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Author archive

   (2006.02.03)
Blue moving van is labeled northAmerican DOLBEC TRANSPORT in Helvetica (with lower-case t with no stem on the left)
   (2006.02.02)
Billboard, mounted on decaying concrete post behind denuded tree, shows Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner and F IS FOR FRIENDSHIP in Helvetica Rounded
   (2006.02.02)

Everyone’s favourite even-keeled, superhirsute Iranian-Canadian photobloggeur, Sam Javanrouh (q.v.), addressed a capacity crowd at Hart House last night. He walked us through various of his photos and slideshows and demonstrated, in a just-barely-comprehensible fashion, what he does in Photoshop to turn sow’s ears into purses. Sam also recapitulated a Spacer-style autobiography by telling us he hated Toronto when he moved here. I guess that problem’s been solved.

And this is what he looked like.

Balding man in red plaid shirt faces away and stands in a bay window between empty wooden easels

Actually, I walked smartly up to the podium the minute Q&A ended, surprising the much-beloved émigré in the process. I all but forced the man with the notoriously thick lens to stand between the nearby denuded easels for another back-on shot, which I described as “schtick by now.” Sam gamely complied, if with some almost-fully-concealed bewilderment and annoyance.

He claims to be shy, but this is clearly situational, as he has no trouble addressing a crowd. Mostly he claims to be shy to ask his infrequent human subjects for permission to be photographed. Often he compensates by publishing photos in which people are unidentifiable.

But look at the shot James Tilberg got. There seems to be a trend of shooting the shooter from behind even as that same shooter also tries to shoot human subjects in an unidentifiable way. If splorpist photographs are ambiguous, seemingly timeless street photos à la Splorp.com, are javanrouhist photographs carefully composed so that no faces are visible?

Well, I think they are, but then again my nonce words scarcely ever catch on (save for standardista).

   (2006.02.01)
Grey-brick building behind parking-ticket dispenser is labeled 983 in giant yellow Helvetica
   (2006.01.31)

Since this is the postal plant we’re talking about here, its number is commonly misread as 666.

Brick building is labeled 969 in giant Helvetica, with a sign reading Canada Post Delivers the Holidays! showing Santa’s trousers full of gifts
   (2006.01.27)
Truck fender has illustrations of six green-and-yellow grasshoppers in workboots and shades striking different poses, with the last two seated and stretched out on its back
   (2006.01.25)

Happy dogs don’t need whole books defending them, do they?

   (2006.01.25)

The portable inventory system for this store is indeed a suitcase-mounted computer running DOS attached to an Epson dot-matrix printer with tractor-feed paper.

Case holds large keyboard and, in lid, a colour computer screen, with printer sitting alongside on another closed case

They can’t upgrade to letter-quality?

And does it run WordPerfect 3.1?

   (2006.01.23)

Bruno Maag on the interrelationship of typefaces, legibility, “branding,” and accessibility

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