Hergé Draws Tintin and Snowy

2047.A ways back, I found and posted a link to a video of Scott Adams doing a Dilbert daily strip.

It’s very hard to find interesting videos or pictures of artists actually creating thier art, so it’s been awhile but I just turned up another one.

I don’t speak of it often (I’m not ashamed or anything, it just doesn’t come up), but I have long been head-over-heels in love with Tintin, the boy reporter. I wish I could say I’ve been reading him since I was in grade school, but that isn’t true; I discovered him as a young adult. But when I opened my first Tintin album, I was immediately smitten.

There are a lot of interesting things about him. Even though he’s a boy reporter, in the traditional globetrotting adveturer style, I only recall him filing a story ever just one time (near the beginning of the adventure The Shooting Star). He wore his trademark “plus fours” (those short, bloused pants), traditional uniform of the European child of the day, until his last published adventure in the 1970s (Tintin and the Picaros). The 80s new-wave musical group Thompson Twins took their name from the two comical, bumbling, bowler-hatted opratives Thompson and Thomson (they even had an early song “We Are Detective”).

His creator, the Belgian artist Georges Remi (known by the Francophone pronounciation of his initials reversed, or Hergé), is credited with being the originator – or at the least, the perfector – of the comic style known as ligne claire, or “clear line”. It’s a visually exciting collision of fancy and reality, in which all lines are drawn as clear, strong, equally-important-weight lines. It’s a beautiful style.

Anyway, I told you all that as introduction to this very short clip I just located on YouTube, in which Hergé dashes out a signature Tinitin-and-Snowy sketch to (apparently) a fan with a pen in just a handful of quick strokes (follow the link there … I tried embedding the video but my version of Firefox just shows a big white box).

One of the most amazing things about a practiced artist, as Hergé certainly was by this time, was that drawing the figures was so natural after years of doing it that they emerge from the pen of the artist almost as though they were extensions of his physical form that just grew from the pen itself.

I recently stumbled on a copy of a rerelease of the last unfinished Tintin, Tintin and Alph-Art, which Hergé was working on before he died. It remains in the form of a transcription and his layout pages in the process of being set up. Amazing stuff. I’ll share that in another missive.

Technorati Tags: art, artists, Herge, Tintin, artists at work, art tools, art techniques, drawing, cartooning, clear line, European comics

Alaska Airlines New Slogan, Reinterpreted

2046.Alaska Airlines’ new slogan, North of Expected, is an awkward collision of subjective experience and a geographical verity. Once I heard it, it got under my skin and stayed there, and bugged me.

North of expected? Yeah, I get the play on Alaska being north and “north” also meaning above and beyond (what do they say in Argentina, I wonder? I’m expecting you guys to go above and beyond …  I want the result to be south of what I expect of you!.

All I could think about being north of Expected was those little inset maps you got in the old Rand McNally Road Atlases, the ones with the simplified roads, and the squishy vague details:

As you can see on my map, Alaskaairlines is north of Expected, alright. Just north, as it happens.

There. I feel better now.

Technorati Tags: funny map, Alaska Airlines, branding, slogans, map humor, cartohumor, ZehnKatzen

I’m Not The Only One Talking About Portland’s Street Signs …

2045.Joseph Rose, The Oregonian’s commute columnist, wrote a couple of articles not too long ago about the street signage in Portland, too long ago, not sure how I missed them, but I’ve stumbled on them, and they take on the oddities and drawbacks in Portland signage, and how it tends to fall short in many areas.

The two columns make very good points as well as at least one strange one, about which one crotchet presently. The first one makes reference to awkward and insufficient directional signage (which I quite assuredly agree with) and then stretches just a bit to draw out dramatic tension between the lacklustre street signage and Portland’s progressive transportation reputation.

