Jordan Swartz-The Rad Times #16

“What a blessing it is to be tired in the pursuit of a challenge of your own choosing,” this quote came across phone last week (posted by a rad designer, Adam Vicarel, you should check out his work) and though it’s a sentiment that has bounced around my head for decades, I never quite worded it that way.
I have led a less than traditional path in life and that isn’t by accident. One of my father’s repeated mantras that I heard from a young age was “Anyone can die at any moment” and my mom used to take my sister and I to cemeteries during the summer (she was a history teacher for 35 years) and make us search for the oldest tombstone. Death has been on my mind from a young age but very much in a get busy livin’ type of way.
As far back as I can remember I have pretty much only been successful at things that are some variation of a challenge of my choosing. I’ve stepped out here and there, seeing others get promotions or a regular paycheck, and thinking maybe that’s the way for me; truly every time, it goes horribly awry.
Every day I work towards the things I want in the way that I want; for a number of years that was traveling and touring with bands, and then one day it wasn’t. After that I built a design career for myself, piece by piece. I have made a pretty rad little niche for myself doing holistic hospitality design, and almost everyday while walking my dog in the afternoon, I think how special it is that I get to do what I do. So in my own personal variation of the above quote “Aggressively pursue the things that interest you.”

Thanks for hanging!
Be good to each other.

Julius von Bismarck’s Die Mimik der Tethys, is a buoy suspended in space moving in real time with another buoy that is in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of France. I first saw a video of this project and became entranced. We often only see the ocean as a horizon line, the movement of the buoy helps us conceptualize the ocean beyond just a flat plane. As it bobs up and down, side to side, you can almost feel the waves pushing past. This is a longer video but skip around and you can really get a sense of it’s movements.

I am not a sci-fi fan at all but I love practical effects, problem solving, and model making. When George Lucas set out to make Stars Wars he had to create a company, Industrial Light & Magic, to do all of the special effects. This series goes behind the scenes of their early days and up to the present. It’s amazing to see what they developed along they way; digital editing, computer graphics/ cgi, Pixar, photoshop, they all have their roots at ILM.

There’s a handful of movies that I watch at the beginning of every summer; Do The Right Thing being my favorite of the group (The Sandlot is a close second). Every year I forget how good this movie is from the very beginning; Rosie Perez dancing to Public Enemy for the title sequence, right into a young Samuel L. Jackson as Señor Love Daddy. You can feel the heat in the streets in this movie and it’s themes are unfortunately more prescient than ever. This Roger Ebert (a supporter of the film from its release) article does a good job of talking about the themes of the movie, both at it’s release and in more modern times. As well, this Stephen Kearse article summarizes the movie and the scores enduring presence in popular culture. Long Live Radio Raheem!

Watches as machines and aesthetic objects have long interested me and the Hoefler and Co. designed typeface, decimal, builds on that history. The design notes page for the typeface is a great mini lesson in the function of type and the obstacles that come when setting out to design a typeface. The artistry of how certain numbers remained the same through the years across various companies and makers, while others varied wildly. I’m always trying to work more interesting type into clients projects and Decimal is for sure on the list for the future.

I’m currently working on a brand identity and creative direction for a boutique hotel in Ft. Worth, that will be opening later this year.
I’m also working on a new brand identity for an in-house pizza chain for a family resort, and I will hopefully be able to share some of that work soon. (Having to wait to share projects is one of the hardest things for me.)
Some of the work I did for Happy Jack Cap Co. has continued to roll out, and there’s some more coming down the line.

I also have a few new paintings for sale; all are 18”x24” on wood panel. Reach out if you’d like to purchase.