Against The Grain » Martha Rich

We Hereby Re-Resolve To…

Matt Porter — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:37:05 +0000

Pick Your Poison.
Above/Below, Stefan Bucher Sticks To It
With The Daily Monster

According to research shared in this article in the NYT Sunday Review on Sunday January 8. 2012, those who make and publicly state New Year’s resolutions are more likely to achieve them. That is give hope to those willing to say it loud. We asked a few friends what resolutions they have made for 2012 and what plans they have for keeping them.

This I Can Do

I liked this resolution. I was staying with Marc and Janice Burckhardt in Austin, TX and I saw on their kitchen chalkboard this sentence, repeated Bart Simpson-style: “I will not pee in the kitchen sink. I will not pee in the kitchen sink. I will not pee in the kitchen sink. I will not pee in the kitchen sink. I will not pee in the kitchen sink. I will not pee in the kitchen sink.” I can accomplish this. Especially since I need would otherwise need a stepladder to do so and that requires more effort than I am willing to put out to pee in my sink.

Terry Marks Seattle www.tmarksdesign.com

One Meal Per Meal

My yearly resolution is to stay on my “One Meal Per Meal” diet regimen. It is a simple plan, all I have to do is eat one meal per meal, and then I can lose weight or maintain a consistent level of fitness. I’m allowed three meals a day and they can consist of whatever food I’m in the mood for and whatever sized portion the meal happens to be. The only caveat is that I can’t order two meals per meal, which I often do, and I’m not allowed to eat off of other people’s plates, which I also do a lot. This year I’m determined to stick to it BUT I was lustily eyeing my friend’s plate of unfinished enchilada’s at dinner last night. It’s going to be a long year.

DJ Stout Austin www.texas.pentagram.com

Swatting Flies

Every year I resolve to get our screen door fixed, or – preferably – replaced. This includes a decorative metal insert. The decorative insert we have was found bent up in a slab of concrete in the back yard. This year my husband, Sean, gifted me long strips of metal to create my own decorative metal insert. This will only prolong the process as I have no time or energy to start forging metal. The only way I can change this is if I resolve to argue more to get my way, but it’s not worth the fight. But I still resolve to fix the screen door… again.

Wendy Carnegie Austin www.lewiscarnegie.com

Stick to It

Stefan Bucher Los Angeles www.344design.com

Just Say Moo

My big ‘failed’ resolution has always been about increasing my ability to say ‘no’. As a Midwesterner it is ingrained in me to go out of my way to please folks. Scratch that. I am on vacation. Mooooo.

Chris Sickles Greenfield, IN www.rednosestudio.com

More Water Breaks

I wish I had some great pearl for you but here’s the truth. I’ve never made New Year’s resolutions because the last thing I need is something else to try and get done. I have secretly made more of a promise to myself this year to do a whole lot more saltwater fly fishing though. In 2012, 45 consecutive days shall not pass without at least a day or two on the water.

Mark McGarrah Austin www.mc-j.com

Be Grateful

I fear that my past resolutions are not so exciting, to exercise, buy only what we need… I’m more interested in my new resolutions and making those stick: to start each day with an attitude of gratitude, be mindful and in the moment and unplug one day a week. If I can create these new habits, I feel my past resolutions will fall into place. Editor’s note: Not sure this is in the realm of what you’re looking for, and I went over the word count, woo hoo!

Rebecca Bedrossian Menlo Park, CA www.commarts.com

Save Me a Slice

Every year, I vow to carve out Fridays for personal creative work. Then I have a big deadline and throw myself totally off schedule. Will this be my year? I hope so. I’m telling the whole Internet, so you can all help me stick with the plan. Nagging emails welcome.

Michelle Taute Cincinnati www.michelletaute.com

So Far, So Good

I resolve to not be overwhelmed by life in the New Year… prioritize, organize and take better care of myself and my family. I’ve got a chart for everything! But seriously, we’re having success so far with a weekly meal plan, daily exercise and a handwritten calendar in a central location.

Jamie Saunders Neenah Paper www.neenahpaper.com

Goodwill Hunting

I really want to de-clutter my world. I am a packrat of visually or emotionally charming but generally useless bits and baubles. I started the New Uear with a small bonfire of items to get some real soul cleansing. I started with the kitchen cabinets (cute but useless single dish, off to Goodwill you go!) and the rest is sure to follow, right?!

Kelly Stevens Austin www.wholefoods.com

Gain Weight

I got so excited in the upcoming new year’s celebrations, that I was asleep by 9PM and forgot to make any resolutions. I guess I can make them a week late, right? Is the go-to, and thus easy to make and easy to break, resolution to lose weight? Lame. I’m going the other way – every time I have to spec paper in 2012 show I’m going to a weight heavier than – all the better to sop up all that extra ink I plan to have laid down.