The strange point came with a quote from one Sharon Linnenkohl, a recent Angeleno transplant who has trouble finding things in town while she learns the lay of the land, and mentioned that “getting to Foster Road from I-205 southbound is a guessing game”, which just seems odd to me. But before I seem to be rashing on Rose and Linnenkohl a bit too much, I will say that the overarching point is well-taken, and perhaps explains why we’ve been seeing a new street blade standard for Portland:

For starters, most of the street-name signs don’t comply with new federal regulations adopted for America’s aging population. The font on the signs is too small and their ability to reflect light at night is way beyond warranty.

Which is a esteemably fair call, once you get beyond the Federal regulations point. There are a lot of old and badly-reflective signs that need replacment and how, and the newer blades we’ve been seeing about fit that bill admirably.

The second one points out some more problems, noting one of the more famous critical points, the lower deck of the Marquam Bridge going south. Approaching this bridge and knowing that at the other end you have to go left to leave the stack to go downtown and stay right to go left out of that, is kind of counter-intutive.

There is a reason for it, however, and it has to do with the old Mount Hood Freeway (and now for a digression). The Mount Hood, as planned, was to merge into the lower deck’s lanes from the left. Since that was the future designated route in for Interstate 84 (The Banfield was to simply be US 30) It was assumed that westbound traffic would prefer not to have to change lanes (so as to go straight downtown – The Mount Hood was planned for commuters, after all). It was therefore thought that the downtown leg stay on the right so as to reduce the number of lane changes. But the Mount Hood Freeway was never built, and there you go.

The second column continues in the vein of inadequate signage making it hard to find ones way around (and to) the bridges of the Rose City, amongst other things, and touches on the subject I’ve been obsessed on of late: street blades.

The old street blades are presumably being swapped over because they just aren’t up to spec anymore and as the baby boom makes its way up the population pyramid, they’re going to need to see where the hell it is they’re going. The real payoff from that column, though, are numbers. They’re pretty intimidating and intriguing:

• There are 130,500 signs to maintain in PDX. These include …
• 40,000 street blades
• 5,500 guide signs
• 10,000 “yellow school” signs
• 14,000 STOP signs
• 12,000 Warning signs
• 49,000 parking signs
• The annual budget for the sign shop is $702,000, which covers missing and vandalized signs and not much else, apparently
• The signs are produced in a sign shop that has 1 (one) employee
• Each new street blade costs $22 to make
• The real problem is finding hands to put up the signs. Funds are at a bare-bones level, though, so they have to apparently wait for a break in work crew business to erect them.

It looks like a case of doing the best they have with what they got.

But at least now we do have some idea of why the new street blades are going up. And they are more readable, that’s obvious (as I think I’m documenting very aptly here).

In Matters Related, Red Electric blogger Rick Seifert posted a couple of times about a sign imbroglio in his Southwest neighborhood. Anyone travelling down Southwest Barbur Blvd from downtown Portland knows about that hard little turn you need to make to get off Barbur going southbound to get to Southwest Capitol Highway to get to the Hillsdale business district and beyond to Southwest Beaverton Hillsdale Highway. It’s a very tight corner, but it’s at least got a rather adequate sign.

ODOT decided to place a bike warning sign at that intersection, which is a wise thing to do. But why, one wonders, did they put it right in front of the Capitol Hwy/Hillsdale guide sign. Couldn’t they step back and say “ahh … won’t work“? Seriously – this really did make the guide sign pointless, and also partially obscured the directional sign to OHSU.

After lodging a complaint with Those Who Must Do Something, the sign was moved, and you can see the Hillsdale/Capitol Hwy guide again … but the TriMet bus stop sign still obscures the big blue-n-white H.

And so it goes.

Technorati Tags: Portland, Liff In Portland, Living in Portland, Portland Street Signs, Portland Odds and Ends

You Are Here. Are You Here? Why Are You Here?

