Life Is Unfair; Graphic Design Is Hard

Step 1: spend some time designing something nice, for free.

Flyer for Bicentennial of the Abolition of the Anglo-American Trade in African Captives.

Step 2: watch as someone else tries to reuse your work, fails miserably, and gets paid.

Poster for the same event; a typographic horror, a design mess.

Step 3: sigh.

Piano Phase

I have a terrible memory so I'm always surprised when I remember events about my childhood. I'm particularly interested in those memories which have stuck with me over the years, events that didn't just come back to me one day but memories I know have always had, permanent memories of certain events.

One of those events is the first time I heard Steve Reich's "Piano Phase." I distinctively remember being absolutely amazed by that piece. It was unlike anything I had ever heard, which already made it interesting, but more importantly it was beautiful.

If you've never heard it, the Internet Archive has a recording of "Piano Phase" by Peter Aidu available under Creative Commons license.

While I'm on the topic of amazing things, you really ought to watch "In My Language," a short film about what language and communication mean to its author.

Still from 'In My Language': main character smelling the pages of a book

In other news: I got a pair of screenprints in a juried student exhibition three weeks ago! Quite happy about that.