Why America is F'cked: funny but true video about graphic design
I enjoyed the video, "Why America is Fucked," billed as "the expletive-filled new teaser from the upcoming Draplin Project," which is a documentary about genius graphic designer Aaron James Draplin.
America is Fucked (Jess Gibson. Thanks, Iowahawk!)
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So, America is f'd because of bad graphic design.. I can accept that. He makes a very good point. HOwever - the fact that he bought the old beautiful sign, took a few parts from it and let the rest rot doesn't bother him? Wha? That attitude is why America is f'd. The headline should read "Drunk Hipster DB Buys Sign, Salvages Lightbulbs".
But that's just my opinion.
I agree with all the points he makes, however laden with obscenity. The problem is now that everyone has Adobe Creative Suite, everyone think's they're a graphic designer.
Go technology!
As for the video itself, the guy's a little physically repulsive and smarmy, so I won't be able to watch this again for the same reason I can't watch Michael Moore films anymore.
He thinks he's above the problem, but his own EBay clicking, potty mouth, and obesity I'm sure are someone else's idea of why America's f*cked.
This should carry a "Quicktime: MMV" warning.
I second the Quicktime warning. I was erked to have to download a copy to watch.
Regardless... I think I have found my new hero.
I like hearing from people who are passionate about the quality of work in their trade. The level of disdain with which Draplin says "blippo bold" is inspirational, and I think he's right.
justoneguy - my idea of why america is f*cked is when people's ability to comprehend new perspectives is clouded by their superficial, narrowminded attitudes about what people are supposed to look like. I am tickled pink that all graphic designers aren't rail thin hipsters with black-rimmed elvis costello glasses! Go Dan!
Aaron Draplin -- not "Dan Draplin". I think the man made some solid points regardless of the profanity.
Youtube version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YALJMbC1GLc
So America is retarded aesthetically.
This is news?
chrisfrelin, I'm as opened-minded as the next guy, possibly more. I'm just saying that its more than a little ironic that someone who is making points about America being f*cked might be part of the problem himself. I'm not copping attitude about how people should look like, I'm relating what he does look like to his own argument.
Ditto #6! #2, could you send us a picture, please, I wanna rate you.
does he go by the nickname dan? everything i find calls him "aaron j. draplin".
What #1 said. If he thought it was a tragedy that the old sign was being replaced by a crappy new one, why buy and strip the old one?
It's the artists' dilemma: bad art is everywhere and frustrates and enrages you, but as long as people do not appreciate good art, you, as an artist, can gain recognition. Oscar Wilde's solution to this was to suggest that in any civilized society, bad art would be punishable by death. Only then will mankind know what art is about.
On some levels this guy is right... but mostly he missing most of his own argument.
1. The buyers of the Hotel were Russian immigrants... (not to be xenophobic cause I am not) Are they to blame for not having the same aesthetic as this hipster? I think not... they have not grown up with the same nostalgic views of this design.
2. Is this business going to be as successful with the new facelift? It will probably do better than it did when it was run down? ... Good design is a balance between form and function ... (otherwise it is called art)
I would love to see the hotel restored, but that is not design either, it's restoration.
3. He is right about the eye pollution, not everyone who has a graphics program is going to be good with the tools. The fact that everyone is trying to be a designer is a good thing... it helps people appreciate work that is done well, having experience with the tools that the pros use, will help us all develop an eye for the good.
What if the client wanted Blippo Bold despite the designer's vigorous objections? Granted, that sign is god-awful, but at the end of the day if the client wants ugly, you might be forced to give them ugly because they are paying you to do a job, not make art.
justoneguy - i appreciate the less than incendiary tone of your retort. good sport. but i think it's his appearance and rough demeanor that lends credence, in my eyes, to his case. so many of the people i hear whining about the state of design in america are exactly the people you'd expect to do so: whiny art types with chrome messenger bags who rattle off pantone #'s and keep a fixed gear road bike in their apartment 'cause it looks cool. this guy looks like he's going to start going all toby keith on us and "git er done" or whatever and he comes at you with all this heartfelt anguish about the state of design. i guess i am biased in my own right - if i had started watching this video and the guy had looked like a "typical" designer, i probably wouldn't have watched it the whole way through.
#12 - because he was drunk e-baying and because there's no way that he could have mechanically removed the sign and brought it home, so he had to strip it down.
Who cares what Draplin *looks* like? Jesus Christ. He's a great designer and entertaining as hell.
Agreed, there's no reason to lower standards, otherwise the entire industry is cheapened.
