Tonight We're Gonna Print Signs Like It's 1984

Well, episode 8 is going swimmingly, with our iTunes feature and some great feedback from our YouTube fans. Time to talk about some of the work that went into the show. Robb's already been posting some wicked cool music from this episode, so today I am going to show you some classic Neo Amish literature and signage.

First of all, do you remember this?



If you do, you should enjoy today's tale. Print Shop (no one ever called it THE Print Shop) was a revelation in the early age of personal computers, especially for a type-loving kid like me. I could make signs and banners and greeting cards on the Apple IIe! No more messing around with hand-drawn stuff! (That's not really true in my case... I still made hand-drawn posters, but I won't get into all that here.)

Print Shop's output would, today, be laughable,with it's extremely low resolution and reliance on dot matrix printers. But it was a great program at the time. I loved it. So of course, since the Neo Amish could use no technology created after 1984, I wanted to make sure their flyer and bake sale signs looked like they were printed with Print Shop (or something similar) on a dot matrix printer whose ribbon was very well worn.

Creating retro computer printouts is rather hard. First of all, the font could not be all laser-printy smooth, but had to be pixelated. To do that in Photoshop meant creating a bitmap document, 11" x 8.5" at 72dpi. In this mode, it's just like working in an old graphics program. Type would not be re-editable once I'd laid it down. It was draggable once after being created, so I could do some rudimentary layout. Moving it afterward meant cutting out the text using a marquee or lasso tool and dragging it along with its white background. Does this all sound familiar?

Though I did not have the Print Shop font, I chose fonts that looked like they might have come bundled with Print Shop: Times and Galleria. Amelia BT was used in the Neo Amish logo, which Robb designed. (He did not realize he got the N backwards until much later. I hand't brought it because I thought he'd done it on purpose. It was perfect that way!)

After the layout was done, I spent a few hours in the Hall of Trial and Error. Here, I was trying to get a dot matrix look, including some pixels, ink smear, and the stripes where the ribbon was wearing out. I applied three different layers to get something that would hopefully pass muster on screen. Here's an enlarged detail, best showing the smear. Click the image to see it full-size.



Here, then, is the entire Neo Amish flyer, fresh from the Image Writer! Click on the pics to see them full size. (1984's full size is not as terrifyingly huge as today's full size.)

The front:



The back:



I didn't spend as much time writing this flyer as I had the ABSRD flyer for episode 7, but I can assure you that all typos were created on purpose. I was very happy to bring back the original, full term "douche bag," progenitor of today's popular "douche."

The flyers we used in the show had the NA logo taped into place, like it was just easier to paste the logo onto the flyer and Xerox the whole thing. But we did use the pixelated logo for the bake sale signs. Mostly out of laziness.

Ah, yes! The bake sale! Here's where the dot matrix printer ribbon mess could really shine. Most signs had both a Times and a Galleria version. Here's a sample. Again, click them to see them full size.











So there you have it! Can you just feel the authenticity? I'm sure someone from one of those font archaeology sites would have many nits to pick. If so, leave a comment. I love font archeology sites. I'd put a link here so you could visit one, but I seem to have lost them all...

Thanks for reading, and be sure to watch the exciting conclusion to episode 8 next Monday!

What a Bunch of Turkey!

I have been waxing long-winded about stuff here lately, so here's a nice fluffy post that will mean nothing to the future of humanity, as did the others.

I got an e-mail from a friend who obviously does not subscribe to our large, easy-to-see iTunes podcast. He was asking me, "Hey, what does Guy's shirt say in the Thanksgiving short?"

On the off chance you have the same question because, like my friend, you obviously do not subscribe to our generously-sized, clear-as-a-crisp-New-England-winter-day iTunes podcast, here it is, in all its easy-to-see glory (click to see it even bigger):



Ah! Turkey! On board! I see! On board! A turkey!

Glad to clear that up.

