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20121212: Culinary knife cuts poster by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #foodpresentation #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food #infographic

20121212: Culinary knife cuts poster by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food #infographic
20121212: Culinary knife cuts poster by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food #infographic

I have become incredibly interested in my personal health since April, and one of the ways that this has manifested is that I became knowledgable about culinary skills. When you prepare your own food, you have far more control over what you put into your body. I have always been enamored with the endless shows on Food Network which highlight a chef’s knife skills as a point of supremacy in a contest. The shows do not do a very good job of explaining what it means to have good knife skills. After some research, I learned about some basic culinary knife cuts, and decided to learn them myself by reading about, contemplating, then designing an infographic about them in preparation for doing the cuts myself.  With a sharp knife, and fresh vegetables or other firm foods, they are fairly easy to do.

lemasney, design, open source, creative commons, cc-by, typography, poster, Inkscape, GIMP, food, culinary, knife, skills, chef, cooking, health

Image via CrunchBase
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Illustration portfolio

20121211: a fork drawn in text by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food

20121211: a fork drawn in text by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food
20121211: a fork drawn in text by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #creativecommons #design #cc-by #food

This is a fork sketch, drawn using the word “food”. I’m a foodie, what else can I say?

lemasney, design, open source, creative commons, cc-by, typography, poster, Inkscape, GIMP, food, fork, drawing, sketch, illustration, typography

Image via CrunchBase

 

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Illustration portfolio

20121210: A Stormtrooper mask in Day of the Dead style by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #starwars #illustration

20121210: A Stormtrooper mask in Day of the Dead style by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #starwars #illustration
20121210: A Stormtrooper mask in Day of the Dead style by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #starwars #illustration

I really try to give my audience what they seem to want, and when I look at my stats, it shows that they want more decorative Stormtrooper masks, which I’ve done before, but was not entirely happy with the result. I decided in this case to do it in a simplified style, and to specifically mimic the beautiful Day of the Dead style of mask decoration, another very popular treatment these days. It’s fun stuff, certainly, and I hope that people like it.

star wars, stormtrooper, day of the dead, Día de los Muertos, lemasney, open source, Inkscape, treatment, mask, decorative, decorated, decoration, festive, festival, death,

 

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20121209: A stylized ampersand made of circles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #typography #creativecommons

20121209: A stylized ampersand made of circles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #typography #creativecommons
20121209: A stylized ampersand made of circles by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #design #typography #creativecommons

Ampersands (&) are a beautiful typographic creation. I found out last year that ampersands combine the letters e and t, or “et”, which is “and” in French. I wanted to show the symbol in a sensual, undulating form.

ampersand, typography, and, et, design, drawing, symbols, lemasney, open source, Inkscape, illustration

 

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20121208: Don’t eat anything that is incapable of spoiling (Michael Pollan) by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #food #creativecommons #quote

20121208: Don't eat anything that is incapable of spoiling (Michael Pollan) by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #food #creativecommons #quote
20121208: Don’t eat anything that is incapable of spoiling (Michael Pollan) by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #food #creativecommons #quote

In my search for my sense of nutrition and a healthy relationship to food, I learned many new philosophies, some of which I bristled at and found rather false, such as any that need subscription to a proprietary method of thinking, those that exclude types of food (think Atkins), and those that call certain kinds of nutrients evil, like “bad carbs”.

Other food philosophies I have reveled in and succeeded with are those that are mostly about natural, whole foods, hold a reasonable balance between realism and pragmatism, and are truly do-able in practice. Michael Pollan writes about his very sensible approach, an approach to food that I’ve mostly adopted as my own.

He writes many of the elements of his philosophy simply, in ways that make sense, and reinforced with scholarly data as well as experiential data. This one illustrated above, avoiding foods preserved to the point of not really having a shelf life, makes sense. Preservation often moves food from its natural rotting, decomposing state to one that benefits producers. in which food lasts nearly forever, so that it can be sold forever. It means less to the producers who use extreme shelf live preservation that they may alter, harm, or negatively impact the consumer. That long list of preservatives on the back of the package? You can probably do without those.

food, eating, nutrition, Pollan, food rules, lemasney, open source, Inkscape, design, illustration

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Illustration portfolio

20121207: raised hands in a diverse classroom by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #illustration #creativecommons

20121207: raised hands in a diverse classroom by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #illustration #creativecommons
20121207: raised hands in a diverse classroom by John LeMasney via 365sketches.org #illustration #creativecommons

One of the things that I find important to foster in my classroom is a diverse set of points of view being represented. By having people present and defend their biases, myself included, we may come to a better, mediated understanding of a given topic. Mostly, we accomplish this through open inquiry on topics, an environment that has trust, and a clear set of rules on respect. Then, after all voices are heard, we introduce case studies, scholarly research, and lots and lots of facts to find out what is most likely true. Because truth, after all, is relative.

diversity, classroom, inquiry, trust, facts, scholarly, research, questions, answers, raise your hand, lemasney, open source, Inkscape, design, illustration