Working For The Man

As we move into our 11th year as OtherWisz Creative, we reflect back on the first 10 years of our design business. It is pretty incredible to think about doing this for 10 years! (...and here's to 10 more! Cheers!). I can also brag that this is my 24th year in this wacky field- officially starting my freelance business way back in 1987. Anybody remember Adobe Freehand 3? "Anybody remember laughter..?"

For the celebration of "Completing a Decade of OtherWisz," I am going to take some time to reflect back on things past.  I know I do that often here on this blog, but I am old school and this may be one of the best ways to preserve my designs from long ago.  The ghost of design past will haunt the internet... until Google decides to erase all this free disk space it has been handing out for the past few years.

So for all you kids that have dreams of starting your own company, I give you my LAST resume.  After this one, there was no need to produce another. All the marketing for myself became company bios, client lists, brochures and the corporate OW website.   This resume was designed as a tri-fold brochure, clever, eh? It was divided up into 3 sections including my Design, Publishing and General Experience in the graphics field.  Starting with Wizard Graphics in 1987, while in college and lasting up until my last real job at the now-defunct Syrinex Communications (ending Jan. 2001).  Oh, the memories come flooding back as I review this document.  Please note that this was probably created in Adobe Pagemaker for those at home keeping score.

Some illustrious past experience included my pre-press days at Graphtrix (1981-1992) and The Retouchables (1993-1997), where I cut my teeth in the file prep, drum scanning and matchprint making world. I learned all about a process that is almost completely handled in-house by printers these days- but the experience was invaluable.  Another highlight is my brief, yet deep stint at Steve James Design (June 1992-May 1993), where I brought my then-extensive 2 years of computer experience to a traditional advertising studio and made a life-long friend.

My publishing past is laid out in detail starting at The Record (the Buff State paper), including the Sign o' The Times, the famous Slack magazine and finally ending with one of Buffalo's first on-line publication, the BuffaloPOST.com. Created with writer David Staba and a gang of misfits, writers and ex-journalists, the BuffaloPOST preceded the popular Buffalo Rising, which rose from a similar era online pub, One-4 (I think it was called, or was it 1-Four?).

From the cut-and-paste acrobatics as the graphics guy at Appliance Parts Distributors (1988-1990) to the early days of the web at Perception Publishing Group, where I learned web design back in 1997, this resume is chock full of nuggets.  Programs listed that I had experience using include BBedit, GIF Builder and Quark Express, baby!  All in all, this resume is a nice flashback set in P22 Johnson Underground. 

For your other old schoolers out there, " I can also use a pen an an x-acto blade…"

I scanned the resume for you all to enjoy- click to enlarge.  Please post questions and smart-alecky comments below.

 

Free Shirt (er..bird)!!

Congratulations!! We have our weiner.

DJ Nate Pharaoh entered and got a good dozen or so correct. Though he should automatically be disqualified for attributing Billy Idol to a PUBLIC ENEMY song!! My word!

Nate got all the funk ones, soul songs and a couple reggae ones. His missed all The Smiths (a band he dislikes) and the Clash songs, which there was a lot of.

Nate come by and pick up your prize: a Where To Roam shirt.

Heer is the list of correct answers: click here.

Cast No Shadow

Drought index is high. Chili pepper index is low. Nine Inch Nails- David Bowie pairing is questionable. Welcome to another edition of the global-cyber view to your future. (Horrorscope intro p. 16)

Slack magazine no. 18 - the Two-Year Anniversary! issue
October 1995 (published 10.1.95)

Casting the seed of doubt as the Rangers win one, that's what the guy said. As Slack magazine matured it got slicker. It lost a lot of it's cut and paste aesthetic as I created my own magazine layout vocabulary built on years of reading rock mags, Playboys, art books, comic books, Entertainment Weekly, vintage Life mags and street newspapers. The Slack existed at this time among a great group of mid-nineties street zines including Snot, Sacred Cow, Avenue Player, and a young Artvoice. It was a heady time for all. Selling ads and drinking beer!

