I’m a big fan of my fellow Chinese lady who sells $2 noodles at the corner of Elizabeth and Hester Streets, and I have a new appreciation for all the drama she has to endure as a street vendor in NYC. As the graphic designer for one of the Making Policy Public projects, I’m working closely with The Center for Urban Pedagogy and The Street Vendor Project to create a fold-out brochure distilling NYC’s complex vending laws into something accessible. At least 4000 copies will be distributed to street vendors as a useful resource and made available to others as an advocacy tool for policy reforms. Good times! Because many of NYC’s street vendors are immigrants, we’re making the rules as pictorial as possible and translating the rest into Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, and Spanish. It’s been fun illustrating everything and here are some more shots of the work-in-progress:

I went to the Street Vendor Project’s monthly meeting yesterday to get feedback on the brochure and check out the scene…

One guy has already been fined $1000 this month for minor infractions like parking his cart too far away from the curb. As a comparison, a parking ticket is $65. Also, city officials are proposing that vendors can never leave their cart (who needs bathroom breaks?) and that all vendors must display an unobstructed 36″ x 18″ sign that shows they’ve got the appropriate licenses. This would take up serious space on their size-restricted tables. Vendor and board member Larry McDonald said, “Forget about your goods. You’re going to be selling the sign!”

I’m consolidating my blogging jones so if you don’t see me here, it’s because I’m all up on The Important Project. But this one deserves doubling up: How to Draw a Man in a Casual Sweater. I love the internets!

James Reeves and I have come up with a new project called The Important Project that addresses political issues through research, writing, and design. Right now we think elections, chalkboards, and people are important. This may change. Check it out, read about important things, and add your thoughts to fun surveys and polls!

How often has America shifted back and forth between political parties? And how long has one party held office? To get some historic perspective during this election hullabaloo, I made a timeline plotting out the political parties of all the U.S. Presidents, as well as the dominant party in Congress. See it all here…

While watching the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago, I channeled my Obama love and created a high-brow collage made out of his photo and construction paper. I wanted to wear it with pride so I turned it into a shirt, and now you can wear it and show how much you crush on Barry too! T-shirts come in red, blue, and gray versions to match all your political outfits. Women’s ringer t-shirt: $22.45. Men’s ringer t-shirt: $20.20. Buy them here!

CUP’s Making Policy Pubic collaborators page is up… look Ma, I’m on the interweb!

A high-brow collage I made while watching the DNC… I Heart Barry!

Labor Day is around the corner and made me wonder what I was doing Labor Days of yore - banging on keyboards! Here’s a flyer I made when I played synth in The Sems and we performed at Pianos in NYC. A night of proletariat good times for the working class.

Left to right: Steve Baker (Red Antenna), Rosten Woo (CUP), John Mangin (CUP), Sean Basinski (The Street Vendor Project), and James Reeves (Red Antenna) discuss big things.

CUP’s Making Policy Public project continues and we all met at our Red Antenna office yesterday to discuss the scope of content that will go into the final fold-out poster for The Street Vendor Project. How much will be directed towards street vendors as a much-needed resource, and how much will be an educational/advocacy tool about street vendors and regulation reform? How much will be about clarifying the convoluted regulations into clear graphics and how much will be about showing just how convoluted it currently is? Will the tone be neutral, pleasantly reform-suggestive, or fight-the-man militant? Probably not the latter, but it’s fun to imagine the extreme… I’ve always wanted to draw a big fist. Stay tuned for next week when I come up with some design directions!

Hey kids, it’s collage time again! And Men In Hats is now a series… Words from Pocket Calculator by Kraftwerk.