Mike Simpson » Graphic Design

Interview with Ray Larabie – Font Designer

Mike — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 14:01:13 +0000

Early this year I interviewed Ray Larabie, a Canadian font designer (from Ottawa), who lives and works in Nagoya, Japan. Ray studied animation at Sheridan college and worked initially in the video game industry. He runs a successful company called Typodermic. I knew about Ray back in my early days of design (mid 90s) because I had on occasion searched for free fonts on the web. At that time he operated as Larabie fonts (there are still dozen of his freebies out there!). I rediscovered Ray doing some font browsing at MyFonts.com. Ray is an interesting guy and I’m pleased to announce he’s the first subject in my newly launched interview page (which will archive other interviews I’ve done as well, with a variety of artists, musicians, designers and thinkers). Check out the interview!

Do we get the General Idea? Art Exhibit arrives at AGO

Mike — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:38:26 +0000

There is a quite a buzz surrounding the arrival of a large exhibition of work by General Idea at the Art Gallery of Ontario. GI were a Toronto-based art collective, founded in 1969 and comprised of: AA Bronson, Felix Partz and Jorge Zontal. They were renowned for their irreverance and satirical wit – playful yet antagonistic in their sometimes harsh critiques of beauty, sexuality, the art establishment and the media.

The exhibit occupies most ofthe top two floors in the general collection, which means there is no additional charge. We arrived on a rainy Wednesday evening at 6 o’clock – coincidentally the night that the gallery is free for a couple hours, and made our way straight to floor 5, with the plan to work our way down to 4. We bypassed the classics on floor 1 and headed straight to the elevator. The scale of the work exhibited is impressive. It basically occupies two entire floors (there are only 5 in the general gallery) and features impressively large works (some of which though may fatigue the eyes with their incredible saturated color schemes).

The work itself is interesting but grows a tad tiresome – there are a handful of major works involved, motifs, that are worked again and again. The AIDS logo, if we can call it that, is a fabulous reworking of the classic LOVE sculpture created by Robert Indiana. It appears in various guises, and is an incredible example of the modern art of sampling, recycling and reworking earlier design for a modern purpose. When displayed across a 5 metre by 10 metre wall though, the motif loses something and truthfully is a little disorienting and painful to look at (there is actually a physically uncomfortable component that both me and my companion noticed – was that part of the intent? I’ll guess the answer is no and that the curators are simply milking the themes for all they are worth).

I was very intrigued by “Miss General Idea” – a paraody beauty contest that was a major early work. It is genius – they created this contest, publicized it and playfully attacked the institution of the beauty contest. It’s too bad the displays consist mostly of blown-up images from their pamphlets, or a few simple props (though the props are sometimes outstanding – the venetian blind dress comes to mind!).

There are motifs that entertain and bring true giggles – the Poodles orgy images are omnipresent but beautifully designed (and the babies illustration is wickedly brilliant!). The Poodles are a welcome image that recurs throughout the exhibit and somehow have true staying power never losing steam and are ingrained in my mind.

General Idea is arguably, one of the most important artistic groups to have been generated in Toronto, and , not being an art expert, I won’t judge their significance in that way. I will give them a nod and say that I greatly admire their pioneering DIY spirit, the verve with which they threw themselves into areas like publishing (FILE magazine), and their masterly manipulations of the establishment (“Miss General Idea”) and the art industry. A great sense of humour is readily apparent, though truthfully many pieces have a dark, serious quality. The aesthetic is very punk – which is always good. Even if you don’t “get it” necessarily, you will feel the visceral quality and never ever be bored. That said, I have been lucky enough to visit a few exhibits in the last year, including “Rear View Mirror” at Power Plant, Tim Burton at TIFF, and Marian Bantjes at OCAD, and I can definitely say there is room for improvement in the layout and presentation of the General Idea group’s art.

This exhibit relies too much on the AIDS imagery, tries to blow things up to a scale which doesn’t necessarily serve the message in the medium, and unfortunately lacks proper vehicles for two important elements. The first is a proper history of the group, something to give the average gallery-goer some context, and secondly, a proper venue for the multimedia aspect. Power Plant had small mini rooms that are dark and allowed one to sit and immerse onself in a movie for a few minutes. The AGO has monitors with either shabby speakers or headphones – which is not even close to good enough. Is the multimedia worth displaying? Then put it in a dedicated room!

General Idea were a compelling group of artists with some amazing ideas. This exhibit is probably your best opportunity to engage with those ideas. I just recommend going on Wednesday when it’s rainy and there is no line-up for the AGO’s free-admission night.

