Recent graphic design project: Header for a film blog

My good friend Wesley is starting a blog about movies and he asked me to make a header for it. Since I love doing that kind of thing, I made him a few options.

Can you guess which one he chose? (Find out by visiting his blog!)

Us us us us us us, and them them them them them them: Americans & Iraqis

My hope is that this post allows various Iraqi voices to speak for themselves, rather than me making a case for them.

"You're American and we're Iraqi. You're not Bush and we're not Saddam."
-ANONYMOUS IRAQI MAN

Quote as recalled by United Statesian activist Jodie Evans. The man was responding to her question: "Why are you being so nice to us?"

Jodie Evans spoke at this year's Connecting for Change conference, which I went to and enjoyed. Presenters and workshops explored topics including youth empowerment, environmental activism, women's rights, local food, alternative journalism, healthy school lunches, and wild edibles*.
 
*This link is for the 2012 wild edibles workshop because I couldn't find a page about the one they had in 2011.

You can see Jodie's entire 22 minute speech here.
 

Shoot an Iraqi describes an artistic endeavor of Wafaa Bilal, an artist and professor who immigrated to the U.S. from Iraq in 1992 to escape repression under Saddam Hussein’s regime. In 2007, he spent a month in a small Chicago gallery in the line of fire of a paintball gun that people could shoot at him over the internet. Internet viewers could also see and chat with Wafaa. By the twentieth day, he had been shot at over 40,000 times, and hackers had programmed the gun to fire automatically. By the end, more than 60,000 people (people, not just shots) from 130 countries shot at him.

Yellow paintballs were used because yellow is the color of the Support Our Troops ribbons

"Uprooted" by Iraqi artist, Naman Hadi

"Birth" by Iraqi artist, Dalia Mohammad

"Kliem of the South" by Iraqi artist, Ahmed Nussaif

Also,

One of Einstein's non-scientific contributions

My friend Christine recently blogged about this quote by Einstein that I like so much I decided to post it here too.

(Background is Australian Aboriginal art, font is Parker's Hand, one of my recent free Photoshop downloads)

"Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." -Einstein

This reminds me that I never finished reading A Briefer History of Time last year! I got to page 30 and kept reading it and rereading it, but couldn't get it. This time I'll try to read Prisons of Light - Black Holes since it is said to be easy to understand.

Black holes, I want to understand you!

The beauty of free Photoshop downloads

I recently went on a kick of downloading fonts, brushes, and shapes for Photoshop. They are so cool! Why did I go so long using only the ones that came with it?

Made with a new-to-me watercolor brush package and "Speedball No 2 NF" font!
(You can get the brushes here)

There's so much to create!

Card making, website making

I've been making cards with a bunch of little squares recently. It's a little meticulous, but I like having so many images on one card. Instead of measuring each square, I cut out a stencil square from a thick piece of paper to trace. 

I think I'll make some to look like window panes. I made this one into the header of this blog!

I put another art table in my room. The other one is always covered in jewelry pieces, so I wanted a big, empty place to work on everything else. It doesn't match my furniture, but I like having something useful and not pretty in my room so it doesn't feel staged.

Merry Go Rounds is getting a new sign within the next few days, so I redesigned the website to match it.

The old site:

 

The new site: