Art
I am not a trained artist or designer in any way. But art is fun! And having learned Inkscape to make passable maps, why not make other stuff? Here's a smattering of what I've put together. (In reverse chronological order so you can judge my growth—or lack thereof.)
Verehrsverbay (2020)
Ever have a terrible idea get lodged in your mind? Then, fully knowing it's terrible, you still feel compelled to see it through? That's what happened when Seamless Bay Area's "Verkehrsverbund Bay Area" advocacy and Marx's "Workers of the world, unite!" got mixed up in my head. A pun this bad can't be contained, and having plenty of downtime during the pandemic resulted in this.
Transitball (2020)
April arrived mid-pandemic and I missed basball and transit, so I combined them. I started by drawing a few agencies' logos in the style of the local baseball team, but then expanded to include other sports.
Termini (2019-Ongoing)
I'm not completely sure where the inspiration for this came from. I think it was a combination of (1) seeing all sorts of cool enamel pin designs out there and wanting to channel that minimalist, thick-lined style; (2) moving to Melbourne and being taken with Flinders Street Station, which is such a departure from the concrete columned neo-classical boxes often named Union Station in the US; and (3) discovering the mini-terminals/termini pun and running with it. I've continued to build the collection as I visit new stations.
War on Cars Insignia (2018)
If we're gonna fight this War on Cars, maybe we need some Distinctive Unit Insignia? (Probably should organize ourselves into actual units first, but that's but a detail.)
Baseball Outcomes (2016)
During the Cubs' World Series run, I needed something to keep my mind distracted on the nights they didn't play. I couldn't get baseball entirely out of my mind though, so (using data from retrosheet.org) I made two Sankey Diagrams: one for every at-bat in the 2015 Regular Season (2016 data not being available at the time), and one for every World Series.
YPT SF Bay Buttons (2014)
For the first several years of YPT SF Bay's existence, they (/we) created a set of buttons for members to wear. It was an open submission process, and I submitted four designs in early 2014.
Clockwise from the upper left:
- Before expanding and changing its name (first to Ford GoBike, now BayWheels), Bay Area Bikeshare launched in 2014. Sharing is caring, and this basic design was actually produced after some design tweaks by professionals.
- After some stupid political wrangling, the western span of the Bay Bridge is now named after Willie Brown. In reaction to this, there was a small petition started in SF to name the new eastern span after Emperor Norton I, a colorful native son from San Francisco's early days.
- The construction of Muni's Central Subway was in full stride in 2014, with two tunnel boring machines (Big Alma and Momma Chung) working their way toward North Beach. This design was also produced, albeit without reference to the TBM names, and with a speech bubble for the bike rider saying "Looks Boring".
Penn Pen Holder (2008)
My senior year of college I took a product design class. To entice students to look at (and vote on) each group's final product, we had a contest to design a small, cheap-to-manufacture-in-bulk "door prize". My entry was this pen holder which spelled out P-E-N-N on the four sides. The design got tweaked for manufacturing/shipping ease, including the bar along the bottom, the softer corners, and the angled sides which allowed them to nest during shipping. This remains the only artistic thing I've ever done that had some usefulness.
