Sharing My Crayons

Shameless Christmas Plug #2

Only great minds can afford a simple style

Stendahl

According to my main man Stendahl in the quote above, I must be – in the immortal words of Wile E. Coyote – a "Soooooo-pahhh Geeeeniussss". I mean, you'd be hard-pressed to find a style simpler than mine outside of your kids' Garanimals. If you fancy yourself a person of simple style – or if you are buying a Christmas gift (wink-wink) for such a person – then our Shameless Plug #2 (with a big discount, I might add) is right up your alley (you'll get that pun in just a minute).

Way back in 1996 – a full year before launching out with Born to Design – my God-given entrepreneurial spirit gave birth to FontMart.com. Created (and styled) to be a 1950's supermarket where a shopper could fill their carts with authentic retro advertising clipart and hand-crafted fonts (designed by me of course). Clearly, were it not for my love of the simpler style of 40's and 50's era advertising art and design, FontMart would have looked very different – if it ever came to be at all.

13 years later we're still chugging along. A couple years ago I redesigned the site and built a new in-store display, right up front, to spotlight a package with appeal to designers and non-designers alike – a least those genius types with an eye for a simple sort of style: The Retro Bowling Shirt Fun-Pak!

In addition to three bowling-themed fonts and package of retro bowling clipart, the Fun-Pak boasts a beautiful 1950's style FontMart bowling shirt and a Wolfgang the werewolf bowler toy figure – clad in his own matching shirt – a sweet FontMart exclusive from the folks at FunKo.

But WAIT! There's More!  Just for friends of Sharing My Crayons, we've knocked the price down 35% to only $58 (plus shipping). That's $30 off!

To get the discount you must navigate to the special discount page using THIS LINK – as it is not accessible from within the store itself.

Check out the images below for complete details of the goodies included with this fun little package . . .

 
Order soon for Christmas! If you have a bowler on your list – or you're someone who just loves rockin' a club shirt – don't miss the chance to snag a truly unique gift for a great discount (in case you missed it, it's $30 off the regular price – only $58).

Thanks for indulging me for the past two posts with my shameless plugs. Truth be told, I have actually under-promoted FontMart these past 13 years – and now that I have a blog in which I often talk about effectively getting your message to your audience, I guess a little bit of "putting my money where my mouth is" would only be right.

Gonna take off the P. T. Barnum hat now – it was clashing with my simply-styled outfit anyway.

Bond . . . James Bond

Loves me some James Bond!

That's some sort of man-law isn't it?.

And while the best James Bond may always be Sean Connery, I am a big, big fan of the newest actor to play the role, Daniel Craig. He has the same mix that made Connery so successful - rough and rugged, but charming and good looking enough to pull off the ladies' man angle.

So when I went to check out the new Bond film, Quantum of Solace (and even having seen the movie I'm not sure what that means) a couple of weeks ago with a good friend of mine, I had expectations of some good testosterone-laden, "turn-your-brain-off" sort of entertainment.

Well, adding to the fun – at least for a design geek like me – was something a bit unexpected. As you might expect, throughout the course of the movie, Bond tracks folks across the globe to various exotic locales. But instead of just a standard font designating the new location, the audience gets some very nicely designed "location cards". Hand crafted eye-candy from a UK company called Tomato. Check 'em out here below:

I thought it quite stylish how each one not only evoked a particular mood, but also played on foundational notions we hold about these places. And a couple of them in particular blended with the footage so well that it took a second to realize it was a location card – La Paz, which looked like a part of the terminal signage, and London, which looked painted into the road until a car drove over the top of it and wiped it away.

Good stuff, and a great example of how graphic design is all around us.

Now if you'll excuse me I need to go refill my glass.

Iced Tea.

Shaken, not stirred.