Self portrait made in Inkscape using the bitmap trace tool, with two renders, and a dark cool palette.
Category: photography
These are posts with original photography by John LeMasney, cc-by lemasney.
I love when retro ideas are mashed up with contemporary trends, and so I decided to make this retro style diner sign about ten-dollar all-you-can-eat sushi. The original that I worked from was a sign for five-cent bottomless coffee, and this was the contemporary equivalent that came to mind.
This is a simple sketch of a coffee cup in Inkscape.
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This is a collaboration between Antoinette and I. Antoinette has a lovely drafting ability, and makes the most beautiful, colorful, jungle-inspired work. We’ve worked together in Inkscape, to help her expand her digital working style. In this case. I asked her if she had ever used a Wacom tablet, and she said that she had one, a small one. I brought out my lovely 24 inch Wacom, handed her the stylus, and she made this inspiring dancing figure you see above. I added the text below her illustration. We used an image of a lit match as the palette, and applied a range of tones from the very bright parts of the flame, to the darker smoky background. Fun work, and thanks Antoinette!
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Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
Hand-made, stamped, recycled business cards by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
On caring for nature
I was once in an environmental action committee for an organization. In the meetings, we’d plan events to raise awareness for recycling methods, whole food and gardening, saving electricity, promoting alternative fuel sources, and so on. It was quite successful. I was proud to be a part of it, and was active in the meetings.
There were a few times when I think I might have gone a bit too far in my suggestions. For instance, when there were popular suggestions to give out recyclable water bottles and t-shirts, offer games of chance to promote awareness with store-bought-beanbags, and print agendas for the meetings, I protested a bit.
I suggested that we promote the use of already owned recyclable water bottles, (since it seems like everyone already has 10 of them,) and that we offer a small sticker to anyone who shows up with a used bottle, so that we could still share and remind people of our brand.
I said that the new, printed t-shirts should be on-site printed recycled t-shirts, and that the bean bags should be from hand-sewn fabric scraps.
In the case of the agenda printing, I suggested that we use Google Docs instead. This is fairly common for me as a suggestion. Anytime someone offers me a piece of paper with something on it that may change, I suggest that we’d do better, stay more organized, and save costs by moving the document to GDrive.
This is all to say that I take ecological concerns pretty seriously. Which leads me to the point of this post:
Recycled, hand made business cards
I hand out a lot of business cards. If I meet a shop owner, a card almost always comes out. You never know who may need your help someday. I used to get the most beautiful miniature cards from Moo.com that everyone would say something nice about. But because I was printing on new paper, I felt like a hypocrite, when I print so little otherwise.
I work with index cards sometimes to organize my thoughts in physical space, especially for momentary lists, daily to-dos, or to take notes in a phone call. I decided to take these 4×6 cards, used on the lined side. I’d quarter them to use as business cards printed about 20 at a time with a custom stamp I got from staples.com with my contact information and (jl) logo on it. They were fun, obviously hand torn and hand stamped. Imperfect and beautiful, a lovely combination.
A new way to re-use otherwise cast-off cardstock
As I was throwing away a box that held a bulk set of tea bags, I broke it down and opened it up, and realized how nice the weight of the paper was, and how the designer paid attention to the palette to create a soothing package. I decided to cut the box into card sized slices and stamp the unprinted side. The result is lovely: my contact information on one side, and an interesting pattern on the back. They remind me of the recycled vinyl signs that end up as messenger bags. I’ve used the hand stamped cards for about a month, and have gotten some great responses. People I know tend to love hand-made objects of any kind, and my theory is that people are so used to seeing perfectly edged things all day long, that when they see the ‘thumbprints in the clay’, the kind imperfections, I think that they pay special attention to them.
What do you think? Am I a good ecologist, and respecter of nature, or am I just cheap? 🙂 One thing is for sure: my secondary branding is definitely represented by using these cards. Anyone who gets one should be able to see that I’m interested in recycling, that I’m frugal, and that I like making things. That’s a pretty solid set of brand attributes that I’d be proud to align with.
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Recycling Plastic Water Bottles
Today, I decided to use Inkscape to play with type. When you type less than three (<3), you are expressing an emoticon for love, symbolized by a heart. It’s a straightforward, easy-to-use symbol. Two close friends or sweethearts might use it in SMS to express a little love.
Ampersand Greater Than (&>)
Melissa Brisbin and I have used an alternative to less than three to express not only that we are good friends, but that we exchange and share value in technology, libraries, and related interests. Ampersand greater than (&>) resembles a heart too, but indicates a togetherness, a bond. When we type it to each other, it’s a little reminder of our history. In honor of her birthday yesterday, I decided to work on the ampersand greater than as a typography muse.
I started by going through my font catalog and pulling out all the fonts that had interesting ampersand and greater than symbols.
Then I began pulling out the best combinations, angling the symbols, pulling them together into a single flowing shape.
Finally, I went back in and tweaked the finest points of the combinations. This was my result: nearly the final set.
And today, I decided to add some color, along with final tweaks to the pieces.
A crash course in typography
