Sun illustrations by Alexander Girard.Sometimes the best stuff is the stuff you do when you back into it. I mean design/illustration work. Not, the car. I have parking lot and driveway accidents all the time (read, bang into stuff when you back into it…a millstone, a tree, you get the idea)—but I prefer to bang into stuff when I cannot figure it out. Case in point. I have been mullling over this image for a really wonderful company to be. Its a wood fired artisan bakery that will be using Farmer Ground Organic Flour to produce bread and pasta. The concept is way beyond just the food, but the community of supporters, believers and consumers in a socio-political way with the community driving the food and the food driving the community. I have been looking at type lockups with images and its clean and nice…but its bleh. However, after working on their website, thinking about content and grid, copy and images, this goes here, that goes there (the laundry sorting of content) within the context of a fairly tight grid….it came to me that I should make the mark more fun. It should have a “hand” that feels like a linoleum cut…with a more fun font…and then applied in a very clean, organized way.

Thus, the inspiration for me goes in the way back machine to Alexander Girard, graphic designer illustrator for Herman Miller. Early in my career, I was inspired and bitten by Girard but had to put that passion in the back of my corporate mind. But now that I have been reborn as another person, my old friends can come to the fore especially now that the Eames and Girard are fashionable again. Out with austere, in with decorative! Yay and Yay again! House Industries has Girard inspired fonts (just purchased). I may buy the Eames collection too…as it really floats my boat. Saracen (a latin font) along with Acropolis and Knockout have been my go tos…and thanks to my mentor, Murray Tinkelman, I am thinking about what used to be called “display fonts” in a different way. I plan on using the blob brush/eraser/path tool to make a cruder version of what Girard did. Should be fun.