Sounds of the City

Looking back on an era of acid jazz and the posters that set the scene.

Things have been rather hectic around the OW headquarters and I haven't had much time to sit back and contemplate or even muster enough energy to write about something. So the blog has suffered as you can see...sorry. It has been a busy year. I thought I would spend some time looking back (while cleaning the flat files looking for something) and post some old graphic design work, some rock posters, some DJ flyers and some of the fun things I have completed over the years.

Going back to 1997, when the DJ scene in Buffalo had worn out it's post-rave vibe, all seemed lost on the club scene. Rock & hip-hop ruled the bars and DJs were regulated to the typical Friday and Saturday night slots. A friend of mine opened the Kingsnake Lounge at 112 Chippewa street and a new groove was born for the end of the '90s. DJ Scotty and I took our love of electronic music, early drum and bass, abstrakt hip hop, and a new groove called acid jazz, and created what we called 'deja blu.' We spun records (yes kids, vinyl records...) at the end of the bar on a Tuesday night and created a scene for the chilled out, imported beer and martini drinking set.

The posters and flyers I did for our nights were always changing in order to keep it fresh. Born of the distressed, grunge of the era (late '90s), the posters were often built directly in Photoshop to take advantage of the layers, filters and accidents that made cool & unplanned things happen. A signature look was born to promote a signature DJ night than moved from the weekday stint to the monthly, full house Saturday nights. Often with images of sax players and manipulated jazz icons, I borrowed strongly from the Blue Note graphics of the 1950s and turned it on it's head. Printed after hours at my job at the time, I was limited to one-color on white stock. When my day job bought a color printer, I still worked in a limited color range to keep it simple and stark.

The official deja blu logo is probably the only logo that I have ever designed that doesn't exist in vector format. A layered Photoshop file, the DB logo was a misaligned ghost of an identity, a vibrating, floating logomark that represents the music, the scene and the blurry consumption of too much alcohol. With unnecessary accent marks on the logo, I always wanted us to appear strange and foreign.

Here we have three examples of deja blu flyers, typical of the era. The first one was a 1/2 page, black and white and may have been one of the 1st flyer to promote the deja blu Tuesdays. The official 'deja blu' logo had not been created yet, but the visual aesthetics can be seen in it's infancy.

The other two are from specific Saturday nights at the Kingsnake Lounge and represent the deja blu look at it's top form. The first one from November 28, 1998 includes fuzzy typefaces, fake halftone dots, and a limited color palette (always in blue). The second poster is from a night in 1998 (2-days before x-mas), and it broke away from the norm with a much more balanced, less grunge look. Printed again in a limited palette but on blue paper stock, the yellow glowing deja blu logo hangs on the half-toned, manipulated clip art building like a flag. Other deja blu posters often included Europeans enjoying cigarettes and cocktails or urban landscapes, as with this one. This was a memorable night on the Buffalo club scene with duel slide shows, flashing lights, over-capacity crowds (screw the fire marshall) and people dancing their asses off and flipping up the walls, drinking like it was the end of the world, all over a pumping, jazzy groove that was acid jazz in it's prime. Great flyer, great night!

There will be more to follow, including some early '90s rave/party flyers and some ICON concert posters (where I was the official poster designer in it's heyday). I have to organize them and scan them, so pencil that in as 'coming soon.'

CREDITS: (1) original deja blu logo, (2) deja blu 'The Original" flyer from 1997, (3) "November Twenty Eight Saturday" poster for Kingsnake gig 11/98, and (4) "Sound of the City" poster for Kingsnake gig on Dec. 26th 1998. All designed by Mark Wisz, Wizard Graphics.

Shadrach, Meschach, Abednego

"...got more rhymes than j.d.'s got salinger / I hold the title and you are the challenger"

RIP JD Salinger

The Mirror Conspiracy

Today's Buffalo Snooze essentially re-wrote an ArtVoice story about Buffalo's electronic DJs in the 1990s. See the AV story linked here. Again Scott & I, as "dejablu" were named-checked. It seems a history of this Buffalo DJ scene cannot be written without our influence mentioned. This is very cool and it makes me feel great to not be forgotten! An honor to be remembered, to say the least.

