Tragic, I Know…
Yesterday I was perusing through the records at the local thrift store, trying to find more vinyl to make into record notebooks to sell at the Handmade Detroit Holiday Market, when a teenage girl walked up and started looking through them next to me. She seemed very confused as she flipped through them, and after a minute turned to me and said “What are these?”. I smiled (and tried not to laugh) and told her they were record albums. She pulled one album out of the milk crate she’d been flipping through and pulled the record out of it’s sleeve. She let out a slight gasp, and called out to her friend a few feet away. “These are records!” she said to her friend who rolled her eyes and walked away. Then she turned to me and said “I’ve never actually seen one of these before”. I took a moment in amazement and responded “You’ve never seen a record before?”. She shook her head, looked down at the record again and said “Only in the movies…”, then smiled at me, put the record back in the milk crate and walked away. I stood there for a moment, felt very old, and then proceeded to the checkout with my crate of goodness.
Design Inspiration
I don’t think of myself as a very strong graphic designer. I definitely know good design when I see it, and when nudged in the right direction, I can usually come up with some decent work, but when I have to start a new design from scratch, it can be a frustrating process. I’ll always be able to come up with something, and clients are, for the most part, satisfied, but to me, my designs always feel a bit clumsier when it comes to those tiny little details that make the difference between “good” and just “good enough”.
Most of the sites I read every day cover web development and design specifically. These sites are important to me, but following them too closely can get you stuck in a rut as far a design is concerned (big, chunky, plastic-y, rounded web 2.0, anyone?). When I need a little push, I have a whole section of feed subscriptions that I turn to for a little design inspiration. There’s a bit of a mix (photos, typography, architecture, design critique) but each of them can help me put a different perspective on the blank Photoshop document staring at me. More samples after the jump…
Woodward turns 200
Woodward Avenue is a large part of Michigan’s history, and a large part of mine, too. When I was sixteen, I took Woodward to Royal Oak and Birmingham to shop and hang out with friends. When I was 18, I had two jobs off of Woodward - one in Royal Oak and one in Pontiac - and one fateful summer day I learned about the Woodward Dream Cruise as I tried to get from one job to the other. It was raining on our wedding day from the time the service ended until the reception started, so our limo drove our whole wedding party up and down Woodward trying to find someplace we could take pictures with our photographer. We stopped at the Woodward Avenue Brewery in Ferndale, and those are some of my absolute favorite pictures of the day. We’ve lived off Woodward for years now in Pontiac, and I work off Woodward in Detroit (my fifth job right off Woodward Avenue).
I was happy to stumble upon the Free Press’s series of videos on Woodward Ave. It interviews Papa Joe of the Majestic/Garden Bowl (where I work), Dan of Showtime Clothing, Eugene of Defying the Law Bike Club, and a lot of other great groups and places on Woodward Ave.
