Benjamin Forde is a new member who credits his membership to our new web site. He is a graphic arts designer who moved here from France. These pictures are a few of what he has to offer the club. He is very talented in his field and we welcome him aboard. I have included a recent letter from Benjamin that he sent me at the bottom of this site. Enjoy, how he makes a work of art...His 1967...a REAL work of ART. This next picture is called

The following is a letter I received from Benjamin...any comments? His E:mail is included as well as ours. I can always use some input. Mark Reynolds/FGCoA

Hello Mark, This is a small note from Pecos New Mexico, I read the Gazette from beginning to end and discerned a slight pessimistic tone in some of the articles, I am new at car clubs and all that... but I am having a great time, cruising, driving, looking and thinking at and about my new "old" car, I understand that not every body has access to the WWW site, but I would like to point out that I probably would not have bought my GALAXIE if you, the site and the whole club had not made me feel comfortable about getting involved with this hard-to-keep-running-space-cruiser.
I love it, the way people look at you, the way people look at the car, interested, full of nostalgia and affection... most of the people out there tell me how the graduated when that car was released... I was probably conceived when my car rolled out of the FORD factory!
As you are asking for points of view and advice from members of the club that is what I think: The Gazette could look a bit more seductive, The overall design should be according to me in relation with the years that those cars where produced, the design in that period of time was extremely active, many fonts and general design styles appeared in the late 50's, 60's up until the early 70's... take a look at the owners manuals from these years, inspire yourself from them, the typefaces are very characteristic and would give the gazette a real retro look. The content of the Gazette is nice but could be more "fun" oriented, it is after all a fanzine for people that share a common hobby. Not all of us are registered mechanics, maybe you could have more about easy-to-do stuff to keep our GALAXIES up and running on the roads, the problems that occur to this type of car must be pretty much the same, so, an overview of these common problems and maintenance solutions would be welcome.
About the web site, the same design critic as the Gazette. My own site should be up within 2 months or so... then you can check out what I did. In my site, two pages are dedicated to my GALAXIE and will be linked to your site...
Enclosed are 3 fast roughs of a FGCoA logo, personally I prefer the simple top one. A logo that would not put emphasis on any year or model but on the common thing we have: the FORD logo, using the very characteristic blue oval, and a simple clean elegant type below... I would be happy to stick a transparent background logo on the rear window of my GALAXIE, if it was aprox. 5 inches wide... Anyway, that's all for today! Have a happy cruise!

Benjamin can be reached at: FORDESIGN in case any of you would like pictures of YOUR car like the ones he did!
You may like to check out his WWW page HERE.
And of course I can be reached at:the Ford Galaxie Clubhouse
Please let me know what you think of Benjamin's ideas.