Designer BS: Suzanne Dell'Orto and Beth Tondreau talk design.

Prosperity and Peace

2011-12-29T15:25:00.004-05:00

Here's some end-of-2011 / beginning-of-2012 inspiration, from the calligraphic decoration on the above bowl:

Planning before work protects you from regret;
prosperity and peace.

The earthenware bowl—from "Iran, probably Nishapur, Samanid period (819–1005), 10th century"—is one of the many humblingly-beautiful pieces in the Metropolitan Museum's New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. Watch this space for more oohs and aahs about the artifacts, especially the calligraphy that's woven throughout many aspects of the art.

Happy New Year! Here's to great planning, few regrets, artful work, prosperity and peace!

Inspiring for whatever you design

2011-12-07T21:54:00.008-05:00

The current show at the AIGA/The Professional Association for Design focuses on books and covers, but the judges's articulation of "some of the attributes that, intuitively, guided their selection" work for any segment of the design or any work, for that matter.

The attributes are:

--Design that moves beyond the client's expectations
—Design that doesn't follow convention
—Design whose impact aligns with the project's intent
—Design that changes the practice
—Design that is value driven
—Design the matches the technology to need
—Design that entices you to want to learn more
—Design that translates well across platforms
—Design that raises awareness about a social issue
—Design that makes you shriek with delight

Judges Arthur Cherry, Barbara Glauber, Kimbery Glyder, Chip Kidd, and Joseph Sullivan inspired me in a world of "just get it done fast"-ness.

To come: thoughts on the work in the show.

Think Different + Think Location

2011-11-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

Smart new destination for Grand Central Terminal: another Apple Store.

You've Come a Long Way Baby

2011-11-21T17:39:00.005-05:00

At the MoMA exhibit of historically-interesting Diego Rivera murals, I was struck by the scrapbook entry with the caption noting the New York presence of "Diego Rivera, with his wife and A. Conger Goodyear, president of the Museum of Art." The wife: Frida Kahlo. Unnamed, undescribed, unthinkable nowadays. The curator was very sly to show this particular page.
***
"You've Come a Long Way Baby" is from an advertising campaign for Benson and Hedges. The ads come fully-packed with their own baggage. Below is the copy for a 1969 ad. Idiotic? Patronizing? Well-meaning? Commoditizing a movement?

Virginia Slims: 1969
"You've come a long way, baby."
"In 1912, Lucille Watkins had to sneak out to the chicken coop to smoke a cigarette. You don't have to play hide and smoke anymore. Now there's even a cigarette for women only."

Commercial Art Contributes to Fine Art

2011-11-14T15:28:00.009-05:00

On a stroll through MoMA's DeKooning retrospective, I was intrigued to see wall text near "The Wave" (1942–44) that quoted DeKooning's friend Joop Sanders:

[DeKooning] used to do these things that they do in commercial art layouts—they cut out and do a sort of collage, a final pasteout. . . . that's something he did a great deal of in his early paintings.

"Pasteout" must be what we used to call "pasteup." Although we don't do pasteups any more—or for that matter call the field "commercial art"—it's interesting to see what DeKooning borrowed during the earliest of his many phases.

Shape Type, or Designing Typefaces is Trickier than you even thought

2011-11-10T11:31:00.001-05:00

Another interesting typography game from the brilliant minds who created The Kerning Game.
Meet The Shape Type Game, where you try and match up type designs. Tricky, tricky!

Attack of the lozenges

2011-11-09T11:28:00.000-05:00

A new design meme? I'm seeing a lot of these decorated lozenges lately, mostly on cookbooks and food-related items. And I'm wondering what they're actually called...

Aren't you?

2011-11-08T11:24:00.002-05:00

Loud and proud at the Dunkin Donuts in Midtown.

DUMBO day

2011-10-18T21:54:00.001-04:00

Some shots out and about in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. It was an especially good day for some very textured grafitti.

If I ran the world

2011-10-17T23:01:00.000-04:00

I would definitely make e-flux my economics director, and make currency based on Time.

I Know All There is to Know About the Kerning Game

2011-10-17T00:35:00.001-04:00

Flying around the internet, twittersphere, and my classroom is the kerning game, where you get to try out your kerning chops. Some final kerning solutions I don't agree with, but what a fun idea, and some great technology.

More on the reason for sad Mac

2011-10-10T10:47:00.005-04:00

While our posts contain lots post-its re Steve Jobs, here's another bit / byte taken from a great The New York Times article by James B. Stewart.

The entire article embodies the goal of great design. Two paras in particular struck me:

1.
“Steve Jobs and Apple never—ever—wanted to be a low-margin commodity producer,” Donald Norman, a former vice president for advanced technology at Apple and author of “Living With Complexity,” told me this week. “Even the Apple II had some charm to it. It was the first personal computer that had professional industrial designers. Before that they were designed strictly by engineers, and they were ugly. Steve was always, if not an artist, then someone who was charmed by style. He had this dream of something beautiful. If it was going to cost more, it didn’t matter. This was in his genes.

2.Mr. Jobs “had an exceptional eye for design, and not just an eye, but an intelligence for design,” Ms. Antonelli said. “We don’t talk just about the looks, but how objects communicate: The specific shape, how it feels in the hand, under the fingers, how you read it in the eye and the mind. This is what Steve cared passionately about.”

The phrase "If it was going to cost more, it didn't matter" puts me in mind of my purchasing a case for my phone on the street a few weeks ago . A sign touted, "Phone cases $5." (Yay! Less than the $40 at the Apple Store. I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes price does matter to me, but that's not my point here.) I chose a funky design and pulled out a 5 dollar bill. The salesguy gently corrected me.

He: "It's $7.
Me: "But the sign said '$5.'"
He: "Design is extra."

I've been using my street epiphany ever since. Design makes a difference. It's extra.

Photo is a screenshot from The New York Times article.

Sad Mac

2011-10-09T23:07:00.002-04:00

Before it's too late, I wanted to post this "sad mac" sign I saw on the 14th Street Apple Store.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T19:00:00.000-04:00

Steve Jobs, from a 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

In-Game Entertainment

2011-10-02T16:22:00.027-04:00

To commemorate the last weeks of baseball season, here's a bit of what I enjoyed during last week in the Pittsburgh Pirates' PNC Park. The Pirates aren't at the top of their league. But PNC is a lovely park, my favorite Pittsburgh fan is a lovely man, and the Bucs won 2 out of 3 games. The big surprises to me were the short videos played prior to each Pirate's at-bat. The videos were sophisticated, witty, and showcased the home team's town. There were even a few different visual styles in the rotation. From my brief exchange with someone at the Pirates.com site, I learned that the videos were created by the In-Game Entertainment department; unfortunately, I don't have specific credits.