@ justONEguy
Old Ironsides, your puritan sensibilities doth be offended easily. Draplin's argument centers on widely disseminated designs, not personal, singular appearances. His rant is about quality design meant for large audiences-- personal comforts and preferences are in a separate category from professional aesthetics.
I don't think it's irony as much as it is hierarchical priorities.
That meshback hat is art.
what everyone else said. i'm glad that one comment snuck in before the fatty police showed up. seems par for the course.
justONEguy is why America is fucked.
i'm sure that, 50 years from now, some designer will complain about the good ol' gradient signs being replaced by some new hideous and obscene designs. it's so boring to hear this over and over again.
aside that, extrapolating from disparate facts can lead to some very wrongful conclusions. take this is example: a sign is being replaced by an uglier one. conclusion: America is fucked.
I'm from Romania and I'm afraid that my country is also fucked because of this ugly sign.
Username: what is a "fatty police?"
Guy, i think i know why there is just one of you.
#15 - Of course there was a way to remove it. He could have rented a trailer, or contracted one to haul the sign to his studio. He just didn't want to be bothered I guess. As for the drunk ebaying excuse: lame. If you sober up and figure out that you don't have a way to get the sign home, you can just not pay. Of course that would hurt your eBay rating, which I'm sure Dan found distasteful.
Anyway, how drunk could he have been if he followed through with the plan to drive his wagon down there to pick up parts of it after hiring someone to take it down. He went that far - why not go all the way and save the entire beautiful piece of Classic American Signage?
I call shenanigans. In this case, the man is a boob. That's right, a boob!
Versh,
Me doth think you misseth the point. Its exactly about irony.
He allows his image to become part of his statement, and in doing so opens himself up to critique as part of it. That's totally valid. Movie reviewers do it all the time and unless I misread, this is a trailer for a documentary.
Noen,
Can I get that on a t-shirt?
#21 "i'm sure that, 50 years from now, some designer will complain about the good ol' gradient signs being replaced by some new hideous and obscene designs."
-the change would have to be quite bad since the horrid gradiant ramp clip art crap we have now is terrible. Let me assure you, no one cried when they stopped painting appartments that hideous brown, or when they stopped using plastic wood in cars. Bad designs are bad designs.
These days however you have software that allows anyone to make professional looking signs and as a result every jack ass with a pirated version of illustrator can make a huge sign, while in the past only a select few with actual skill were able to do this.
Basically it's like when the internet started and every page was just a hideous colour background with some clip art on top.
The old sign was an awesome example of Steampunk artwork!
It's OK to point out that someone is *anything* except fat.
Paging Mr. Lileks. Paging Mr. J. Lileks.
Mark,
When are we hosting the Miss/Mister BoingBoing contest? I can't wait for the bathing suit portion of the competition.
Antinous, will you be sporting a boxer-brief in some Plam Springs fash-flash-color? I want to see you in lime green.
justoneguy, methinks this is not not a valid argument:
"He allows his image to become part of his statement, and in doing so opens himself up to critique as part of it. That's totally valid. Movie reviewers do it all the time and unless I misread, this is a trailer for a documentary."
Draplin's rant is an essay on the state of things, not a work of art!
I agree with Anonymous, you have to give the client what they want.
$15,000 for that design? That is highway robbery. But the story is anecdotal. We don't know if that's what the owners were actually charged for design. The cost might have been for the sign construction.
True, the sign doesn't have the '50s style to reflect the origin of the motel. Perhaps the new owners wanted something new. There's no accounting for taste.
But don't blame the designer.
It's OK to point out that someone is *anything* except fat.
Untrue.
beautiful old googie signage. fits the vernacular of the hotel and just needed to be painted.
and it couldn't have been 15k for the sign alone. my guess it was for the fabrication and the sign company threw in a template design gratis.
and drapler's right on. this country's sense of aesthetics has gone down the drain and right out to sea.
Mr. Hawkins, I take issue with your statement-
"every jack ass with a pirated version of illustrator can make a huge sign, while in the past only a select few with actual skill were able to do this."
In the past, any jackass with a bucket of paint, a brush and a board was able to make a big hideous sign. As my good friend George Lucas pointed out one day when someone asked him about the looming degradation of film arts due to the proliferation of cheap digital tools, "anyone who has a stack of paper and a pencil can write a novel, too - that hasn't destroyed literature" . . or something to that effect. It was a long time ago when I heard that. And I was drunk. And fat. On eBay.
