I Forget My Best Titles.

click to zoom in. this are all knit characters.
I wish i had the persons link to who ever did these originally, but you will have to celebrate the entire collection here instead.

I hope to redesign my blog soon, and mostly update my links. There is so much talent that you are missing out on that blogs too.
Don't forget to keep up with my drama filled life with my Twitter. It's right there on the sidebar for your convenience.

-Joshie

Where I Was Back Then.

LA Pop Art.
You can't really appreciate this poster until you enlarge the above image. It's the entire script of Godfather set in only different thicknesses of hand-done type to create a portrait of Marlon Brando. I think i messed my pants when i saw this. They have a bunch of other great prints that you should go check out, but I know one person in particular that will love this particular piece. I can actually afford the poster versions of their work, so i may buy one. But then again, this has giving me a couple good ideas of my own. =)

I hardly post at all anymore let alone write "design" posts. WIth any luck i will get back on the ball with some good research.

BOOSH!,
Josh

Re-

happy easter... more later. i'm up in 6 hours for church.



-Josh
PS. life is confusing but you learn to live with it.

O' Happy Day.

Paper Source research.

Happy Birthday Laura Jordan. You are a good friend. I watch you make everyone's birthday special on your blog, and now it's your turn. May your 24th year be even better, and more exciting, but less stressful than your 23rd. Take care and God bless.

no longer afraid,
Josh

Metaphor

Night blogging tonight.
These are some cassette tapes i drew. *shrug*

Today was a good day. You know how some times things just kinda fall into place? Today was one of those days. This is silly, but i knew God was smiling at me when i hit every green light on the way to work today. I didn't get in the good garage, but my feelings weren't hurt. Then, just this morning, as i read my e-mail, I was informed that i was going to be on a research team for Valentines Day. Awesome. On the most beautiful day in February, i got to leave work early and drive around. I almost pooped. Anyhow, do you ever just step outside into the sun, look directly at it and just take a breath of fresh air? mmm i love that. It almost reached 70 while i was out today. That's like spring! Inside all day? Awhhh.... too bad... HA. sorry. Moving on. The day off really worked out well because i didn't get to run any errands this weekend, so this was the perfect opportunity to. Driving around with the windows down, singing at the top of my lungs... It was a good day. Maybe i will post my findings later. Paper Source gets an A+ in my book.

I said i was going to post things that have bad design this week... no really good examples today, but in honor of the research day, I'm going to start with AG's Valentines Collection. Vom.

While out, i signed my life away for another year in this apartment. See you in hell kids.

Tonight, ended with coffee.

Whispy Winter Weather

Gemini Card Company
This weather reminds me of back home. It makes me miss it. There's about an inch of snow that covers the ground and it's cool. Something about this weather doesn't make me cold right away, but it has a very specific feel to it.

Big weekend planned.

Thunder is Always Louder in the City

Crap, it's so hard to post anymore. My significant lack of motivation has led me from posting every day to every once-and-a-while. But don't worry trusty readers, this doesn't mean the end of Dusel Blogs!. Infact, you should probably get out while you still can because soon the movie reviews will be back. I have actually been reading other blogs more often now, such as Smosch, Kotaku, of course, the awesome NOTCOT and even sometimes What Would Tyler Durden Do?. For better or worse, i feel like i want to blog more because of them.

Luck for us here in Kansas City, it looks like the freaking Apocalypse outside. And just incase typed sarcasm escapes you, we are not lucky at all. It looks about midnight, just before 3 in the afternoon. Don't forget the tons of rain and flooding.

Good God, i love patterns. Enjoy this tasty treat of patterny goodness:
From Dan Funderburgh. Who also does some beautiful hand done type, and urban-esqu illustration.

Also, Julia Rothman (Aaron blogged it first):


And this guy, who i have no clue who he is anymore. Infact, if you know his name please let me know.
Ray Fenwick


If they aren't enough pattern for you. You can check out Flavor League, where much of Dan Funderburgh patterns, as well as plenty others, like scatch-and-sniff, are sold as wallpaper. Personally though, i think scatch-and-sniff wallpaper is an awful idea.

poof! gone.

Living The Lie

I picked this up on friday during our research trip. It's a beautiful children's story, about a boy who eats books. Marita, our famous trends lady, is pretty awesome. She was able to point out a handful of good places to research and some good ideas on what to look for. I hope i get to spend some time with her later.
After researching, Aaron, Heather, John, Ashley, and I ventured out to "Worlds of Fun" for their "Fright Night." It was really amusing. Yesterday, Halo and then Vacancy. Today, church and then Halo. It was an interesting weekend, good overall though.

out.

La Posesa

The treasures of inter-office mail. Diabolic Monsters. You definately have to enlarge these and see the awesome halftone pattern. I especially love the Vader and ET rip offs. The first of many Halloween themed posts? Probably.