2044.Referred to me by an acquaintance who knows that I quite like this sort of thing, a thing left on a post somewhere on Southeast 11th Avenue, a poster, apparently taken back in February:

The text reads as follows:

SEEKING: CARTOGRAPHERS OF ANY SKILL LEVEL to assist in locating a sense of place. Curiosity, open eyes and ears, and a sense of humor a plus. Open to maps on paper as well as movement, music, narrative and video. Please send a draft of how you “map out” your experiences, discoveries, and psychogeographical landsapes to: mostlandia@gmail.com. Willing to barter with homemade ice creatm. Sincere inquiries only.

That sound easy enough. But how do I email them my blog?

Technorati Tags: liff, liff in PDX, Portland scenes, miscellany, map design

We Can Try To Understand The New York Times’ Effect On Man

2043.The New York Times can make or break a region with its world class commentary, cosmopolitan air, and gimlet-sharp prose.

We already know what’s happened with Portland. From the vantage of Manhattan, PDX is The City On The Hill, Built On The Ancient Unicorn Burial Ground. We don’t just set style, we are style.

But if your state Tourism board comes up with a lame branding strategy, well …

And Wisconsin has “Live Like You Mean It,” which sounds less like an invitation to vacation than a self-improvement project. As a matter of fact, besides being an old Bacardi slogan, it is also the title of a motivational book whose authors promise to guide you toward “a meaningful, fulfilling, and happier life with results worthy of legacy building.”

I don’t know about you, but when I want to get away from it all, I do not want to take my legacy along with me.

Kelli Trumble, the secretary for the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, said she was heartened that the new slogan already has an “amazing” 90 percent awareness rate in the state, although it’s pretty easy to get attention when you have a radio news anchor in Milwaukee blogging “Wisconsin: We have a lame slogan … AND WE STOLE IT!”

Ooof. Now, that’s cold.

On a separate but related note, I now understand why I was run out of Wisconsin that one time. I wasn’t living like I meant it, I was living like I was screwing around!

Maybe we can ship them a few unicorns. That always works for me.

Technorati Tags: Wisconsit, Live Like You Mean It, New York Times, Gail Collins

TriMet’s Iconic Past: Service Sector Symbols

2042.In the last entry, I mentioned something about TriMet Service Sectors. That brought that though to the fore, and I decided I wanted to obsess on that for just a posting.

One of the things I was a big fan of, and that I was sorry to see go, was the idea of color-and-symbol coded service areas. I don’t remember when this was inagurated – I think it goes back to the 1970s, when the Transit Mall (known on maps as The Portland Mall) was originally constructed.

It was a great and playful way of organizing a district of hundreds of square miles and about one hundred routes, both regular service and rush hour service, into big chunks making it really unnecessary to know a priori where a route was to find its terminals on the Mall.

Like a big, crazy pie, with all slices converging on downtown Portland, the greater Portland Area was divided into seven sectors, with a corresponding color/symbol icon – each symbol reflecting on the Portland area’s connection with nature.

The sectors worked out thusly, from the NW and going clockwise, between loosely-defined boundaries:

The Red Fish sector covered NW and N Portland, from approximately the crest of Forest Park east to a line more or less alone Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd/Union Avenue. Locations in this area included Saint Johns, the Portsmouth area and the North Portland Peninsula, the trendy Northwest district, the and the Northwest industrial district.

The Purple Raindrop (no, not “Purple Rain”, no joy for Prince fans here) covered an arc from approximately Martin Luther King Jr Blvd to a line more or less parallel to and a little south of Northeast Sandy Blvd. Destinations in this area included Portland International Airport, Parkrose, Hollywood, Woodlawn, the golf courses along Columbia Boulevard, Rocky Butte, and classier Northeast areas such as Irvington and Alameda.

The Blue Snowflake had at its northern boundary that aforementioned line south of Sandy and swept down to a line more or less between Burnside and Southeast Stark Street. East of what would eventually be I-205, the area covered everything from Burnside/Stark up to the Columbia River, all the way out to Gresham. With the advent of MAX service and the establishment of a full-service Transit Center at Gateway, all Blue Snowflake routes terminated there and were removed from thier Mall stops, those stops becoming local service/Union Station service.