My biggest take-away from that? $15000 for that sign... dammit, I need to be charging more.
Of course, he then proceeded to destroy Star Wars with cheap digital tools....
He just elaborated on the reason why I dropped my Graphic Arts career almost 15 years ago.
I was half-expecting him to show us a cheap 2-color vinyl sign from Kinko's that was going to replace it.
#39 Creating signage back even 20 years ago was considerably more expensive then designing one now, you would have needed to invest many man-hours printing and even more painting like you'd suggest then it would to make that sign in, hell you could make that in powerpoint, then sending it to print (which for a sign like that probably cost less then $100).
I saw a lot of newly made signs in that beautiful 50's style when I was visiting San Francisco recently (I'm Swedish). But I guess their appreciation in an urban area doesn't mean much out on the open roads.
As I person who's worked in the sign industry for over 10 years, I completely understand his frustration.
As a 32 year old with a B.A. degree in commercial art, I currently make 32,000 a year and haven't even had a review/raise in two years. Meanwhile some of the salespeople I work with make $75K+ a year.
If a designer is worth a crap out of college, he/she isn't going into the sign industry. Most of the new people we hire create some of the most horrid things I've ever seen, and went into design because it seemed like an easy avenue.
It's a sales field, and most people don't understand the fundamental rules of good design.
Also, managers don't want to see complicated designs coming across their desks, because the margin of profit goes down when our builders spend too much time on a project.
I hate this field of design. The only plus is that it gives me ample time to work on other designs I sell to various companies.
I currently make 32,000 a year and haven't even had a review/raise in two years. Meanwhile some of the salespeople I work with make $75K+ a year.
They get a premium for selling their souls along with the merchandise.
As my good friend George Lucas pointed out one day when someone asked him about the looming degradation of film arts due to....
{sound of record skipping the groove]
You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding.
@BillyDeville
I hear that, I have a BS in Electrical Engineer and was making about that at my last job. Dropped that, moved, and now am currently jobless (but looking).
This guy has a great point, and it goes way beyond design. The house my wife and I recently purchased is 98 years old. Sure I could have gotten something comparable in size for a similar price, but it wouldn't have the charm. At the same time it probably would have A/C, and level floors. All these new crap-tastic houses they churn out make me sick. NO house needs twenty different peaks and roof lines. I have a dream house, and frankly it's going to cost a fortune to build, or at least build right.
This guy is my new fucking hero! And yes, why America is fucked has everything to do with that crappy sign. It speaks volumes about where this country has been, and where it is likely going. I thought that the constant swearing and exasperation lend much to his credibility because he comes across as totally real and genuinely concerned.
And to anyone defending the Blippo Bold designer --as he pointed out, that is some 1977 Letraset shit, and NOT "something new". I totally agree with him that it's total pollution, unless you're designing retro 70's product packaging. I seriously doubt the old Russian couple were dying for Blippo. Plus, look at those lame seagulls --this is design?
not every classic hotel can be saved. Now the one that is is worth more.
#47 - of course I'm kidding. I just happened to be at a small, accidental um.. Q&A thing back in the 90's. Pretty interesting hearing him talk away from cameras and nutty fans though.
What he said about the stack of paper and novelists I think is very true. Think of all the garbage on youtoob - it's not changing film. The good stuff is pretty rare - but you can make a case that the folks making good videos would be making them regardless of the tools available. Those are the people that are changing things - if that's making film better or worse is purely subjective.
#43 - It may have been more expensive to make signs 20 years ago, I have no idea, I've never needed a sign. What I do know is that there was no shortage of crappy designs then, either. 1988? Good lord. That wasn't the golden age of ANYthing.
So, in the end, I'm sticking with my boob diagnosis.
Blh blh blh. Ths qlfs s "gns" n th bks f Bng Bng? Y'll nd t gt t mr.
The fact that everyone is trying to be a designer is a good thing... it helps people appreciate work that is done well, having experience with the tools that the pros use, will help us all develop an eye for the good.
Ah, if only it really worked that way. In reality, no one learns to appreciate bupkus. The cheap, terrible crap that the boss' secretary or the boss' nephew tosses together becomes the status-quo, for the simple reason that it is cheap. It's becoming harder and harder to find clients who give a damn about design. All they care about is the cost. And, if that means they use their nephew with the cracked copy of CorelDraw, so be it. Hell, he'll do a whole annual report for $100!
STRATOJOE@27: You nailed it with this comment. You should have stopped there.
