apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

"starting a 'beef'" - ha.

There's nothing about hip-hop culture that's even remotely inspirational - including these.

All I have to say is I really hate Cleveland

$10 for something some words on a piece of white paper. Hm.

Do not get.

lame, close-minded comment, bepsf.

Heh!

I agree that small cities are great IF they have personality. My own favorite small city is Newport, R.I., which most people think is only a town. Can I get a grudge match going with Providence over which is better?

I am a small-city fan and want to like these posters... but I don't. I think that a weak point of many small cities is that they are so size-conscious. Why does it have to be small cities vs. big cities? Why are we even playing the same game?

For what it's worth, I'm a Cincinnati native living in Cleveland, and I am fond of them both. I don't mind being "dismissed" (or hated, for that matter). Bringing more people in would take away many of the small-city benefits (cheap real estate, tame rush hours, no reservations for fine dining... shhh!).

The small cities and large ones on these appear to be chosen at random. Why not take on a real small city vs. large city rivalry, like Boston and NYC?

Finally, one doesn't "playfully reference" hip-hop culture. Ewwww.

I am also a Providence resident and it is ridiculously difficult to get friends from NYC and even Boston to come and stay a while. But I love all the benefits of small city living. If our apartment were located in Boston it would cost a small fortune.

I too can type words and print them out. I don't think these are particularly clever OR well executed.

oh please, bepsf! get real.

the posters themselves are more surreal than funny/clever, though.

Couldn't agree more bepsf.

I just hate the fact someone wants to charge $10 for something that easy to do. Holy hell, Jackson Pollock used more of his noggin to produce his "art" which makes this kid look like he didn't put any effort into his poster-making, at all!

Even thought AT dwells more on home/interior/product design, the comments on this are already showing people's ignorance to graphic design.

Simple does not mean it was easy and/or fast. Whitespace does not mean it is bad or a waste of space.

What drew me in to click through on this post? The typography. Period. Nice choice of typeface, it looks really good all together and is balanced.

Yes, you too, can type words on a piece of paper, but I am guessing that yours would look like crap? Especially If you hadn't seen these and someone gave you that phrase to put on a poster. How horrible would yours have looked? I am guessing it wouldn't be showing up on any blogs, more likely in a recycle bin.

Lets go for some reference here, many of you hate them now, but so many of you loved the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, and bought them up. However that was just some words on paper too, plus a little icon you could get off the web easily...

In pittsburgh they say
"Pittsburgh, We aren't Manhattan, we just built it"

I stand by my comment. I like typography and I love prints, but I would not pay even $1 for this 'poster'. It's not clever. It's not visually interesting (typeface and all). It doesn't even look like it was printed using equipment that would be unavailable to your average non-artist.

thank you jmorey, I know a lot of fellow designer friends of mine would appreciate what you said. deceptively simple poster~!

BTW: Am I the only one who is tired of the kind of thinking that accuses people who don't like someone's 'art' of philistinism of some kind? Not everything is good or worthwhile.

Perhaps I was a bit flip, but I too stand by the spirit of my comment. I agree with slowdown's assessment. Perhaps the print itself is of a higher quality than is evident in the picture, but here it does not feel or look original or inspired in subject or execution. That is not evidence of ignorance, just a difference of aesthetics.

"There's nothing about hip-hop culture that's even remotely inspirational"--

while I'm not a hip hop fan, we should acknowledge it's a global phenomenon (there's German, Turkish, Japanese, British, Jamaican hip hop just to mention a few) that has inspired many cultures & subcultures as well as other genres of music such as techno & house music, not to mention rap. we shouldn't only equate it with gangsta rap, which is just a small branch of it. As such Hip Hop is one of the most significant contemporary global artistic movements, influencing and disseminating world music.

I think it's cute. Reminds me of those pizza commercials you see these days.

"There's nothing about hip-hop culture that's even remotely inspirational"

bit of thinly veiled xenophobia?

Also, slowdown, do you get the difference between professing dislike for one's art and questioning whether or not it is indeed art? Because it is perfectly all right to not care for one's art, but as soon when people pull the whole "you call THAT art" business, they are essentially being pricks, and at times, yes, philistines.

I'd go crazy if they had a "Spokane will kill Seattle" poster.

gordon, how is Boston a small city? I wouldn't consider one of the largest metro areas in the country to be small.

@ alaricus

boston is really small compared to NYC. everything is almost within walking distance!

On the "favorite small cities" list-- St. Louis is just so charming to me. It's like if you crossed St. Paul with New Orleans, which makes sense because it's right in the middle of the Mississippi. Unlikely to have a rivalry with Berlin, though-- lots of Germans in STL.

Small cities are infinitely preferable to large cities, imo. The people aren't convinced that their block is the center of the world and anyone further than a bus ride away might as well be moving to the Andromeda galaxy.

My favorites are Boulder, CO and Ithaca, NY! Although there are people who might reasonably question whether their denizens are indeed on the same planet as everyone else.

I think Providence is a great small city, I have lived there twice along with many other cities. Providence has the feel that you get to know people but you still have plenty to do. Over the last 20 years Providence went from a place you did not drive through to a place you go to on a Friday night.

Less Expensive than Boston (and Boston is a LARGE city, for those who think otherwise) and easy to move in and out of.

Bostons population is 12,199 /sq mi people per square mile and Providence is 9,401.7/sq mi. Although NYC is around 71k per sq mile, there is not any other city in the US that can compare to NYC. Boston is 48.4 SQ MI in size, Providence is Area: 18.5 SQ MI and NYC is 304.8 SQ MI in size. So Providence population per sq miles is fairly large. Even though most numbers are off since "city limits" and such make it hard to know if they count metro areas of just the are in the city.

Although I do not imagine these are being art, I like the idea behind them.

i'd invite many of the commenters who remarked on the lack of inspirational content in hip hop to listen to albums made by mos def, talib kweli, common, lupe fiasco, and myriad other hip hop personalities (even jay-z) who DO inspire kids, adults, and even me, a white twentysomething from cleveland, every day. your comments just demonstrate a total lack of understanding of a very real and very vibrant culture.

and, as a graphic designer, i'd invite anyone who doesn't think these prints are worth ten dollars (which is extremely reasonable in the world of prints) to spend time kerning and setting type sometime.