To add to this story: both the Kingsnake, the 658 and the Blu (Osaka) were weekly DJ gigs begun by Scott and I. We were the first DJs at the Kingsnake on Chippewa, the first ones to move to 658 after the original 'Snake closed and we were the opening night DJs at Blu on Main Street. My DJ parner Scott hosted the weekly 'open DJ nights' at Blu that began the careers of a lot of local DJs.

As written in the Buffalo Snooze article:

"Concurrent with these warehouse and loft-space parties, a small but vibrant club scene began to grow in Buffalo — centered around the Chippewa area, but certainly not limited to it. The likes of the Rendezvous, Asbury Alley, the Kingsnake, the Atomic, the Icon (later to be known as Club E), the Opium Lounge, and Osaka's Blu, among others, all featured at least one night of DJ-based music per week....

.... In addition to the Knowmatic Tribe guys, Deja Blu, DJ Zuk, Mike Parker, and the collective responsible for the weekly Baby Steps shows at Broadway Joe's conspired to lay the template for 21st century Buffalo electronic dance music."

This makes me think 2010 is ripe for some dejablu reunion gigs?!?!? Someone call DJ Scotty!!

Buffalo News article: They spin, we dance: DJs draw crowds downtown

Walkin' Up The Road

Smashing Magazine has compiled a nice online collection of retro signage pulled from Flikr and various other sources. Though most are the 'neons' from yesteryear that you might expect to see, there are few painted walls and wooden-type signs which are very cool. Included in this online compilation is Buffalo's own Parkside Candies and one from Greg Meadows (who shoots a lot of Buffalo urban images). I just drove past the Parkside Candies building on Main Street in the University District and though it is still open, it is looking pretty rough.

One of my favorites is the Chandler Liquors with it's flaming comet circling the 1950's script and boxed in characters from an Arizona liquor store and the Route 66 original Shell sign which is still colored in the same branded yellow and red they use today (though probably different Pantone colors). When everything has gone plastic and digital, these original designs serve still to inspire. Take a look at the link below.

>> Click here to check it out.

NOTE: Though my posting has slowed down it has been for good reasons- holidays and very busy work days. I hope to get back in the groove and keep this thing going stronger. By the way, this is POST #300 ! ! !

The Harder They Come

This saturday (26th)- the day after Xmas, I will DJing the annual Joe Strummer tribute show at the Mohawk Place entitled The Harder They Come. This is a great gig organized by Mr. Wolf Tickets, Chris Malachowski that includes a several bands playing Clash and Joe Strummer songs (mostly Clash songs). The headliner being a conglomeration of some of Buffalo's best musicians going under the name Rebel Waltz Orchestra and last year they had some Great Train Robbery horns to really flavor it up.

This gig was a packed house last year- some come early. Doors open at 8:00 PM and I will spinning the tunes between sets and prior to the 1st band. My set list includes a lot of dub, reggae, punk rock and various other grooves inspired by the late great Joe Strummer. Joe had a great liking for a variety of musical styles which his bands, The Clash and The Mescaleros incorporated in their groove.

A portion of the proceeds do go to Strummerville- the Joe Strummer Foundation For New Music (info here).

This year's poster (above) tries to pull the flavor of the title of the event (the Jimmy Cliff classic) and The Clash's love for NYC street music of the 80s- rap, dub and reggae with the boom box and the mohawked Strummer images. Always a sure bet with red, this years poster looks a bit minimal as compared to the past event posters. The fonts include the new P22 font, LTC Winchell and hand-cut looking face, and the chunky Poplar- one of my fav rock poster fonts.

POSTER GALLERY- You can see the full gallery of JS Tribute posters here I have created over the past 8 years by click here.

Hope to see you kids on the 26th, shaking off those Christmas day cobwebs.