ETI@30: It's Americana, not Steampunk. Please consult your style guide lest we start blaming you for why America is f*cked.
did he finally get that ZUNE tattoo removed?!
The terribly-named Blippo was designed in 1969 by a guy named Joe Taylor for Bitstream.
"inspired by an unfinished design by the German Bauhaus school, it was named Blippo Black by Joe's boss, Robert Trogmann."
According to Identifont, Mr Taylor now runs the rather Boing Boing-esque Mt Blanco Fossil Museum.
http://mtblanco.com/
Er, maybe not so Boing Boing-esque, it's actually a Creationist place...
Yes, but in the past every office memo was run off of a mimeograph machine, and if you needed a sign for a trade show, you hired a sign painter. Now all the tools that sign painter had are in the average desktop computer and can be applied to things that once had no real need for a graphic designer. Any smart company will still hire an outside designer for important things like signs and trade show materials.
When the perception is that more items need to be designed, of course you will have more people trying to design them. I'd be willing to bet that the ratio of lousy designers to good ones is no more or less than it was 30 or 80 years ago. The only difference is that the tools are so ubiquitous that everything is expected to take advantage of their use.
If the owners of a motel were cheap bastards in 1940, they probably had a crappy sign then, too. All this hand-wringing about the insidious spread of bad design is ridiculous. Good stuff stays around longer - you remember it longer, and it favorably colors your perception of the past.
One thing I've learned about old stuff - and I've taken apart my share of older things, cars, houses, tools... is that since the industrial revolution people have always been trying to make things as cheaply as possible, and sell them for as much as they could. The difference is that in the past the materials they had (in most cases) were inherently better. Wood was first growth, steel was cheaper, there -was- no plastic. (Also -before CAD came along most things were ridiculously over-engineered, which added quite a bit of durability.) Once a cheaper alternative came along in materials or process, anyone with any brains moved to that new material, or they risked losing customers due to their (newly perceived) high costs. How many of you replacing walls in older homes are using plaster and lathe and not gypsum wallboard? I thought so.
Now, did craftsmen care more for their work then? Maybe.. but better craftsmen commanded a premium then, just as they do now. Keep in mind that a family building a house in 1912 wasn't concerned with getting a new super-thin laptop or a sweater for their designer dog. Not many people were into having a model T with a wireless telegraph, either. They had more, relatively, to spend on craftsmanship.
So stop whining about it, find something you like, and practice it to the best of your ability. Or, find an old object that you think is beautiful, take some parts off of it and hope the rest "goes away somewhere" like the jolly fella in the interview.
All of this was just pulled freshly from my ass, and is worth twice what you paid for it.
@Stratojoe - If the owners of a motel were cheap bastards in 1940, they probably had a crappy sign then, too.
Well yeah, but 15 Grand for a crap sign is just not cheap, even by 2008 standards.
All of this was just pulled freshly from my ass, and is worth twice what you paid for it.
Truly well said, and something more people should remind themselves of. I tip my hat to you.
Comic Sans is the new Helvetica. Get used to it.
QT MOV WTF?
YAY I now have a user name .... no more #15 posted by Anonymous ... sweet cant wait to engage with you all
PEACE
The world has always been falling apart, this is nothing new. Quality has always been rare and crap abundant. That is good news for those can make the cut. I do like the idea of making bad design a capital offense though.
#54 - yeah, well, I learned to push till it breaks.
That's the only way to grow.
#59 - no, $15k isn't cheap, but that likely includes sign erection and electrical and uh.. pole materials as well. Anyway, the guy was drunk bidding architectural salvage on eBay, can I trust him to read an invoice that just flips by for a second?
i don't even know what I'm arguing for anymore.
NOEN - the sober Yin to my raging Yang.
I agree that aesthetics are not like they once were, but this guy basically has a patronizing attitude of "I know what looks best for everyone, I will save them!"
The most obnoxious part of this is the $15,000 price tag for the new sign. That seems too much. Then again, how tall and bright will this sign be? Maybe they want it taller—thus more cost to build the structure—to attract more patrons.
I love sign painting and personalized touches, but I'm not for patronizing other people's tastes. And this guy pushes the point a tad too hard.
He makes a great point but there's reason to not be so glum.
I choose to believe America isn't screwed, design-wise, because I've seen a wonderful change lately. All through the 70's, 80's and 90's I was depressed by most of the architecture around me: that sun-bleached modern pop-up storefront that's been the design standard for the last 30 years -- just boxes with no real texture or color. My dad is a contractor, and he's heard all the excuses from developers. The one that came up all the time was that it was "interesting" to be so bland. But it wasn't interesting. It was just cheap and the developers were just following each other's lack of imagination to keep costs down.
