Jason Polkovitz

A little one-on-bot half court

June 22, 2017

MoMath opened a new exhibit this morning – the idea of which is to enter the parameters of a basketball shot into a ball-throwing robot and allows you to try your hand at trying to replicate the shot yourself at a basket placed next to the bot’s. A computer analyses both shots – allowing you to change what you did on both your shot and the bot’s to try to correct for a miss.

The task for me was to create the logo, marketing graphics, and directional graphics (for the Ball Bot).

I’ve played with the Bot. It’s a heck of a lot of fun. I mean, it’s a robot that shoots basketballs… what’s not to like about that?
Summer in the city

June 21, 2017

MoMath likes to celebrate the solstices with math-related events in the plaza just north of the Flatiron Building. This year I was tasked with designing a sundial (along with our Chief Educator and Associate Director as technical consultants) wherein a person would stand as the gnomon and cast a shadow telling the time of day. It became a 15′ x 15′ vinyl mat which was deployed in the plaza on the Summer Solstice for people to interact with and enjoy.

Happy summer!

First customer of the day:

People were encouraged to leave a sticker with a message on it. This was at the beginning of lunch:
Summertime, and the learnin’ is easy.

June 14, 2017

Summer is coming and with it the salvation of all parents who work full-time: summer camp. I was tasked with coming up with the logo for the summer program of the Museum to appear in promotional materials as well as the t-shirts the kids will get. (The final design can be found is on the upper right.)
The math festival this city deserves

June 13, 2017

The directive was to come up with a logo for what is hoped to become an annual mathematics festival for New York City. In the end, the Museum decided to go for a more generic look for the promotional material, but I was quite pleased with how these were turning out so I decided to showcase them here.
Desktop wallpapers

May 13, 2017

Here are a few desktop wallpapers I made when I got my fourth computer. I figured I’d make them free to use for anyone who enjoys the numeral “4”.

If you like and use them, please comment or drop me a line via the “email” link to the right of the page. Thanks!
On art, ego, and appropriation

April 2, 2017

(I commented on a post by a friend on Facebook and felt a need to share – and expand upon – it here):

Art isn’t about the artist.

It is about how the piece affects the people who view it. If an artist doesn’t like another artist that is irrelevant to the work – and they’re missing the point of the exercise. Any artist who claims ownership of the meaning of a piece of art once it is out in the world is just an egotist – and any person who judges art because of the artist is an idiot. The power of art is completely judged by the viewer. It makes no difference if the artist meant something if the viewer is affected by it in a different way. That doesn’t make it a failure, it makes it personal – which is as it should be. It might not have been what the artist intended, but it enriched the emotional experience of the viewer’s life.

As far as appropriation is concerned, viewing art is inherently appropriation on a very personal level – you are taking a personal statement from the artist and making it your own. Subject matter that affects the artist, or that an artist wants to bring into the spotlight isn’t appropriation – it is a signal boost – and, once again, has nothing to do with the artist.
Would you like to play a game?

March 29, 2017

MoMath has an upcoming games night (mostly board games with mathematical credibility) and needed a logo for web and other promotional materials.

The pivot point on the Q was a play on the name of the event, with the playing piece balancing out the design.
The key to your happiness, a door to your future: a real estate company re-brand.

March 12, 2017

Unfortunately, neither of these designs were picked by the client as he wished to go in more of a hand-drawn, Etsy-style direction (which was executed in a subsequent iteration). At any rate, I was fairly pleased with both concepts.
Stop

January 15, 2017

I was recently hired to create a brand name, logo, and packaging for a brake pad manufacturer who wanted to start selling their product in the United States. Below I’ve included the logo concepts, final logo, and package design.

As a side note (to explain a geometrical anomaly): the traditional octagon was replaced with a hexagon to draw the eye across to the next part of the wordmark. An octagon would, as it should, stop that movement and make the logo more clunky whereas a hexagon, with its side-corners, points to the next word. Maintaining the traditional stripe and field theme of an international stop sign (not to mention the word “stop”) keeps the message clear without hurting the flow.
Go (math) team, go!

February 27, 2016

Every week, the president of the National Museum of Mathematics creates two puzzles that appear in both The Wall Street Journal and the website varsity.momath.org. The task here was to create a logo for these puzzles for their title: Varsity Math. The number to the bottom right of the logo indicates which week the puzzles are related to – a later addition to the design that I’m quite pleased with. It reflects the theme and is easily changed from week-to-week.

$Varsity-Math-24$