Bustin' Loose

I am joining DJ Jeffro for a little night of music at Staple's this Saturday night in historic Allentown (across from Nietzsche's). Come on down folks! Funk, funk, funk and (mostly) all vinyl, baby.

Doing It To Death

Featuring DJ Jeffro with guest DJ Dr. Wisz of Deja Blu

According to the creator of this funky night, DJ Jeffro:

What is Doing It To Death? Nothing crazy, just a laid back night of hard hitting horns, snares that are mighty tight and alright, and ridiculously raw grooves that are pure dynamite. Aided and abetted by The Funkmaster Generals.... Otis, Stevie, James, Sly, Curtis, Zig, Booker, Maceo and Arlester.

Grooves that are so ON the money that you'll be amazed you got in for NO money.

4+ hours of classic soul & funk music from the 60's, 70's and early 80's. Stax, Motown, Curtom, King, Tamla, Desco, Hi, Daptone, and more.

Saturday, July 26, 2010

11pm- close

100% free, 200% funky

keep on keepin' on.

Do You Believe in Magic?

Ideas That Work MAGIC

While thinking about designing some new self-promo materials, I dug out an early self marketing piece from way-back-when. This is probably the 1st 'mailer' I ever did for myself. It was from 1990 & it was a small folded postcard that opened to reveal the magic of Wizard Graphics-- my first company.

The cover stars the WG Wizard! State-of-the-art, art! My wizard dude was an early computer illustration chunkily mouse-drawn in Adobe Illustrator 88 by building simple shapes over scanned clip art (borrowed from a Clipart book-- hey, I told you it was 1990!). I added some shading (available in percentages of 10), shrunk-down star art on a black background and a very magical font exclaimed: Ideas That Work Magic. Bam! Impressive, eh? These were printed at the copy shop on glossy card stock, roughly hand-scored (as you can see below), folded and scotch tape sealed.

Looking back in time, the other side seems like rather bold & brash filler. The plain back was meant to look like a real postcard and includes a decorative script that read:

Having a great time, wish you were here! Business has boomed and we are quite successful. Call us and find out how we can help you and your business get a new, sharp look for the '90s. See you soon...!

Oh baby...!

The inside is all black like the cover and has a clipart top hat showering money (!!!) and a sharp-dressed 70's clipart dude. These pieces of stock art were both once used in a cut-and-paste sales flyer I had created at my first graphics job at Appliance Parts Distributors, late 80s (see back when here).

The fancy WG business card pops out since it has that expensive purple gradient on it (again, see old post about the history of my own personal biz cards including the original wizard, of Wizard Graphics). The sharply written, prince-esque marketing hoopla reads "Wizard Graphics Can Create Magic 4 U," "Design & Layout - Appearance & Appeal," "Creativity is the Key To Make It Happen," and the hit-'em-while-you-got-'em, call to action "Call Today."

My first design business supplied the following graphic design services (we have come so far):
promotional pieces
advertisements
business cards
business forms
newsletters
letterheads
invitations
brochures
envelopes
posters
menus
slides
fliers
logos
signs
and
much
more!

1990- there were no websites as of yet and the 'slides' mentioned were for event presentation (because Power Point was in it's infancy). I was starting to use computers back then and Pagemaker made laying out 'business forms' a snap. I once did an order form for Kreher's Egg farm -- my roommate was an Egg Farmer for a bit in the early '90s.

I sent these out in the US mail, maybe 50-60 pieces, to business addresses I looked up in the telephone book. I don't remember how I gathered this hand-made, targeted list of potential companies deserving of 'magic design'... but I sent them out and waited. A good portion of the list were bars and nightclubs in the Elmwood Village and Allentown, as well as a few existing clients. I think I had officially had a part-time job as a freelancer for about 4-5 years at this point.

Was the first self-mailer a success? Well for 1990 standards, not bad really: marketing-wise there is a loose concept, it delivers the list of services, it displays the fancy biz card and the call to action. I remember, I did get some work from an existing client, so it did win me a design project... You know, it was first stab at self-promo and I am still doing this 20 years later.

FOOTNOTE: This is not the earliest example of graphics I have dug out, did this poster from 1987-- the pre-computer days of Buff State....

Who Loves The Sun

Cool It Down -- Twin Fair, 8-Tracks and the missing CDs, that one's that really hurt...

I think back about all the CDs I used to own that were stolen, borrowed and never returned, disappeared after a party, you moved out-of-town and you traded them to me in exchange for your share of the utility bills, and the otherwise misappropriated. The ones that you remember most are the ones you really miss.

