michael james armstrong » design

hand drawn deco font

Michael James Armstrong — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 06:44:39 +0000

there aren’t enough art deco fonts in the world. so, i thought i’d add one.

i can’t even say i drew this the old fashioned way. type designers of the eighteenth century probably had more sophisticated tools than i used to create this drawing. i had fun with it anyway.

after it was done i scanned it, took it into photoshop, filled it in, and then utilized the old copy and paste to “type” it into a word. “decography” isn’t the name of the font – just a word that popped in. i’m still working on what to call it.

turned out pretty cool, i think.

can anybody help me take a pencil drawing of a font and make it a typable reality?

arrow-modern credenza

Michael James Armstrong — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 08:06:11 +0000

one of my many vintage industrial design interests is that of the mid-century modern credenza (or side board). whether they be french, american, or the ever popular danish. there’s just something about this particular piece of furniture (from this specific era) that i’m in love with.

with my recent move to a new apartment i decided i’d rather have no furniture at all than crappy hand-me-down furniture. so, needless to say i’ve got a lot of boxes of books, cd’s, and records sitting in the living room. i need storage. but i can’t bring myself to even think about buying another damn piece of ikea particle/fiberboard, flimsy, disposable, crap-garbage-puke furniture. “i can’t, i won’t” – jerry.

so, i guess i’ll just have to build it.

and while some people, like my buddy nick (a fine conceptual design illustrator), are using fancy new computer programs* to sketch their designs – i enjoyed drawing these plans the old fashioned way.

when it’s done (ie, when i have the money to build it) this plywood and steel credenza will be the baddest piece of furniture i own. (next to this little number of course).

*i’d actually really love to try googles new free program sketchup, but i don’t think my wimpy little emac could handle running it. guess i’ll wait til i get that shiny new 24″ imac i’ve been drooling over. which means i’ll be doing quite a bit of waiting. pff.

5 more art night sketches

Michael James Armstrong — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:10:32 +0000

i love the paper in this book.

subjects and thrones

Michael James Armstrong — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:31:34 +0000

here’s a video of the chair i made for the “subjects and thrones” show. the show was put on by adapta project and was located at basile studio, which is connected to the guild restaurant in barrio logan, san diego. this was shot on the day after the opening reception. the first night was packed, a really good turnout. i shot video that first night as well, but there were too many people in the way of the chairs to see them.

in typical san diego fashion, no one sold a damn thing. there were a few really good chairs there though. the two i point out in the video were my favorites. the white, light chair was made by jason wilmot of yesca studio. coincidentally, he had a chair in another show i did a few years ago. the other chair was made by joey vaiasuso of the wood fx gallery. he makes really good stuff.

anyway, the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

making of photos coming soon