Fantastic Voyage

Happy Holidays from us all at the Roam Buffalo blog, Where to Roam and OtherWisz Creative. It is the holiday season- aka Clobberin' Time. Nuff said.



Classic 1974 Marvel Treasury Special- Giant Superhero Holiday Grab Bag courtesy of NateTrax.

Christmas Rapping

The PANIC! Sale was not really panic-driven. I think it was still too ahead of Christmas for panic shopping. The throngs of shoppers who strolled through the main gallery of the Western New York Book Arts seemed pretty calm during the this second annual sale of WNY crafters, screen printers, jewelry makers, book makers, t-shirt designers, and artists alike.

I shot a few snap shots of the crowds in the gallery for you out-of-towners to see. Bonus props for Eric Morse, in-town for the holidays on vaca from his job in Hong Kong. First storm rolls in to remind Eric about BuffaloSnow!

We are working full steam ahead into the holidays with a lot of stuff going on. Gotta be careful to not slip right through the upcoming holiday with head buried behind the computer. The kids would be mad. I'll try to post some neat holidays photos as I might not have a lot to say. Rock on!

Shoppers shop & the boppers bop.



Super Rich and his accomplice Carima.



Crowd chatting, shopping & more. Out-of-town Eric and his glowing alien backpack talks with Kevin & Val.



More crowd with Sunnyoutside David in front- holding court, brewing espresso, selling books.

Jill runs the WhereToRoam booth (with Rich making sure all vendors are chillin', makin' buttons, brewin' joe & hot chocolate, etc.)....

Shopper approaches the W2R booth with hand on wallet.

Shoppers under high ceilings, big windows and joy in their hearts (I think).. See Hero booth across the way.

Looking West across the gallery space from Marti's head.

Crowbiz and her wares.

Crowbiz's Capitalist Pig was coated in Russian text during the show. Ready 4 sale!

Happy Holidays to you! Support & join the Western New York Books Arts Center!

Brand New Cadillac

Last Minute Panic Holiday Marketplace- the revenge!

Panic! Revenge!

Sounds good?

Friday Dec 11, 4-8 pm &

Saturday Dec 12 12-6 pm.

Once again, we will be selling our Where To Roam tees, hoodies and scarves at the Western New York Book Arts Center's Last Minute Gift Buying Panic Marketplace. Buffalo artists, crafters, bookmakers, printers and graphic artists will be there. Come on down, it was very cool last

year. This appears to be the final run of these particular W2R Tees- so get 'em while you can before we run out! Collect them all! Trade with your friends!!

The event is being promoted with this super great hand printed poster designed and printed by P22 (& WNYBAC's) Rich Kegler. The poster is red and blue ink on an awesome silver card stock. I captured some details below (click for VERY large views). I am not sure if it was worth the $30 parking ticket I scored today? Go Buffalo!

The event will be at the main gallery, 1st floor of the Western New York Book Arts Center 468 Washington St at Mohawk in Downtown Buffalo on Friday Dec 11, 4-8pm and Saturday Dec 12 12-6pm. Free admission and open to the public- come for Friday Happy Hour or Saturday afternoon shopping. Perfect gifts for giving or hoarding. Hot item for this year? The W2R scarf- get it!

This year's Vendors include:

• Elizabeth Leader

• Crowbiz

• Hero Design Studio

• Donald Trainor/ Shiny Object Media

• Where to Roam (Us, yeah!!!!)

• Amy Greenan

• Rene Hoover

• SunnyOutside Press

• WNY Book Arts Center Shop and More!

Cool Poster Details: Click for larger view!

The Mix- the overlapping letterpressed blue and red make purple (kinda)....

Some cool detail art from the right hand strip of objects, knick-knacks and other graphical nuggets.

Windings, eat your heart out! Nice gourds, Gord.

Panic on the street of Buffalo! ha ha! Smiths! Ha!

Beat Dis

dejablu, Scotty and I, are named-checked in Craig Reynolds piece about Buffalo, NY's DJ history, post 1990. It was very cool to get the little plug as our place in Buffalo DJ-history is noted.

