419 spam received; put down, flipped, reversed.

June 27, 2008 5:31 PM

Marian Bantjes, typographer, designer, and Layer Tennis competitor, received a 419 spam email and turned it into this print.

She's also written a number of interesting pieces for Speak Up; my favorites are the ones on design clichés, posters from the War Effort, the design language of heraldry and a (satirical) critique of the alphabet.

posted by heeeraldo (8 comments total)

I want to buy one of these prints. I'm going to send him a check for $21,320,000.00 (Twenty-one million, three hundred and twenty thousand U.S. dollars), to be held in escrow while he sends me the print and the remaining balance.
posted by optovox at 5:44 PM on June 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The design language essay was pretty cool.
posted by grouse at 5:54 PM on June 27, 2008

Neato!
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 5:01 AM on June 28, 2008

Holy shit, I know Marian—I even had dinner with her when she visited NYC some years ago! Great designer and wonderful person, and I absolutely love the print.
posted by languagehat at 7:12 AM on June 28, 2008

this chap here did a thing with spam email which i quite liked.
posted by sgt.serenity at 7:22 AM on June 28, 2008

i would like to learn more about the people who believe these e-mails . . .
posted by kindel at 8:43 AM on June 28, 2008

Me too, kindel, I have some excellent investment opportunities I have been saving for just the right kind of investor.
posted by grouse at 9:02 AM on June 28, 2008

Last summer I interviewed someone who had fallen for one of the scams. He seemed like someone who had never had much "luck" (either the kind you make yourself or the kind that comes from life giving you chances). He felt very wronged by his bank since they told him the check was good and then took the money back when the check was returned as fraudulent.

It was stunning for me to realize that there are indeed people who fall for this, and to hear their explanation/rationalization, and just feel really bad for them.
posted by stevil at 1:36 PM on June 28, 2008