$100K Eyes

I’m not sure how many of you out there have noticed this same thing but my eyes are ruined. It is a slow process in the very beginning but once it is set in motion there is no regaining your former innocence. It typically takes a few years to develop; all the while you have no idea what transformations you are going through. As the years go by the metamorphosis becomes worse. Sometimes it will drive you mad but certainly it never goes away and has potential for ridicule. What the hell and I talking about? Not yet, thank you. Perhaps you would like some scenarios that led to my self-diagnosis to give you a hint? OK.

1.) I am driving down I95 from Philadelphia to Baltimore. It is approximately 100 miles on the highway to get home. Along those 100 miles there are countless things to stare at, gaze in awe and just plain set your mind into a numb, mindless, day dreaming mode. How many signs, notices, bumper stickers and billboards do you think you inadvertently read along that trip? I don’t know but it is a lot. All those letters staring at you, someone just like us doing their best to leave an impression but, what do you see first when glaring at one of these huge, static advertisements?

2.) Ahh, nothing like the relaxation of the summer. Besides the beaches, barbeques and cold beer what complements the best season of the year like a good book. So each spring I find myself in the usual haunt of the local mega bookstore. I have some ideas in mind of what I would like to delve into this year. It is the usual requirement- an easy read. Summertime distractions are many so a simple book is necessary. So, I am back at the bookstore searching the lengthy isles, but it is not the same as it used to be. The store is basically unchanged, shelves of text organized by some elaborate yet top-secret manner. My searching is through forest of titles that will help me make a buying decision but that is the last thing I notice.

Sound familiar? Well, a short one to drive it home, just for good measure.

3.) I am reading any magazine on any topic in the entire world yet I am not just interested in the articles, comics or pictures. Whether I like it or not I am doomed to throw my attention on something else.

All right, I drive down roads and look at billboards, I go to bookstores and stare at book covers and I browse magazines and pay as much attention to the non-articles as I do the articles. These are the symptoms; my eyes have been spoiled since final diagnosis. I suffer acute graphic designer’s eye or Hundred Kay Eye. Yup, it is horrible, chronic and progressive.

When I see these thing: billboards, books, magazines, newspaper, brochures, logos, I do not see catch phrases, bullet points, titles, etc. No, I see Helvetica 23 Ultra Light Extended Oblique, or ITC Avant Garde Gothic MM Oblique 455 RG 450 CN or, god forbid, Comic Sans. I see spot colors, I see stock photos used and reused, 4 color prints, Art Deco, Art Nuevo, Pantone colors, plotted vinyl, illustrations Photoshop effects and so on and on. Gone are the days where the impact of the dust jacket from a Chuck Palahniuk novel would present some insight into what strange story lay between the covers, now it is a body on the slab waiting for me to cut it open and dissect it. The type face in the title, sans serif and very modern, the author’s name looks to be Garamond, that background is some sort of abstract work created in Photoshop, inspired by some 1970s style pop art, etc. Yes my friends this is what life has become for me, I can’t just look around out there, I have to study stuff, figure out what the other guy was thinking, try to remember it and learn more and more because that is how this disease work,

Hundred Kay Eye is common amount people such as us, creative types that want to be or already are creative professionals. It is very contagious; most of you already have the early symptoms, I can tell, if nothing has surfaced trust me it will. Enjoy looking at nothing the same ever again!