Although the trick of aged paper or graphics to make new books "look" old is itself old, the screen for the Pirates player stats were amusing. )Maybe it was the atmosphere.) They must have a custom font, too, for the swash initials.

The most memorable part of the days out at the ballgame was the sports propaganda. At a crucial point in the 9th inning in the best of the three games, a clip from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean," featuring the battle cry "Hoist the Colors!" whipped every Pirates fan into a frenzy. Hoisting the colors/waving those symbols (not to mention the night's free tee shirts) did the trick. The Pirates won.

Every Spring's a new season. Let's go Bucs (and for this season, Good Luck, Yankees (big payroll and what we've learned from "Moneyball" aside).

Sorry about all that extra, uncropped, possibly redundant branding for PNC and PNC Park!

Sunny with a chance of Truth

2011-09-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

Janet Malcolm's article about Thomas Struth ("Depth of Field," The New Yorker, September 26, 2011) contains a great quote by Struth:

I think what matters is that when the circumstances are prepared well and the people sit and look into the camera there is always a chance of truth.

When the circumstances are prepared well in our field, there is also always a chance of truth.

Advertising Vehicles

2011-09-25T10:57:00.004-04:00

While we're talkin' trucks (I realize you were talking types—both faces/fonts and sterotypes), here's a moving medium to get attenton while on the road: trucks. The "Milk's favorite cookie" road campaign is brilliant. Mr. Oreo was truckin' too fast for me to capture the side view; perhaps I'll get lucky on the drive back to NY. After seeing the road-ad, I just couldn't get one of my favorite cookies out of my mind.

The breast cancer message is clearly less frivolous (although, clearly, not shot with said attribute).

A bad type choice

2011-09-19T18:50:00.000-04:00

Although it does say a lot about the owner, in its own way.

Boot-i-ful

2011-09-19T13:00:00.001-04:00

This is a belated pick-up on your heels/soles tribute to Fashion Week; to wit, my recent fascination with cute boots. The format normally consists of a very short skirt or jacket paired with boots. Of course, it helps to be between the ages of 15-25 to pull off this look. Not shown: open-toed boots, some with zippers, many of them suede.

Soles in 15

2011-09-13T20:29:00.000-04:00

Heels in 5. Go Fashion Week!

Remembering Forward

2011-09-11T09:57:00.002-04:00

In On Being, broadcast early this morning, Krista Tippett held a conversation about remembering forward a decade after September 11. It's worth a listen. The thought-provoking comments and questions complement the heartache of hearing family members read the names of—and giving personal shout outs to—otheir lost beloveds.

I see red people

2011-09-07T17:37:00.004-04:00

Erik Piepenburg's 's New York Times article about the various posters for the play Red is a example of the many ways to solve one problem. The title of the article, "When the Color is Primary," is witty as well.

Screenshot is from the NYT website.

Edward Hopper in Maine

2011-09-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

OK, I'm prejudiced. My father, who was from Brunswick, Maine, loved Hopper. So, I couldn't resist capturing the banner in front of the Tondreau Block.

Far better than any self-referential photo opp is the "Edward Hopper in Maine" exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art until October 16. The 32 oil sketches, done on Monhegan Island from 1916 to 1919, were revelations. Splendid. Generous use of paint. Humbling. Dare I say abstract? Fresh. Does the painting below put you in mind a bit of Richard Diebenkorn?

The portions that I saw of ancillary film, made for The National Gallery of Art in Washington, were revelatory. And the tidbits gleaned from a podcast interview with Carroll Moore, the producer of the film, were reassuring to those of us who can't get started. When Hopper was blocked, he went to the movies.

Screenshot of Hopper's Monhegan painting is from the Bowdoin College Art Museum website.

The New Jersey Firemen's Home

2011-09-04T11:29:00.000-04:00

Every year on Labor Day weekend Boonton, NJ there is the Boonton Fire Department Labor Day Fair, a.k.a. The Boonton Labor Day Carnival, complete with pig roast, beer tent, rides, junk food, zeppole, and games.

Also in Boonton over on Lathrop Avenue surrounded by a beautiful stone fence, there is the New Jersey's Firemen's Home (no mention of what to do with the Firewomen) for retired Firemen. Inside there is also a cool firefighting museum. But the coolest thing about the NJ Firemen's Home...? The gate and it's fantastic metal lettering.

Happy Labor Day. And thanks, firefighters.

Sobering

2011-08-31T18:05:00.000-04:00

Recently, a family situation required that my sister, my husband, and I be in three different states and in constant motion and communication. Far from being teenagers, we texted a lot. And drove a lot. And even though we tried to avoid doing so, we occasionally texted while driving. A film on AT&T's siteshows that it was dumb luck that we didn't have another dire family situation in the form of an accident. Driving while texting can be as dangerous as driving drunk. Sobering.

Stamps for different kinds of post

2011-08-28T17:29:00.005-04:00

The beleaguered Post Office is said to be cutting back, but it hasn't cut back on intelligent, informative, and well-designed stamps. I was tickled to see the "Pioneers of Industrial Design" commemoratives, which pay homage to some of the designers of many of America's iconic and useful objects. The history on the back of the stamps is great as well. I'm going to have a hard time using these stamps as postage.

You could say that some of the products shown on the stamps are like industrial equivalents of Proust's madeleines. Seeing a Brownie camera or Fiesta pitchers catapults me (a designer of a certain age, admittedly) into a love of consumer goods I didn't know I had.

Just my Type

2011-08-22T07:20:00.002-04:00

You and your student will be proud to see that a book reviewed in the NYTimes today talks about that pesky Papyrussed title for "avatar."

County Fair Truck

2011-08-11T12:04:00.002-04:00

We All Scream for Ice Cream

2011-08-04T20:18:00.002-04:00

Making Life Count

2011-07-29T09:02:00.006-04:00

The design world was shocked by the passing of Sylvia Harris on July 24, 2011. Citizen Research & Design, the business founded by Sylvia Harris, contains an announcement of her passing as well as remembrances and links to still more eloquent memories. I didn't know Sylvia Harris. I certainly knew of her and her admirable work.

Sylvia Harris's work was important, had a point, a cause, and was about leading people to great / greater purposes—no easy feat. "Voting by Design," a poster Sylvia art directed for the University of Minnesota's Design Institute, struck me with its clearly successful "communications map of the American voter's experience." I included the poster in Layout Essentials, headed by "Make Space Count."

