josie

Random but I had time to make a Hocktober doodle last night: headless horseman hockey!

I could only do a Friday or Saturday.

Them's heavily filtered photos. All the rage, none of the price/risk of getting an artist to do it. I may be slightly bitter haha.

That cabin is awesome. Our first Airbnb was a 3 story cabin/mansion. Holy poop it was cool.

I saw my first moose on this trip! We were wandering around Teton Village and a cow and her calf came across our path... which we happily altered. Never wanna mess with a mama moose. Or any moose. Giant, damage causin' animals. No bears yet, though. Our good friend happened to be hiking the Crest Trail in the Tetons while we were there- guess he saw 3 grizzlies total. We saw some bear marked (clawed) trees on one of our hikes in Yellowstone, but not sure if black bear or grizzly. I'd love to see one someday, just not when I'm camping, at night, with my tent getting ripped open haha Vancouver area is just plain stunning. I flew into Vancouver and drove the Sea to Sky area up through Squamish to Whistler. Seriously- some of those peaks were out of some Lord of the Rings fever dream. The glacier melt water was the coolest milky blue color, too. A trip flying into Vancouver or Calgary and going across the mountains to the other city would be on my bucket list for sure.

We didn’t come across any fires in Yellowstone this time but there were a lot just outside of Big Sky i know that they’re a part of the natural process but they’re still mighty unsettling, especially when you think about California. Some of those fires’ smoke was hanging pretty heavily in SLC. Woke up one morning and the mountains we could clearly see from them window the night before were completely gone.

Now I just wanna share a few shots from our wanders. Yellowstone Falls Stream near geyser basin- old faithful n all that Jackson Lake Moose Ponds on a trail in the Tetons Our little crew in front of the Tetons Some amazing looking trees in the Mammoth Hot Springs

Holy the bottom of his sweater is going to summon Owls that are Not What They Seem

God. How beautiful. I want a trip with just Dark where we do things like go kayaking or a bit of climbing or a hard hike. I've only ever been on family vacations (my family is not the sort to ever do that stuff) or with friends who aren't interested in it. If I can find beauty kayaking some place like the Genesee River, imagine what you'd experience out in a place like that.

Glacier NP and Banff in Alberta (lake louise, the moraines) are my two big must-do's. I'd love to do some low level climbing or bouldering in one of those places too- there are more and more via ferrata routes (they were just putting some in around Jackson when we were there), and I'd love to try one. One of my former professors lives out fifteen minutes from one of the entries to Glacier part of the year... he's an avid fly fisherman. A couple years ago he offered Dark and I the guest room if we're ever in town. I wish we'd been able to take him up on it then. somedayyy

Dark comes home tonight. That means I can peel the cat off my body and things can return to normal- me being second favorite human.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH i love logos that make you go "oh well holy crap those clever devils" they're SO hard to come up with. It's like the arrow in the FedEx logo. Ooh that sneaky negative space. I don't think I knew about the H until I found that, either. I'm glad they did the whale tail over the trident. Top left reminds me of the Hamburg Brewing Co logo.

I'll take this moment to pop in a piece o' art history- some doodles leading to a super clean, concise, and in my opinion, great, logo.

Coooool looks like Chris Mason had some in the past: https://sports.gunaxin.com/iron-maiden-hockey-masks/151352

Hm I thought it was Eddy of Iron Maiden fame at first

This is so painful to watch. She's extremely eloquent. And we know none of it will matter. She was 15 when this happened. I was around that age when I went through some sh!t and the cops told me I didn't want to ruin the boys' lives. Class president, after all, boys make mistakes, I don't want to send him to jail and be hated in town, now do I? I could never do what this woman is doing today. And she's just one who's come forward. But yep, he will get to vote on and decide my bodily rights. I want to puke. I fu*king hate everything about the last 2 years. Every day is a fu*king assault on my brain.

It's a great time to be a creative- keep your career fresh by working 5 or 6 different freelance gigs at once, while making connections as a barista (bonus day old muffins/bagels to cut that grocery bill)! Get that change of pace you always wanted- build a resume that no one will read! Feel the thrill of a feast or famine bank account. Bask in the warm embrace of exposure- as your posts get thousands of social media impressions and internet points, and zero dollars towards your rent and student loans! Or... join the Athletic- and have some job security! I've had a sad convo or two with NHL writers/creatives. Things are ok when hockey's on. But the minute that off-season hits, it's ramen noodles and couch surfing. People with those vaunted blue checkmarks on twitter, people listened to and revered, barely making it work. Sometimes that's tougher on writers- the creatives I know can at least sell prints/hop industries a little easier. But the designers (esp. freelance) are usually screwed over a little more during the season, so I guess it evens out. Not sure there's a fix, but it definitely is a tough one for many. I don't see the industry dying out, it's in high demand, it's just poorly structured. I hope something changes.

