More Deck Designs

So, rather than trying to cram the faces of five writers/philosophers into one design, I decided that each of them deserved their own, personal deck design. Here are the ones I’ve done so far:

Art Is Hard

I saw Cursive tonight. Great show. They totally did not fit the stereotypical “look” of most bands in their genre, which was refreshing. Granted, Cursive has been playing for a lot longer than any of the trendy emo-pop bands you hear these days; in fact, they’re probably somewhat to blame for that whole musical blight! As much as I should hate them for that, I can’t… their music is just too damn good. I can’t deny that I have a soft spot for older emo (i.e. before the clusterfuck) – bands like Cursive, (older) Jimmy Eat World, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Texas Is the Reason.

In other news, I decided this week (on a whim) to try my hand at designing skateboard decks. You would think that I don’t have papers to write, assignments to grade, a film to finish, and plenty of other work to keep me busy… Actually, I think this could be an interesting design exercise, since it will force me to work with a very specific size and format and still be creative. Also, I’ve been wanting to try to do stencil art for quite awhile, and this seemed like an easier (more legitimate) option than vandalism.

Here are the first few I’ve done:

This one is based on my redesigned cover for Magnetic North. I decided to start out using designs I’ve already made just to see how they would translate into this medium.

This one is based on one of the t-shirts I designed for the Pelican Pub in St. Petersburg, FL, at the beginning of last year (which they still haven’t printed…).

This design is primarily based on some of the visuals from Cory Arcangel’s Data Diaries.

…and finally, my favorite one. I know this makes me kind of a pretentious fuck, but I couldn’t help myself! I call it the “existential deck.” Can you name everyone here? I’m still trying to figure out how to fit Dostoevsky in there without his face getting covered up by the trucks

Facing Your Own Mortality

What do you do when you come face-to-face with your own mortality?  Julio Diaz bought someone dinner.  Honestly, after I read this story I was speechless for a few minutes – I just had to sit and absorb it.  When I had finally processed it, I realized that I want to be like Julio Diaz.  Instead of focusing on the fact that his life was potentially in danger, this man thought about how his attacker felt!  Imagine if everyone did that?

Sartre explains (although he ripped the idea off from Dostoevsky) that when an individual performs any action, (s)he acknowledges that that action is permissible for any man or woman.  In other words, if I lie to someone, then through that action I’m saying that it’s OK for anyone to lie to me.

So then, the only course of action left for each of us is to only do the things that we would want others to do to us (sound familiar?).  If you were desperate enough that you would consider mugging someone, wouldn’t you want someone like Julio Diaz to take you out to dinner?