Phillip Retuta's Blog

The Life and Times of a Filipino-American

Archives for March 2015

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The NEW Nevv School/PaRs0N5 Logo.

First Look! We’re shaking up the conventions of brand identity.

A video posted by The New School (@thenewschool) on

So The New School rebranded…. I’ll tell you what, honestly and brutally: I’m not a fan (and based off the comments on social media, I’m not alone). As a designer and a student who came from this school, I find the typography and rebranding have devolved from a sleek, sophisticated institution based in New York to an experiment in making your own type face by an amateur. What’s even more surprising, the logo and rebranding were designed by Paula Scher, one of my favorite and more well-renowned graphic designers out there. To the best of my knowledge, the original logo was a variation of Franklin Gothic — it’s an established typeface, and when your logo is nearly text-driven and a representation of a university, it’s probably best to stick to the classics.

The biggest problem I have with the new logo is the inconsistency of the letters — they’re not cohesive at all, and when I read that text, I get a sense of imbalance, of confusion. The different widths of the individual letters throw me off, and it’s a little too futuristic for me (plus, with this font, their mobile site looks awful). I get that Parsons/The New School want to push the edge of design and leap forward into the future of typography, but holy fuck, what were they thinking? It’s not elegant. It’s almost schizophrenic. You can read more about the design process here, which from an aesthetic and communication point of view, I disagree with.

I’d hate to see them rebrand everything with this, especially the original, Franklin Gothic typeface awning in the main campus building.

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“Fuck me, I’m falling apart…”

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After reading his interview with Pitchfork and David Eggers regarding his latest album, “Carrie & Lowell,” I have a newfound respect for Sufjan Stevens that is tinged with empathy and sympathetic cognizance. Stevens’ childhood and personal life has always been a mystery to me and his fans, as it can only be surmised by the lyrics of his music — most of which center around characters he creates, set in fictional/non-fictional backgrounds of places I’ve lived in and been to (ie, Chicago, the Midwest, New York). With these interviews, however, I can finally understand who he is and the fucked up childhood he had: his biological mother, Carrie, got divorced and left him and his siblings when he was 7, while his father maintained an emotionally-detached household. Carrie gets remarried to Lowell, divorces him, and Lowell becomes the inspirational father figure Stevens needed. And then his mother dies in 2012 and Stevens falls into booze and drugs, which clearly explains the weird (but good) collaborations with Serengeti and Son Lux, as well as his last album, “The Age of Adz.”

Sufjan Stevens has always been a private musician about his life, and for me, I’ve always wondered what drove him to be such a phenomenal writer and multi-instrumentalist. Well, he opens up with the deeply personal “Carrie & Lowell” and his subsequent interviews. I now know that brilliance comes from pain and loss and grief and hard times. I’ve been looping the entire album on NPR, and I finally get it.

So why the hell I’m writing about this? It just shows there’s hope for anybody. You can put your entire past behind you and come out as a wonderful, talented person. You can take all the shittiness life has handed you and use it as fuel to become an accomplished artist, well-respected in your field. Thank you, Mr. Stevens.

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When I Was Done Dying.

Dan Deacon’s “When I Was Done Dying” is perhaps my favorite song off Gliss Riffer. The lyrics are so profound, and when I heard that a bunch of animators were going to create a video and premiere it on Adult Swim (unfortunately, at 4am on a weekday), I was excited. The video is fucking perfect.

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Brooklyn Flea.

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I spent a little bit of Saturday and most of Sunday at the Brooklyn Flea, which opened up this past autumn a few blocks away from my apartment. On Saturday, I decided to just stop by the flea market before I saw a movie, and I found both this awesome locker for $120 and a cool German Bundesadler Eagle pin for $2. The locker — rusted and peeling and perfect for Brooklynite artists with a love for vintage — would have been great for the new art studio that my roommate Morgan and I are trying to furnish. I would have stored all my photo equipment in it while Morgan would store her art supplies (creatives, am I right?). However I was in a rush, and I wanted my roommate’s opinion, so I figured I can go on Sunday and buy both the locker and the pin then.

Well, the next day, both were gone.

It just shows that if you don’t act fast in the flea market — especially in a neighborhood with a growing millennial, artist, and yuppie population — you’re bound to lose whatever piques your consumer interest. Spend fast, I suppose.

I was with my friend Alex at the time of my Sunday trip to the BK Flea, and we passed by the vintage eyeglass booth that she bought her old glasses from. It’s called Today’s Vintage, and they sell one-of-kind glasses from the 1930’s to the 80’s to now. The owners are incredibly friendly, and they approached both Alex and me without the obtrusive and too-enterprising attitude most salespeople overwhelm others with. Alex got glasses that made her look like The Church Lady, and I found a pair that I really like. After looking at a few more booths at the BK Flea, I went home and got my eyeglass prescription from two years ago… only to return to the flea half-an-hour later.

Now two things: I was in the market to get some new eyeglasses, and the prices over at Today’s Vintage were actually more affordable than going to cheap-yet-trendy Warby Parker, which everyone in New York fucking owns a pair now. Second, I was planning to spend my Spring Break on some dumb vacation, but since I went nowhere and did nothing, I decided to use the money I set aside to buy two pairs of glasses:

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One is a callback to my old horn-rimmed glasses that I got from a shitty St. Mark’s sunglasses vendor and replaced the lenses with prescription ones (needless to say, considering the frames were mass-produced in China, they are now broken). The other pair makes me look like a skater or Terry Richardson. In both cases, I think it’ll be nice to switch between my current glasses and these new ones; I’m trying to be a little fashionable.

Fuck, I do live in New York.

Fuck, I am a hipster.

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How To Fight Loneliness.

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I was expecting a little bit more. I was expecting fun and a little bit of socialization with friends, maybe even a vacation outside of New York. Nope, I utilized my entire 4-day weekend (essentially Spring Break, since I was off from my job at University) a little bored and a little lonely.

Before my vacation, I spent nearly the entire week prior binge-watching Netflix and HBO Go, namely “The Unbreakable Kimm Schmidt” (funny, very reminiscent of “30 Rock”) and “The Jinx” (no shit, he did it). Although I’ve been meaning to watch these shows, it distracted me from the sheer fact that I was by myself and for whatever reason, none of my friends were willing to do anything during the work week. I was simply hoping that this upcoming, well-deserved break from work would surmount to something more worthwhile: a vacation, a day trip, seeing anybody. However, the majority of my close friends were out of town, and the ones that remained seemed too preoccupied with their own stuff to compromise their schedules with mine. I felt alone for nearly the past week and a half.

Still, it did get me thinking on how to cope with loneliness: I distracted myself by being active. I worked out. I cleaned. I cooked. I made things and made plans. If I found myself sitting down with my own depressive thoughts or vegging out on television, I made myself wash the dishes or sweep or do something productive. Sure, these are undoubtedly distractions and escape mechanisms for what is a larger issue, but at least I’m doing something that’s beneficial rather than negative or complacent.

So how do you fight loneliness and boredom? Do something that will help you either in the long run or in the short term. Or, you can listen to Wilco’s “How To Fight Loneliness”: