poster fair

In the early 2000s I did an annual workshop on preparing graduate and undergraduate poster fair posters. I ran it for over five years and eventually I reached a point where I couldn’t find the time. And I thought a move to digital presentations was inevitable. I kept the material in my Penn State web space and even twenty years later I received requests from all over the world for the information. When Penn State closed the personal server and hence, all its web sites, I thought the need was finally gone. Over the past year, though, I’ve received several requests for larger versions of the poster. Apparently, the main image has been used and credited in other websites, and the link it provided is now broken. So here it is again:

The image above—a poster about making posters—links to a much larger version. The original website is now in my space, too davidstong.com/postershow. I removed links in the guide and on the site that went to other postershow help pages- they were all dead.

Plate 12

The Coach eating a sandwich by the library statue.

I’m not sure about some of this. Seeing it here helps me step back, assess and adjust.

The library wasn’t quite open when I got there, so I ate the breakfast the café had packed. When I looked up. Warren was walking towards me. I felt a wave of relief; he was laughing and talking with his sister. She was laughing, too.

“Good morning, coach.” They both said at the same time.

“Good morning. Great to see you both. Ready to dig into some books?” Don’t even mention baseball. Or yesterday. Or crying.

Saturn hit

On Friday, December 15, 2023, my granddaughter and I returned to my parked Saturn on Spring Street. As we checked the meter, three women came out of the Monarch beauty salon and yelled that someone had just hit my car and went down Cherry alley. “It was a dark orange-ish red pick-up.” They showed me pictures and a movie clip from their outdoor camera. My granddaughter and I walked down the alley to the VFW parking lot where we found the truck, got the license number, and noted the scratches where my car was struck. I called 911.

In the video, you can see the Saturn lurching. Fortunately, it was in gear with the parking brake on- otherwise the car behind me would’ve been damaged, too.

The Chevy Colorado going down the alley into the VFW lot.

The officer responding went into the bar to find the driver. He came out, followed by the driver, who was inebriated but coherent. The officer seemed to think the driver would make good and we agreed to work without reporting to insurance.

I enhanced the license in Photoshop; it reads YVC-0620.

I opened the photo of the Colorado in Photoshop and lightly sharpened the license area. It’s fuzzy, but legible.

The damage to my Saturn: a broken turn signal/headlight unit, a detached front skirt, and a bad scuff on the finish.

My car suffered a cracked head light assembly, a broken bulb that I replaced so it was safe to drive, a detached lower skirt that the Monarch staff said actually pulled off hooked to the truck but snapped back (It’s plastic.), a deep scuff in the finish, and a battery problem that may or may not be linked to the crash.

The damage to the Colorado where it brushed my car, punctured the light and snagged the skirt.

This is the truck where it side swiped my car.

The staff of the Monarch Beauty Salon on Spring Street was extremely helpful. They shared the video and photos as well as offered a place to relax and sit while we waited. They even had candy for my granddaughter. Wonderful folks!

Color Plate 11

Toads having muffins in their kitchen, with their adopted son, the ball player.

Well that was lucky. I had no real desire to see what kind of creatures were making that noise in the barn. The ballplayer’s dad was at the table looking at a big basket of muffins. Mom sat a mug across the table from him.

“Good morning, sir.” Good start, anyway. “Your son is a remarkable ball player.”

“He’s pretty remarkable at everything he tries. Thankfully he’s trying to help his family just now.”

“Is that why he has a job at the Inn?” I asked. I figured I’d jump right to it.

“Pretty much. It wouldn’t be what we’d chose if things were different. But they are what they are.” I would have asked a little more but the ballplayer came in with his little sister. They were a real team, the little one idolizing the big brother.

Rough, plate 10

Mouse winding up on the pitcher's mound, ready to hurl to a young frog batter while a cricket waits to fetch.

I picked up a ball and gave it a gentle, underhand toss right into the zone. She held the bat out, letting the ball hit it and bounce back to me. “That isn’t the way you teach pitching, is it, coach?”

She took her stance again, looked me right in the eye. I didn’t want to embarrass either of us with another soft pitch, so I wound up and let one fly towards an inside corner. It wasn’t my fastest pitch, but it had some pepper on it. She dropped her left shoulder a bit, started to crouch, then swung. There was a crack, and something flew by my left ear.

“Coach, we only have two balls. You have to catch them, or we’ll spend all our time in the woods looking for them.” I picked up the second ball and she took her stance. Her eyes didn’t leave mine. I took a few steps back so I’d have more time to react. This was a tough player. My eyes locked on hers. I wound up, then curved one over the outside rear corner. Or, at least, that’s where it was heading when she smacked it. It came back right in the same place as the last one, but I managed to get a glove up. It cracked into the glove. She was aiming her hit so I could catch it. I’ll be darn!

Mouse color plate 9

A young frog in a pink tee shirt probes a honey cell in a comb inside a bee hive.

“Careful, coach,” Hailey warned me, then came past me to grab a bundle of wooden slats. She unrolled it between the combs so it would provide a solid footing for me. “And this is the brace,” she said as she picked up a metal pole that I hadn’t seen. “Help me push this comb a bit,” she said as we both leaned on the same comb. It gave easily, swinging on some sort of pivot up at the top. The little tad dropped one end of the pole between a floor rod and the comb then let the comb swing back to rest against it. “That should make it easier!”

“Thanks! You really know what you’re doing in here don’t you?” She was ahead of me again. I hung back to watch. She picked up a long metal tube with a hose coming off one end. “Is that the ‘extractor’ your dad mentioned?”

“Yeah. We don’t have to pull anything into the tank. Just a little into the tube… like this.” She turned to the comb and found a spot to plunge the tube into. It seemed to sink in easily. Hailey smiled and pulled up a handle on top of a canister that I now saw the hose was attached to. Just that quick she pulled the tube back out and took a small tool of some sort and pushed the wax back in place. “Hold out a finger.”

BASD “B”

A sans serif uppercase B with a lowercase e superimposed, both double stroked in white and black.

On May 31, there was a post from the Bellefonte School District on facebook.The district wanted to be able to trademark their “B” logo and requested the submission of a more ‘trademarkable’ letterform. They used a googledoc to convey the particulars for creating and submitting, and there’s also a link on the District homepage:

A classic sick Mac in a walker.

Opportunity to Brand the “B” Logo
The district has a Branding Committee and it is opening up the opportunity to staff and to the community to help brand the “B” logo. The current red “B” is not unique enough to be copyrighted. Therefore, the district would like a version created that can be copyrighted in the future. This opportunity was originally available to students at the middle school and high school levels, and now the Branding Committee would like renderings submitted from the community.

Please watch the following video for more information. You can find the form to submit a rendering in the description section of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQnPf50AmaA

The committee allowed the inclussion of a one page artists statement, but I chose to let the work stand on its own. After all, it will have to. My rational, though is very simple. The District uses “Be” as a tag line on posters and web campaigns; as in “Be Responsible, Be Respectful, Be Kind…” There’s a list, but ultimately, the charge is “Be”. Just “Be”

So that’s it. I got rid of the clichéd slab serif, switched to a contemporary sans stroked for consistency, then superimposed one letter over the other to maintain the historic “B”. It includes a subtle Raider’s “R”.

I think it’s exactly what’s needed. We’ll see what the committee thinks.

Edit: October 6:

Just dawned on me that this might be better. Oh well. Too late.

A slab serif uppercase B with a lowercase e superimposed on an angle, both double stroked in white and black.