Sylvia Harris made many things count, including the curtailed time she had to leave a rich legacy of thinking, planning, guiding, and communicating. For me, Sylvia Harris's work speaks for itself.

***

Including links to the easily-found (and wonderful personal) recollections seems a bit vulture-like. Besides, a quick search yields all the sites I mentioned. But below is the spread which shows Sylvia Harris's Voting by Design, an extremely disciplined breakdown of a crucial process.

I'm melting!

2011-07-22T19:58:00.008-04:00

My friend Scott Meadows is an extremely talented commercial photographer,

but he's also added a twist: time lapse!

We've been emailing a lot about the State of the Animated Gif (aka cinemagraph, cinemagif), and web videos...I've been reading a lot of blogs that mention them, like this viral dandelion time lapse on Gawker, hair cinemagraphs and other gifs on Art Fag City, the Gif Shop link on Swiss-Miss, and the fascinating I am not an artist animated gif collection.

Scott's also been working the animated gif to get the time lapse thing like this great sparkler!

Digits and digital

2011-07-20T14:54:00.010-04:00

Recently, I saw a great non-Italian combination of gli antichi ed i moderni—in the thesis project of Juliana Frankovich, a recent Rutgers graduate and student of former mentoring colleague Jackie Thaw. Using old-school embroidery techniques (which are based on squares akin to pixels), Juliana created a series of thirty hand-sewn cards.

In her thesis statement, Juliana Frankovich notes that the series and signage for her installation

. . . together emphasize the general relationship between modern technology and the DIY work ethic as well as more specific design-related topis with an emphasis on hand-crafted materials.

Kudos for the way Juliana Frankovich threads together digits and digital.

The naked cookbook

2011-07-19T20:57:00.002-04:00

An article by Josh Friedland on the blog The Food Section is talking about how cookbooks are being printed without dust jackets—they have only the paper-on-board cover. (Dust jackets being the paper book cover that wraps around the whole book.) I'm thinking that I agree with the basic premise: that cookbooks really don't need a dust jacket. Maybe they're a bit fussy and in the way. And of course we know it's cheaper to print without.

But a cookbook I just took out of the library recently didn't look cheap at all...in fact, it's positively sumptuous. Phaidon has put out a glorious cookbook titled Tuscany — each chapter is dedicated to the regional specialties of the different Tuscan towns.

Each recipe gets its own spread. On beautiful paper. With fantastic marbled endpapers.

And there are not one, but two! finding ribbons (aka markers, registers, signets, or bookmarks); one in deep sienna, the other a lovely ochre. The design is a great blend of gli antichi e i moderni(the ancient and the modern).

And the recipes are sbalorditive, including one for celery that is stuffed (and tied) and floured and fried. You'll have to check it out yourself for that recipe.

And naturalmente the book sports a dust jacket.

Summer Icon with a DIY twist

2011-07-17T13:57:00.006-04:00

To me, nothing says summer like a Chocolate-dipped Mister Softee. The truck at Bleecker and Broadway sports a panel with a charming DIY twist: hand-made cone art atop toweling and phonetic spelling. "Sprinks" wrks as an abbrev.

Radcliffe Bailey: Artist. Great Client

2011-07-12T09:53:00.012-04:00

Recently, I've read a number of articles about the artist Radcliffe Bailey, whose work is currently on exhibit at Atlanta's High Museum, among other galleries.

I like the work—and vapidly think the artist is movie-star handsome. In addition, Bailey's respect for collaborators impressed me (and ties into some of our discussions about clients, what they want, and how they work with designers). Part of an article by Candace Jackson in The Wall Street Journal (Friday, July 8) describes how Radcliffe Bailey commissioned his wonderful ultra-contemporary home-with-studio from the architecture firm Mack Scogin Merrill Elam.

Mr. Bailey said he showed the architects slides of his artwork, letting them take the lead on style and layout. "A collector sometimes comes [to me] and says 'I don't like that color.' And that is annoying to me," said Mr. Bailey. "I wanted to treat them like artists."

Now there's a good and "qualified" client.

Designer Quandry, Update!

2011-07-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month one of my students found herself in a familiar design quandry...how to please a client who already had a design from a previous designer...discussed in this post.
Here's the update:

When I met up with my client, I addressed my concerns about using the poster design [the previous design, done by another designer] as a webpage layout, and he said it was fine to do that and that the poster designer is someone who works in the same place (that's a relief!) As for the decision of whether to go with my design or the poster design, it seems like the client definitely wants to stick with the poster design. My supervisor decided if that's what the client wants, then we'll just have to go with it.

Well, I guess that's the gist of it for my first client! I was definitely paranoid about whether it was okay to just copy another design, but I'm relieved to hear that the poster design belongs to the workplace.

Thank you for posting my question on your blog. It was very helpful to read comments from people who have experienced this many times.

Designer Quandry

2011-07-07T11:08:00.004-04:00

A former (wonderful, thoughtful, talented) student sent me an email the other day with a classic designer's dilemma...what do you do when your client wants you to base work on another design? And how do you sell a client on your design when they love something from before?

Tricky, sticky, complicated? Thoughts, please!

Hi Professor,

I have a bit of a problem, and would like to ask you for some advice.

I recently landed a web design internship, and what I do so far is set up appointments with clients in order to get a feeling of how they would like me to design their page. I mainly do the graphics though, since my coding skills are very minimal. However, I am in a bit of a slump because my first client seems very hard to influence. He wants me to design a layout that resembles a poster that someone else designed for him. By doing so, I feel like I'll only be ripping off someone else's work and ideas.

I decided to create two drafts for the client; one draft with my own ideas, and the other draft with what he wanted to go for. I put more effort into designing my own layout because I wanted my client to consider choosing a better alternative. However, my client still wanted to go for the draft that resembled his poster.

My problem is, how do you influence clients to stray away from ripping off another design? Although the poster was designed for him by someone else, it still feels weird for me to just copy someone else's work. It also seems like he is really set on having his layout look a certain way.

Even though my supervisors prefer my design, I don't know how to get my client to consider a layout that is more practical for a webpage.

Legibility

2011-07-06T22:09:00.003-04:00

Ok,

Legibility is very important to me. BUT, as a "businessperson," I'd rather be viable, or successful, or reliable.

That said, it's hard to beat the phrase coined by scammer Hans Peter.

Dear friend my message to you,

I got your contact information from a reputable business/professional directory of your country which gives me assurance of your legibility as a business person.

Love. Loss. Wore.

