Final_rev3_6.pdf

Putting the word “final” in a file name is the surest way I can think of to get something in it changed.

Yet every week I see files come to my inbox named “final” as if the person making them was dictator and lord of all graphic design. Firm in the belief that they have some sort of control over their client’s constantly changing taste. Then they get revised.

Perhaps it gives the designer a sense of satisfaction for having reached the conclusion of a job well done. Or maybe they feel powerful using the word, as if by declaring it, they are therefore masters of the creative process. “THIS is the final design. Yes, the buck stops with me because I’m the designer of THIS design,” they must say under their breath as they excitedly press the floppy disk icon.

Which, by the way, Adobe, a floppy disk? Half the people using Acrobat have probably never touched a floppy disk or even seen one outside a 4th grade computer lab.

Everything changes. Nothing is final. Except maybe death, your eventual lot in life of cleaning up another mammals’ feces, or realizing that you regret not doing that thing you love so much now when you were younger.

In short, don’t name your files “final,” because I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Four Horsemen

Not since Albrecht Drüer has this scene been rendered with the kind of force and style only a black and white print can bring.

Mark Riddick gives us his first equestrian based nightmare and we’re proud to have it in the shop.

riddickart.com

Excelsior

My coworkers and I are a green bunch. I walk to work most days and my coworkers take MARTA because it’s smarta.

The other day, my coworkers, in separate incidents, were scolded by a MARTA official for walking on the escalators. “If you want to walk, take the stairs,” the MARTA official barked at them. Since when, and in what sorry excuse for a bustling city, does this make any logical sense? The escalator was invented to move large numbers of pedestrian traffic in a short amount of time, not to prevent you from ever having to bend your knees. Your feet are made to travel, escalators don’t change that fact.

In other (real) cities, it’s considered elementary logic that everyone knows you stand on the right and walk on the left. This is true even in London, where they do everything backward. (I know they do it the other way round in Tokyo, but it’s the future there, so I expect we will actually all be switching over soon.)

Now some folks have genuine health problems and can’t or shouldn’t walk up or down stairs. I imagine that’s about, oh, 6% of the population. The rest of you are just plain lazy. I bet you dollars to doughnuts that if you had to take an escalator to reach the gym, you would all stand there like fattened steers for the slaughter as it transported you to the elliptical machines.

And I get it that sometimes you don’t feel like walking up the escalator. I myself can get a little grumpy at a tall staircase or at walking uphill both ways from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf just to get to the In-N-Out Burger. But when you can’t even be bothered to walk down the escalator? Don’t you hate yourself? Don’t you look at yourself in the mirror and wonder how any sentient being could possibly be so indolent? Don’t you think of the lithe, vigorous youngster you were and think, “At what point did I turn into a paunchy, impotent banana slug in Crocs?”

Rawr!

New print by Swindon artist Iain Macarthur.

We’ve all felt this way at one time or another. For me it’s how I remember feeling just about every day in high school. I wonder if kids in England hear the same “It’s going on your permanent record” line we get here to keep our youthful anger in check.

Iain understands. And so do we.

Correct

Clothing line inspired by Magritte, Treachery of Images, 1929.

I was in 7th grade English class, first day, when the professor held up this picture.

He asked the class what it was.  Everyone answered “a pipe.”  He would reply flatly “No” to student after student.  When he asked me, I said, “It’s a picture of a pipe.”

He exclaimed, “Exactly.”  The world at large is about perception; that is the inspiration for Correct.

Looking

A couple of weeks ago I found a decent sculpture in Castleberry Hill. No, I’m not joking, look at that thing.

“Looking into the past”
By Roberto Santo

It’s on exhibit in the Beesharat gallery parking lot. Tucked back in the corner of Mangum square. Just look for the Lion with the long Tongue.

Caldwell Tanner

We know many of you artists out there just want to find yourselves.

In an effort to help, we’ve printed this two color poster by Caldwell Tanner for you.
It’s a searingly accurate portrayal of artists with a handy flow chart so you can tell where exactly you fit in.

Now you can stop wondering and get a job.

Limited edition of 100.

Check out more of Mr. Tanner’s work here.

Charlie’s Trading Post

Next time you go to the state Pen, stop by Charlie’s Trading Post across the street. They have $5 work shirts, boots, old jeans like your mom bought for you when you were 6, and fishing tackle your grandfather would be excited about.

I was looking over their selections of Jordaches and lures when one of the sales ladies approached me and asked about my hat. I told her it was called a Boonie hat, which she mis-heard as Booty hat. People hear what they want to, I guess.

Anyway, I officially wear a Booty hat now, which I can rock with my Tuf-Nut shirts. Thanks, Charlie.

American Authors

We’ve just finished our American Authors trilogy prints.

If you’re new to America or you dropped out of school in the 4th grade, the one-color prints pictured here from left to right are Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and
Emily Dickinson.

Available individually or as a set.

Edition of 80 each.

Illustrations by Dust.

On Tour

We’re going out again with
Adult Swim on their block party.

April 07 – Athens, GA
University of Georgia

April 11 – Austin, TX
University of Texas

April 14 – Tempe, AZ
Arizona State

April 17 – Norman, OK
Oklahoma State

April 19 – Lawrence, KS
University of Kansas

April 21 – Champaign, IL
University of Illinois

April 22 – West Lafayette, IN
Purdue

April 24 – Columbus, OH
Ohio State

April 30 – Richmond, VA
VCU

Come see us and we’ll put some hot shirt in your face.