About six months ago, I took a lettering workshop with the Friends of Type at Typecon, picked up a few crucial tips, and made my first Illustrator vector piece. After that, I made a commitment to master Illustrator, or perish in the process. I decided to convert the dozens of files I had for the board game I was designing, Co-opoly, from InDesign to Illustrator.  I’m excited about the new directions Illustrator is taking my work, and thrilled to be learning new techniques and tricks every day.

This Halloween, I thought the best way to truly channel Illustrator was to BECOME Illustrator. I chose to embody Illustrator as a superhero, since my motto is “Saving good causes from bad design.”

Making the logo, pen tool, and arrows: first I made paper templates to cut out, and then traced them on to felt.

Making the tool bars: I used t-shirt iron-on transfer paper, available at any craft store. I enlarged and printed out the toolbars, and ironed them on to white fabric. I’m always impressed by the quality of this stuff! Peel off immediately after ironing for a matte finish, a few minutes after it cools for a glossy finish.

Making the mask & cape: I was excited to find the perfect silky fabric in just the right shade of Illustrator goldenrod! I’ve made capes before for other costumes and followed the same pattern – cutting out a large rectangle and rounding the corners, then cutting a neck hole, and attaching it with velcro. I’ve made paper-mache masks before, but I can’t really wear my glasses with a paper-mache mask, and I don’t have contacts. I realized a fabric mask was the simplest way to make a mask that I could wear with my glasses.

The edges of the fabric threatened to fray a lot, and I was too lazy to sew edging around all of it, so I just used black masking tape on the edges – and it worked well to stop the fraying, and looks awesome!

The final costume:

Yeah, I pretty much wear it all the time. It definitely helps me mentally connect to Illustrator.

Click to see it bigger

Hand lettering design made at the Friends of Type workshop at TypeCon 2011.

Original doodles and sketches

Scan of final sketch

Many bezier curves and headaches later...

The finished image!!

I probably could have spent another month tweaking it, but I decided it was time to call it good and move on.

Thanks Friends of Type! I’m so excited to do more lettering projects…

Lots of cool signs everywhere

Yesterday I went to a hands-on CSS workshop with Marcin Wichary of Google and learned some great new web tricks.  Today I went to the Friends of Type workshop and learned some awesome hand lettering tips and processes.  I’m going to refine my design over the next few days, but I’ll post it here when it’s finished!

Some of my sketches from the workshop

Aaron and Erik, the Friends of Type

Well, I decided it was finally time for the yearly update of my website! I’m going to TypeCon in New Orleans this week, and expect to be doing a lot of networking with designer-types, so I figured I’d better make my website reflect what I’m up to now.

I not only redesigned the look of my website, but did a refresh of my portfolio too.  All the projects featured are from the past year, with the exception of my animation reel and some photography.

I’ve definitely grown by leaps and bounds in web design, from my first lame portfolio on googlepages, to wordpress, to indexhibit, to more advanced customizations of wordpress.  The fonts used on my website are Lobster Two and Mako, available through the Google webfonts API.

Those of you who have seen previous versions of my websites, what do you think of the latest?

I have a totally awesome job as the Creative Director (admittedly, I’m the whole creative department) at CommunicateHealth.  So I’m not eager for more freelance work right now, but for the right project or right amount of $, I’m definitely willing to talk.

-Molly

What is an ambigram?  According to Wired, ambigrams are the hottest trend in typography since Helvetica.  An ambigram is a word-image that can be read from multiple vantage points, most commonly by flipping it 180 degrees.  Ambigrams were popularized a few years ago by Dan Brown’s book Angels and Demons, which features several ambigrams as plot points, including this one to the left.

Now, the complex gothic ambigrams from Angels and Demons were the only ones I was very familiar with, and I believed them to be for advanced artists, mathematicians, designers – not for amateur typographers and doodlers like us.

ambigram in progress

NOT SO!  Ambigrams are fun AND easy to make!  Tara and I made loads of them on our many long train rides around Europe.  It’s pretty simple – I just start with writing the word below itself upside down.  Then look at each of the letter pairs, think about the key components in each letter necessary to define it, and start doodling different ways those letters can be combined.  Think about how to turn necessary letter strokes into decorative elements.  It also helps to consider both upper and lower case letters, I thought ‘SEATTLE’ would be impossible, until I thought to try it with lower case letters.I’m in the process of digitizing the Downside-Up ambigram for a logo now, but meanwhile here’s another one I’m working on.  Try making them sometime!  And don’t go looking for any lame ambigram generators on the internet – get out a pencil and pad and do it yourself.   It’s like solving a logic puzzle.

For more on ambigrams, check out:

http://www.johnlangdon.net/ – the website of the Prof who’s one of the leading ambigram scholars, he also made all the ambigrams for Dan Brown.

http://www.ambigram.com/ – online magazine about everything ambigram.

But the rest of the week was mostly pretty quiet and peaceful. I had the company of Joe, a British filmmaker who was also doing Help Exchange there, and Andre, a colorful Estonian character who’s working at a local restaurant and living at the hostel. Joe is working on writing a screenplay, and we got to talking and sharing ideas. We ended up collaborating on an animation for a logo sequence for his production company, Dreamscape Pictures. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever animated, I will definitely post it here when it’s finished (it’s about 90% done now). Hooray for unexpected creative collaboration!