2011-07-04T00:25:00.022-04:00

At a 2009 symposium at the National Gallery of Art, Stephen J. Brooke, Associate Professor of History at York University in Toronto, spoke about the people in Bill Brandt’s photos and mentioned “dress as a signifier of class.”

Dress today is a signifier of a different sort of class: poise, confidence, behavior as opposed to social station. I also mean those who are in a class by themselves, using fashion (couture—haute or not) to project an image, story, or fantasy.

***************

"Savage Beauty," The Met Museum’s homage to the late Alexander McQueen, immersed me (and throngs and throngs of other beauty-seekers) in imagination, mythology, and some pretty heavy duty themes. What struck me was the combination of superb command of craft and materials (Gaga’s meat dress wasn’t in the show, but a gown enhanced with live flowers was in its beauty-that-must-die glory).

McQueen’s shows seemed like performance art, with his work as costumes in his runway collections/dramas. I loved the dress that was spray-painted by robots while worn by a model on a turntable as well as a gown made of shells. The Japanese ensembles are extraordinary in their fabrics and craftsmanship.

The house of McQueen sponsored this sadly astounding homage to the bright light who snuffed himself out.

Images are screenshots from video narrated by Metropolitan Museum curator Andrew Bolton.

***************

Somewhere, I read about Patti Smith's strong sense of fashion. I had reckoned that whoever wrote about Patti Smith’s style meant the skinny jeans or white shirts made iconic by Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos. Wrong.

In her poetic, brilliant, bittersweet Just Kids, Patti Smith describes a number of her outfits. If dress is a signifier of class; it can also be a signifier of someone being in a class by herself, not to mention memories, events, or seeking and ultimately finding a style.

These snippets below, about outfits, are supporting details in Smith’s tribute to her extraordinary life with Mapplethorpe (who suggested she wear a white shirt for the Horses cover shoot). For the bigger vision, it’s worth reading the book.

“I was wearing a long rayon navy dress with white polka dots and a straw hat, my East of Eden outfit. At the table to my left, Janis Joplin was holding court with her band. To my far right were Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane, along with members of Country Joe and the Fish . . . “ [Oddly, weeks before reading Just Kids, I almost tossed out a 1970s paperback of East of Eden but kept it. Now, I’ll skim it to see what makes an “East of Eden outfit"].
Paperback page 105.

“We had never been robbed before, and Robert was upset not only about the expensive camera, but about what it indicated: a lack of safety and invasion of privacy. I mourned the loss of the motorcycle jacket because we had used it in installations. . . . The thief was possibly daunted by my mess but did steal the outfit I had worn to Coney Island on our anniversary in 1969. It was my favorite outfi, the one in the picture . . . ” [on the frontispiece of the book].
Paperback page 207.

“The stars were lining up to enter the Ziegfeld Theatre for the glittering premier of the Film Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones. I was excited to be there. I remember it was Easter and I was wearing a black velvet Victorian dress with a white lace collar. Afterward, Lenny and I headed downtown, our coach a pumpkin our finery tattered . . . “
Paperback page 239.

“Wishing to add a guitar line that could represent the desperate desire to be free, we chose Tom Verlaine to join us. Divining how to appeal to Tom’s sensibilities, I dressed in a manner that I thought a boy from Delaware would understand: black ballet flats, pink shantung capris, my kelly green silk raincoat, and a violet parasol . . .” Paperback page 241.

“[Robert Mapplethorpe says] You know, I really like the whiteness of the shirt. Can you take the jacket off?”
“I flung my jacket over my shoulder, Frank Sinatra style. I was full of references. He was full of light and shadow.
. . . He took twelve pictures that day. . . .
When I look at it now, I never see me. I see us.”
Paperback page 251.

“I wrote the poem for his memorial card as I had done for Sam Wagstaaff. On the twenty-second of May, Fred and I attended the service at the Whitney Museum. Fred wore a suit of indigo gabardine with a burgundy tie. I wore my Easter dress of black silk velvet with a white lace collar. . . .”
Paperback page 288.

***************
Pluck. Kindness. Loyalty. Love. Strength. Perseverance. Collaboration. Costume.
“Savage Beauty.” Worth the wait. Just Kids. Worth the read.

Just Kids, Patti Smith. Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.

Gran Poder

2011-06-29T21:29:00.003-04:00

One of my former design students, Michael Dunn Caceres, is now a designer and photographer down in La Paz, Bolivia, where he took some unbelievably beautiful shots of the Fiesta del Gran Poder (Festival of the All-Powerful). The festival is a giant street party that celebrates Jesus and his part in the Trinity.

What's so cool about Michael's photographs is the use of black and white (in great contrast) for what you know is a totally colorful festival. This way his images focus on the composition and on the expressions of the celebrants. Great great stuff. More here on his flicker stream.
Now I just need to figure out which one I want a print of, and figure out how to get some South American mail! (update: they are available here, and mounted prints are well under $100! I am so getting one!)

Another Park

2011-06-28T16:29:00.016-04:00

A few days after you had the perfect day in Brooklyn, I drove up to the lovely Storm King Art Center to hear a talk by Jonathan Lippincott, a talented book designer and the author of the book Large Scale. The son of the man who founded Lippincott, Inc., Jonathan slide-presented the history of the company (and of 1960s/'70s government aid to the arts) and then, walking outside of Storm King's conference room, showed some of the sculptures fabricated by Lippincott for pretty much most of America's major late 20th-century sculptors. My fave anecdote was about how Louise Nevelson worked à la collage on her sculptures, tending to move things around even after they were assembled. Jonathan wryly noted that Nevelson wore out a number of Lippincott welders.

It's the 50th Anniversary of Storm King, so the Art Center devoted space to an exhibit about Storm King's founding and founders, Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, co-owners of Star Expansion Company in Mountainville. The display of Star's various hardware was pretty darned cool—perfect for a company that eventually became committed to modern sculpture.

Jonathan's uncle Alfred, also of the Lippincott Foundry, was at the event. When I asked if Lippincott, Inc. ever used Star's hardware, uncle Lippincott replied that they indeed used to—and that Star made a great anchor bolt.

The trip upstate whetted my appetite to both go back upstate and to stay city-side and see Storm King's presentation of works by Mark di Suvero at Governor's Island.

Sunny Brooklyn

2011-06-08T12:32:00.001-04:00

Monday was the perfect day to run away to the newly opened sections of Brooklyn Park under the Brooklyn Bridge.

The railings featured some beautiful type and designs that echo the suspension cables of the bridge. They also cast lovely shadows along the pier.

