As any self respecting cigar or pipe smoker knows, the best way to light up is by using a wooden match. As such, I’ve got a boxes of wooden matches stashed all over the house, garage, pockets and car. It is one of those items that you never really think about too hard though. There’s no real reason to think about them beyond “does it work as advertised?” — in this case, does it light? Or did it break?

Recently, though, I picked up a box at the supermarket and noticed they had changed vendors. No longer was…whatever brand they previously sold. Now they upgraded to offer Diamond matches. It’s not an item that I would even notice usually, but as a designer I was immediately struck by the packaging. I have some vague memory of the brand, but it seems as though they’ve gone through a redesign. And I love it. It’s clean with a touch of vintage and really stands out on a shelf.

Digging a little deeper, it seems like the brand has be tossed around by various holding companies and private equity firms which makes it seem a bit less glamorous than America’s leading producer of matches.

But those graphics! The design! The style! What’s a poor designer to do, but start drawing?

Here’s a couple of versions of the single and crossed match illustrations and because it’s one of my favorite techniques, there’s also animated versions. Dropping a <style> tag inside the SVG with @keyframe animations is a great way to sneak an animation past a content management system. Just be sure you nest the animation inside a prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference media query.

The animation itself is just a combination of scale, translate and rotate transformations. The one nice one is the ability to flip the flame by using a negative value on the X axis of a scale transformation.

transform: scaleX(-1);

I did consider doing a more elaborate animation, but…discretion is the better part of valor as they say. It quickly became clear that going down that path was leading further and further away from the inspiration point. Clean, crisp and iconic, thank you very much.

Tangentially, I do like the concept of a matched pair, burning together. Makes me think of my wife. ♥️

Need a light? You can download them here.

And the dark humor that sustains us.

Back in 2016, a video game came out that was somewhat prescient — Tom Clancy’s The Division. Maybe prescience is easy when the humanity is so predictably set on self-destruction, glorifies ignorance and revels in ineptitude. Sorry, that’s a bit harsh, I know.

It’s a great game and my wife and I pre-ordered it mostly due to it being based in NYC. A triple A game with highly detailed, open world maps of Manhattan? And a Tom Clancy based story? Yes, please.

And it’s a great game! We had a ton of fun running around all the neighborhoods we know and love. My wife would join friends online and point out our apartment or my office. We note differences between fiction and reality as we worked through missions.

And that’s where this little guy comes in. I think it was in the Brooklyn section of the game and in an alley, it was a large graffiti on the wall. This was also when I was drawing the symbols from Destiny ultimately leading to the Symbology project. Naturally, I was immediately drawn to this cool illustration, a symbol of sorts, a smiling wink and a nod, a thumb in the eye of authority in the face of disaster.

Flash forward to 2020 and there’s an actual global pandemic. And there are refrigerator trucks on the streets of Manhattan trying to hold all the dead bodies. Sorry, that’s a bit harsh, I know.

As it wasn’t part of the Symbology project, this illustration never had a home. Now it does. If you need a symbol for a bit of “screw you,” please take it. We need more signs. We need more humor. We need more ways to laugh at our despair.

You can download a version in JPG and SVG format here.

It’s always nice to find street art in a neighborhood filled with high end art galleries. A good sized stencil piece tucked inside a loading dock reminiscent in subject matter of that other famous, shall not be identified street artist. Plus, the bonus of people being moved enough by it to contribute their own messages.

Chelsea, Manhattan.

I feel like I know this dog. He’s patient. She’s kind. The illustration is simple and emotive. The thick white border is a sign of an experienced hand. It’s not easy to make minimal be immediately recognizable.

Midtown, Manhattan.

A quick illustration with flair and a signature the gives off a vintage vibe. It’s kind of like a modern day Zorro just happened to walk by, win a duel and then slash his message across this pillar. And it looks like The Feather has done it before. There’s a hint of the old tag erased or painted over. But you can’t stop The Feather! (Ping when the TV series starts. I’m in.)

Cotswalds, England

A lovely illustration of a hare sitting in the grass found in a unlikely place. This tree stump was found under an ancient gazebo, quite out of context and unexpected. There’s a bit of condemnation in the eyes that also speaks to the context. A cut down tree with cracks separating the rabbit from it’s natural environment, just as we separate ourselves from the environment, just as we can’t hear the rabbits, just as we cut and crack ourselves.

Cotswalds, England

A bit of hand painted fun I found on the bottom of a light post. Eyes closed, big nose and a sly smile reminiscent of the Amazon logo. Maybe that smile is a nod to the Amazon logo. Better yet, perhaps it reflects the feeling of escaping from Amazon.

West Side, Manhattan.