Donovan Beery Omaha www.eleven19.com

Get Lost

Every year I set out to climb Mt Everest. Ambitious yes but why strive for anything less? I’ve gotten use to the long flight to Nepal, (my preferred angle of assent) the meager accommodations and indescribable Sherpa cuisine. The first twenty thousand feet on “Chomolungma,” as we call it, are a walk in the park. However after that it’s a real challenge. The signage on this hill is a mess! Do I go right? Do I go left? The signs are too small and the messages, set in Optima italic, all caps, are badly kerned. It’s at this point that I get miserably discouraged and turn back. This year, I’m determined to achieve my goal by first submitting a proposal to the Nepalese government to redesign the damn signs!

Ken Carbone New York www.carbonesmolan.com

Beer is a Vegetable

Stop eating Chicharron Burritos, unless I’m with people who actually know what a Chicharron Burrito is (fried pork fat). In which case, it would be ethnically impossible for me to stop eating Chicharron Burritos. So I will instead drink less beer, unless I’m in a social situation, in which case I will switch to Bourbon before, in a moment of guilt, I switch back to beer because beer is almost a vegetable — given the hops and barley thing — which would almost be like the old Eat Better Resolution, which leads to Exercise Resolution. Like that’ll happen… when I find a use for Cooper Black or Reflex Blue.

Fred Cisneros Santa Fe www.cisnerosdesign.com

No More Funny Math

I resolve to keep better books every year however it never seems to work out that way. This year will be different. The IRS is making me do it.

Woody Welch Austin www.woodywelchphotography.com

Rocky Mountain High(er)

The resolution I make each year is to be taller. I have yet to accomplish it. This will be my year.

Jonathan Schoenberg Boulder tdaad.com

Wing It

I have lived long enough to fully know that any new year’s resolution I make would never work! So, just make resolution as I go! Ha ha.

Yuko Shimuzu New York www.yukoart.com

No More Mr. Nice Guy

I can’t say I have an annual resolution that I can’t fulfill. This year, however, I’m going to try to be meaner. I typically hear this from students, “You’re always so nice. I wish you would be more honest and critical.” If they listened carefully, they would hear ,”it sucks, do it again.” But I can’t bring myself to abuse young designers just for fun. So I wrap the criticism inside encouragement. But, no more. I will consider a class to be a success if someone ends up crying, and not me. I must remember that a pink polo shirt does not say mean, and wear the black clothes to school.

Sean Adams Los Angeles www.adamsmorioka.com

Existential Water Drinking

First, I resolve to drink more water. Curiously, now that I’m working from home and have limitless access to filtered water and a cabinet full of glasses, I’m less inclined to drink water during the day than I was when I was working in an office and was constantly refilling a plastic bottle. So that’s one. Secondly, be more in the now. I’m a compulsive planner and to-do-list-maker, which means that I spent a lot of time looking a day or a week or a month down the road. Sometimes by looking ahead, you miss the right now.

Bryn Mooth Cincinnati www.writes4food.com

“spelcheck my writing”

I’ve never made a New Year’s resolution in my entire life, but I thought this year would be a good time to try something new: 1. Learn fast typing lik all my merican colleagues who canblog, text and tweeet with more than one finger and witout lookig at the keybord. 2. I will spellchek my writing. 3. After so much years in America i finally study learn speak good English. 4. I will finish all those damn typefaces that have accumulated in that fucking folder that instead of being called “Font Development” should be called “Font Fucking Procrastination”. 5. I will start a fucking awesome type foundry (see Resolution 4). 6. I will stop saying fuck in public. 7. Especially in front of my kids and employees. 8. I will not mention farts on first dates. 9. I will REALY spelcheck all of my writign. 10. And for my eleventh resolution I will finally learn to [word] count.

Matteo Bologna New York-Pluto www.mucca.com

Asymmetry

As a kid we always made them as a family and each of us made only one. It was a way of keeping it manageable, and keeping us accountable. As time has gone by I’ve accumulated more flaws, not fewer. So to address this growing list I find myself making still longer lists of resolutions with the intent of winnowing the many resolutions to a manageable few — or one. The exercise is overwhelming, humbling and I never progress beyond the point of list-making. So now, in addition to my accumulation of flaws, I have a matching set of unmet resolutions, tidy, but static. In 2012 I have one resolution: In all things be asymmetrical.

Christopher Simmons San Francisco www.minesf.com

Personal Satisfaction

I do not make new year’s resolutions, knowing that, fallible as I am, I would fall short. What would they be? Be courageous, honest, kind and truthful? Eat more greens, lose weight, put on muscle, create? Eat more/less pie? I believe life takes care of itself so this year I will not now start making resolutions. But. I will continue to try to strive to live, work, and love to the best of my ability— not necessarily in that order. I believe that, on average, I have the ability to achieve “personal satisfaction.” And that, friends, is an achievement worth pursuing.