This time I choose to jump ahead to a really good issue of Slack. Eighteen issues in 2 years, and I think this particular one really shows Slack mania in full form. The cover is great and the layout within has reached a tight, pleasing balance. With a Halloween and Fall-filled issue (2 football stories by our illustrious staff writers: Bitter Boy and Strick), Slack no. 18 was subtitled "Buffalo's Best Reading Material" (says so right on the cover!). Included are ads by some of Buffalo's top movers in 1995 including: Concrete, Atomic, CowPok, New World Record (see cool ad below), Das Boot! and a couple ICONcerts. Looks like Cowpok will be the last man standing as NWR plans to shut its doors in less that 3 weeks from today!

Flashback: There is a concert ad that features "Just Announced: Green Day on Nov 8th" and I remember this show as the last free show I went to that was put on by ICONcerts . It was at the Niagara Falls Convention Center -- before it became the Casino-- and I was there. I was watching 13 year olds standing on their chairs, as their parents sat next to them quietly, chanting 'f--- you' with lead singer Billie Joe. Bizzare to say the least.

Anyway back to this Slack 2-yr Anniversary issue, highlights include:

Cheers: Many great record reviews with Scotty's Oasis music section cover story.
Jeers: My praise for (as time has told us) a weak Urge Overkill record, sorry kids.

Cheers: Dre's After Dark with a window into the club scene in Bflo -95, name-checking other cool zines at the time: Snot and Sacred Cow
Jeers: Seeing the Buffalo Nickel Lounge ad and remembering we never got paid for it!

Cheers: Bitter Boy bagging on "Couch Spuds and Their Football Passions"

"Grab your Zubazz & remotes and warm up your thumbs..."

Jeers: Too short Horrorscopes. These were comedy gold, I tell ya!

Lance Posner where are you?

Download it here: Slack no. 18, the Two-Year Anniversary Issue (3.4 Mg)

Don't forget these issues already up:
Slack Magazine n. 9, The Dead Rock Stars Issue
Slack Magazine n. 8, The Beer Issue
Slack Magazine n. 6, The Buffalo Issue

Just a Little More, Baby

Get your responses in for our name the blog post titles/song titles!
Deadline is today (Thursday, May 1),
and I will be announcing the winner tonight!!

I will also post the complete list of answers as well- so look for it.

Hurry, hurry, hurry!!!

Contest details >> here.

Hard Luck Woman

Another freebie. Hurry, only 2 more days!!

J. has informed me that one of her posts (way back in the beginning) is a song by a local artist and could be a really hard one to guess. Apparently the song "Harmonica Virgins" was written by Dave Meinzer (Nimrod Wildfire, Davy and the Crockets, Beatmongers, Dry Bones, Outlyers and more....) after j. and Dave came up with this amusing play on words. The song was born in Dave's Buff. State graphics office back in the mid-'90s.

So to remove the hardest one from the competition, here is another answer for you:

Harmonica Virgins by Dave Myles Meinzer from post #2

Sing a Simple Song- The RoamBuffalo 1/1 Anniversary

The contest: you could be a winner, Mr. DJ know-it-all.

Well there ain't nothing like playoff hockey. Though everytime I leave the room some team scores 2-3 goals in a matter of minutes. There are a lot of teams I don't like, so I just root for the team playing against them. Boo Ottawa!

Hockey in spring has reminded me that it was last year at this time that this RoamBuffalo blog was borne. So on April 17th, we are going celebrate our:
>> 1 Year, 1 Month Anniversary!!

As I write this, there have been 121 posts- not bad. This also means there have been 121 songs referenced as the titles for these post- each post title has been a song title-- or a very clever play on a song title.

So for our 1/1 Anniversary Contest, the 1st person to identify the artists for all these song titles/blog posts will be a winner! Oh yeah! The first person to identity all 121 artist matched with song title by the 21st of this month will win a Where to Roam Tee (your pick). If nobody gets them all, the person who gets the most right (by the 21st) will win. Good luck to you all.

There has been a lot said in these electronic pages about design, art, graphics, fonts, the b-lo, the weather, artists, and, of course, music. Without the music, none of this may have happened. Music and me go way back.

Here is a freebie: Inspiration Information is by Shuggie Otis
Song on YouTube (no video, just CD cover): Shuggie!- click here.