Simply inexcusable

I saw this at Tienda Inglesa, and was absolutely appalled.

No, not that the ham was upside down. That only made it worse. Can you see it?

OK, let me give you a clue:

Ah yeah, you’ve got a point: that’s not much of a clue. That’s me in Tangiers, Morocco, in 1983. On the right. I have absolutely no memory of the photo being taken BTW (by someone named Lisa Ebright).

Having extricated myself from teaching at a vastly under-studented international school in Malta, I spent a few years working as a school yearbook rep out of West Germany, consuming multiple Eurail Passes with a job that took me to 14 countries.

Not bad, but: in the twilight of my 20s, in an “is this all there is?” moment, I signed up for a School of Visual Arts (New York) summer course in North Africa, whose teachers were Milton Glaser, Marshall Arisman, Ed Benguiat, and Eileen Hedy Schultz (not to be confused with Eileen Caddy, founder of Findhorn, whom I met a year or two later in Germany). All very cool people – well, for the first and most famous, perhaps that’s too strong an adjective – a couple of whom I later visited in New York.

Powerful stuff which, alas, did not exactly lead me down the path to a career in typography, illustration, graphic design, or stock photography, though all kept singing sweetly in the background over the next few years.

So, back to the ham, oddly less offensive now right side-up. But still egregious – what the hell is this? Do you let your ten year-old do package design?

Yes, I’m talking about kerning….

RIP GoT

OK, fair enough if you’re not into Game of Thrones, but I spotted this in the parking lot of Tienda Inglesa shortly after the final episode aired, and it struck me as oddly appropriate.

Years ago, I was maybe a hundred pages into the first book of George R R R R Martin’s (I may have a couple too many Rs there) Song of Ice and Fire series, when a British friend revealed it was an HBO television series. Thus ended the reading.

For all its gratuitous gore, the show was fascinating and complex for several years. However, when Season 7 ended, with Season 8 not slated to appear for two years, it had become silly enough that I wasn’t sure I’d watch any more. But I did, and it’s over, and good riddance: its descent into silliness (and stupidity) charged forward, oblivious to a large audience that was apparently more intelligent than the series’ writers.

Or perhaps the series’ writers were simply under the gun to wrap things up, come hell or high water. Which they did, as if from plot-device to-do list. Check. Check. Check.

Anyway, a single meme for Season 8: the coffee cup.

You spend $15-20 million on an episode that included 55 nights of battle scene shooting, and leave a Starbucks cup on a banquet table?

It kind of sums things up.

How to treat a hero

José Gervasio Artigas Arnal is the national hero of Uruguay, predating political divisions which rendered such universal accord mostly impossible. Artigas’ story is complex, involving Spain, England, and Portugal, and eventually banishment in Paraguay. But hero he is, and it seems every town in the Oriental Republic has a street named after him. There’s a departamento (state) called Artigas. You can find his statue in Washington, D.C., New York, Caracas, Athens, Mexico City, Newark, New Jersey, and Quito, Ecuador .

And in Pando:

There, screen-printed plexiglas panels proclaiming tolerance, peace, union, family, and love shield waterworks that are – can they be described any other way? – pissing on his monument.

The pigeon temporarily perched on his head adds a further bit of indignity.

Maybe I read too much into it? I guess I have this design thing.

Airport yummies

Early yesterday morning, I found myself with coffee at McDonald’s at MVD – Montevideo airport – near this receptacle for “mixed waste” and “recyclable materials.”

The “mixed waste” graphic caught my eye.

What’s this? Your McDonald’s hamburger will be so bad you’ll throw it out half-eaten? Or worse, it’s so bad that the hamburger itself is vomiting?

I guess in a country of 3.5 million people you’re not going to get the cream of the crop when it comes to graphic design. Or it may be that someone has a really really good sense of humor.

I like the latter idea.