Juliana Egley

Kind of got waylaid by a rush job for The Boardroom.  No problem, I like working on menus. There will be a menu with actual design coming soon – this was just a temporary one for this weekend.

Thank you, “Sons Of Anarchy”

Yeah, I skipped a day, but one of the things I’m working on counts as two days, so I’ll let it slide. This one, I don’t even know. But! “Sons Of Anarchy” returns on FX tonight. Everyone should watch.

This is a component of a larger design that I didn’t have time to finish.

This is kind of a cheat, since I had the concept a long time ago.

Front:

Back:

I’m trying to create and upload a thing a day for the month of September.  Doesn’t matter if it’s great or awful, just do something.   So, here’s today’s (just under the wire, whew!)  Lyrics courtesy Lucero.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about color perception and theory lately.  It’s fascinating to me that people’s brains interpret the same objective, concrete value (like, say hex code e22023,  in such wildly different, subjective ways, and then the same brains assign emotional value to that color.

Case in point: Rihanna’s new hair.  She went from her blonde-brown to a fiery red, and pundits promptly proclaimed Rihanna’s rebirth into a sultry siren.  (Sorry, sometimes I read too much Variety.)

Rihanna on June 7, 2010, courtesy Pacific Coast News Online

The commentary stuck in my head, because Rihanna’s hair color is the one I’ve been sporting for the past few years.  Mine is not as bright, because I don’t bleach my hair pre-color, but it’s darn close.  I love having that vibrant red on my hair, and I’d say it reflects my fiesty nature pretty well.  (Look, an emotion attached to a color!)

But – at work the other night, I was complimented on my hair.  The woman was saying that she loved the red, and I said, “Thank you, I really enjoy having bright red hair.”

“Oh no,” the woman said, slightly aghast.  “Your hair isn’t bright at all.  It’s too dark.” And then she went on for a good five minutes, telling me how my perception of my hair color was wrong.  Admittedly, my bar is rather dimly-lit, but it still struck me how what I think of as bright (which is more a measure of the vibrancy than the value) is the total opposite to someone else.

It makes me think about how attached people are to their perception of color (and, therefore, to their perception of the world), and how societies settle on interpretations/definitions of color.  What do you people think?  What color, if any, do you think you perceive or interpret differently from the norm?

I’m reading “Gimme Something Better”, which is a fantastic oral history of the Bay Area punk scene, from the very beginnings up in North Beach to the Gilman Street scene.  The prologue (“Turds On The Run”) includes people like Jello Biafra, James Stark, Jennifer Miro, Penelope Houston, et al., talking about the horrible corporate arena rock that was dominating at the time punk began.  Klaus Flouride says: “When people say, ‘What got you into punk?’ I say, “The Eagles.” Nothing in the mainstream that was calling itself rock ‘n’ roll was really rock ‘n’ roll. It was easy-music listening at that point.”

Even though I have a serious soft spot for Southern and Americana rock, Klaus absolutely has a point.  Something that was edgy, progressive, thought-provoking, full of the “I’m going to do this my way, not the way I’m told it should be done” attitude got watered down into pablum.  Which is not unlike what happened to punk.  Pretty much any anti- or counter-culture movement or revolution eventually gets co-opted by the power structure and defanged for mass consumption.

Which leads me to Ed Hardy.  Except that tattooing wasn’t quite a revolution, but it did used to be a way to mark yourself as outside of the mainstream.  It was a signifier of being willing to take a step outside that box.  Now, not so much, especially in urban centers.  You almost stand out if you don’t have a tattoo here in San Francisco.  That is not Ed Hardy’s fault – what is Ed-Hardy-the-brand’s fault is the number of people walking around with Ed Hardy paraphernalia thinking that they are cool or edgy because they own something that has some flash on it.

Ed Hardy the artist has some amazing designs.  The influence from both Sailor Jerry and Japanese tattoo master Horihide make his designs visually compelling, with intricate lines and beautiful, delicate shading. I will confess to some neighborhood loyalty, since he owns and operates a parlor in North Beach, but really, his training and cred is impeccable.  I love his artwork, even though it’s not my style at all.

Ed Hardy the brand, though?  Is dreck.  Especially once Christian Audiger got his slimy, Von Dutch-encrusted hands on it.  It started as a bunch of flash put together in a non-meaningful way, flattened so the colors are easier to reproduce, and then bedazzled onto shirts that rip at the drop of a hat.  Now it’s on notebooks, trucker hats, candles, cellphone accessories -  everywhere, so that people can buy this garbage and feel “edgy”.  It’s not edgy, it’s not meaningful, and it’s certainly not aesthetically pleasing.  It’s a montage of trash consumerism at its lowest form.  These manufacturers have figured out that people aren’t going to spend much time analyzing the meaning and symbolism of what they are wearing (and, by extension, consuming), so they’re just throwing a bunch of brightly-colored shit up there and calling it a day.  Even manufacturers of baby clothing and toys think more about what they’re doing than these people, and babies are not known for their fashion discernment.

It would be a really boring world if everyone dressed in the best of taste.  I get that, and I like it.  All I’m asking is that there is more care, more thought put into what is put out and what people decide to wear.  Good design isn’t that expensive, not if you know what you’re doing, and the world will be a better place.  I promise.