The Brown Beaver sector served in the main the working-class SE part of Portland, specifically that part south of the Burnside/Stark corridor and east of the Sellwood/Moreland area, extending also all the way out to Gresham; essentially any route that was going to SE but wasn’t eventually bound for Milwaukie and points south.

Like the Red Fish, The Green Leaf sector covered an area on both sides of the Willamette River, serving Johns Landing, Sellwood, the eastern 2/3rds of Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, the suburban corridor along McLoughlin Blvd including Jennings Lodge, Oak Grove, River Road and such, and also such SW desinations as Tualatin and Wilsonville. If you wanted to go to Marylhurst College or Canby, you boarded a Green Leaf route.

The Yellow Rose took in the neighborhoods of inner and outer SW Portland, such as Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, Garden Home, the Vermont Street area, the Washington Square Mall, PCC Sylvania and Lewis and Clark College, and outlying communities like King City, Tigard, and Sherwood. It also served suburban SW areas that lay, generally speaking, south of Scholls Ferry Road.

To complete the circle, the Orange Deer sector took in everything from about Scholls Ferry Road north to the Tualatin Mountains (Forest Park). Everything along the TV Hwy/Canyon Road corridor and the Sunset Hwy was in this district. This took in Beaverton, Cedar Hills, Cedar Mill, the Cornell Road corridor, Bethany, Tanasbourne, Aloha, Hillsboro, and Forest Grove. If you were bussing it to the Zoo or OMSI (when it was up on the hill), you took the 63-Washington Park, from the Orange Deer shelters.

The system changed from time to time. As mentioned, when the MAX corridor was developed, the Gateway Transit center became the Blue Snowflake terminal, and that stop was removed from Mall shelters. But in its heyday, the Portland Mall had four of each stop down Southwest Fifth and Sixth Avenues:

Shelters on Southwest Fifth had terminals for Brown Beaver, Green Leaf, Yellow Rose, and Orange Deer sectors, or those routes going south and east or south and west;

Shelters on Southwest Sixth had terminals for Purple Raindrop, Blue Snowflake, and Red Fish sectors, or those routes going north and east or north and west. There were still two terminals to the block, and the unused terminal was used for local stops and buses going to Union Station. After Blue Snowflake left the Mall, those stops were also used for Mall arrivals only.

Sometime between 2000 and 2002, the sector symbol icons were gradually phased out, sadly. I say sadly because I thought they were chaming and not quite as dated as whoever updated the TriMet look thought they were. They also gave a level of usefulness and intitutiveness to the system that I don’t quite find with the current system’s graphic treatment. They were so interesting that, for a time, each in its own way, Salem and Eugene’s transit systems implemented thier own color/area codeing, Eugene’s LTD actually going as far as creating thier own color/icon match (my favorite was the Purple Rhododendron).

TriMet may have moved on from this, but I still fondly remember it … and miss it a bit. It was fun and creative … quintessentially Portland.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, TriMet graphic design, transit graphic design, transit map design, Portland Transit

TriMet Map Cover Designs: 1995, 1996

2041.Now we move up to the years ‘95 and ‘96. Here they are:

The designs from these years are very different in style and mood.

The 1995 map is very businesslike and celebrates the most charming feature of the TriMet graphic oeurve from prior to 2001; the TriMet Sector Symbols. I’m saving the meat of that idea for another article, but the idea is that, like a pie, the landscape was divided into seven radial segments, all pointing toward The Portland Mall, going, from the north clockwise: Purple Raindrops, Blue Snowflake, Brown Beaver, Green Leaf, Yellow Rose, Orange Deer, Red Fish. The sector lines were grouped into their respective shelters along Fifth And Sixth Avenues on the transit mall, and the lines serving each shelter along with the sector symbol could be clearly seen on illuminated signage that was visible from at least a half block away.

