Disneyland Tiki Room Entrance 1963

Disneyland Tiki Room Entrance 1963, originally uploaded by Miehana.

While trolling on flickr I found this glorious picture of one of my favorite attractions at Disneyland, the Tiki Room. The picture is originally taken when it opened in 1963 and I find it very interesting to see the attractions facade with out the lush vegetation that was grown by the amazing Disney landscaping staff over the last 47 years.

ABC URL Game

I saw this great post on Brian Hoff‘s site and I thought I’d play along. Here’s my ABC URL game. It’s a fun game and as Brian says,

The rules are simple: Launch your favorite, most frequently used browser for surfing the web. Start by typing, one letter at a time, the entire alphabet into the search bar to see what pops up first. Record the results.

a: Amazon

b: Bluehost – A great hosting service, they host my site.

c: Compfight – For inspiration and finding fun images.

d: Deke.com – I thought I’d skip my own site and pick #2, Digital Imaging guru and martini aficionado, Deke Mcclelland’s site, Anyone interested in PhotoShop should watch this excellent primer on the essential approach to masking. Not only is it informative, it’s hilarious.

e: Espn – Just to read the always entertaining Bill Simmons.

f: Facebook – No I don’t play Mob Wars, and no I won’t join your mob.

g: Google Reader – An unhealthy obsession, and my feed reader of choice.

h: How Magazine

i: Internet Movie Data Base – Mostly to settle arguments about who played Donatello in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leif Tilden by the way)

j: Just Creative Design

k: Kuler- You can see some of the palettes I created here

l: LibriVox - A great site of free public domain audio books read by dedicated volunteers. Currently I’m listening to Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger, I totally recommend the book.

m: morgueFile

n: Print Services Northwest – An excellent Seattle based printer that I use a lot. Sue Lewis, the owner is great.

o: Good God: Faith for the Rest of US – A client’s blog I helped set up.

p: PhotoXpress.com – Great free stock images, an affiliate site of  fotolia.com

q: Star Wars vs Saul Bass - I must not go to many “q” sites! A pretty funny Star Wars opening done in the style of Saul Bass.

r: Retro Cocktail Hour on Kansas Public Radio – Swinging Lounge & Tiki Tunes.

s: Stock Exchange

t: This American Life – Recommended listening.

u: Uprinting.com – A great online printer.

v: Vertical Response – An excellent e-newsletter managing & mailing system.

w: Cracked.com- Some very funny stuff here.

x: Paul Malon’s Flickr Photostream – Wonderful collection of mid-century American advertising ephemera.

y: Youtube.com

z: Zazzle.com

Design Something Everyday: Retro Stephenie

Day 7 and still designing, though 2 days behind schedule in posting. Be that as it may, in honor of tonight’s premiere of Survivor Heroes vs Villains my design of the day is a little WPA inspired retro-esque poster in honor of one of my favorite players, Stephenie LaGrossa. Star of two previous incarnations of the show.

She was a contestant during seasons set in Guatemala and Palau. In Palau she was the last surviving member of her inital “tribe,” a first for Survivor. On Survivor: Guatemala she placed second and was robbed of victory by a petty and annoying jury. Hopefully, as in my digital doodle, Pallas Athena will be her aegis and like she did for clever Odysseus, guide her to victory. Survivors ready…

Survivors ready?

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Links: Pallas Athena Clip Art via Arthur’s Clipart

Design Something Everyday: Day 6: Who Dat… with Zombies

Another non-timely post, I’ll have to get better at that. This one inspired somewhat by two loves of mine, American Football and Zombies, though maybe not in that particular order. I drew a sketch of a Zombie and played a bit in Illustrator and PhotoShop to create the effect of an unstoppable Zombie horde. Which reminded me of the Super Bowl, and more so of the entire “Who Dat?” marketing and fan chants by the New Orleans Saints. Whose fan’s chant “Who dat, say they gonna beat them Saints?” Changing it to the terrifying world of masses of zombies stealing the chant for their own ravenous ends amuses me. That being said it was a great Super Bowl if only it had zombies, it might have been truly epic…

Tools: Pencil, paper, ink and Scanner. Adobe Illustrator and PhotoShop.

Links:

• New Orleans Saints
• Super Bowl
• Who Dat?
• Zombies
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, The best Zombie Book EVER!

Design Something Everyday: Day 5: Bali Hai

I’ve been working on stuff everyday, but I haven’t been posting daily, so I’ve got a bunch of stuff to put up.

The first of these is a digital doodle of a song from the wonderful 1949 Rogers and Hammerstein play South Pacific, Bali Hai. I was inspired by the production I saw last weekend at Seattle’s Fifth Avenue Theatre. Of course, I was familiar with the song and the play mostly through the 1958 film version, but seeing it live was a thrill. Bali Hai is a mythical and mystical island that represents an unattainable paradise. That image of a hazy double volcano island has formed a core of the Tiki and Polynesian Pop mythos.

The song is a classic in American Musical theater, and for me the best part is very influential in the world of Tiki and P0lynesian Pop Culture. Below you can see the wonderful scene and listen to the song Bali Hai from the 1958 film, do you hear it? It calls to you..

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Links:

• Bali Hai: Mythical and mystical island, if you listen it will call to you…
• 5th Avenue Theatre
• Rogers & Hammerstein
• South Pacific (1958 film)
• Tales of the South Pacific, the 1946 Pulitzer Prize winning  book by James Michener, source for the film and musical productions.

Design Something Every Day: Day 4: Russell: Finder of Lost Idols

Day 4 brings me back to one of my favorite muses, Survivor of course. Here’s a little sort of vintage styled poster highlighting the arch villain from the TV franchise, Russell Hantz, better known to fans as Evil Russell. In the show he had a knack for finding idols, which would keep him from being kicked out of the game. That explains the tiki idol in the poster. Since he was considered evil, the stylized flames seem appropriate.

Evil Russell

Tools: Adobe Illustrator
Links: Russell Got Screwed, a site defending the honor of this often maligned cast away.

Design Something Every Day: Day 3: Purimitar

For Day three I tried to imagine if the Na’vi in the film Avatar had given up their Animism in favor of Judaism and were shaking their groggers at Purim. This was actually created for the upcoming Purim Carnival at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, but I thought it would fit here, since it is something I designed today.

If the Na'vi celebrated Purim

Tools: Adobe PhotoShop
Sources: www.moviewallpaper.net, google image search

Design Something Everyday Day 2: Retro Rupert

Day two and here is  a retro styled poster for Rupert Boneham, a contestant on the CBS reality show Survivor: Pearl Islands, Survivor All Stars & the upcoming Survivor Heroes vs Villains.

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop, Wacom Tablet.

Link: Rupert’s Kids, Survivor Contestant Rupert Boneham’s non-profit group to help at risk youth. A worthy cause.

Design Something Everyday Day 1: Volcano

I read the great post by Jad Limcaco on Smashing Magazine called “Design Something Every Day!” It is a very inspiring, if not daunting idea, to design something every day, but it is a call I would like to take up. I wanted to do it in January, but some projects and a hint of fear kept me from attempting this project.

Since today is my birthday I thought this would be a good time to start the project, so beginning today, February 3rd I begin my year of daily designing. Wish me luck. So far the hardest part is limiting myself to only 15-45 min on these designs. I just want to keep “plussing” the design. So here’s day one, the interior of a volcano.

Design Something Every Day: Day 1: Volcano

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Colors: kuler.adobe.com
Source: Volcano information: GeoBytesGCSE