Category Archives: Design

#phonar | task1 | “It just ain’t nachural, I tells ya.”

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I spent a little bit of time this morning completing my first task for #phonar. Details can be found in a previous blog post.

Below is the copy I wrote for the spread. It’s a wee bit heavy handed, but it’s better than lorem ipsum. Also, I proofed as best I could… full refund if not satisfied.

IT JUST AIN’T NACHURAL, I TELL YA.
IT AIN’T RIGHT

WILLIAM MORTENSEN, WEEGEE, DIANE ARBUS, AND
THE ANONYMOUS PHOTOGRAPHERS OF LOW-END NUDIES

Written and Edited by Kevin I. Slaughter

The styles and processes couldn’t be more different. The motivations varied from a desperate bid to make quick cash to cultivating a truly unique and painstaking artistic vision. And yet, there is something familiar in all of these photographs, something most people don’t want to see.

People often have a visceral response to these images. They often evoke one of our strongest instincts – disgust. We see the “other”, the thing outside of ourselves that we want to keep away. From ugliness to retardation, from morbidity to degeneration.

And yet, we look. Maybe after some initial reflexive response, where we turn away or close our eyes, but we still look and often stare.

Possibly an evolutionary response, knowing one’s enemy.  A gazelle will watch the cheetah, because if the cheetah comes to close, it means death. The same can be said about degeneracy, though in a more abstract way.

It is natural to hate and fear the “other”. People deny this aspect of nature because they want nature to behave how they think it should, instead of how it is.

It is also natural to fool one’s self, to live a lie that what you have is good, even when it’s flawed or ugly or broken. Objectivity is always elusive in the human mind, and being presented with an uncomfortable objective truth sparks an irrational mental war on that truth.

There is a constant struggle in the public sphere to take control of “nature”, of what it means. A constant push of this priest or that politician to couch their beliefs into a frame that is on the side of nature, be it one that “god” created, or one that evolved.

The one objective truth about nature that we know is that it works completely independently from our wants and needs. What is good, or right, or beautiful has nothing whatsoever to do with what can and will occur.
Nature is what is.

Craft Project :: Accordion Box

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I haven’t posted a craft/design project in a while. I built a nice deck in the back yard, but I’m not posting any photos of that.

I’m not  a musician, and it’s questionable if anyone will see me playing an intrument in public, but a few months ago I purchased a 12bass accordion at a Flea. It was in surprisingly good shape, all the notes are correct, but there are some flaws (the bellows aren’t airtight, etc.). So while I am going to try to learn this damnable squeezebox, my need to customize kicked in and I went to town on the worn down case…

I started by taking all the measurements and creating a design for the top and bottom. Figuring out exactly how many different peieces and how they’d be applied was the most difficult part.

I based the design around an ad from the Johnson-Smith catalog of 1929 (reprinted 1970).
Love the ad and illustrations for too many reasons to list here, but I did want to acknowledge the source.
One point is the old-world immigrant look of the two figures, and that the accordion itself has an old-world look to it.

The top was completely seperated from the case, but not cleanly.
The rear panel was still attached to the bottom by the rusted hinges.

I stripped the lining from the box.

Broke the hinges off. I tried drilling out the grommets holding the hinges,
but I ended up breaking 3 drill bits doing it.

I used PVC sheet to reline the box and wrap in new fabric.
The fabric was in a dumpster from a place that does upholstery and window treatments.
I work in the same building and smoke on the loading dock, so I peak in occasionally to see what’s there.

I don’t expect many readers to have access to a 54″ printer, but I do. I printed 2-up andthen applied a gloss laminate over it.
I was going to do a matte lam, but the gloss was loaded up and I was feeling lazy.
Once the design was applied to the lid, I decided I wanted to keep the worn look on the bottom half, and didn’t print the design I’d made for it.

Cut down more PVC to size for the inside of the bottom part of the box.
Wrapped it all in a different fabric (also from the dumpster) and glued it all in place.

Over a few days after work, my fancied up accordion box is done!

New brass hinges and fancy protective corners for the bottom.

Slaughter Family Band

The accordion fits pretty snugly, and it looks as I imagined.

Now, if I don’t learn to play it, it’ll at least look good sitting in a corner.

Finding the right type…

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The closest type faces I can find are Perpetua and Arno Pro, but both of them are wrong.
No “Th” ligature in Perpetua, and the one in Arno has a rising serif that the orig. doesn’t. The italics of both Perpetua and Arno are totally different than the orig. found on TSR.
There’s a typeface I don’t have called Lapidary 333, but there’s just a really good chance that I won’t find a digital version of the typeface.
Notice that the two books are actually set in different faces, or, at least, variations of the same face. The lowercase "y" in both are drastically different (see 5 at the bottom of image).

Finding the type