By post date, I can see that it’s been a little while since I’ve dropped any knowledge on my readers. Probably best since my knowledge is always lacking in some area or another. Remedied.
Thankfully, Steinway & Sons has realized the value Jesse brings and has hired him on to produce an iPhone product as well. You can check out the previews on Dribbble: 31Three / Steinway Metronome
You might remember a year or so ago when I wrote about the fantastic gift I received from a well-known designer named Cameron Moll. At the time, he had created a work of art for his employer and saw the rave reviews it had drawn from the community so he decided to get more printed and create a market with them in the general public.
The entire piece is created by laying/aligning characters from a couple of selected font faces in a way as to create a greater whole. It’s spectacular. Thankfully, he didn’t stop at the first one and after our conversations a month or so ago there are potentially more on the way.
Colosseo Letterpress Poster (http://colosseotype.com/)
In March, Cameron released his second poster – a fantastic rendition of the Roman Colosseum. After our conversations about it, I am amazed not only by the detail and time he puts into them but the research and history he does as well. When he decided the Colosseum would be he next project, he scheduled his anniversary trip with his wife around it. They traveled to Rome last summer for vacation but also knowing that they would be documenting it the best they could. Add to this the fact that he spent time studying ancient Roman typefaces and artists that he wanted to incorporate into the piece and you can tell that Cameron has a passion for these projects.
Lucky for me, my wife sees the same beauty in the work and my passion for them and ordered me one they day they went on sale. She’s good like that.
The fun stuff
Ask Cameron and he’ll tell you he’s floored by the popularity and sales just one month in of Colosseo. To continue the promotion of it and of course the sale, he has created a number of contests that you are more than welcome to enter and possibly win. The first two contests have iPad’s as their grand prize while the third has a special limited addition of the poster (only 15 made) that include a little martian from a game started on Dribbble.
For Contest one, I am already entered by purchasing the poster. Contest two is set up to help drive traffic to the poster site itself and is accomplished by creating a site that ranks well in Google and catches Cameron’s attention enough to award a winner. Contest three is a Dribbble rebound contest to see who can come up with the best rebounded design of one of the characters from the poster.
As much as I’d like to win an iPad or limited addition poster, I haven’t done much in the way of entering any of the contests. I kind of feel like when I was working for a radio station in high school and my friends/family weren’t allowed to win station contests. Cameron has already been far too kind to me as well as provide the medium for me to obtain new client work.
I did, however, spend about 45 minutes yesterday throwing together a small little site purely for entertainment purposes. When Cameron started talking about ranking well in Google/search engines, it reminded me of the issue of spam bots out there that create pages on the fly when you mis-type or spell a search or domain name. We’ve all seen them. They purely exist to gain pageviews and ad revenue from those views.
So, if you’ve made it this far, feel free to check out my spam log/park page at http://cilosseotype.com and link to it if you’d like to help my rankings.
I have posted a couple of the other entries to the contest on the page for your viewing and if you’re one who has created something for contest #2, shoot me a note and I can add you as well.
Thanks to Dribbble, I stumbled across the work of Christopher Meeks a while back and am routinely wowed by his work called Daily Layout. Which is pretty much like it sounds, his attempt to build a new layout every day. I suggest you check out his work.
And while on the subject of Dribbble, it’s out of private beta now and you can check out all of my shots here if you so choose.
I’ve finally taken the time to put some of my work here on the site. Shame on me for letting it go empty for far too long. Now that the hard part is out of the way, maybe I’ll be inclined to add my work a little more regularly.
Thanks in advance if you take a minute or two to look through it. There’s some previous/next buttons in the lower left of each page. Let me know if you have/see any problems or typos. I haven’t taken the time to test it in anything other than the browser I am working in tonight. Here’s to hoping it works.
The Portfolio. Otherwise known as the pieces I’ll attach my name to.