We spotted what looked like a solar dumpster, but more research revealed that it is a solar-powered electric vehicle charging station built by the Beautiful Earth Group, a Brooklyn-based renewable energy company. According to their website, the station is the first solar-powered charging station in New York City and one of only a few in the world. Brooklyn Bridge Park will use the donated station to charge its electric service vehicles (EVs) using only the power of the sun.

[Bottom image from the Beautiful Earth Group website]

Weird Gawkery

2011-06-03T23:06:00.000-04:00

The feed on the Gawker page format has a pic and a side blurb, and the next story is below following the same format. This accidental Sarah Palin photo mashup with the Spanx is just plain weird. #spotted

Trux redux

2011-06-01T12:19:00.000-04:00

After reading your post about the bold art on trucks (Semi Bold, Thursday May 5) I was inspired to look for some of my own. The second is a real doozy!

Thirst for value

2011-06-01T10:22:00.010-04:00

In cleaning out the old to make more headspace (physical space not needed!), I pruned some more magazines from the shelves. Steve Heller's interview of Rick Valicenti in Print's 2006 Regional Design Annual yielded some strong, smart and sobering thoughts from Thirst's founder—and, with Lorraine Wild and Louise Sandhaus—WildLuV's co-founder. I recycled the artifact of the magazine and, below, am digitally recycling some items worth saving (bold emphasis is mine).

Heller: Why do you hate design?

Valicenti: As much as I delight in the presence of great design in my life and community, I feel so violated by the shit that is everywhere; bad design seems to ooze into the culture at every turn. This is the design I hate, as it is a reflection of such scant respect for those who must be in contact with it. At the core of design's practice is the virtue of respect—for the process, for the craft, and for the message-making and distribution. There are only three types of messages designers are invited to help express: messages of value, messages about value, and messages of no value. Only two are really worth our time and passion, but the pressures of commerce and life encourage us to be less discerning as to where we practice design. And it is this circumstance that I also hold in contempt. Design has the means to be a healing, one-to-one exchange and be a rewarding medium that enhances, not contaminates, one's quality of life.

Moral values remain true. Value in a marketplace may change. Certain artifacts have less value than they did decades ago. The value of skills evolves—just as skills themselves evolves. The key thing is for design to be "a healing, one-to-one exchange," even as the medium changes.

The links are to 2006, but the message still works.

***

If you can find a live link to WildLuV, the design collaborative, post it!

Narnes & Boble Nookstores

2011-05-27T17:00:00.000-04:00

The other night, I stopped into the brick and mortar Barnes & Noble on Union Square, which—unsurprisingly—now devotes a fair amount of real estate to its Nook devices and accessories.

Cursives!

2011-05-26T12:00:00.001-04:00

While we're looking at script signage for: The Chandelier in New Jersey, restaurants in New Orleans, and awnings up the river, I want to note the April 28, 2011 article in The New York Times about cursive writing. Actually, it was really more an article about the loss of cursive. Handwriting often isn't taught in schools past third grade. Kids don't / won't / can't read it. The article noted that the inability to read cursive was like losing a link to the past. One of my nieces in California noted that cursive always seemed like a foreign language to her. Like my niece, some folks don't miss cursive, but one reply to the article eloquently noted the intellectual and cultural importance of being able to decipher cursive.

One cursive that delighted me lately is a combination of lovely and mildly neurotic on the jacket for Enough About Love (clever visual pun with the "O"s, too).

I neglected to note the jacket designer when I shot the photo of and trips to a number of stores and internet sites yield no credit. Help! Is anybody out there a more diligent reporter? In an unusual turn of events, I can find the name of the book's interior design (Simon Sullivan) but not of the jacket design.

* * *

My most recent favorite memoir, Running the Books, contains some wonderful notes about hand-writing. Here are a few scraps of lines about notes hand-written by inmates in Boston's House of Correction in South Bay:

"I unfolded the note. In razor-sharp cursive, in a script known as the "Felon's Claw"—which I suspect belonged to Whiz . . . "

"It seemed brutal to trash a letter than someone had taken the time to handwrite. And there was part of me that thought, Who knows, maybe these letters will be important to someone in the future? I majored in history and literature, and wrote newspaper obituaries. I spent many hours looking at letters and artifacts that some oddball had decided not to throw out. There is no history, no memory, without this."

* * *
"Taking the time to handwrite" is becoming more special, not to mention specialized.

I wonder: is the felon's claw close to the lover's scrawl?

Not

2011-05-24T12:00:00.000-04:00

Snape Script

2011-05-23T18:09:00.006-04:00

I was taken by the hand-painted script on this now-closed Tarrytown florist, and even more taken by the name "Alma Snape." The owner of the flower shop was Dolores "Dolly" Siebrecht who, along with her husband Irving Siebrecht, owned and operated the shop (now a gallery with a much less striking name). Dolly passed away at the age of 78 in 2010. Why the name Alma Snape? If she was a real person, who was Alma Snape? Who painted the awning? I have homework to do. In the meantime, I salute the moniker that seems like a name from (but preceded) the Harry Potter series as well as the artist who hand-lettered "Alma Snape" in a script that look a bit like Friendly's.

The poetry continues

2011-05-22T16:10:00.002-04:00

The latest double-sided Friendly's sign.

Rain, rain, rain

2011-05-21T22:11:00.001-04:00

This rain courtesy of North Carolina and its plethora of RFD (rural free delivery) mailboxes.

More Louisiana-ana

2011-05-19T10:43:00.001-04:00

Some more New Orleans . . . this handlettering was painted directly on the glass panes of the saloon door (well, to be precise it was actually painted on the inside of the door backwards).

New Orleans: Call & Response (sort of)

2011-05-17T15:12:00.014-04:00

Here are a few of my faves, from a trip to NOLA a few years back. Lola's is kind of a rustic variation on Sylvain.

The photo below isn't for a restaurant; it touts a different sort of table top service. Shame on me.

Restaurant Signage: New Orleans Edition

2011-05-16T22:56:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of shots of beautiful restaurant signage from New Orleans. So without further ado, here are Felix's Sea Foods, Galatoires, and Sylvain:

The Chandelier

2011-05-15T22:25:00.000-04:00

In Belleville, NJ there still exists a classic Italian catering hall called The Chandelier (notice the great scrip logo/signage of the hall itself, and also note the very au courant slab serif in the website).

Here is one of their actual chandeliers, taken by a pint-sized photographer who managed to grab the camera for a moment:

The hall also features a pretty awesome restroom sign, a specialty of this blog, I think.