Marc English Austin www.marcenglishdesign.com

Bottomless Wells

My resolution is the same every year: Give more kindness. If I accomplish that resolutiont I can always give more.

Robynne Raye Seattle www.moderndog.com

Be Present, Be Mindful

Every year, my New Year’s Resolutions begin with personal goals: exercise more, eat better, more time for “me”. Later, as we prepare for Christmas, tucked away amongst the ornaments is a container that holds these hopes and resolutions. I hold my breath as I unfold my message and realize, again, I didn’t live up to my own expectations. Then one day I landed upon something meaningful to put on my list: “Be more present and mindful.” To me this wasn’t something I could just check off my list it provided to me a roadmap that could help me come closer to who I wanted to be. So, instead of allowing an endless list I needed to do each day, I could focus my attention on what (or who) was in front of me. I am a little befuddled at why this shift in consciousness was easy, but so far, it has stuck and I’m glad it did.

Stefannie Lorrig Seattle www.artwithheart.com

Be Human

I will enjoy being an occasional fuck up. I will embrace my mistakes and my fallibility because I know they are essential to my humanity. And I will support those people, objects and ideas that allow me to do so.

Dan Ibarra MPLS www.aestheticapparatus.com

Goals Not Resolutions

I never make any resolutions. So I guess my resolution is never to make a resolution. I do, however, make goals. I have 6-day goals. 6-week goals. 6-month goals. And 6-year goals. This might sound anal and time-consuming, but it isn’t. I quickly jot down what I would like to accomplish in my calendar, then forget about them. Somehow they always seem to happen. Sometimes quicker than I imagine. Sometimes longer. So, making new year resolutions seems redundant for me.

Christopher Wilson Raleigh www.christopherwilsonphotography.com

Ready, Aim…

The past couple of years have come to a close finding me — and most everyone I work with — exhausted. Over the holidays I often resolve something along the lines of taking more time away from work to general. That usually lasts for about two to three weeks. Then something gets me all excited, and I willingly climb back into the cannon with a big grin.

Christian Helms Austin www.helmsworkshop.com

Make it Personal

Aside from the obvious resolution to lose a few more pounds (or get closer to the weight that I list on my driver’s license!), my resolution is to be a better friend. It’s easy to get paralyzed with all of the work, activities, expectations, responsibilities of life, yet that is not an excuse. I will focus less on my own failings, and more on writing down thoughts that I will share with friends separated from me by distance and time. I will send more postcards and letters and collage the envelope (on occasion). I will print my photo-postcards and share them. I am going to get back in touch with friends, both old and new, and spend more time with these individuals in person, and less via email, and other less personal means of communication.

Anne Telford La Jolla Communication Arts www.commarts.com

Hocus Focus

As I continue to grow in my visual language, learning to say NO to those projects and pursuits that don’t fit the direction I’m heading has always been a struggle. Not sure I’ve made it a resolution so much as an ongoing mantra, and one I’ve typically fallen short of fully achieving. While I’m not sure I’m doing anything different to move that agenda along, I think it’s the consciousness of the goal that itself pushes my work to new places… so I must be doing something right. Right?

Marc Burckhardt Austin www.marcburckhardt.com

Aspire to Be Like…

This is a list of things I wish I could accomplish every year. They include: Be as witty and beautiful as Sean Adams. Be as brilliant as Maira Kalman. Be as charming as Emily Oberman. Be as productive as Ellen Lupton. Be as genius as Stefan Sagmeister. Be as smart as Michael Bierut. Be as bad-ass as Heather Armstrong. Be as talented as Marian Bantjes. Be as awesome as Jessica Helfand.

Debbie Millman Sterling Brands www.sterlingbrands.com

Stop Procrastinating…Soon

To stop procrastinating. I’ll send you a picture for the blog— tomorrow. Ha!

Martha Rich Philadelphia www.martharich.com

Save the World

Every year I resolve to eat healthier food. Wait, yawn, this is too boring. It’s boring me writing it. Hmmm… How about resolving to save the world? Save the world and have fun… and make a lot of money. That works.

John Bielenberg Earth www.c2llc.com

Pencil & Paper

Do yoga. Drink more water. Spend less time on my laptop, iPhone, Facebook. Use pencil and paper. Bike. New Studio.

Mick Hodgson Los Angeles www.phdla.com

Make New Habits

First, I will be doing more personal projects that are satisfying to ME and not just clients. Don’t get me wrong…I love you all dearly and you pay my mortgage, but to stay fresh and relevant there’s something inside that needs to be fed. Next, I’ve started a project I call 21 Days. Based on the premise that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Mine goes like this: Starting January 1st, I intend to 1. Write a sincere thank-you letter to a different person every day. 2. Play my guitar for at least 30 minutes a day. 3. Shoot a portrait. I’ve begun a Tumblr blog to track my progress. It’s getting a good response so far and that is encouraging.