But lately in California in particular they've been tearing down the hideous strip malls and indoor malls and replacing them with a walkable "Disney" aesthetic, mostly in the Craftsman style. Crown molding is coming back, so are piled rock walls and slanted roofs, sidewalks with color, little jump-streets with trolly tracks running the length of them, fountain nooks, and small booths designed to look like something out a Victorian station.
Look at this sign for Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga:
http://www.rhumbaghost.com/craft/vic_gardens.jpg
Or Glendale's new Americana on Brand:
http://www.rhumbaghost.com/craft/americana.jpg
They even have a trolly:
http://www.rhumbaghost.com/craft/americana_car.jpg
Just 10 years ago, developers would have just popped in a bunch of gray and beige boxes with dead signage. Yes, these walkable malls are mostly filled with the kinds of store chains BoingBoingers complains about, but I think that's besides the point. I believe that often when a giant developer has the chance to build something, good or bad, the smaller business people, like that Russian family, try to keep up by doing the same.
So, I think there's a chance for a a better designed future.
Stephen Fry has a really great podcast, his PODGRAMS. In the episode called WALLPAPER her talks about Oscar Wilde when he visited America. Wilde was asked why America was so violent and he replied that it was because our wallpaper is so ugly. Stephen Fry then takes it from there and explains when your environment is ugly, you feel ugly. And I believe that. I've believed that all my life because it just feels true. It may not be something we all think about constantly, but it is there, it's part of our visual world, and even our visual world can lead to a kind of mental suffocation over time.
So here's to happiness.
As an antidote to the 'fatty police', may I just point out to the bear-clueless: the guy is damned woofy and I'd hit it.
I guess I should watch the video to find out whether he's a blowhard or appears shirtless, though.
While I generally agree with his premise I wonder if he may have been mistaken about that $15,000 invoice. It might not have been just for the sign, but for the complete sign installed. In which case $15,000 isn't all that unreasonable, bad design and all. A lot of sign companies don't really charge much for design because the kid they have in the back to do it isn't all that good--(just good enough in their minds) often it's just thrown in to get the complete job. Of course I don't KNOW that this was the case here.
Also I think my dad and I stayed in that motel in the 80's on a road trip. Sedalia has quite a few of those little road motels and that one looked pretty familiar.
Then again, you could make an argument why America is f**ked and use as your evidence how grown, professional men speak in public using simplistic, vulgar-strewn language which was acceptable only in factories and the Navy a few generations ago, and how these grown, professional men cannot groom themselves on a regular basis, wear baseball caps even though they do not appear to be on a baseball team, and dress altogether too casually. The sad state of the American male is that he has the outward appearance of a slovenly child in an adult's body, and uses profanity instead of learning enough words to express his opinion more eloquently. His appearance is as much as the landscape we inhabit as bad typography on signage.
CHELVIS@70: I'll bet you're a dapper gent, tapping away at your keyboard. Please send a picture of yourself so we can discuss your fashion sense and grooming.
"To make the adjustment easier, Mr. Ban will encourage diplomats and bureaucrats inside headquarters to wear their national dress, which was once the norm.
Suit jackets and ties will be discretionary, said one of Mr. Ban's aides, noting that the secretary-general will lead by example.
"Look for a cool, calm, casual S.G.," said an e-mail from Mr. Ban's office.
In the landmark Secretariat building, thermostat settings will rise from 72 degrees to 77 degrees for August workdays.
The air conditioning is to be switched off during weekends, which some fear could make for sweltering Monday mornings."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Biz_campaign
I HATE suits and ties
This is not about design. This is about the death of any appreciation or understanding of history as it applies to one aspect of our culture, graphic design.
In my city, we have a historic downtown. One of the buildings used to house "Lee's Furniture." The side of the building happened to have that painted on the side. This side of building is huge, by the way; people used it as a landmark when giving directions. This building was bought by someone from out of town and turned into an L.A. style night club Karma. Thats fine. (Lame, but fine.) But they painted that side of the building white. Did not replace it with anything, just white. So now a historic landmark is gone for no reason.
Anyone who defends douchebags who do stuff like this (or worse: apathetic about it) are not just wrong. YOU are why America is f(asterisk)cked. Oh and those of you whining about obscenities, you're argument is irrelevent and asinine, and you're part of the problem with America as well.