The Dewar Decimal System

2011-05-12T13:13:00.002-04:00

No, I'm not drunk. I mean to combine Dewar and Dewey, beverage and books.

At the eBook discussion at Pratt (you, Suzanne, are the reason I went; you e-mailed me the e-flyer), Bob Stein noted that the state of U.S. libraries is terrible and that we're a mess compared to Australia. Things are dire, but, based on an incredibly narrow personal survey of libraries in New York, New York; Tarrytown, New York; Stamford, Connecticut; and Brunswick, Maine, I'm seeing that libraries are becoming community centers. On a recent Sunday, I went to Stamford to hear a classmate give a jazz concert at the public library. Younger patrons filled carrels holding computes, while the elderly enjoyed the snacks and concert (OK, and a nap) in the exhibition area.

A college classmate who used to work in restaurants and who's now a librarian commented that libraries and bars aren't all that different.

My current reading crush, the author of Running the Books, was for a time a prison librarian and also functioned as a listener, not to mention as a help to inmates who were studying the law (the word "bar" in the legal sense, means mostly the legal profession, according to the Phrase Finder discussion forum).

Personality & More Personality

2011-05-11T12:34:00.005-04:00

While we're talking personality and smarts, I include Emigré on my list of type mavens who consistently astound. When I described Mr Eaves to you the other night, you asked if Zuzana Licko designed it. Yes! Yes! Yes! Mr Eaves Sans and Modern are the companion to Mrs Eaves. Mr Eaves had me at the cap "R," but when I saw the cap "Q," I was totally smitten. So far, the client and editor agree with me; they love the look of Mr Eaves Sans, which works as display and as hardworking info. (He's a dandy and a working man!) Note Emigré's witty copy listing pairs.

Type designers are true Renaissance misters and missuses. In real life, Mrs Eaves was Baskerville's companion. In type life, is Mr Eaves Mrs Eaves's masculine self?

Speaking of Renaissance men, Paul Shaw knows every flare and curve of pretty much every typeset and calligraphed face. For a strong sense of Mrs Eaves and other digital type designs, read his history compiled as a look back as prequel to a look ahead, written for AIGA's Voice.

Sans avec personality?

2011-05-10T22:26:00.002-04:00

Weren't we just discussing finding sans serif typefaces with personality? And from our mouths to God's ear, an email from Hoefler & Frere-Jones appeared in my mailbox with their Ideal Sans, just the thing with a bit of personality!

And as always, the gentlemen over at H&FJ show off their vocabulary . . .

Flared stems:

Canted gestures (with upward thrust!):

*If nothing else, these descriptions would make excellent album titles for some early '70's prog-rock band.

Semi bolds

2011-05-05T17:25:00.012-04:00

Ok, they're not semis; I'm trying to be clever. Anyhoo, the bold art on these trucks hit me like a mack, whether they were hand-lettered art, sprayed, interstate (or galaxy) commerical, or almost-graphic (a là Divide Your Room.com).

Angels from different angles

2011-04-30T18:16:00.008-04:00

Thanks to "The Book of Mormon," (the show, not necessarily the religious tract itself), I've heard a few people discuss angels and the term "angelology." Back in the day (OK, 1990), I thought Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels, had made up the term. But, lo! Avi Steinberg,brilliant young scholar and writer and author of Running the Books, used the term when revealing his next project (which will involve The Book of Mormon and much, much more.

Ben Wiseman's clever date-stamped portrait on his illustration and design for Running the Books's jacket is wickedly witty and a heavenly concept.

On the other hand—and oxymoronically—the jackets and covers for many of the angels books—Burnham's as well as the me-too tomes sport jackets and covers with less-celestial concepts.

For lovers of angelology or angels themselves, Burnham, the woman who put angels-in-publishing on a modern map, discusses her belief in angels with Penguin, the company that has taken over Burnham's angel tomes from Ballantine Books. Burnham and Steinberg come at angels from opposite religious traditions. Having read Burnham's books (while designing them), I look forward to reading Steinberg's next book, and perhaps even The Book of Mormon to get a sense of that angel named Moroni.

Nice layers

2011-04-25T12:36:00.000-04:00

The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage really uses layers well in their logo.

Added bonus: the animation and links that radiate from the logo on their website is a smart extension of the idea.

You had featured layouts from one of the Pews in your Layout Essentials book...are they related entities?

Materiality

2011-04-20T20:34:00.001-04:00

When I first heard an architecturally-trained designer use the word "materiality," I thought I'd never be in a position to be so wonderfully academic. Well, book jackets and covers now epitomize materiality.

I'm not the first to note this. As content goes digital, the packaging gets much more physical, tactile, dimensional. Barbara DeWilde's brilliant (shown in an un-brilliant snap) jacket for The Troubled Man nods to the furniture of hot metal typesetting. Sagmeister Inc's packaging for World Changing is bee-yootifully embossed, varnished, and whiz-banged.

A stroll through the New York Book show the other night revealed embroidered covers, heat transfers on basswood, and silk-screened transparent acetate covers revealing printed and embossed cloth covers. Pretty tactile. Lovely, too.

Bindings/jackets/covers aren't alone in their materiality—or lack thereof. Codes is masterpiece of diecutting, with a credit for the paper design.

Cheers!

2011-04-16T13:42:00.003-04:00

Outside of an office park somewhere outside London, there is this:

Depending on your worldview it is either an uplifting goal, or a demoralizing co-opt of an idea that is, in itself, an oxymoron. You decide.

P.S. I'm pretty sure they've used Bell Centennial, designed by Matthew Carter for use in the phone book. A lot more people are using that lately. The tipoff is those little cutouts where the Ns diagonal stroke joins the stems.

And P.P.S. I'm told by a British friend that Chiswick is pronounced "chissick", with a silent W. I was also told that Chiswick is very "swish".

50 things someone else knows

2011-04-13T12:27:00.001-04:00

Maybe the answer to your question could be one of the 50 reasons not to date a graphic designer (via Lori Kent). I think I'm guilty of a lot of them...my favorite is number 47.

"Hands" No Discount

2011-04-06T14:01:00.029-04:00

Last night, at a uPenn event, a tech or business (?) graduate from the class of 2009 did two very smart things: 1. Noticing that both of us were orbiting outside of various tight conversation pods, he introduced himself. 2. Learning that I'm a designer, he asked, "What is the one thing people don't know about what you do?" What a clever question. I plan to steal it for future events.

Over the din,* I shouted that designers assess, plan, and communicate beyond making something look pretty. I shrieked that people don't know that it's best to collaborate with designers instead of use them as a pair of hands.

