive designers: gifted, but not heralded in the same way as their work, like a clothing designer who sees you wearing their shirt as (s)he passes you on the street but says nothing. And that's the particular beauty about an anonymous kind of fame; it's quiet, gentle, but still very powerful.

The classic American Thunderbird.

Here's a pic of me, taken on Memorial Day.

Welcome back, readers. 

Memorial Day, Spring 2014.