GOOD DAY, SIRS.
What difference does it make what Chelvis looks like? Is his argument less valid because he's wearing a Spongebob t-shirt? Or more valid because he's in a tuxedo?
He's made a good point. Personal appearance -is- as much of the aesthetic landscape as graphic design.
I'm dressed like a bum today myself, but am not surprised when I am treated as such.
@#70 Chelvis
That will be all for now, Jeeves; back under the stairs you go.
opinions and assholes we all have them. He's right (Draplin) but it's like youtube when you post it. Not worth watching.Don't talk , do something about it. I'm starting to miss landlines, when only solitaire was online, and when Notre Dame was a winning football team.
How odd. I'm about to comment on something I REALLY know something about ... and I'm flat-out bored.
I went to work at a sign shop when I was 12 years old. I left when I was 18. Very Dickensian, I suppose, but I worked summers, vacations, Saturdays, and after school. I went full-time when I quit school on my 16th birthday. Although I did not have a union-supervised apprenticeship, I was regarded (and paid dues) as a journeyman sign painter by the time I quit the trade. Although I wet a brush a few times over the years, it has only been for my amusement or for a friend in need.
Here's why I'm bored. All signs suck. We should use wordless pictures instead. Letters should not be painted; they should be used to write words. ALL lettered signs are ugly things.
But for those who dig them, dig this: There's probably only a couple dozen guys left in America who can do gold leaf lettering, and I'm one of them. It's the one thing I kind of miss, because . . . it was so goddamn piss-elegant and ultimately useless — the closest thing to art in the whole sorry business.
gold lettered steampunk BoingBoing logo can I haz?
The gold leaf would cost more than the site.
I thought it only a molecule thick?
The way it wrinkles up and blows away at the slightest movement of air, you'd think it wasn't that thick..
No idea what it costs today; if I knew I would probably weep
@54 POSTED BY PHIKUS
This is Boing Boing; *everything* is Steampunk. ;-)
Was Patrick Swayze at that camp Buddy66? And did he teach dance?
Reminded me of this column by Charlie Brooker:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/apr/23/comment.comment
"Shop signs have never been uglier. A stroll down the high street has turned into optical torture"
The amazingly wonderful thing about this, of course, is that the Draplin Design site is absolutely dripping in W I D E S E T G O T H A M which is going to be the blippo bold of the 2000's.
It's a beautiful typeface created by one of the most talented font designers, like, ever, but it's quickly becoming the supremely lazy default go-to for graphics designers everywhere after the success the face has found with the Obama campaign design.
Key to getting a client to hand you a bag of bucks:
1. Place photo.
2. Type product slogan over photo.
3. Select "Gotham Bold"
4. Increase Tracking to 40pts
Despite it being a deeply designed, handsome, well-crafted type, in 30 years we will be using Gotham to indicate "the 00's" like we use Cooper Black as a shortcut for indicating "the 70's."
Fontician, heal thyself.
Robotfoggy: Draplin is complaining about lazy design, using a 1969 copy of a Bauhaus font which may well have been chosen at random. I don't think this can be compared to the current popularity of Gotham. The latter is unlikely to be the Blippo of the future since it's far more flexible than that, as well as being a better typeface.
Gotham is a superior geometric sans and as such adds to the stock of sans typefaces which are simultaneously tied to an era (Gill Sans, Futura) but which find plenty of use today without people thinking "Twenties" or "Thirties" whenever they see them.
Lastly: if you look closely I think you'll find Draplin isn't using Gotham Bold at all, it's Futura Bold.
This comment thread makes me sad.
1. He is pissed about something that he is truly passionate about. Profanity is entirely appropriate.
2. Seriously? His comments might not be valid because he's fat? What the hell ass.
His example of a great sign was a bit nifty, but no greatness exhibited in comparison to the era in which it was made.
I agree with the guy who says this sign also means Romania is fucked. I think the title of his documentary is deliberately liberal in order to draw a crowd.
I'd rather flip through a book comparing 100 renovations gone bad to get this message; regardless of the dude's size, it's still just some dude. If the movie featured more chicks, maybe.
Less time of looking at him on the couch and more showing the backdrop of the hotel and other design features.
I went to a great hotel in Austin once, on South Congress. It was a bit too sterile for my aesthetic, some of those goofy zen elements were OK some weren't, but it's an example of something new that far exceeds that crappy blue sign for that middle of nowhere motel.
why america is F'cked: full of F'wits.