My answer needs polishing. It's a good reminder to always have an "elevator speech," especially in gatherings with elevated noise level—and a reminder to learn to project the voice.

What is one thing that people don't know about what you do?

The Information

2011-04-01T14:39:00.005-04:00

Sounds like The Donald, eh? The March 20, 2011 issue of The New York Times Book Review had a review of The Information. A History, by James Gleick. Geoffrey Nunberg's review includes some great, well, information from Gleick's book (bold callouts are mine):

In a series of chapters, Gleick recounts oft-told tales about the invention of writing systems and the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary along with the stories of lesser-known structures of coding and communication. In the late 18th century, long before Samuel Morse, for example, the Chappe brothers of France invented the first "telegraph" in the form of a network of hundreds of towers topped by semaphore arms with which the government could relay messages from Paris to Bordeaux in less than a day, weather permitting. One French deputy described the Chappes' ingenious signaling system as one of the great inventions of history, along with the compass, printing, and gunpowder. And once the Chappes' optical telegraph had been replaced by the more democratic and versatile electric version, frugal customerrs hit on the similarly ingenious expedient of using economical abbreviations for common messages, like "gmlet" for "give my love to" —texting avant la lettre.

LOL!
Is that cool or what?

Fish time

2011-03-20T21:52:00.002-04:00

After a whole year's cycle of signs, a new one appears:

Re-booked

2011-03-15T10:20:00.006-04:00

When I saw the AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers show at 164 Fifth Avenue (up till April 8), I mentally gave the exhibit design a 50/50 vote. The stadium set-up implied that physical books have become a spectator sport (not totally off the mark to those who obtain content digitally). Striving to wrangle content into a decently-functioning eBook, I was nonetheless sorry to see that the exhibit's metaphor (and the gorgeous books) downplayed the function of books.

When the AIGA quietly eliminated the book/cover show,* it seemed that physical books lost the game. Thanks to a petition—which garnered a lot of support in very little time—started by Christopher Sergio and Catherine Casalino of Grand Central Publishing, the AIGA reinstated the show, with a thoughtful and open-minded response. Ric Grefé's online essay explains thinking and re-thinking, and nails the importance of book design in communication. . . . we understand the passions around this fundamental and central demonstration of the art and craft of communication design, regardless of the area in which many designers work each day. . . It's worth reading Ric's entire essay.

Although I know/feel/fear that BTD didn't design or produce a book that would be worthy of inclusion in an AIGA show—or push the envelope à la Sagmeister's wonderful sculptural package (left), I might just enter the best of a tricky year if for no other reason than to show support. Book a metaphor, book as object, book as vessel to hold LOTS of info, ebook done with craft—are all worthy of honor.

*Full disclosure: An astute Barbara Glauber pointed out the elimination, which I hadn't noticed.

Tiny stuff; big impact

2011-03-10T10:05:00.009-05:00

I don't know if showing something from Dailycandy makes me an aggregator or a sheep, but I'm just entranced by the work of the artist Slinkachu, featured by Dailycandy London. Check out his work on the Adipa Gallery or on Slinkachu's own site. I love the ideas, manipulations, situations, wit—you name it.

Photo screenshot from the Adipa Gallery site.

Change and Plus ça Change

2011-03-07T20:01:00.007-05:00

I'm going through shelves of old magazines: ID, Graphis, Wired, etc. and weeding (or should I say curating?) the issues and articles that seem worth keeping. The field is shifting, we need to evolve, and Spring supports a good housecleaning session (physical and mental). In the past few years, there's been a lot of talk/writing/discussing about design thinking. I think that's a good thing. Interestingly, in short article in the November / December 1990 issue of Graphis, William P. Dunk quantifies the power of thinking:

Those combining design, project management, and analysis sometimes achieve rates twelve times higher than those just offering design.... For the designers, this establishes a value pyramid where he takes aim at the small number of clients wanting a full design process: At the top is thought, a very small niche of clients who also want a thoughtful, well conceived product; the center is project management, a sizable number of clients wanting design and project management; the bottom, visible design, a large base of clients wanting low-cost commodity design.... The trick, for those who want higher prices, is to get into project management and thinking. And then the hard part is to make very clear, with ample detail, during both proposal and implementation stages, what the client will experience as a result.

The hard part (to me at least) is the marketing, finding that small number of clients. The clear proposal puts me in mind of your post about contracts a while back. A clear proposal and detailed proposal leads to a clear letter agreement/contract.

May the thoughtful and detailed Force be with us!

(Stay tuned for additional—but not too many—blasts from the past.)

It's a dog's laugh

2011-02-24T10:30:00.002-05:00

Counter Space

2011-02-21T15:03:00.025-05:00

I don't mean typographical counter space, like the space in "O." I mean a cool exhibit at MoMA about the kitchen. "Counter Space" is rich in interesting thoughts (the kitchen is a symbol of the heart of the home, or a symbol of oppression). On a practical note, it's the most dangerous room in the house.

Swiss Mister: Daniel Spoerri's 1960 art made from breakfast leftovers.

The centerpiece of the show is an example of the "Frankfurt Kitchen," designed in 1926–1927 by the architect Grete Schutte-Lihotsky and which transformed the lives of ordinary people. The small-but-dense exhibit has cool art and great fixtures, artefacts, and posters. Some of the videos are hilariously quaint. Some of the pieces brought back memories (a woman standing next to me pointed to a photo of a Tupperware party and said she gave parties and sold some of the items in the vitrines). And some of the promotional material was just plain hilarious. My personal favorites include an ad that shows two women in a kitchen, one of them wearing a snood. See the odd-shaped thingie to the right, circle in blue.

Posters are well represented, with a surprisingly-beautiful poster by Henry van de Velde which helped brand a new era of food products. Some of my faves are British posters from World War II, many of them featuring critters (naughty nibbling rats and fertile rabbits). One poster features a non-critter: The Vegetabull. The poster nods to Archimboldo (or should I say "ArchimBULLdo"). All of the British posters amaze me in their dealings with adversity. And a French poster for gas evokes the era of Cassandre.

"A vegetable dish made with dried eggs and household milk is as good as a joint." (Not THAT kind of joint!)

On the poster: "One rabbit has at least 12 young a year—45 lbs of meat—and it's off the ration!"

Style as Signifier

2011-02-19T11:21:00.013-05:00

As someone interested in costume and costume design, I've always loved what people's clothes say about them. I don't mean simply stuff like "put the ingenue in white or dress the heroine in red in the last act." A master class in Semiotics-meets-Style, Debbie Millman's Design Matters discussion with Kate Betts makes wonderful points about how Michelle Obama's style is a strong signifier for Obama's administration. Of course, it helps to have both substance and style. Michelle Obama has 'em.