Jerry Burns  Atlanta www.studioburns.com

Re-Tool

New ideas are the yeast of creation. To create, you must refresh your mind through study of the classic as well as active engagement in life. You cannot be merely a student of one at the expense of the other. I resolve to make time to engage and learn and to convert the raw material of knowledge into new, better, more relevant creative products.

Matt Porter Atlanta www.portewrite.com

Chill, Dog

No more corn dogs by-products.

Joel Nakamura Santa Fe www.joelnakamura.com

Spin Class or Surgery?

My New Years resolution that I can’t seem to accomplish is plastic surgery! I always say I’ll do it but then I think I should try working out instead. I’ll give it another 4 months!

Ingred Sidie Kansas City www.design-ranch.com

Beyond Help: Stefan Bucher Completes the Canon

Matt Porter — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:31:41 +0000

The Wisdom of the Ages is Recorded.
A Gazillion Years of Knowledge in 140 Pages at Only $14.99!

But be warned. Do not read your freshly purchased copy of this long-titled book in a coffee shop while drinking hot liquids: You will burn your nasal passages and anyone within two feet of your nose holes. The book is funny. Double-shot, hot vanilla soy lattes dripping off your neighbor’s face is not. Well, not to them.

Enjoy it with a box of salt!

Excerpted: Get the Answers You’ve Been Looking For! Are artists narcissistic assholes? When should you be a hypocrite? What’s more important to you—freedom or money? Are you willing to be treated like an exotic menial servant? What is your hair and facial hair strategy for the next ten years? How big a gap is there between your artistic ideals and your own practice? Are you afraid of feeling stupid? Have you registered an an organ donor? Who are your heros? How do you record your ideas? What are the top ten signs that you are exhausted? What is the worst, most horrible, filthy thing you can think of this instant? What would lettering teacher and logotype designer Doyald Young like to know? What kind of work would you like to do?

Yep, it’s an app, too.

Geared towards Hilarious All Knowing Creative Persons Like Us, Bucher’s offer generous guidance in 344 Questions: The Creative Person’s Do-It-Yourself-Guide to Insight, Survival, and Artistic Fulfillment. But why only 344? How about 365.25? Or 2,133.6 (Der Sagmeister’s height in millimeters)? Does it have to do with the name of Bucher’s day job brand? That’s kind of suspicious, isn’t it? [There are actually 1,828 questions to improve by.]

I digress. This book follows in the hoof-steps of Stefan Bucher’s previous block-buster, You Deserve a Medal, Honors on the Path to True Love (2011, knockknockstuff.com), and previously reviewed on Against the Grain, and The Daily Monster, a web-site and animated opera based upon Stefan’s own doodles of Old World shibboleths, boogeymen apps and supersized-fantasies.

These three comic petite oeuvres have much in common — besides the fact the Stefan Bucher wrote and designed them in their entirety without need of any help or interference from outside meddlers of dubious intelligence or interns bearing wit-starved, talentless certificates from acronym-infested land grant art schools {Rule Exception: Tim Moraitis, who helped greatly with production here and is no “exotic menial servant” to anyone}.

Yes, much in common. They are Bucherian in content, form and function: small, loaded, funny, precise gems in which the sad truth is enwrapped in a sugar-coating of wickedly wonderful humor so that it is easier to swallow. With this book, Stefan Bucher, as Friedrich Nietzche before him, has transcended from temporal to eponym, achieving for himself a new genre in creative guides so singular, so stealthy, that we may now call them Bucheresque, Bucherite, Bucherian, Bucheric, Bucholistig, Bucherlean… whatever.

Smart, insightful, this devilishly funny little tract features flow-chart logic boxes that only a Teuton could convey without PowerPoint. Plus, for reasons green, frugal or otherwise, these books are no bigger than your grandma’s swatting hand, deceptively powerful little things that carry a wallop. This book, like the others in the Buchertolan Canon, deserve of an audience beyond the smiling faces in the fecund bottomlands of Creative Appalachia.Call Cho, Chapelle, Penn and Teller: this stuff should go to Vegas.

If you see someone on a street corner near you hawking these cheerfully designed little tracts and shouting, “The End is Near! Repent! Repent!”, remember, they are speaking not of Nostradamus’ predictions but of Bucherolian brevity and precision. Look alive! The fun will be over before the fun has begun. This is the end of knowledge, the Last Self Help Guide! The canon is complete.

And while Herr Stefan Bucher may be beyond help… that glowering woman dripping with your double shot soy-latte snotty nose will require assistance. Oh, Garçon!