When Scotty and I abandoned our rock-n-roll bar DJ gigs to started spinning records in Oct. 1997 on the corner of the bar at the Kingsnake on Chippewa, we would have never thought a whole scene was going to blow up around us. Delving into, what was later to be known as acid jazz, we played records on a Tuesday night. In our primetime we played such cool spots as the Kingsnake Lounge, 658, Osaka's Blu, O, Off The Wall, old Pink, Rendevous, Calumet Arts Cafe, the Tralf, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Mohawk Place, Daemen College Gallery, WNYBAC, CEPA Gallery, Allen St. Hardware, Third Room, Central Train Terminal, old Burchfield Penny Art Center, many more that I have long forgotten, and had a drink named after us, the dejablu martini!

The older I get, the more I wanna rock! Excerpt from the AV article:

"Atomic Cafe and the Kingsnake Lounge in the early years of the Chippewa Street resurgence were ground zero, attracting fashionistas and Elmwood’s denizens of cool, and later, Club e (formerly the Icon), 658 on Main Street, where the Knowmatic Tribe held residence once the Kingsnake closed, and the Opium Lounge, all opened their doors to electronic music. By now, there was a healthy community of experienced DJs, all pursuing their own personal styles—like DJ Zuk of Deep Soul Plug, who started playing cosmic lounge, and Dr. Wisz and Scotty, who as Deja Blu spun acid jazz."

> Read extensive AV article here.

> Click here for dejablu discography.

Let's Pretend We're Married

Finding the right typeface for a logo takes a lot of courting before a commitment can be made.

There a lot of fonts out there to choose from when designing. Too many, some might say... But the subtleties that get missed by your average viewer are what make a font special. When you are designing a logo and you are making some logo-typeface decisions, you really start to notice those subtleties. By paying close attention, you notice the way a letter has it's own personality, each letter being a small part of a bigger family- which is more than just the alphabet but includes numbers, character, punctuation and assorted what-cha-ma-call-its.

When a typeface is being explored for use on a logo, you are really only concerned with a limited number of characters. For instance the 'OtherWisz' logo is built from Century Gothic- the 'less-square' cousin of Avant Garde. I need only worry about the o,t,h,e,r,w,i,s and z. I don't really need to care about the remainders- I simply didn't need to be bothered with the 'a' or pesky 'q'.


Let's Get Together
Certain letters that often follow each other in common words are build (originally drawn) to balance with each other, fitting within each other, often nestled together. But you can't rely on the set kerning (the space between the letters) of characters when building a logoface. When letters and words are set into a block of copy or paragraph, you are often at the mercy of that font's set kerning. And that is fine it this situation. But when you are dealing with a microcosm of each individual letter up against another letter- you can and should move them yourself. By moving the letters closer, or further from each other, you can work to achieve the right balance between letters and (even as important, if not even more...) the space between the letters. When an inexperienced graphic artist sets headlines or letters in a logo that often just type it 'as is' and let it be. Often ignoring the fact that certain letters just have to be moved manually-- for instance an 'A' next to a 'V'- newbie designers often leave enough space that you can drive a truck through.


Big In Japan
I am working on a logo design now and find in interesting some of the very subtle elements to the typefaces that I have chosen to work with. Some little things you would never notice until it is blown up HUGE! You think a character has a straight edge until you see it big and then notice it is all wavy. Is this done on purpose to add personality to a font or poor, sloppy design?

When I view newer fonts against the classics- and I mean fonts originally hand drawn, eventually converted to digital-- it seems more care may have been put into those old design. Now I don't mean every new font obviously- I have friends that are type designers and they put a lot of care into what they do, agonizing over every last element of a font. But often I will look at a recently designed FREE FONT and find it to be of poor quality when viewed in close. Free fonts are usually worth that, next to nothing. As well I should note that 'classic fonts that have been digitized' are at the mercy of the digitizer and the foundry that made them, certain subtleties have been known to get lost in the translation at times.

