When two of my nerd loves collide

GraphJam has been one of my favorite sites for a while, posting simple charts based on pop culture. And I’m a huge “Star Wars” nerd. Thus, this piece I found today was really cool.

via GraphJam

When I first looked at it, though, I was expecting it to be all about Darth Vader. Instead, it’s a potpourri of information about all the movies and various characters. That doesn’t bother me; of all the images from “Star Wars,” I’m not sure you can find one more iconic and ubiquitous than the Darth Vader mask.

What I appreciate about this is what doesn’t have to be shown. The type sets the boundaries for you and then your mind fills in the rest. You look at this and know it’s the Darth Vader mask. I’m sure others in the graphic design field would have a few changes they’d make if they were doing it themselves, but I think they’d mainly look like this one.

When I’ve made images using typography, I’ve felt challenged with making it look exactly like the individual. I’ve filled every spot and don’t want any white space. In this case, though, I like the white space. (Even though it’s “black space.”)

Got any cool typography pieces? Send ’em my way. Got any cool “Star Wars” examples? Send ’em my way.

In case you missed it…

In case you missed these stories and interactives in the last few days:

  • Bedrooms of the dead: Preserving the memories of slain loved ones [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    Reporter Jim Schoettler and photographer Jon M. Fletcher tell the stories of families of four Jacksonville murder victims who have chosen to remember their children by maintaining their bedrooms. Jon’s portraits of the rooms uses a technique I’m not sure I’ve seen in a newspaper before: the pictures from various perspectives have been pieced together to form a panoramic view.
  • To be continued: Real stories with StoryCorps [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    Columnist Mark Woods reflects on StoryCorps, a project which archives personal stories told by the interviewee not to a journalist but to a loved one such a spouse, a child, a friend.
  • Video of suspended Nassau County administrators now public, in sheriff’s hands [Florida Times-Union/jacksonville.com]
    A video showing a Nassau County administrator stumbling naked on a balcony and some poolside partying at a South Florida hotel has thrust Sheriff Tommy Seagraves to the epicenter of the county’s notoriously contentious politics. Roughly 90 minutes of surveillance footage is now in the sheriff’s hands as he contemplates whether criminal charges are warranted against four top administrators. The county is investigating whether the four cheated taxpayers by skipping sessions they’d signed up for at a hurricane preparedness conference in May and billing the county $3,850 for lodging, food and vehicle mileage.
  • Homecoming for Herzog [St. Louis Post-Dispatch/stltoday.com]
    Hall of Famer and former Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog had his number 24 retired at Busch Stadium Saturday before the Pirates game. Players from the 1985 season were there, including one of my favorite all-time players: Ozzie Smith.
  • Celebrity Mug Shots Trivia Quiz [stltoday.com]
    This quiz shows blurry mug shots and asks you to guess who they are. If you follow Perez Hilton, Gawker, Huffington Post or The Smoking Gun, then you should be fine. I got 10 out of 10.
  • How long will the Blagojevich jury deliberate? [stltoday.com]
    What a cool interactive graphic. This compares the length of the Blagojevich trial to other well-known jury trials. The chart allows you to compare how many days these trials lasted to how long (or short) the deliberation process was. There are so many layers to this graphic. Another home run by the stltoday.com staff.

Exile in Phairville

I have finally listened to the new Liz Phair album, which she released herself over Fourth of July weekend via her website.

Don’t know who Liz Phair is? What you might recognize will be two singles from her 2003 album, “Liz Phair”:

Essential Liz Phair:

At her peak, her music was brash, unfiltered, gritty, angsty and totally stream-of-conscious. She was Joan Jett, Rickie Lee Jones, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco and Kim Gordon.

But then she did what so many musicians (and other humans) do: get married, have kids, settle down and become less angsty. By the time 2003’s poppy “Liz Phair” was released, she was more a contemporary of Sheryl Crow than Ani or Tori. Purists cringe at that album the way that “Star Wars” nerds lament the release of “The Phantom Menace” or the way Metallica fans lament when the band cut its mullets.

And now that she’s no longer signed to a label, she has carte blanche to do whatever she wants. On her new album, “Funstyle,” she raps, she mixes in loops of phones and other noises and gives voice to record executives talking about horrible the album is. It’s as if she’s had her Margot Kidder breakdown and is embracing it. You go, girl. Be as nuts as you want to be, I’ll still listen to you.

If possible, 19-year-old Pat would marry his mind’s version of 25-year-old Liz Phair. Hell, 28-year-old Pat might marry that version of Phair. She was the epitome of every cool girl you hear about in a Smithereens song. I don’t know if I’d marry the 2010 version of her, but I’d totally grab coffee and a beer with her and be her friend. We could go to cute little coffee houses and discuss music, then go to a  movie, and maybe then discuss it after with a beer. We’d say “totes,” “obvee” and “unfortch,” even though she’s 43 and I’m almost 29 and probably shouldn’t talk like that.

So, my past adoration of her won’t let me write her off. Sure, I won’t listen to this album every day, nor will I re-listen to every track, but her change over time hasn’t bothered me they way has others. I think she’s growing up. Not every album is going to be pissy, existentialist angst anthems about sex and youth and all the stuff that defined her. If Kurt Cobain were still alive, do you think he’d still be putting out “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Probably not. He might sing anthems about parenthood, the family mini-van and the mortgage crisis and how it’s tough to grow old. He would not be too different from Liz Phair. And we’d listen to it at least a few times before setting it aside, because, well, he’s Kurt Cobain and we liked him when we were younger. It’s the same reason why I won’t outright dismiss a new album by Madonna or New Order or The Magnetic Fields, and it’s the same reason why I won’t dismiss “Funstyle.” Just yet, anyway.

Some tracks from the new album: