The Friday Fillip

I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but in Ontario it’s still summer — and it looks like a gorgeous day pretty much all across this land according to the weather map. This means that it’s going to be hard to work this afternoon, harder than usual on a Friday, that is. Ever thoughtful, I’ve got just the solution: a Friday Fillip that will keep on giving for perhaps three or four hours. Here’s the deal.

One of my favourite sites is that of Coudal Partners, a graphics and advertising firm in Chicago. And my current favourite thing on this cornucopia is the “live Layer Tennis” match that gets played each Friday, starting at 2pm central time (i.e. noon in Vancouver, 1pm in Calgary, etc.). The idea is that two graphic artists take (10) turns working and re-working an image under the scrutiny of an MC, who helps you see what’s happening, and a peanut gallery that posts match commentary on a forum. (The “layers” refers to the ability in Photoshop and other graphics programs to draw in layers that lie on top of prior art, so to speak, thus capturing and changing at the same time.) In theory the volleys should be 15 minutes apart, so the action stays lively; at times things can take longer than that, but then the crowd gets restless and starts stamping virtual feet.

It’s fun.

Even if you don’t know the artists in question — and I usually don’t — and even if you don’t know diddly about graphic art — and I don’t — it’s fun. The comments are often witty, sometimes naive. And withall you get to see what can be done with the web in a different (than law) discipline: Not only has Coudal captured the imagination of dozens — hundreds? — of folks in the biz, he’s also married a forum, a rapidly changing website, an RSS feed and Twitter for these events.

This week’s artists are Neil Duerden and Matthew Star Thomas (a.k.a. the Cousous Kid). An intro by this week’s play-by-play commentator Debbie Millman is already up on the site, so if you feel like wasting, oh, fifteen minutes already this afternoon before the gun goes off, go and learn a bit about what the struggle will reveal. It will be interesting for me because these artists, both English, share in some respects a style that doesn’t particularly appeal to me at first sight; so I’ll be looking to learn about what makes them good and what there is to admire in this sort of work.