I'm going to recommend "The Bled - Silent Treatment" to anyone who enjoys harder music.

Nihilist Movement

Heather got a brand-new 32' Philips TV (which is really sexy), so we watched:
Blades of Glory - The Will Ferrell movies have been going down hill since he peaked with "Elf" and "Anchorman." When Ferrell and Napoleon Dynamite, err... Jon Heder, team up to take on the most stereotypically gay sport out there, male couples ice skating, you think it would be an uproarious laugh-fest. But you were mistaken. It had it's moments and as a whole it was pretty good, and still funny. However, Will Ferrell once again recycled his Robert Goulet impression for another character, and no matter how much you try it's hard to picture Jon Heder as anything but Napoleon. A step down from Taladaga Nights was Anchorman, and Blades of Glory was a step down from Taladaga... something has to change here. However, Pam from the Office is still in and movie, and is smokin'.

Tonight, alone, i watched:
Bridge to Terabithia - Movies made from books typically end up pretty far off from it's original words. I had hoped this movie would break the mold, unfortunately it didn't. Understandably so, the movie was updated to modern times to appeal to the children's audience. Many things were, added and taken away from the original text, but the story stayed basically the same. Things were mostly added, such as the elaborate fantasy scenes that were clearly added to compete in todays market of fantasy tales, such as Chronicles of Narnia, and the Lord of the Rings. Looking at it now, I feel like the action scenes were necessary because no one goes to see a blockbuster of a heartwarming kids story that would typically find as a Hallmark movie or in the Dollar bin at your local Christian Bookstore. The main character Jesse Aarons was played by Josh Hutcherson (of Zathura), who was slightly colder than i pictured the Jess from the Book. Leslie Burke was played by AnnaSophia Robb (the blueberry girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), who is just so adorable, and really makes you love her character. Zooey Deschanel (from Elf) played Ms. Edmonds, Jesse's teacher crush, and a wonderful singer, which probably landed her this role. In the book she is hippie, but honestly, it was really hard to criticizes the characters by there looks, because the book was originally set about 30 years ago.

if i get the time, maybe i will blog about personal stuff later, as for now. i will spare you.

F*ck the Rest of the Story.

Today, started out to be one of those days that you didn't care if you woke up or not in the morning. Everything was telling me to say in bed today. I will explain later. Research =Blue Q. Bob sent me this link. Thanks Bob.

Magnetic Personality

Help me out with answering a quick Poll:

What would you enjoy seeing made into a magnet for your fridge (or car)?

Comment below.

Friday in Hell, Saturday Comes Heaven.

Oh, Friday.
The Fridays have been coming faster lately. The weeks fly by. I'm not exactly sure what i have to look forward to when the weekends get here, but at least it's not work.

Today may as well be part of the weekend based upon the fact that I did pretty much nothing up to this point.

I researched 1-18-08 or whatever they are calling it now. I looks like It's going to called Overnight and it is a brand new monster. Everyone is creating fantistic storys and trying to ruin the plot. It looks like keeping the movie a big secret has actually back fired and made everyone super curious about the story. To the point where people probably wouldn't have gave a shit about a movie entitled "Cheese" filming in Central Park, no matter how awesome it looked.

Sadly enough i am a victim of this odd phenomenon that makes us want to know more. I get less tied up in trying to "make something out of nothing", but i will read everyone elses. Here are a few good examples of sites i have been looking at:
Cloverfield: What We Know So Far - My favorite. Based off of mostly speculation. Run by a cute girl.
Cloverfield Clues - This guy knows what J.J. Abrams ass smells like he does so much research.
http://1-18-08.livejournal.com/ - The most reasonable blogger. Thats why it's not as fun.

It's been a week since i traded in my Pa Licence and became officially pinned to Missouri. I looked a lot different back then. =) I have been concidering drivng home again for Christmas. Heather said she would be interested in "road tripping it" and if her, and possibly more people joyed in on the "fun". It would certainly save on cost. But would it be worth another 17 hours in the car, with possible nasty weather, and would we have enough room for luggage and hopefully lots of gifts on the way back? It's hard to think of winter and Christmas, when it feels like hell on earth outdoors. I look forward to going home again though.

In other news, Riley is getting spay today. Poor girl. I love that dog. I would pretty much do anything for her. I assume everything is going according to plan. Tomorrow, i will be at the airport taking Bob and Lauren, which starts my one week stint with Donte their rottweiler. He and I are good buddies so it should be a good time. Living a week with him will give me a good idea what it will be like to actually have a dog myself... and what it would be like to live on the Kansas side... neat.

Textures. For work, our team (mostly just Tony and I), when they have time, we are compiling textures to add to our work in Photoshop. So i have been dragging a piece of paper on the ground all morning, sanding down images, basically looking like a crazy person. But it's something to do.

