my most interesting achievement of the past few days, cleaning the sewing room

Starting today i will set out to prove that i can acquire a following on my blog by doing nothing more than posting every single day for a year.

At some point, i suppose i will have to actually define what a following is. And i will also eventually have to hook up my feedburner and address the issues i have been having with google analytics for the past…12 months or so.

Let’s just take this one step at a time.

after

I noticed a doodle in my notebook looked like a bird so i decided to make it my new character.

Here is the full page. The notes are for an outline for our Church of Internetology mass.

the doodles at the very bottom are what inspired the birds

umm...

To quote my brother, Spencer Cree, “Thats some high quality stuff you are building there Microsoft. Not.”

Also, you can probably tell that the scan is screwed up because i had to stitch the two pages together. I need a large format scanner. Wer my sponsors at?? Microsoft??

First problem, wtf is the name of the contest / what is it for? 365 50 books / 50 covers competitions. doesn’t make sense to me.

ok page two. this is the other side of the piece when it is closed. now i’m thinking this is a contest for book covers but then what is the 365 part. still don’t get it.

ok...

dumb

i like the simplicity. all these solids seem like a waste of ink tho. what is the contest for again?

this is what it looks when you lift up the page above. mastercard commercial? its like they chose not to put $0 because that would have been toooo similar. either that or they are making every effort to make this turd completely incomprehensible.

kind of hard to understand how it opens. photos would have been better.

if you could read the text, it would say “enter this contest because this organization is so elite that people will worship you for having won this award and you will probably never have to work again”

more or less.

more yellow

i finally figured out after going to the site that this direct mailer is advertising for two different contests. 1.AIGA 365 2. 50 books / 50 covers

also, as an obvious aside, though they make such a big deal about the prize not being about money, there is still a $55 entrance fee.

prolly cost $55 to print each one of these horrendous fliers.

well, BCS is pretty much jessica’s and my new favorite place. i suspect because it is so much like Champaign-Urbana, that we felt at home there.

we met so many cool people. i call it the ST (small town) mentality.

i admire the men who put the event together for their ambition and drive. DesignCamp was much more organized than the BarCamp we attended this summer in austin.

neither jessica nor i have been doing much graphic design lately. i picked up a couple web design jobs last month, and it was so refreshing to get to just design for once.

and as i went into DesignCamp, i was most anticipating the discussions about design. to again, even if just for one day, to eat, drink, and breathe graphic design.

but i think i am realizing more and more that i just don’t care that much about graphic design anymore.

don’t get me wrong; i care about design. but i think about it more holistically. as a mentality that drives everything i do.

not just branding.

is the graphic design of this blog important? yes. but what is more important is the design of my entire online presence.

and those are the conversations i am more interested in having.

thepaperszine@gmail.com

The Popular Podcast was featured in the latest issue of The Papers, our friend Sheima’s zine.

Sheima and Jimmy were guests over at The Popular Podcast in December. You can learn more about Sheima’s zine in their NastCast

I adore the stitched binding, such a lovely design detail.

"Those babies look weird." "They're your babies."

Jimmy guest edited the issue on the right.

we always sit on the same side of the table

Finally checked out Primizie on east 11th on friday night. Hadn’t really been dying to try it or anything, but thought it would be nice since it is in the neighborhood.

it also fulfilled our only main criteria for a restaurant: full bar.

Naturally, we ordered a four cheese pizza. It was fantastic, i was very impressed, way better than i thought it would be.

This group of people next to us was a weird gathering. It seemed like all these daffy bitches wanted to fuck this one sick dude with chicken legs and beer gut. have i mentioned eavesdropping as one of my favorite pastimes?

 

peep this bitches socks

photo by jessica mullen

after a few weeks (maybe months) of deliberation, i decided to finally get my hair cut.

it took so long for two reasons: 1. i was afraid of getting a new stylist 2. i wasn’t sure if i should cut my hair short or not.

the girl who cut my hair was cool; she used to live in champaign. weird.

i’m pretty in to the haircut. i was experimenting with some goo samples emily gave me and did some neat shit, so maybe i will style it someday. doubt it.

the outfit is another new creation; though i have sported the fishnet socks with the purple mocs once before. the tuxedo pants are goodwill. i experimented with not ironing them. went pretty well, lol. belt is jessica’s and shirt is hot topic clearance.

sara’s business card:

vain business cards kinda suck. but then so does this scan.

gay

illustrations by pewtie. pewtie@gmail.com

Our new friend Tina stopped by with Sheima and Jimmy last night, and she gave us this wonderful set of notecards as a hostess gift.

We had a gay ‘ol time just chilling and eating East Side Pies.

A choice quote from the evening, “I want her to bite me, so then i can say, the trashy troll bit me!”

bad scan of the lovely packaging

i haven’t quite decided what to do with the button. i think it will be a very nice addition to one of my “clubbin” outfits as my brother calls them…

my favorite is the wicked witch ripping the bong

i actually don’t know tina’s process, but i will ask her and let you know. i love the variety and the contrast between the very stark ones and the totally saturated ones.

jessica's favorite is the girl with the j

We did not end up going out, so you will probably see me in this again soon. Probably when the warm front moves in again, lol.

I have been struggling to find a good top to go with the pants. any suggestions?

I have a pair of bright blue suspenders that are too small that jessica suggested i could wear as some sort of belt, i thought that would be nice.

suspenders, a-frame - wal*mart; trousers - goodwill; shoes - payless