Zine Page - The Chaos Project

[A page developed for the zine project based on the art of Steven Sagmeister.  If truth be told he's not my favorite artist but I appreciate the skill that goes into his work.

The tutor on the course, as noted below, has been trying hard to get us to do something arty and statementy outside parliment but there is really nothing I feel strongly enough about to protest against.

I'm also firmly of the opinion that even if I did manage to write some huge slogan somewhere it wouldn't change anyones opinion on international whaling or nuculear testing.

Now that I come to think about it I don't think I would want someone who's opinion is so very easily influenced on my team.  It would only take some graffiti by the opposing side and I would have lost them.]

 

INTRODUCTION:

Ladies, Gentlemen and assorted others.  What you see before you are the inauspicious beginnings of the Chaos Project.  It has been suggested that, in order to get our messages across, we paint a message on the steps of parliament or upon the side of visiting ocean craft.

These have been dismissed for two reasons, the first is that the planning involved in such a movement would take far too long while the second is the simple fact that it would not help any movement or political statement. 

No the problem is that the general public, who would be the ones to receive the message, would view it as a kind of irksome graffiti that doesn't even have the benefit of being artistic.

The Chaos Project differs from other artistic or sociopolitical en devours however since it exists only for the sake of existing and will continue on in a memetic form long after the project has finished.

OUTLINE:

At its heart the plan is simple.  We take some tennis balls and roll them down the street.  However the aim of this plan is Chaos and by multiplying the amount of tennis balls exponentially we are able to strike a blow against the forces of ordinariness that seem to have this city in a vice like grip.

1.                  Acquire dump truck:  This may have to be rented or bought outright.  Either way this is an essential part of the Chaos Project.  The use of private cars has been suggested but was voted down due to the sheer bulk of the payload.

2.                  Acquire Tennis Balls: 40,000 of them, I estimate this to costing about $18,000.00 although I am certain that for such a vast number of balls some sort of bulk rates will apply.

3.                  Number the tennis balls 1 – 6.  This works out to around 8000 balls for each number but it is important to make certain that no ball is marked number 3, for reasons that will be explained below.

1.                  Balls marked 1 should carry the message: Let us begin!

2.                  Balls marked 2 should carry the message: Think about yourself

3.                  Balls marked 4 should carry the message:Anyway the wind,

4.                  Balls marked 5 should carry the message:Love will conquer

5.                  Balls marked 6 should carry the message: Exaunt Omnes

4.                  Load marked balls into the truck and release into the city streets.  It doesn't matter what hour of the day this is performed as the effect of 40,000 tennis balls is bound to have an arresting affect on the population of the city.  But for our purposes the height of rush hour in the middle of Wellington City should prove entertaining for all concerned.

OUTCOMES:

The messages on the balls are meaningless when taken either individually or as a whole but we are counting on the magpie like nature of humanity to kick in when the messages are discovered.  After they've gotten out of the way of them all, there will be people picking through each one in a desperate attempt to collect all of them.  The news agencies that cover this will only make the problem larger since their reports will reveal that there is a message to be decoded in the collection of balls.

But, as noted above, there is no number 3 ball and never will be.

The biggest problem that I see with this plan is the question of stealth.  Any individual buying this many tennis balls is going to be remembered as is anyone who is hired to write the messages on the balls.  Getting the balls printed with the messages already on them might go some way to  keeping anonymous about the whole thing.  But all those involved with this project are going to need to accept the fact that, sooner or later, we will be identified.

 

The actual page that I ended up using.  Keen eyed viewers will note that I didn't actually use any of the text that I'd prepared earlier.

 

Typeface Notes

INTRODUCTION:
What we have here is a small series of notes that were supposed to go into the small typography book that I did.  They would have except that on the day in question I forgot my USB stick and had to do the whole thing from scratch in a couple of hours. 
So to anyone who is reading this I say

MAKE CERTAIN YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR WORK IS AT ALL TIMES!!!!!

thank you, that is all.

SANS SERIFS
1. IMPACT
Created in 1965 by Geoffery Lee for the Stephenson Black Foundry. The thick strokes and blocky
formations of the letters make it perfect titles and headlines but not as effective when used in body text.
Because of its simple clarity it is often used in the spreading of Internet memes.
2. DEFINITION:
Any typeface which does not have serifs. The word comes to us from the French and litterally means
“without serifs”.
There are five different classifications of sans serif
Grotesque
Neo-Grotesque
Geometric
Humanist
Informal
Within each classifications the typefaces will share similarites in weight, thickness and shapes.
SERIFS
1. TRAJAN PRO
Designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe.
An all capital typeface in which lowercase letters are represented by small caps.
2. Castellar
An all capital display typeface designed by John Peters in 1957. It was inspired by the text on a
Roman column dedicated to Emporer Augustus and named Castellar after a town in the Alps.
3. POOR RICHARD
The original Poor Richard was the name used by Benjaman Franklin when he published his almanacs.
Although they themselves were never used in the books. (He used Mayflower)
Paul Hickson designed the typeface based on a 1919 Keystone foundry type design.
4. DEFINITION:
The serif is the little stroke at the end of each letters. Originally they were the start and end points of
the tools that carved the words into stone but have long sinced evolved into part of the letter itself.
Some serifs are subtle while others are more pronounced – it all depends on the typeface used.
Serifs are either braketed – attached directily to the strokes of the letter, sometimes abrubtly or at right
angles - or unbracketed – provide a curved transition between the serif and the main strokes. - within these
divisions serifs can be blunt, rounded, tapered, pointed or some hybrid shape.

2012 The year that was (January - June)

THIS WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS

INTRODUCTION:

Well it's late enough to be very early indeed and I'm feeling dangerously nostalgic.  For some reason I'm thinking of those letters that people receive every Christmas or other appropriate seasonal holiday.

You know the ones,  they're usually from a distant branch of the family that you might have met a few times and is chock full of information about how various sons, daughters and other assorted relatives are doing.

 

Don't get me wrong .  It's always interesting to read about someone related to you going overseas or taking out the honors in frog identification but it always seems that this branch of the family is terribly organized and permanently hopping from one task to another and another but still managing to complete everything to international standards of excellence while you are reading this in that early morning haze brought on by staying up too late and achieving nothing much in the way of anything.

 

So in the spirit of those kinds of letters I thought I might sit down and pen one for 2012. It's nothing special just a colection of thoughts about the events of this past year.

 

The songs are apparently my most listened tracks for each month.  I might have to do some hardcore headbanging in order to meet my quotas.

 

 

 

(A musical aside which should properly be called an interlude  I believe.  I recollect that dad was talking to me once upon a time and I had some death-metal playing because I was in that sort of mood.

I can't remember exactly who it was but sooner or later all the chugga chugga  beats and growly shirtless men seem to blend into each other. 

Anyway the point was Dad turned the music down to talk to me and when he was finished he indicated the stereo

“This band.  Are they well known?”

“Yeah course” said I

“Do they make a lot of money?”

“Think so”  even back then I was the master of witty repartee

Dad shook his head “Nobody who makes a lot of money should sound that angry”)

 

 

 

(Note: I also take no responsibility if this stuff is in the wrong order all I know is that I've finished my portfolio and am currently on a 9 coffee high)

 

(Note: please also skip over the whiny emotional crap.  I've tried to put in enough jokes to even it out.  But if you need more humor then email me and we'll work something out)