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When I was in junior high I was way into professional wrestling. Being too slight an adolescent to seriously consider a career as a grappler, I imagined myself as one day being more of an innovator of the sport. More like Vince McMahon than Rick Martel.
(Yes, I know I was a geek. Let he who did not once control a Chaotic Neutral Dwarven Fighter cast the first stone.) Anyway I would spend much of my free time sketching new WWF promotions in my social studies notebook and by far the most inspired of these was the "Iron Silo," where two fierce rivals would meet under Louisiana Prison Rules while the ten-story, air-tight cylinder in which they were fighting slowly filled up with corn.
That's what we have in this week's Layer Tennis match. Except instead of fierce rivals tearing each other apart in a steroidal rage, we have two really talented and sweet designers and illustrators who are actually even friends, having met several years ago at a conference in London.
The thing about the corn, though. We're actually doing that.
Cindy Li and Veerle Pieters are separated by more than 9,000 kilometers and the curvature of the earth's surface, but professionally they have much in common. Looking through their work, they clearly have similar design sensibilities as well as similar and lushly appealing illustrating styles. They are also both committed to the Web Standards Project, a self-described "grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all."
(This is an important subject and one that is dear to my heart, as well. In fact, I dedicate about fifteen hours each week to the same cause, every time somebody emails a funny joke to my dad and he prints it out and faxes it to me.)
Both competitors agree that Veerle's strengths include her sense of color and layout while Cindy's advantage today could be speed. Cindy in fact compares her design style to an AC Cobra, while Veerle describes her work as being more like "a vintage model with enough modern flair to satisfy" like a Mini-Cooper or a Beetle.
I don't know what it says for the match outlook that Cindy actually owns a Beetle and even knows how to take a wrench to it.
Finally, as someone who was working at Coudal Partners at the birth of Layer Tennis, who sat at the big desk with the stunning view of the Chicago skyline, the one Jason Fried always pretends to sit at whenever Time magazine stops by the office for a 37 Signals photo shoot, [ed. note: 37signals shares an office loft in Chicago with CP] and as someone who did commentary for many early matches in what is now known as the "Photoshop Era," I want to say up front that I have a particular bias regarding this event. A pet peeve. As Jim Coudal can attest, I get visibly angry whenever the competitors return to a particular, popular motif. To make things interesting, I'm not going to tell Veerle and Cindy what it is. But to make things fair, and because I like them very much, I promise not to get mad this time if it comes up. In fact the first one to tick me off by using this particular theme will win a prize: Issue No. 22 of the literary journal McSweeney's, a thick and beautifully designed, hardcover volume with poetry and short stories all bound together with magnets.
And now, as my imaginary announcer used to say at the start of every Iron Silo match, "LET'S POUR THE COOOOOOOORN!!!!
Here's how the game works. Jump into the Layer Tennis Forums, we'll be taking the pulse of the conversations there to declare a winner. You can also subscribe to our Layer Tennis RSS feed and follow along via Twitter.
Congrats to totopromo, the in-forum contest winner, and Operator, the remix winner. We have some Jewelboxing and Swap Meat items to send out to you. We're also sending packs of Field Notes to reo5th, BMB and naamyo. Email your shipping info to dawson at coudal.com.
Today is your last chance to sound off about who won Friday's Layer Tennis Matches and to post your remix/contest entries too.
On the last Friday of the season we played two matches at the same time, Koxvold vs Hutchinson and Glass vs Inman. There was a lot of action on the court and a lot in the forums too.
All matches took place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time or GMT-6.
January 25 - Match 1 | View Match
Chris Glass vs Shaun Inman*
Commentary by John Gruber | Forum
January 25 - Match 2 | View Match
Jason Koxvold* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Forum
January 11th | View the Match
Veerle Pieters* vs Cindy Li
Commentary by Kevin Guilfoile | Match Forum
December 14th | View the Match
Matt Owens vs Jason Gnewikow*
Commentary by Joshua Allen | Match Forum
December 7th | View the Match
Jason Koxvold* vs Bran Dougherty-Johnson
Commentary by Matt Haughey | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Effects®
November 30th | View the Match
Trevor Van Meter* vs James Hutchinson
Commentary by Bryan Bedell | Match Forum
This match was played using Adobe® Flash®.
November 16th | View the Match
Aaron Draplin* vs David Nakamoto
Commentary by Steven Heller | Match Forum
November 9th | View the Match
Scott Hansen* vs Rob Cordiner
Commentary by Alissa Walker | Match Forum
November 2nd | View the Match
Marian Bantjes* vs Armin Vit
Commentary by Heather Armstrong | Match Forum
Match was played using Adobe® After Illustrator®
October 26th | View the Match
Brian Taylor vs Jason Santa Maria*
Commentary by Matthew Baldwin | Match Forum
October 19th | View the Match
Naz Hamid vs Chris Glass*
Commentary by Rosecrans Baldwin | Match Forum
October 12th | View the Match
Steven Harrington* vs Chuck Anderson
Commentary by Jason Kottke | Match Forum
October 5th | View the Match
Neil Duerden vs Mathew Star Thomas*
Commentary by Debbie Millman | Match Forum
September 28th | View the Match
Kevin Cornell* vs Shaun Inman
Commentary by John Gruber | Match Forum
* =winner
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Layer Tennis was created by Coudal Partners in Chicago. We also created Jewelboxing for making awesome disc packaging and The Deck, an ad network targeted at creative folks.