I'm not sure what the rest of my agenda is looking like today. Only time will tell.

The Sky Touched The Earth.

Travis Bone - I think he is a spectacular screen printing artist. A lot of good posters for a lot of good bands. I love what he is going with type on these. I would love to do a screen printing escapade and find the means to do some myself.

It's been a while since i have posted something design related, and a while since i was able to post at work. so this is nice. well, maybe not for everyone that reads this blog. Our launch just ended, but i feel like i already have a lot on my plate. We'll see if I actually accomplish anything productive.

It was pouring here in Missouri last night. There were warnings of tornados in the northwest, just as i went up to the airport to pick up Heather. Everything worked out though, and she is "home" safe and sound. Nothing has changed.

With each clap of thunder, I think of it's effect on the world... Both the ground and the sky are shaking.



Numquam cede

Your Web.

Based upon the fact that everyone i know (... two people, but none-the-less) have been posting about poisonous animals in there posts, i figured i would do some research. Now, the brown recluse spider (which everyone and there mom has seen the pictures of its bite on the internet) is pretty much only resident to one area. Here. The south and midwest. Along with that bad boy, there are 18 other spiders (19 total) that roam Missouri, including the Missouri Tarantula. NEAT! In contrast, Pennsylvania also has 19 breeds of spiders as well. Including... you guessed it; THE BROWN RECLUSE! There are some major differences that you should worry about instead, but i am not going to bring them up in hopes that you all stop worrying. Somedays i just wish a brown recluse would bite me...

in 4 hours i will be up for 24 hours... i'm hoping that won't be the case...


I haven't really been able to put a whole lot of time into doing some hard research, so design posts have been hard to come by. here are somethings that i thought were cool.

the Cool stuff:
Gal Shkedi did a beautiful animation for Staving in the Belly of the Whale by Tom Waits as a GRADUATION PROJECT. Crazy.
Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 has already started advertising. Check out the shit for hilarious pictures and videos featuring the scary/adorable Bunnies.

-Josh

"Disarm your self-destruction."

"...just include my address next time."

It's apparently part of our job at Hallmark (or at least in Humor), to put in an additional 5 hours of work a week to our 40. I suppose most of that is research. So, in the spirit of that, I have decided to do my blog posts outside of work. At least for this week anyway. I might actually be pretty busy. I have a good amount to do in about 3 weeks.

This laptop is a mess. I really need to get an iMac. Come on Leopard... hurry up and come out!


Get your attention? Look at her. She is so hot, she isn't even playing it right. Moving on, if you have a Wii, you should add me to you're address book. If you don't know how, just ask me. Here's my addy: 8075-4846-3079-3763.

Onto the cool stuff.
Lil' John, you have truly influenced a generation. Crunk was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary among about 100 other words. Ironically, the word can't be defined. This isn't the first, and sure won't be the last. Last year, "bling bling" was added. It's a sign of the times. Sorry Webster, no matter what you add to your "books," most people will still use the internet for FREE instead. The full article here on MTV.com.

Skull-A-Day.A good blog always deserves some recognition. This is another blog where there is a photo for every day of the year. Unlike 356 Portraits, this has only started 44 days ago. Some of them are pretty creative, others are boring. I am curious to see how they turn this 44 into 365.

your shaky voice says it all.

The Air Is Thick

Back on Track...
Cedric DelsauxI suppose he has other stuff in his portfolio, but by far the coolest thing for me was the "Star Wars characters in the real world" series. Once at his site, click on series, and it should be the first photos he has up. Other then his excellent juxtaposition in this set of photos, the color (or maybe lack there of), also makes the images quite good to me. Also i can't tell how much photoshopping was involved here... it seams like many of the characters may have actually been action figures. hm.

HBO Voyeur
This is an interesting concept to cool to pass up. I suppose this is some cleever promotion to a new TV show that HBO will be doing but whatever it is, you can watch the story of 8 different apartments all at once, or individually by story. At some point all the stories cross eachother. There is also 4 more seperate apartments to watch outside of this main building. Also, the music seems to que up and everything. Good work HBO.

This one is for Heather. Even though, secretly, i would probably use it as much or more than her. But when i think of coding or program questions i think of her college (or even a couple of months ago.) Ok, to the point... The Learn List is just a jazzed up version of a "top 10" resources to find help on adobe programs, and web coding. My presonal favorite being the CSS seeing how everything is done in CSS these days, and they hardly touched on it in any classes i took.

Thats it for now. I hope to put up pictures from my trip soon, but they need a conciderable amount of cleaning up first.

The New Heart Shopping.

Jeremy Pettis.
More type. i know. But i love good typography.

bonus
Guerra de la Paz
doing some pretty sweet stuff with action figures, and fabrics. Enjoy..