When designing a logo, take care to choose a typeface that has the personality you want and explore the font's history to get a sense of what the designer may have been thinking. Choosing the right font is a combination of character, style, quality and history, but sometimes it is just a lucky crapshoot. And of the million of fonts out there, you will find just one that is right for the logo you are designing.... or at least a half a good dozen alternatives!

NOTES:
The attached graphics are few of the latest logos we have designed at OtherWisz Creative. The top is the NannyPro.com logo built from Baker Signet, Aurther Baker's 1965 slight-calligraphic face. The second logo is for a new catering service for daycares, Cater Tots and it is built using a fatty- Rudolf Koch's Kabel (this is the 1975 computerized version). Lastly, we have the Tracy Diina Communications logo which is designed using Stone Informal, a font originally designed in 1987 to look good when printed on laser printers plus a subhead set in Adrian Fruitiger's wonderful Avenier 35 Light.

Between Something and Nothing

or Behind The Wheel (Route 66)....

My work space goes from really messy to really neat in a few hours when planned company is set to arrive the following morning. We normally keep a pretty clean & tidy (dusted and swept) office space, but we got a lot of stuff and each working job has a folder (or several piles of folders) of stuff. If we are heavily into a few things at the same time, that means that every available flat space- and some not-- are covered in drawings, sketches, books, meeting notes, hand-written notes and well, just stuff. The bigger the job- the more stuff there is to it! Things get misplaced often with so much stuff around here.

So when we have a potential client paying us a visit, we have to spend a few hours dusting upstairs and down, vacuuming, mopping the concrete floor in the lower level, putting away records & CDs, and filing the stuff. This is good on two levels: 1st- it makes the office look snazzy in it's own cool design-studio-in-a-barn way, all sparkling, shiny clean, and 2nd- all the stuff gets reorganized. The 3-level bin on my desk being the happiest, as it gets de-stacked, un-crammed and filed. It is nice to have several meetings on the clean-the-office level in a row. More bang for your vacuuming-buck, for sure!


Everything Counts (In Large Amounts)

Though I have always heard it said that a 'clean desk is a sign of a sick mind' I must admit, I have felt it to be true. I don't have time to neatly organize things on a day-to-day basis. My daily desk grows to be piles over the week. Taking the time to plow through the piles, throw some things in some folders, throw some folders in the file cabinets- makes a world of difference in the long run. So I might be preaching a sort of 'messy-in-the-short-run' with a dose of 'neatness-over-time' method to all this.

I guess some people must see the value in everything organized all the time. Visually they may go as so far as to have cork or magnetic boards with everything evenly spaced, nothing overlapping. I think that would make me a bit nuts.... but I guess if I could find that phone number I thought I tacked up here... somewhere.....hhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm. Shoot.


Groove Me, baby

Being the creative type I am stimulated by visual clutter. I like walls of postcards, photos, posters and stickers. I like shelves with miniature figures, knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, gadgets and geek toys. I really like books and magazines and listening to music (but I think I am digressing...). I need to see samples of colors combinations and moods set in photos and graphics around me, reminders of typefaces and design elements, techniques, styles and grooves. I guess my office gets the full mixmaster treatment - samples and clips of different things, unrelated visuals- existing in harmony- like a good mix tape that has a lot of different types of music.

I think most people/future clients that are looking for some sort of graphic, design or web service-- and have never been in a design office-- still know what to expect. A lot of people get a real charge about coming over here to the graphics company and some are, quite frankly, oblivious to it. No one has been shocked, so far (that I can remember).... Your average lawyer, doctor, etc. expects us creative folks to be a little nuts and wouldn't be surprised if they walked into our space and it looked like Pee Wee's Playhouse or a set on the '60s Batman TV show with a lot of angled windows and doors. So I think this attitude has given designers worldwide the right to have a nutty office- and it's expected! I don't think I could trust a neat and tidy designer with nothing on their walls... would you? What about a messy, colorful, movie-postered, rock-flyered lawyer's office?

Trans Europe Express

Well not all of them....