Categories
Creative Kingston, Ontario Photography

It takes under 30 minutes to make a restaurant sign without AI slop. I know because I did it.

I’ve been seeing and really dislike the number of slop-generated signs I’m seeing downtown…

  • you have a phone in your pocket, and even a chump like me can take a damn good photo with a new iPhone/Android
  • similarly, free software like Canva has a zillion free templates you can use to make signs
  • these pictures do not look like food; it’s all brown moist stuff that looks like the worst dream of a 1980s station wagon
  • if you don’t care about quality control or craft for your sign, why on earth would I trust you with my food?

Now, I can hear the complaint: “it’s too hard! It takes too long! It’s not possible for one mere human to make the kinds of artful designs that this environmentally destructive, creatively bankrupt engine of horror can make!”

Friends, I put that to the test. I challenged myself to make an outdoor sign for a restaurant. 30 minutes later, I had this, using only my phone and entirely free design options on Canva. It is entirely possible to make kind of shit posters using real photography, instead of kind of shit posters using AI. Check out this masterpiece!

Clearly some people are going to how dare you about this, but I’m just saying for me, personally, AI food photos are a way Nature tells me a restaurant is not to be trusted with my mouth, health, or dollars.

Categories
Creative Fringe Nerd

Let Us Sit in Goddamn Silence for One Hour — Initial Thoughts

So I’ve been working on this for a while:

Like many of the things I work on, it started as a joke; well, a kind of mean comment, leaving a Fringe show last year and saying to my partner “I’d rather have sat in goddamn silence for an hour.” Then, months later, being kinda high when the call for Fringe submissions came out and throwing my hat in the ring.

I assume Kingston Fringe gets enough submissions that fate does play a hand in how things get selected. For those who don’t know, it’s entirely random. Nothing is vetted. You don’t submit ideas or a precis. Just a name and contact info. Lo and behold, long enough later that I’d forgotten I applied, I got in.

That led to about four days of light soul-searching about whether or not I had any commitment to this bit. The more I sat with it, it turns out, the more it started to seem like kind of a neat idea.

That brings us to now; I’ve been working on this in the background for a while, and postering / trying to spread the word for a couple months. The shows start in under two weeks, so we’ll see how it goes.

Like I said, the more I sit with it, the more there is here that I find compelling. At first, it’s just the minimalist/experimental end of it that I got pulled toward. What’s a performance if nobody’s performing? That kind of thing.

But in the context of the world being a bit of a shitshow right now, this as a response started to get more important as well. In a couple of ways that I’ll unpack soon.

Also — to dig into — the personal challenge of it.

I like to overthink everything, and it turns out this is fertile ground for really going supidly deep on something that is ultimately, probably, a bit shallow. A snarky comment, a thing I did because I thought it was funny when I was a bit high, and here we are.

Here we go.

Categories
Creative Just for fun Nerd

2025 calendar template for Affinity Publisher 2

Just in case anyone needs one: I made a tabloid size, portrait-oriented calendar template for Affinity Publisher 2 for 2025.

Working on some holiday gifts for friends and family, and thought I’d share the file.