“Haute Culture – General Idea” runs from July 30, 2011 to January 1, 2012 at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

Links:

Toronto Star article – provides an introduction and overview
http://www.thestar.com/article/1032194–general-idea-haute-culture-at-the-ago

Art Gallery of Ontario website

http://www.ago.net/haute-culture-general-idea

Iconic Canadian Graphic Artist Marian Bantjes Exhibit at OCAD

Mike — Sun, 22 May 2011 21:59:14 +0000

"I want it all" - Marian Bantjes

If you get a chance you must head to the Onsite gallery at OCADU and catch the Marian Bantjes exhibit. Marian recently published, “I Wonder,” a beautifully printed and design “illuminated manuscript” (as design guru Steven Heller has described it). She is definitely one of Canada’s hottest designers. She is a graphic artist who brings passion and personality to her intricate crafty work. Specializing in highly detailed illustration and beautiful typographic work, Bantjes captivates with a variety of works, from magazine covers to posters to laser-cut valentine cards. The detail is phenomenal and the approach highly original. A little bonus is the sound recording of her reading one of her “love letter” pieces aloud, which you’ll find in the main room. This show is here for another two weeks – so be sure to check it out.

Read Steven Heller’s review of “I Wonder” in the NY Times (with slideshow of book spreads):
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/graphic-content-marian-bantjes-illuminated/

Visit the Onsite gallery is on the second floor of the main OCAD building at 100 McCaul St. in downtown Toronto (beside the AGO). The exhibit is on from March 2 – June 5, 2011
http://www.ocad.ca/onsite.htm

TESL ON Conference – Presentation – Create, Manage Websites

Mike — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:50:35 +0000

I’m very excited that on October 28th I will be presenting at the TESL Ontario conference in Toronto. This is an opportunity to refine some thinking I’ve been doing about the possibilities available to teachers and other professionals to harness the power of websites and blogs. My presentation is going to be on the topic of “Websites for Content Creation and Management,” and will explore everyday tools like Google Applications and WordPress, an amazing tool for creating websites and blogs.

This is the summary of some of the themes and topics I will touch on at this year’s TESL ON Conference:

The nature of teaching and learning is changing. Teachers are now able to create their own websites with content creation and management tools like WordPress. No technical knowledge is needed. Anyone can create a site and add their own content (including text documents, links, rss feeds, photos and various multimedia including podcasts and third party materials from resources like Flickr and YouTube). During my presentation, participants will be able to explore sample websites and blogs created by other teachers, and see demonstrations of content creation and class management tools (including tools for group interaction which mimic some of the functionality of CMS/LMS systems like Moodle and Blackboard). No background in graphics or websites is necessary, but some familiarity with software like Word and/or comfort with Internet browsers and web surfing is essential. Participants should also be adventurous and keen to expand their technological knowledge and skills.

I’m really hoping to meet some of you at the Conference! Register for my presentation or just drop by before or after my time slot! My presentation code is “TQA” and I present from 4pm -5pm at the Sheraton Centre hotel. Please consult the organizers’ PDF for more information about the 2010 TESL Ontario Conference.

Free Online Course – DIY Graphic Design and Marketing – July 5- Aug 9

Mike — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:52:00 +0000

I’m a teacher and designer offering a free online course for people interested in developing skills in areas like Graphic Design and Marketing. I’m offering the course to people who are not artists, but who have “artistic” or “artsy” tendencies and would like to develop some materials to promote themselves, their business or their organization. Many of my current students are working in various fields, including the arts, education, media, entertainment and law/finance. The most successful students are those with some strong ideas about design projects they’d like to work on in areas like print and web (business cards, logos, blogs etc). If you are interested and can commit 3-4 hours a week toward readings, participating in forums and completing assignments, you are welcome to apply.

June 25th is the deadline to receive formal letters of interest/intent. Please contact me for more detailed information.

You might also check out this post from when I first offered the course (includes link to PDF outline)

Mike Simpson

mike | strongandfree.ca

Photoshop Turns 20

Mike — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:22:19 +0000

It’s amazing to think about the importance of Photoshop in my life. As a graphic designer I have fired up Photoshop nearly every day for the last ten years, and for a few years prior to that, friends were doing the “firing up” and I was just along for the amazing ride.

In 1996, with the help of my friend Pete, I started designing logos for t-shirts. My first design was a pure bite of the Kiss logo – my brainstorm was that “kiss” (pronounced) backwards was “sick.” And so Sick was clothing was born. I took a paycheck and optimistically printed 100 t-shirts with my Sick-Kiss hybrid logo, including Gene staring out from the middle. One night Pete and I went down to Kinko’s to scan a Guitar Player magazine and a half hour later we were deep in an early version of Photoshop, chopping up the lettering to create my first logo.

I created many of my early logos with Photoshop, somehow never needing to get anything generated with Illustrator. I suppose many designs were based either on photographs, scanned images, hand drawn imagery and simple shapes or text.

About 6 months ago I got my hands of the Adobe Master Suite CS4 and I’ve spent a hundred hours or more in that version of PS. Just a few weeks ago CS5 was released and it looks amazing. I am teaching an online course in Graphic Design and I’m encouraging my students to download the trial – a behemoth at 1 GB (includes option to install “enhanced” version). On the preview page there is are some small flash movies that show off some killer new functions, including HDR photo creation, complex selections and content-aware fill (check this last one out — you can erase an object in your picture and the program automatically fills in the background like the object was never there). This is too amazing. I may have to check out the trial version too.

Layers Magazine has an in-depth article with interviews with some Photoshop developers:

http://layersmagazine.com/photoshop-turns-20.html

Contact Photography Festival 2010

Mike — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:23:59 +0000

The annual Contact Photography Festival is taking place through the month of May. Unlike the other famous Toronto festivals, including HotDocs and TIFF, this one is completely free – so there are no excuses – check some stuff out!

This year’s theme is “Pervasive Influence: Exploring the social and political consequences of the medium of photography, in a world devoted to the image.”

The following is from the Contact website:

“…In this era of instant information the image is stimulating unprecedented change in the way we communicate… In 1964 Marshall McLuhan wrote of the photograph as “the brothel without walls”. He described photographs as “dreams that money can buy” which could be “hugged and thumbed more easily than public prostitutes.” If we consider his metaphor within today’s global culture rife with image saturation, is the illusion images create now preferable to reality? …Is its ability to convey meaning now diluted by the widespread dissemination of images?

CONTACT 2010 will consider the ways in which photography informs and transforms human behavior. The festival will recognize the influence of Marshall McLuhan, on the 30th anniversary year of his death. We will present images that examine connections between mass media, advertising, art and photography.”

Primary Exhibitions include:

The Brothel Without Walls – U of T Arts Centre

Susan Anderson, Evan Baden, Douglas Coupland, Jessica Dimmock, Marina Gadonneix, Clunie Reid, Stefan Ruiz, Joachim Schmid, Christopher Wahl
http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com/primary-exhibitions/182

Media satirist Barbara Kruger — AGO – Art Gallery of Ontario – installation
http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=2962693

Toronto Star Recommended exhibits by writer Murray Whyte
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/whatson/article/801893–contact-festival-plenty-of-eye-candy-in-the-brothel-without-walls

Murray Whyte’s recommendations (first 3):

1. The Mechanical Bride, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art: The festival is heavy on Marshall McLuhan this year — the exhibition title is borrowed from the legendary media theorist’s book of the same name — and, in a nutshell, tries to embody his remarkably prescient notion that photography was being enslaved by an advertising industry amping up seductive lifestyle appeals as a way to push product, with the female form as the main lure. Imagine that. Here, 60 years on, artists like LaChapelle, with a disturbingly robotic image of Lady Gaga, and Dana Claxton, who filters the appropriative gloss of marketing through her lens of First Nations’ experience, underscore McLuhan’s role as a soothsayer, proving him right, only more so. May 1

2. The Brothel Without Walls, University of Toronto Art Centre: Further on the McLuhan theme — in his landmark 1964 book Understanding Media, he called photographs exactly that, and “dreams money can buy”— this show includes work by, among others, Douglas Coupland, Jessica Dimmock and Evan Baden, whose images of amateur online exhibitionists seem to take McLuhan’s notion, of an artificial reality spurred by the easy ubiquity of picture-making, to its logical extreme. May 1

3. Untitled (It), Art Gallery of Ontario, Dundas St. façade: For decades — long before it became a de rigueur street-art standard—Barbara Kruger’s withering satires of advertising in the public realm made her an art-world superstar. Kruger’s iconic aesthetic of text and found images speaks advertising’s language of vapid non-sequitur-ese so fluently, at first glance, as to be near-indistinguishable; a double-take yields results both hilarious and sobering. Here, she festoons the AGO’s 90-metre-long Dundas St. glass awning with a new work commissioned specifically for the festival — a coup

“iDIY” – Free Online Course in DIY Graphic Design and Marketing – May 24th – June 28th

Mike — Sun, 02 May 2010 18:17:57 +0000

Thank you for your interest – please note that this course took place in summer 2010. Many thanks to all who participated!

