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!

This is Girly. She’s 97 and lives in Chatsworth in Durban where she and her neighbors got their righteousness on and fought eviction through community mobilization. “The landlord shut our water off and we said no sir!” You go girl. She showed me her apartment - entrance room, bedroom, and kitchen - which she shares with her son and daughter-in-law. Her son’s leg was bit off by a shark when he went fishing ten years ago. The fishing rod now hangs on the wall in her entry room. That’s some hardcore wall art.

Portrait of Girly and her late husband when they got married

Her building complex in Chatsworth

Side of the building. The local kids wrote their names and nicknames, which include $Drean, Spider, Pie, DK(DarkieKid), and Joel

And then I saw this - Bush! I asked why that was written on the building. Did George W make it onto their wall of fame or shame? The residents all laughed and said it was just another nickname of one of the kids. No Bush supporters here! They all laughed hard.

Near the huge informal market hoopla at Warwick Junction in Durban, South Africa. More important than addresses or sometimes even store names… I hear 0828339060 sells hot vests!

Big lady pants in Durban, South Africa. Time for shoppin’ gurl!

Seeing a road called Street in Bucks County, Pennsylvania made me feel a little bad for this road. Ah to be a road namer! Give me the job! The names of the planets! Who wouldn’t feel a little more wordly on Neptune Avenue? The names of colors! It would be like driving through a box of crayons. The names of the months! You could say things like “I’m a half year away.” The names of vintage media! Vinyl Road would be hot property for a booming night scene.

Is Street Road so nondescript and unmemorable that the namers couldn’t fall back on a single tree species? Is it so sorry that giving it the historic figure treatment would have sullied Washington’s good name? Or was the street-naming team in such a rut or so anxious to get out of the meeting that this was all they could muster. Oh leaders of Bucks County, you’ve squandered a moment of opportunity and now your citizens will forever suffer, driving in cars on roads called streets in towns whose names I’ve already forgotten.

In a yard in Calexico, California.

Or that’s what I thought it said, on a 14-hour non-stop flight from NYC to Tokyo.

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…