After a long weekend of fun-filled excitement and uproarious behaviour from Lauren, her sister Emily, and her best friend Melissa. I learned the secret language of "Op", sudoku, and new ways to have fun. The group is obviously a good one or else i probably wouldn't have kept coming back. With the Plaza Friday evening and Saturday morning, and Legends on Sunday afternoon, the weekend was mostly shopping. I got a couple things, i feel like i need to be more creative with my wardrobe now. We went to Worlds of Fun Saturday night, that was a lot of fun. It was like discovering a part of Missouri I had never seen (even though literally it was, i mean figuratively). It has been quite some time since i have been on a roller coaster, running around the park, just having a good time like a teenager. If you get the chance, go. Come Friday, I feel like i wil get more of this kind of fun, being that i will be going home to be with highschool friends. Until then though, there is a decent amount of work to be done.

love, Josh

Good Luck, Friday.

Oh good morning indeed.
A few things to post: Because i work for a card company this is appropriate research:
Seriously Postcards.
Some e-cards.

Also, this guy, Josh Powers, just left Hallmark.I would have left too if they weren't letting me illustrate. Good luck guy. I don't think it would be hard to make a name for yourself.

Come on Hallmark, get with the mother fuckin flippin times!

My Plastic You - the Stryder

Action Figures. I am sitting here falling asleep, so burnt out from last night, looking at action figures for a card.

A lot happened last night, both on a physical level and an emotional level. I am not going to go into detail because i feel like besides the fact that no one reads this boring blog anyhow, it's not helping that the posts are so long. But last night we (as in Green, Riley, Bob, and Lauren) got free ice cream (custard really), i got to see Riley (whom i miss greatly), and even Riley got a small cone. The conversation made for an interesting night. I road my bike home after 11 last night, which made me tired physically. I got a great amount of exercise yesterday, i walked around all day researching, then went to the gym, and of course the bike ride, but i am really feeling it today. Things are going to change for me really soon. I can feel it. Trivia tonight, with some more work folk.

Like a Rockstar.

Obviously, it's another pretty slow day at work.

Other then my suprise when i started work, the day has been pretty uneventful. Really the suprise wasn't even that great, but it was a good start to the day. Other than that, there was the meeting today, and the class... in which i missed. Blah. I haven't been doing a whole lot of work today. But, sadly it's more then yesterday.

Between yesterday and today I have discovered the importance of Flickr. I really liked how my blog looked with the "beach market" picture on it. It would be even better if they were my own photography. EH!?
This is what i found today:

I think buying a new computer will solve all of my current problems:
- i'm lonely - World of Warcraft.
- too much music - bigger hard drive.
- not enough videos or pictures - bigger hard drive.
- mark a cartoon? - CS3 and iLife.
- i'm not using the extra room - the computer goes there.
- i'm sick of using a track pad - the computer has a mouse. NEAT!

so i'm buying one. My biggest issue right now is the new Mac OS is coming out in October am i going to wait that long, or are they going to do something for me. Or am i going to buy myself a cheep ass PC. Whoever said you can't buy happiness was poor.
It's only a matter of time now.

tomorrow, i am taking a full day off of work to do research. This time with direction. I will be armed with a camera, my sketchbook, and this list of places I need to hit up:
- multiple Hallmark stores.
- the Oak Park Mall. (Hallmark store)
- Target.
- Walmart.
- CVS.
- Walgreens.
- Best Buy (has nothing to do with cards).
- Barnes and Noble or Borders or both.
- Urban Outfitters.
- Paper Source.
- HyVee
- somewhere to eat.
I've already accepted the fact that i will be spending a lot of money in gas.

Missouri Knows the Feeling.

A muggy, overcast day in Missouri today. We feel the same.

It's a struggle to find something interesting to do today. It's another slow day here at Hallmark. That means "Research Day"! See at Hallmark there is never a point where you are doing "nothing," if you are doing nothing you are researching." Thus far today I researched Batman, Indiana Jones, and 30 Days of Night got researched. IGN got a big work out today.

If the internet is full of interesting, inspirational things... then where are they all? This is the only thing I could find today that really may help with making greating cards:
Folk Typography.
Hot. Take some time to look over it (if you are into that sorta thing). some of the letter forms are just awesome.

edit
Shiny Binery.
Looks like there is other stuff out there. On the opposite end is this site. Really computer generated imagery. All-in-all, it's beautiful.

Big Love is on tonight. I guess I will be venturing over to Kansas to go watch the season 2 premier. It was kinda Heather and my show so it will be tough. I'm not sure if she will be joining Bob, Lauren, Donte and I, but i know she was invited.

I will be updating later with any luck. If I don't... that means I either became very distracted or never found anything worth while for research..