Printed Antimatter

Get your official Eric Siry poster from AllPosters.com!

I googled my own name for the first time in a while just to see whether this blog was the first result, and I saw something strange:

Eric Siry Posters at AllPosters.com
Eric Siry Posters at AllPosters.com. Choose from over 300000 posters and prints. Professional custom framing available.

Posters of me? What the hell?

Turns out AllPosters is selling a poster of a Rolling Stone cover I did back in '94, when I was but an Assistant Art Director, learning at the knee of Gail Anderson and Fred Woodward. I did all the Illustrator work and typography, so I wind up with the credit. Crazy! I can't imagine anyone actually wanting this to hang on their wall, but hey, it comes with a subscription to RS anyway.

Creating all this type in the style of the RS logo led me to spend more than a little free time working on a modernized version of the logo, something a little less Victorian. Gail and Fred never bit. But then, a logo change for an established company is an expensive proposition, when you think of all the stationery and signage that needs to be updated. And a logo with 27 years of history (at the time) has a lot of inertia.

By the way, turns out my blog is the second hit on Google. First is a PR page for Time Inc. You win this round, Time Inc.!

Where's the combination screwdriver/fondue fork?

In the spirit of the spork and the scrench, here comes Wrenchware, hybrid tools you can use to service both your car and your piehole. I have no idea if those pliers are functional or not, but if so, they seem to be perfectly made for accidentally stabbing yourself in the lung.

I haven't the slightest idea what the individual names of these objects would be. Spooch? Pliefe? Forket wrench? This set is a must-have for anyone who doesn't mind axle grease on their meatloaf and gravy on their camshaft.

The Interstate system in the style of a subway map

An art-making Boulder dude named Chris Yates is selling this incredible depiction of the Eisenhower Interstate system simplified in the style of a subway map. (Click the image to get the full effect.) Not only is it both lovely and freakin' cool, it makes cross-country road trips about a hundred times easier to plan.*

One of my favorite aspects of simplifications like this is the implied distortion of the actual geography underneath. It's a bug, not a feature, but it has funny results. For instance, check out I-4... It makes the distance from Tampa to Daytona Beach (i.e. the width of Florida) look like about a third of the width of the entire US. A similar effect occurs in the NYC subway map, which makes Manhattan look almost as big as the boroughs surrounding it, simply because the subway stops are much more densely packed. (Note to tourists: Never gauge walking distance by the NYC subway map!)

Another thing I like is the way this map has San Francisco jutting out on the west coast like a balcony. That's right, we're special.

I found this via the Strange Maps blog, which is worthy of a post in itself, but for now I'll just strongly urge you to visit.

*That's assuming you stick to major interstates, and if you watch the same movies I do, you will.

Best- and worst-selling weekly magazine covers of 2006 offer spark of hope

The Media Industry Newsletter (aka "min") reveals which weekly/biweekly magazine covers were the best and worst sellers of 2006 (I think this link is going to expire, and there's no apparent permalink that's not behind a subscription wall).

The two bestsellers: The Oct. 23 edition of Time, featuring Barack Obama, and an unspecified issue of Newsweek, featuring Hillary Clinton and... Barack Obama.

The two worst: Us Weekly's special collector's issue of TomKat's "Dream Wedding," and an issue of Maclean's featuring Bonnie Fuller.

Having been in magazines for a while, I've heard many people decry the ascendance of shallower titles while more serious books face dwindling readerships. But this should give us all a bit of hope, right? It seems that weekly buyers are increasingly embracing world events and shunning celebrity gossip, right? Or is it just that Barack Obama is the newest celebrity they've flocked to?