Of the first 2 cds I ever bought -- LL Cool J's "Bigger and Deffer" and B.A.D.'s awesome first record, "This is Big Audio Dynamite"-- only the BAD remains in my collection. Kinda sucks not to have the first 2 cds I ever owned. Not for nostalgic purposes, because they both rocked. I have the first ever record I purchased- 1975's (bought new in 1978) Aerosmith 'Toys in the Attic" (but then again, it might have been Joe Walsh's "But Seriously Folks" LP....). Good one... probably bought at Twin Fair or Cavages at the Boulevard Mall.

I don't have the first cassette tape I ever boughtm and know I don't have the first home-recorded cassette I ever made-- but I do remember it was The Beatle's blue LPs (didn't bother with the red one, for some reason..). I know I don't have the first 8-track tape I ever duped. Before moving all the way to cassettes at an early age, I did have a nice collection of 8-tracks when I was 14-15 years old including Steely Dan "Aja", Cheap Trick "Live at Budakon," Alice Cooper's "School's Out," and the first Boston & Foreigner records. Hey, I was 15 years old.

But I must bring this back to the misappropriated CDs of the past. The ones that really get me, are the CDs I have completely forgotten about. They are the ones that pop-up and make you say "damn, now I have to buy that for a second time...". I have one CD of the 2-CD set New Order "Substance" in my collection... that really burns me, someone stole one half of the collection. Loser. That second one was the good CD too! I am also missing-- and if YOU have them, please return them-- the Cure's "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me", "LA Woman" by The Doors and/or U2's "Joshua Tree"... I already replace the first two, so on second thought-- if you got 'em, keep 'em!

The real painful ones are the forgotten ones that sneak up on you like this: I recently read the 33-1/2 book about the "Velvet Underground and Nico" LP and decided to dig out the vinyl version so I could burn it to CD (for myself only, of course...). I haven't found it yet, but I know (hope) it is still in the record collection someplace. Then it hit me. I used to have the CD of VU's commercially-pleasing, hit-filled "Loaded" - quite a fine recording, I might say. It's gone... a long time ago. I forgot I even owned it, it has been gone for so long. I probably bought it 24 years ago and owned it for about 10 years of that time. I found a real beat-up and unplayable vinyl copy that wasn't mine to start with... I may have 'misappropriated' this one.... (not on purpose).

But when you have a bunch -- some may say, too much -- music like me, you can get a surprise once in a while. The exact opposite happens. I had a hankering for the live Kinks double LP "Two For The Road," and bammmmmmm-- there it was! Awesome. Then a few mysterious ones will creep in like Electroman's "KookaKook" 12" record... who's was this? Thanks!

Mirror in The Bathroom

Once again I have a painting included in the Western New York Book Arts Member Gallery Show. The opening is this Friday, May 21st from 6-9PM. Come on down, support the arts and check out my latest work of artwork (that is not graphic design).

For last year's WNYBA's Member Show, I included an old painting that I thought would be fitting as it had 'words' included in it. It was something that I created when I was producing a lot of artwork: 10+ years ago. For this year's show I got my act together and completed an entirely new piece of art. It is a painting that is a more 'built up' that painted -- it includes acrylic, old presstype and powdered graphite. It is currently untitled, but I hope to give it a catchy title before I turn it in in a couple of days.

Hope to see you folks at the opening, for more info click the link!


2nd Annual WNYBA Member's Exhibition
On view May 21-July 9th.

Opening Event Friday May 21 6PM-9PM

Location:
Western New York Book Arts Center
468 Washington St.
Buffalo NY 14203

NOTE (05.18.10): Last minute entry with a new painting created last night- Now I have to decide between 2 submissions. Let's see how it looks this AM.

Spin Me 'Round

People always come over and seem to enjoy visiting our studio space (especially other artists). I was thinking on working on a series of blog posts that would be about some of the graphic artists and creative folks I know-- so see if I could get them to let us get a peek into their studios. Creative people often have the best spaces to work in- packed with designs, inspirational material and just plain cool stuff!

Earlier back, when this blog started, I did a series of posts which were brief interviews with some local Buffalo design-folks. I'll see if I can get the time to get into this sort of project. I'll start to see what sort of interest there is from you, the loyal readers, and the artists themselves.

In the meantime..... a peak into the OtherWisz Creative office space (top floor).

O My Soul

The family spent the afternoon printing. This morning we went to the Western New York Book Arts to learn about printing with wood type, the way they did it hundreds of years ago. Today's hands-on class was to combine wooden block type letterforms into animal shapes. See some photos from our experience below.

This was a fantastic experience. It started with picking letterforms, setting them up in a galley, using wood 'furniture' to lock it all in, and then printing using equipment from the 1880's. The girls came up with some nice designs which I will pick up in a few days after they dry.