We have a long and illustrious history of making custom shirts for Guy to wear. "Daddy's Boy" for episode 5. "This is My Best Shirt" for episode 6. See? Long and oh, so illustrious! When it came time to do a Thanksgiving short, we knew Guy had to wear something Thanksgivingy, and the chances of just finding something ready-to-wear were slim. Especially in September, when we actually shot the thing. Not much turkey going on in September.

I came up with two T-shirt phrases, probably just one morning in the shower. Or maybe while making graham crackers and apple butter. Though, come to think of it, I have not made graham crackers and apple butter in a few years, and I have showered recently, so it was probably more likely the former.

Two choices. Yes. The first was what you see above, and the second was "I'm with Turkey," also having the same arrow pointing to the stomachal area. (There's a veiled reference to episode 8 in that last sentence. Bookmark this page and come back in January to see what it is!)

We chose "Turkey On Board" because we had to choose something. We had trouble deciding, really. "Turkey On Board" is silly, ridiculous, and conjures a pretty amusing though unoffensive image. "I'm with Turkey" is a triple-fronted assault, referencing the famous "I'm with Stupid" shirts, pointing at a stomach full of Thanksgiving turkey, and, most disturbingly, suggesting that Guy is pregnant with a turkey baby.

It is perhaps that last item that made us go with the easier-to-digest (ba-dump BUMP!) "Turkey On Board."

Just so we can have some fun, I have re-designed the graphic, and we can now see what it would have actually been like had we chosen the other phrase. Enjoy!

Mean Street

I’m using the term “mean” here in the mathematical sense, in that the street is not “malicious” but rather “average.” Why? Because the street in question is the one I live on. It’s pretty average. Other than the fact that there seems to be garbage pickup around the clock, every day of the week, it’s fairly commonplace.

In fact, if there’s only one thing extraordinary about the street; it was made famous in the hit Internet sitcom “Life from the Inside.” It was especially on display in episode 7 *do not duplicate.

Which is ironic when you think about the fact that I have duplicated it. The street that is. In painting form.

That’s right, there’s new artwork on the set of LFTI. We needed to it supplement some other changes that have happened to the set (which I won’t reveal here). Needless to say, the idea for me to paint another painting was born out of necessity and not, unfortunately, out of artistic desire.

This is always difficult. We need a painting, but I don’t want to just paint any old crap. So I’m forced to be artistic on the spot. Sometimes this can turn out really well; sometimes it can be a disaster.

I’m pretty sure it’s the reason that so many people in the 70s decorated with driftwood:

“We need something to go over the fireplace!! What will we do?!”

“I don’t know! It’s the 70s and my brain is still reeling from Watergate…and all the hash I just smoked!!”

“Well think of something! Company will be here any minute and you can’t have a key party with bare walls!”

“Umm…I found this old piece of wood the other day…?”

“Perfect!! Throw it on the mantle!”

“Ahhh…that is perfect! And I especially like the way it’s waving to me!”

“Maybe you should lay off the hash?”

“No way! It’s the 70s! Disco’s coming and I’ll need it!”


Like I said, “art” for purely decorative reasons isn’t always the best. But seeing as how I don’t smoke hash, hopefully my efforts are more successful than Mr. And Mrs. 70s there.

But maybe you should tell me? Here’s the painting (It’s not the best picture of the painting, bear with me, I did my best):



*** There SHOULD be a picture here. However, Blogger is a piece of crap. Don't worry, it'll be here shortly! Rassafrakkin' blogger! I have EDITING to do! I don't have time to mess with Blogger!!! ***

*** Update!! the photo is there now...duh.***

It’s a triptych and it’s bigger than it looks here (since there’s no context). The actual size is about 1.5 feet tall by a little over 6 feet long.

Soon you’ll be able to see the whole, new and improved, set. Then you can make your final judgments.

…always judging, you are.


ALSO

I would like to properly thank Yuri and Vlad over at Break a Leg for featuring us on the front page of Blip during their stint as guest Curators!

Thanks guys!