They just put out a new one- the text is now grey on a white and grey background. I see where they're going with it- the overall thumbnail/colors are fine if you squint but... I was reading the comments to see what the general consensus is.. a lot of people were saying that it's impossible to read with dyslexia. Side note- A lot of companies are moving forward with accessible design. My coworker went to a conference last week for a big digital media marketing thing and there were multiple sessions on it- mentioning things like rendering on different devices, and the baby boomer generation needing larger text. Most websites that we design are required to have an accessible version. Some interesting food for thought that a lot of designers are grappling with now. Not really something to worry about for the instagram of a sports team, but something to take note of potentially. Really makes me feel the typeface is a headline typeface, not a body font. Accents, keywords, not wordy quotes.

I had a student who would pitch a full-on tantrum and threaten to report me every time I said the word "crazy". As in "You may want to check out this artist's illustration, they use loads of crazy colors to get a really neat effect". Or "Oh man, you've improved so much since week one, it's insane". She would grab a dry-erase marker, go to the side board and write out whatever word I'd said that pissed her off and then its definition, then the definition for ableism, and would then write as large as possible "DO BETTER" and leave for a few minutes. It was extreme and rude, and yeah... I tried to avoid those words to avoid those outbursts and man... they're just SO tied in to language. It's really tough. Kinda off topic but yeha.... those are tough to remove.

I'm glad you got help, too. I'm sorry you went through that. It's a huge problem everywhere, but especially those "gruff n tough", stereotypically masculine professions. I've read a lot of books and articles from veterans sharing their struggles with that. Things like BellLet'sTalk and this org KO is working with are a step in the right direction. Yeah, not sure it's the same exact hit, but they mention a few on the timeline to Kyle's experience. Def got the feeling everyone is protective of him now. Says a lot about the kinda guy he is.

The babbling below is about the political meaning of the term- I can't separate the two anymore. I only say all this blather because this is a political section of the board, and its other, more unfortunate meaning is well known and worthy of discussion. It's a term: Bootstrapping: “lifting oneself up the social and economic ladder through individual effort, hard work and personal responsibility.” Both sides use it in its original meaning- the idea that you can have a humble origin and become a superstar. Rags to riches. The American dream. Horatio Alger, 1890s. It has since rather soured from that lovely bucolic ideal into one that actually tinges with race and privilege: this article explains it pretty well. I hear it used often, usually in conjunction with icky strawman arguments to prove a side. It absolutely applies sometimes- and I get the idea behind it. I do essentially live by that basic definition- I work my stupid a$$ off knowing I'll never amount to anything or earn more than 40k, but chasing that glimmer of hope that I'll at least have left something worth building upon to others. But I think I'll continue to choose to avoid that term. To use it, I'd have to add a cauveat in modern parlance, depending on my use (I mean hell, if I'm out in a rainy pasture in spring and my damn boot really is stuck in that sucking mud, I will absolutely pull myself up by my own bootstraps haha). Effort doesn't always equal success, and applying soundbite semantics across an uneven board can distort one's view of reality in regards to our culture. In my uncle's case, he says it about his sons, yes, but only because he's using it the same way he uses it to talk about BLM, welfare, protestors, etc. often connecting the two as both worthless and lazy. Course, the irony being, those small businesses we all babble about every election are doing just that- working hard, pulling themselves up from nothing - and the powers that be do little to nothing to support that growth that they extoll virtuously on every shiny campaign sign (both sides). The cartoons attached aren't labeled one side or the other- most of the others I came across when doing a smidge of research on the term were very critical of one side. The original sentiment is a good motto. The modern incarnation has been tarnished.

They mention in the article how surprised/nervous his wife is about this disclosure. It's very much a "I'm going through this hell, I'm being public because it's better than keeping it in the dark" sort of feel. It makes you wonder, when you consider that and the sheer number of post-career tell-all's of similar and various hells, how many dudes in the NHL are dealing with career changing/life changing demons on the daily in silence. We know they're out there. The stigma of illness (physical or mental) is so strong when your ability to move and perform denotes your worth. But I think, and I hope, the time has come that these struggles will be met with more understanding than criticism (the whole "oh he's weaaak" argument).

Certainly puts all the gripes about the new Billy Buffalo to shame

Youppi... don't ever do meth. Please. He looks like artist Matt Furie (yeah, the guy who created Pepe the frog- no, he doesn't condone what Pepe's become...)'s worst hellish fever dreams after a force feeding:

Yup. Agree with you. Drawn typography has been a thing for awhile. In the case of Chipotle, it is used to add interest/info/whimsy (they've gone so far as to print literature/poetry on their materials) to usually quickly discarded items like cups, bags, placemats. It's busy- a thin, legible font (which was part of the rise of the "hipster" look that's now starting to die out again) with bold/black emphasis on where a person talking would have inflection. You're supposed to look at it, go, "oh" and sit there and read it while you consume your meal. It's an awesome marketing tool- make it feel like someone doodled on the cup rather than decided in a corporate boardroom. Avoids the "hello fellow kids" feel. The NBA uses it to add a "street cred" feel, keeping the written content quick and interesting, drawing you in, moving your eye around in a good way. The Sabres style would be great as an occasional accent. I like it in motion graphic form. I think it would work really well on the arena's jumbotron in quick videos moving across the screen, as long as it was kept brief and minimally worded. Right now, it's the opposite of that. It's meant to look cavalier and gritty and it just feels careless, poorly executed and copy catted. To me.