AMitF #9 Tribute to Carl Sagan and our Universe

Posters

I have been trying to do 1-2 full designs a day if not more.. Here is a recent poster I completed (it will be available for sale soon through my Zazzle Store).. Carl Sagan is a pioneer and an inspiration. His view of the universe, from an existential point of view, is humble to say the least. One of my favorite quotes of his refers to a photograph taken of the earth from the Voyager Satellite in 1990 as it was 4 million miles away..

Pale Blue Dot

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." ~Carl Sagan~

Here's to you Dr. Sagan, thank you for all your insight and wisdom. I hope you are back in the cosmos exploring on a new realm of consciousness that we all will be able to experience someday. Thanks to you I feel insignificant, yet somehow magnificent.

John-

AMitF # 8 or Nine.. This is what i do...

Dis or Dat

So what is it that a graphics designer does? Well we take images, make images, change images, and use our amazing powers from knowledge and creativity to produce the best possible visual representation of what we are working with.. Here is an example.. A before and after picture of my family. (before i was born, too) Is my grandma not the cutest old lady?! (she's the one one in the designer glasses!) anyway.. This photo on the left is the natural state of the photo.. See the color degradation? Now I know its hipster to have you photos look retro old these days by way of Instagram and what not.. (which I can do as well if you want).. But old photographs are very delicate artifacts. Preserving a photograph with a high resolution quality is a lot more complicated than one would imagine. 

This is just an example, and I only had a low resolution image that i yoinked from facebook. The more resolution i have to work with... that's to say, if i had the opportunity to scan this image in myself, i could have gotten a more accurate working copy.. and the final image would have come out with a better picture quality. But the concept is the same. Color correction and photo retouching is not that hard if you understand what you're doing.. and I've taken some time to price out the competition ( My competition ).. and i've found out that if you know what you're doing this process doesn't take that much time, and that most larger companies are charging an outrageous price to have this process done. I hope i'm humble enough to give you all a fair deal and offer you this service at a really fair price. 

YES, it does take time, but charging folks 50$-80$ per photo is a bit ridiculous, so i'm just letting you know that my services are $8-$15 per photo (based on the amount of damage i have to correct, and if you order in bulk it'll be cheaper) plus the cost of shipping and handling.

DO I EVEN HAVE CONTACT INFO on my page?!

ugh.. artmonger78@gmail.com - or (919)926-9739

I'll make sure it is easy to find before the day is over.. y'all have a great Sunday!

John-

AMitF #Pornography or art?!

Bettie Page

Here's an oldie... i made this when i first got my wacom drawing tablet. The pin-up has always intrigued me and Bettie Page is the quintessential  pin-up model so i figured i'd try. This is one of my personal favorites to date. The female form is beauty personified IMHO. 

”Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein 

For a scientist and theorist, Einstein was one of the most insightful people this world has ever encountered. He had become one of my true inspirations for greatness and his mentality should be held up to the light with that of Gandhi and Nietzsche and Buddha as far as enlightenment. The surprising thing about inspiration is that it can be found anywhere, at any time. These people who achieved greatness  are a testament to how inspiration can effect those around us and the best part about this is that some of your closest friends and even random interactions can bring on inspiration just with a few words. NEVER under-estimate the people you know.. it would be a shame to let their inspiration pass you by without touching your life. 

Ok my random rantings are getting a bit hard to follow here.. let me ground this article a bit. Finding inspiration is not hard, it only takes one tiny thing to draw it out of us. Its amazing to me to see the multitude of things that inspire me. But i am blessed, i have so many great people in my life that bring this idea back around to a tangible concept.


Don't overlook the inspiration that's already there. Find it in the mundane, its there, believe me.. and inspiration comes in many forms effecting all parts of our psyche.. look closely and you'll find it everywhere.

Y'all come back now.

John-