Designing with your hands really made you feel like an ancient craftsman. The smell of the ink, the rolling of the hand-press and the results made for a great time. It doesn't get an 'real' that graphic-designing by hand with woodtype. Good for the soul.



Some of the wooden type we used to print with in a variety of styles, typefaces and sizes.


Our host Rich Kegler showing some past work for inspiration.


Leftovers from a previous print job.


Young designer looking for type specimens to start with.


The young designers designing with woodtype, setting up on their trays.


Rich inking some letters for a proof.


Some wood block type all 'purpled' up with ink.


Young designer peaking through window in basement of Book Arts.

What's Going Ahn

In a world rendered only in back & white, there were few graytones and bitmapped reigned supreme.

I remember the olden days when everything was on black and white (unless it was printed on colored paper stock). Before color printers were all the rage (and affordable), us event-marketing types (aka poster-flyer makers) did all our posters in single color: black on white. Simple graphics for simpler times, they were....

While searching back for some deja blu flyers, I unearthed some rock show flyers I had designed back in the early '90s.

This collection includes:
> 808 State at the ICON
> Ladies Night Saturdays at the ICON
> The Headhunters at Nietzsche's
> A 1991 double bill of The Headhunters & the Steam Donkeys at the Little Harlem
> Gil Scott Heron at the ICON

These flyers were build on a combination of either a band's press photo or something scanned from a magazine-- usually vintage Life magazines or a '90s rock rags like R-Stone-- and some typographic magic. The one up top-- the Double Hoedown (at the Little Harlem, a vintage Buffalo soul & jazz club that burned to the ground and was demolished in 1999) has titles generated in 'Typestyler', an early font manipulation program that was used to create effects now common in ALL graphic design programs. These crazy effects included: drop shadows and outlines. Wow. Heady stuff back in 1990. The graphic computer tricks that seems so basic on computers today, were a byte-churning event back then. Typestlyer was known to take a few minutes-- yes, a few MINUTES- to create a text effect! This DBHD! poster includes a hint at my early obsession of stars on rock posters. I still haven't kicked that habit.

For a band building a reputation at the time on the blips and bleeps of early acid house-techno-- 808 State-- I tried to get 'super electronic & computery'. This flyer was built upon a photo scanned from a science textbook that had some state-of-the-art Photoshop magic -- a noise filter, glow and drop shadows-- added to it. Wow (again).

This other Headhunters poster was a simple one, but it is my favorites from this bunch. Not a lot of computer tom-foolery on this... just a simple closeup of rock legend Chuck Berry lighting a cig, darkened to give it's shadows a bit of a sinister undertone. It had the most basic of event details overlayed in a blocky font. I remember going for something to compliment Terry Sullivan's band's real rock-&-roll sound and I wanted a paste-to-the-wall vintage feel- I think this one has really stood up over time. As the Ladies Night -- with a cleavage peaking, cig-smoking Isabella Rosalinni-- looks dated (Good God Stretched Type! Argggh!!), I think this one and the Gil Scott still look good. They might look nice printed in a 20 x 30 format?

To think these were created on a Mac SE-30, often transferred by floppy disc to my job at a local service bureau and printed to Photostat Paper to create a 'master' hard copy ($8 each). You couldn't print your own-- laser printers wern't all that good back then.... they were printed by the bar owner (or the band) at Kinkos on 8-1/2 x 11" white bond paper. Though I think the futuristic 808 State flyer was printed on neon yellow paper.

Did I get paid well to do these back then? Ha!

No, but I got to see alot of great free rock shows...

Click for larger views:


The Headhunters at Nietzsche's (updated)- Classic rock image for a great Buffalo rock band.



808 State at The ICON (1993)- British electronic comes to Buffalo early '90s.


Double Bill Hoedown featuring The Headhuters & The Steam Donkeys (1991)- Great late night show of local Buffalo bands in an unlikely venue. Nice giant rock hair, Mr. Matt Smith!


Saturday Ladies Nite at ICON w/ DJ Unlimited (1992)- alternative, progessive, wave! club flyer, Buffalo, NY. "Gals," "Girls," "Women" & "Ladies" drink free!


Gil Scott Heron at ICON (1992)- The revolution was not televised, it was live! This was one of those ICON shows where the garage door was open and the side room was filled with folding chairs.

Tiny Bubbles

Easter Sunday 2010! Cousins with bubble guns!!

Don't Call Me Scarface!

The latest installment of OtherWisz posterdom is for the upcoming Punky Reggae Party 2 at the Mohawk Place. This event features some great local punk bands (Wolf Tickets, Chosen Ones, Rockas) with a ska/reggae bent all wrapped up with WBNY's DJ Universal.

This poster is probably one of the more colorful pieces I have created in a while drawing on the red, green and gold of traditional reggae graphics. The client wanted something including, and I quote, "punk rockers, dreads, and speakers speakers speakers!!!"... so did I listen to the client..? Not exactly. Instead I used Don Letts! I figured since Don was using one of my posters in his movie, I would put Don on one of my posters (read post below). Seemed fair enough.

The Formula- how it was made....
I "found" a cool photo of Don and blew him out, bit-mapped him and started to build up around the event title. I have no idea why I am so drawn to this western-circus font, the Rosewood Standard, or why it even works here, but for some reason it does. I think because the font has that old-timey poster feel to it, juggle the individual letterforms around and it lends itself well to a party atmosphere. The rest of the text was set in one of my favorite chunky rock font, Poplar Standard Black. I don't know, maybe I need to start using some different typefaces..? You tell me.

I was dying to use the 2-Tone guy and by balancing him with the Circle Jerks dude-- we had both the "punky" and the "reggae." I then added the ska checker board at the top and bottom to frame it. But I wasn't ready to call it day and something felt like it was missing.... I wanted to get some of the aggression and violence that the rastas, punks and ska dude rallied against when the Punky Reggae movement was born in 70's London. So a spray-painted, bloody splat seemed to work just right. By layering it behind and on top of the corner pieces of art, I got some messy depth.

Some fine tuning at this point included pulling an ornament from the typeface and offseting it on top of the jumbled characters. I took the same ornament and placed it over our main man's glasses to add to his 'death stare' with an implied set of daggers. I gave him a golden yellow halo, and we we were just about finished. As per usual, with any OtherWisz rock poster, I had to add a few stars. I started to "over-star it," and the client asked me to pull back a bit on the stars... I think it was a good piece of advice.

BONUS BEATS- the above snapshot was snatched from a photo taken at the Mohawk Place last week and it shows my poster hanging in it's natural environment. Rock on!

I'm In Love With a Girl

RIP Alex Chilton (1950-2010), one of the great ones.....

Party at Ground Zero

ROCK POSTER claim to fame- OtherWisz work included in movie about Strummerville.

I was contacted by the production staff of a movie being made about "Strummerville," the charity foundation created following the death of Joe Strummer to continue his charitable work. They wanted to use one of my rock posters (click now) in the movie!

The film is by Don Letts, the famed English filmmaker with strong ties to the Clash. His list of accomplishments is amazing: he was one of the first club DJs in England to play dub, reggae and ska, he was in Big Audio Dynamite with Clash-man Mick Jones, he is an author and he has directed numerous videos including "Pass The Dutchie" by Musical Youth and "Back on The Chain Gang" by The Pretenders. In 2003, filmmaker Letts won a Grammy for his Clash documentary "Westway to The World." Good bio link here on BBC radio.

His new movie is about Strummerville and the work they do, the bands associated with it, the yearly concerts, benefits and their continuing devotion to helping youths obtain their musical dreams themselves, as DIY-man Strummer would have liked! The charity is described on their website as "aiming to create new opportunities for aspiring musicians. Set up by the friends and family of Joe Strummer in the year after his death, the charity seeks to reflect Joe's unique contribution to the music world by offering support, resources and performance opportunities to artists who would not normally have access to them."

The production company, Brassneck TV describes the movie, debuting this weekend (March 12-21, 2010) at the SWSX music festival in Texas as:

STRUMMERVILLE- Joe Strummer's untimely death in 2002 sent shockwaves around the music world and beyond, yet Joe's friends and family were determined that his spirit would live on. In this documentary, Grammy award-winning filmmaker Don Letts demonstrates how Joe's DIY attitude is manifesting itself through a charity which helps aspiring musicians - Strummerville. The film features performance footage and interviews with Strummerville artists, supporters and founders including Billy Bragg and Damien Hirst, plus previously unseen footage of Strummer himself.

Locally, Wolf Tickets rocker Chris Malachowski has been carrying the flag of Joe Strummer since his death in Dec. 2002 and OtherWisz Creative been designing the posters for each tribute show (as well as DJing them). Chris has kept strong ties to Strummerville, as our local event has donated proceeds from each show to the charity.

It was cool to get the call, and it is an honor to have some of my work featured in a movie about such a great organization that is associated with the memory of one of my heros, Joe Strummer. So if anyone will be at SWSX this weekend, look for the film and the brief glimpse of an OtherWisz-designed poster.

LINKS:

• Here is PR of the movie on the Strummerville website: click here
  
  
• Here is the movie production company's site Brassneck TV, click here.
  
  
• Here is the link to ALL the of posters I have created for the local tribute shows in Buffalo- here click now
  
  
• More info on Strummerville- here ya go

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.