_ _ _ _ _

Mike Simpson is offering a free online course. The topic is “Do It Yourself” Graphics and Marketing. iDIY and uCan too! You are invited to participate! (Printable PDF Version).

If you have an entrepreneurial streak or have always wanted to learn a little about graphics, websites/blogs, or multimedia (audio/video) then this course may be the perfect opportunity to “get your feet wet.”

Class Level / Objectives

The course is targeted to beginners and intermediates. The class will last 6 weeks and be done online – where we will have the opportunity to share our discoveries and our work via chat, message boards, and blog postings. How far you go, how much you create is up to you – everyone will be expected to contribute to the process by creating a simple website and posting their work and comments.

At the simple end of the “prior experience” range, beginners or “newbies” will be encouraged to edit photos for an “e-card” or create a graphically-pleasing PowerPoint presentation (too often an oxymoron!). Intermediate students will develop vector illustrations or perhaps a video podcast. Many of the tools are free and the only limit with be your time and imagination!

Class “Time”

All of your work is done, for the most part, asynchronously. This means on Monday we have a virtual class – I upload documents and instructions. Students ask questions. We “meet” virtually for a few hours. However, if you are busy, you can log in and do your work anytime in the following week. When you study is up to you.

Class Difficulty

This class is ideal for beginner and intermediates. You must have fairly strong general computer proficiency and some curiosity about creative work done via computer. Please don’t be intimidated by the idea of having a blog – it is simply a website page where we can share our work and the tools are easy to use (WordPress for example, has an interface that is similar to Microsoft Word).

iDIY course overview:

Week 1 – Introduction to course and materials / create blog (a simple place to post and share your work)

We will go over a) DIY philosophy and practice, b) computer setup / operations and c) software options / blog setup.

Week 2 - Photo-editing and Basic Graphics

We look at design and color theory, essential photo editing techniques, and file formats for print / web (i.e. bitmap vs vector image, jpeg vs png).

Week 3 – Print vs. Web – Getting your message out

Overview of 21st century marketing and the history of self-publishing.

Exploration of marketing options – from brochure / business card to website /blog.

Week 4 – Multimedia – Audio and Video

Do you want to clean up the crackly sound in your family’s home videos? Want to upload a promotional video of your business or community group to YouTube?

The fundamentals of audio and video editing will be reviewed.

Week 5 – Independent Study

Students work on projects and review progress with peers / teacher.

Week 6 – Exhibition of Work and Evaluations of Course

Each student posts their best work to a gallery page. We meet in an online chat / message board to share and critique.

Students submit course evaluation and comments to Mike.

QUESTIONS? Want to “get tech”?

Please contact me to register.

Thanks,

Mike Simpson

mike | strongandfree.ca

_ _ _ _ _

About Mike

Mike Simpson has developed his own websites and marketing materials since 1996 when he founded a street wear company. He made clothing that sold in a dozen stores around Toronto, published small magazines, and developed skills in graphic design and marketing. More recently Mike has worked as an ESL teacher and currently leads teachers in workshops that explore the use of computers and the internet in teaching/learning. Mike is writing a book on DIY graphics and media, business philosophy, history and techniques.

About DIY

“DIY” has been a motivating concept and practice for independent-minded self-starters since the 1970s. Its origins were in music / lifestyle sub-cultures such as American and British punk. These artists, musicians, and publishers founded their own small businesses and established communities that organized their own concerts, books and magazines, and clubs / retail stores (sometimes in the form of “cooperatives”). DIY has since been co-opted by corporations like HomeDepot but the essential ideas and core values of independent spirit and self-reliance have not changed. It’s an exciting time! The 21st century is the age of communication tools like social media and blogs – never before have computers and the internet so easily enabled regular people to get stuff done themselves.

Toronto at Night – Carlton St. “Color Burn”

Mike — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 16:08:10 +0000

Click image to view larger version.

This is two images layered in Photoshop – taken on Carlton St just west of College and Yonge, downtown Toronto.

Taken with Motorola cellphone.

View more of my photos!

Toronto Reads – Commuters on Subway Photo Collage

Mike — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:49:20 +0000