The genius of this system can hardly be overstated. If you’re unfamiliar with the system, all you need remember is the color and symbol of the route that brought you in, look for the sign, and you’re halfway there. If you do know the system and you just want to be “in the moment”, just look for the sign. The simple shapes were charming and the colors were interesting.

The 1996 design doesn’t invite too much commentary, and that’s a statement on the strength and appropriateness of its look. There is no overestimating what appropriately-chosen type, a screened-back monochrome approach, and simple graphic elements can do. This design is niether too much nor too little, but it’s just right.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, Transit Graphic Design, Map design, graphic design,

SE 82nd And Washington, Tuesday, 8 PM

2040.The sign of the Chinese Village restaurant, SE 82nd and Washington, doesn’t get any respect in any classic neon inventories of the Portland area. But that doesn’t mean it’s just as charming:

If you’ll remember the timeless quality of that sunset on Tuesday evening, I’m sure you’lll agree. It seemed to go on forever. If you don’t agree with me … well, why you got to be so mean?

The sign top along 82nd by many of the signs reads 82nd Avenue of Roses:

It’s a bid to raise the profile of 82nd Avenue which, by many accounts, might pass as distressed. It doesn’t bother me much. You see a different level of life on 82nd Avenue and it looks a little threadbare in places, but, judging by the ruin latterly practiced in Portland under the rubric of “urban renewal”, maybe it’s better off the way it is.

There are lovely places alone 82nd; there are shabby places along 82nd. Sure it would be nice ever everything were lovely and dear and pleasing, but life isn’t that way: there are sweet spots and ugly spots. Why are we afraid that the world around us reflect the life that we live?

Sure there are things about 82nd Avenue that need attention; the prostitution traffic along that arterial comes to mind. But for every shabby car lot there’s a rehabilitated restaurant; for every tired-looking Safeway store there’s a pleasant view of Mount Tabor.

But then, I’ve always looked up at life from lower levels. Maybe that’s why it does’t faze me too much.

Technorati Tags: Portland Street Scenes, Portland Street Blades, Street Blade Gallery, Classic Neon Signs, 82nd Avenue, 82nd Avenue of Roses, Street Life

Mount Hood: Monday Night, Tuesday Afternoon

2039.Two Views.

1. Monday evening about 7:30 PM, looking east at the sunset from the light at West Burnside and Northwest 24th Place:

Click image to view bigly. The white pointy cloud over the buildings in the distance is the mountain, of course. A better view was to be had about 1/2 block up the hill, but we were due somewhere, and couldn’t backtrack. Some other time, it is to be hoped.

2. Tuesday afternoon, 4:30 PM approximately, from the 13800 block of NE Marine Drive:

Again click image to view bigly. Some of the best sightlines are available along Marine Drive along the mighty Columbia. Sadly, the view is befouled by industrial development. Or, if you prefer, happily, there is industrial development, contrasting the patient force of nature with the insistent one of man’s development.

Choose as you’d like.

Technorati Tags: Mount Hood, Portland Streetscapes, Portland Photos, Portland Streets, Cascade Volcanoes

Blade Rewrite Achieved: SE 148th and Stark

2038.It may be remembered that, back here a bit, I scouted a rogue NE avenue blade that had somehow wandered into the SE:

While we were on blade patrol today we went by that corner and found out that the rewrite that we had called for had occurred. The blade now reads SE 148th Av. Despite its closeness we were unable to go by NE 148th and Glisan to see if that had been fixed but we presume it had.

We don’t know if writing about this blogwise caused the rewrite or some sharp eye in the neighbohood. Either way, good work City of Portland, and we thank you for taking the trouble to correct! Much obliged!

Technorati Tags: Street Blade Gallery, Sign Errors, Corrected Street Blades, Portland Street Blades, Portland New Street Blades, SE Stark Street, SE 148th Avenue