And if you haven’t seen their show, I strongly suggest that you watch it. They’ve just started their season finale and it’s epic. So go there and give them some love!

breakaleg.tv



ROBB

(Oh my god! You got away from this post without having to listen to music from the show! I can’t believe it! But just wait, there will be more music later, and you will be strongly asked to listen to it!)

Type Thats, Great!

When Tanya and Robb brought me on board as producer for LFTI, they probably did not realize they were gaining a lunatic. Not just any lunatic, of course, but a font, typography, and typesetting lunatic.

I've always been fascinated by text. I spent lots of time as a small child trying to draw perfect block letters. I'd take the plastic, all-caps letters (yellow Futura medium) from both our copies of The Alphabet Game and tape them onto construction paper to make signs. I cut out matching letters and numbers from the newspaper to make my own Iran Hostage Crisis count-up sign. I hand-lettered every single one of my campaign posters for Vice President in 8th grade and President in 11th. One of the best things about the Mac when it came out was, for me, that its handling of text was much better than Print Shop on the IIe.

My love for type has never diminished. It served me well post-college, when I worked as a book designer at Birkhäuser Boston, right through to the present day, when I get to contribute to the "online conversation" regarding the fonts candidates use for their campaign materials.

Unfortunately for Robb and Tanya, it currently serves me well on Life from the Inside.

I am of the opinion that text, fonts, typography, and typesetting, while flying under the radar of the general public's awareness, are some of the single most important elements in adding a sheen of professionalism and style to any project. Most of the quality we strive for in LFTI is applied to the usual concerns: camerawork, writing, editing, music... Very few people might notice if a font is improperly stretched, or if a wayward apostrophe has made its way into an pluralized acronym, or if the hyphens in a block of text are disconcerting to the eye though they may be properly placed.

Robb does 99% of the graphic work for the show, including all the titles, credits, graphic elements, DVD menus (yes, DVD MENUS!), blahdee blahdee blah. And I have to say that 99% of everything he does, text-wise, is fantastically great. Unfortunately, now that I have wedged myself into the picture, I'm here to catch the remaining 1%. If I see some kerning I don't like, I'll say so. If the leading between two lines is too tight, I'll point it out. If there's a space between a word and an asterisk, I'll call for its death. If four fonts are being used where two will suffice, I shall champion the cause.

Sometimes, where text is involved, there's a trade-off between correctness and aesthetics. To me, correctness should win out most of the time, because there is usually an aesthetically pleasing way to correctly render an awkward block of text.

If I'm going to prattle on about this topic, I really should give an example.

Robb had designed a bit of text on an upcoming DVD menu (yes, UPCOMING DVD MENU!) to fit nicely into a rectangular space. The work "jukebox" (yes, JUKEBOX!) had to be split, so he designed it as "JUKE" on the fist line and "-BOX" on the second. Now, the text fit beautifully, four characters on both top and bottom, but I could not stand the hyphen being tied to the second half of the word. That is simply not done. It gave me a case of the frownies every time I saw it. Since I am now tweaking and redesigning that particular DVD menu, I changed the layout to "JUKE-" and "BOX." It made the text top-heavy, but it was correct. However, knowing that I was changing a very particular design choice that Robb had made, I thought I could compromise. I was willing to—GASP!—have the word split, but not hyphenated! "JUKE" and "BOX" would fit more nicely into that rectangle without a hyphen. Perhaps to some, this would have been the worst choice out of the three, splitting a single word into two sans hyphen. To me, I'd rather have the hyphen gone than have it on the bottom. And jukebox was probably two words at one time, anyway. It's not like we were splitting "grottos" into "GROT" and "TOS." Blech!

I have not finished the menu redesign, but I think we agreed to keep the hyphen on the top, probably because I whined enough about it.

So what does all this pain-in-the-assery get us? From my point of view, it gets us closer to looking great. When no detail goes unnoticed, when we can concentrate on the small things that most people simply don't understand or don't even notice, we can give everyone a better show. Then, if people do know and do pay attention, they will hopefully appreciate the care that was taken to make LFTI a top-notch piece of time-wasting entertainment!