Pretty much all I’ve done the last couple days is bake and cook and juggle and animate. I think I have improved ten-fold at juggling in the past two weeks, I can do a bunch of tricks now. And I baked chai shortbread biscuits, cinnamon oat scones, and vanilla almond biscotti. All with no measuring utencils! I have a very good sense for estimating ingredients now. Yummm.

SADLY my camera battery charger dissapeared so I have very little documentation of Scotland. I have a few pictures of a gorgeous hike up Ben Lawers, which I will post as soon as I find a place with wifi (I am on a hostel computer now).

Tomorrow I will explore Edinburgh, and on Monday I fly back to Boston. Farewell to Europe for now, and hello to friends and family back in the states!

-Molly

The other day I happened upon this fantastic video (I highly recommend it) of a panel discussion on the art of the book, with Milton Glaser, Chip Kidd, and Dave Eggers, moderated by Michael Beirut. I’m very familiar with all of their work, and all four of them are some of my top heroes – my idols! The coolest, savviest, most interesting designers I know! And seeing all of them together in the same room talking about book design, it was a real treat. Until the very end during a Q & A, when there was a question about why there were so few female “superstar” graphic designers – “is there a glass ceiling in graphic design?” Milton Glaser’s response:

He said that the reason there are so few female rock star graphic designers is that “women get pregnant, have children, go home and take care of their children. And those essential years that men are building their careers and becoming visible are basically denied to women who choose to be at home.” He continued: “Unless something very dramatic happens to the nature of the human experience then it’s never going to change.” About day care and nannies, he said, “None of them are good solutions.”

The crowd was silent except for a hiss or two and then Eggers piped up that he and his wife both work from home and share child care responsibilities — but added that maybe New York was different (although we don’t think Eggers really believes this). Then it was clear to everyone in the room that it was time to move on.

In Helvetica (the greatest movie ever) why are only two of the two dozen interviews with women?

Shira asked me once when the first time I was really conscious of my gender was. There are probably some times in my youth that I can’t clearly recall (other kids questioning whether I could play Huck Finn because I was a girl), I think the first time was in a class my freshman year of high school. After completing a month’s worth of assignments for an Intro to Technology class in one day, my parents and teachers realized something should be done. So I was transferred into Visual Communication, where I was the only freshman and the only girl.  I thrived on the material, but I felt really uncomfortable and out of place in that environment.

I’ve take a number of computer and technology oriented classes in both high school and college, and I’ve always been in the minority.  I think it always made me subconsciously want to work harder, to prove that I could be as good or better than the boys.

Graphic Design, Feminism, and Me – Part 2: what I’ve learned from doing design and animation on the documentary film Heretics: Stories from a Feminist Art Collective for the past two years… coming soon.

-Molly

(p.s.  if you read this, you should comment!  the more you comment on our blog, the happier we will be, and the more often we will update.  it’s nice to know when your writing is read.)

WHITE HOUSE STAFF MEMO REGARDING THE TRANSITION ON JANUARY 20
by WENDY MOLYNEUX and MIKE BOYLE

To: allstaff@whitehouse.gov
Re: transition

All,

As you know, the date when we must be out of our offices is fast approaching. Here are a few helpful reminders in preparation for the changeover:

1. As of this morning, the red phone is again routed to the Kremlin, not Domino’s. Please use a regular phone to place your lunch order.

2. The Monday Night Football Room has been converted back into the War Room. That is why the president is crying.

3. If Mr. Cheney has killed one or more members of your family, kindly recall that we gave you a Wii in exchange for your continued silence.

4. All staff is requested to sweep the residential rooms for hidden Bacardi bottles. Please give these bottles to the president, as he would like to throw them away personally.

5. So as to appear frugal, we will be burning $100 bills instead of $1,000 bills in the fireplaces.

6. Going forward, if you experience problems with the Xerox machine, please summon a technician—not a demon.

7. When the first lady is in her werewolf state, please do not let her out of her cage.

8. If Obama staff are in the White House prior to the transition, please refrain from eating babies in front of them.

9. Please remove skulls, scalps, and human bones from common areas.

10. A construction team will be closing up the hellmouth in the Oval Office. Please pardon our dust.

11. Please take home any leftovers from the fridge.

I might actually try doing this.  It’s certainly cold enough here to attempt…

GM:  OK, the bugbear attacks you.  What do you do?

OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it.

MCCAIN:  OK, seriously.  Why does he have so many henchmen?  I’m a level 72 ranger and he’s only a level 8 paladin.

OBAMA:  Well, if you’d bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you…

MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party.

OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty “Matterhorn, son of Marathon” shtick you keep doing.  Dude, could you be any less original?

MCCAIN: Oh my god, I did not leave my left nut in a tiger cage in the Tomb of Horrors to spend my Friday nights mopping up after the new kid.

OBAMA: “My friends, I am a totally unoriginal grizzled character class stereotype.  I should lead the party because I have more testicular damage than that one.”

MCCAIN: Yeah, well, you pal around with dark elves.

OBAMA: OH NO YOU DIDN’T.

MCCAIN: Whatever, so’s your mom.

OBAMA: So’s your FACE.

MCCAIN: So’s your Mom’s face!

HILARY: WTF you guys.  Why am I playing the cleric?

Read the rest..

-Molly