A striking moment in the interview was about Hillary Rodham Clinton, who worked hard—which in an ideal world would be enough. It isn't. As First Lady, Clinton searched for her style. Betts credits Clinton for paving the way, but the truth is that Hillary doesn't have the same style and charisma. Confidence and being comfortable in your own skin (in the First Lady's case, very buffed skin), not to mention pageantry, can send a message. I know we were just discussing yeoman-like work and its importance, which may make this post seem weird, but I submit that Rollins very much has his own style.

Back to Michelle O, here's a bit more from Betts and Millman about how the marvelous is the message: the red dress that US designer-loyal Obama wore at the January 2011 China State Dinner made a statement. Betts notes that the "Chinese symbolism of red for luck and success" signalled that the dinner was about world, not local, politics.

Image cropped from The Huffington Post Style Page. Photographer credit not apparent.

Yeoman's Work

2011-02-17T20:20:00.001-05:00

Back when I worked at Marvel Comics, I was introduced to the concept of yeoman's work by my boss, editor Nel Yomtov. He always talked about writers and pencillers and inkers who put in a hard day's work with deep respect.

So I'm intrigued and a bit inspired (and confused!) by this interview with Henry Rollins in Time Out Magazine from January 31, 2011. Henry Rollins, punk performer extraordinaire (and major teenage crush material) has turned 50 (fifty!), and he talks about creativity, or his lack thereof.

I have to say, I honestly believe that 99% of life is just showing up. Keep showing up, Henry.

Image: Chapman Baehler

Q:
Are you still feeling restless? What’s next for Mr. Henry Rollins?

Rollins:
I’m not artistic nor am I all that creative. I’m more reactive to things. With Nick [Cave], he is a creative person. He’s brilliant that way. I’m not. I’ve got nothing like that. I’m kind of a hack. Or I’m workmanlike. And that’s no bad place to be—it's just different. I say yes to opportunity. I come from the minimum wage working world of the late ’70s, early ’80s. That’s what I know. I know a time clock, a boss and repetitive work. With the talking shows, I have a point of view; I want to tell a story. I am one of those awful hams who would pay you to let me be onstage. I don’t think I am an artist or I am creative. And so when you ask me is there anything else you’d like to do, I don’t know, what do you got.

The best moment of the day

2011-02-16T14:46:00.004-05:00

I've been on a major reading jag lately, most recently finishing up Nicholson Baker's book The Anthologist, which is about a poet who is procrastinating writing the introduction to an anthology of poems. Like Fellini's 8 1/2, a movie about a director who doesn't know what to make a movie about, Baker's book is a game of formalism, where writing about not being able to write becomes the novel. Towards the end of the book, the main character, Paul Chowder, gives a lecture about writing poetry, and there is a bit of business about the best moment of the day that is just absolute loveliness.

And then a man of forty or so, with a French accent, asked, ‘How do you achieve the presence of mind to initiate the writing of a poem?’ And something cracked open in me, and I finally stopped hoarding and told them my most useful secret. The only secret that has helped me consistently over all the years that I’ve written. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you how. I ask a simple question. I ask myself: What was the very best moment of your day?’ The wonder of it was, I told them, that this one question could lift out from my life exactly what I will want to write a poem about. Something that I hadn’t known was important will leap up and hover there in front of me, saying I am—I am the best moment of the day. I noticed two people were writing down what I was saying. Often, I went on, it’s a moment when you’re waiting for someone, or you’re driving somewhere, or maybe you’re just walking diagonally across a parking lot and you’re admiring the oil stains and the dribbled tar patterns. One time it was when I was driving past a certain house that was screaming with sunlitness on its white clapboards, and then I plunged through tree shadows that splashed and splayed over the windshield. You, windshield shadows, you are the best moment of the day. ‘And that’s my secret, such as it is,’ I said.
—Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist (Simon & Schuster, 2009)

Here's the best moment of one of my days recently...a winter's afternoon at the Great Swamp in Chatham, NJ.

Bayou Juju

2011-02-14T22:21:00.000-05:00

Here's the real deal. A friend brought this back for me from New Orleans a long time ago...and I'm afraid to throw it away (what if it's really working!?)! It's from Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo on Bourbon Street. Times being what they are and all, even the voodoo shops have websites now.

Good JuJu

2011-02-12T19:22:00.020-05:00

This pre-Valentine squib is inspired by a foray into the pantry to clean out ancient treats (unconsumed for a year and exhumed to avoid waste). The gummy hearts are a product (and a train wreck of a package) of Mayfair Sales, Buffalo, NY. A shallow search for Mayfair's site led me to a post by a gent named Michael Marcus, who normally posts about publishing, but reminisced about Jan/Feb candies.

But I digress. The heart of this post is the typography for "Mayfair." Can you name the face? A hint: I found its name in Photolettering's One Line Manual of Styles, one of the now-vintage type books on BTD's shelves. BTW, you could give your students an interesting sidebar discussion about Art Nouveau-inspired funky faces from the ______by luminaries such as______________. Extra points and picas for naming the the outlined "JuJu!"

* I first heard the term "good juju" from Amy D, originally from New Orleans, who worked at BTD in the early 1990s. Valentine candy could be "good juju"—i.e. a fetish or some sort of toy or magic to ensure romance. It's a stretch, but so's eating those gummy hearts!

Happy Birthday, Marilyn

2011-02-11T19:37:00.007-05:00

Waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2006, BTD updated the design for All About Art, An Essential Guide to Art History as well as a variation entitled Art, A Brief History. Today, while at the CAA (as an author! signing copies of Layout Essentials!), I saw that there's an UPDATED updated edition. Better yet, I saw Marilyn Stokstad herself and introduced myself. Her publisher, Pearson, had some cute promos for the book, one of which was a birthday cookie which says, "Happy Birthday, Marilyn." That's Stokstad, not Monroe. And yes, I wished Marilyn a Happy Birthday.

PS: I amused myself by signing Layout Essentials/100 Design Principles for Using Grids with the phrase, "All grid wishes" and my name.

Headbands

2011-02-11T09:54:00.000-05:00

Before I worked at BTD, I had never heard of a headband. Have you? Take out one of your lovelier hardbound books and look at the top of the spine. See that little strip of cloth that's between the signature pages and the spine itself? It's called the headband. It helps attach the edges of the folded paper to the spine, and keeps your book spine from cracking and the pages spilling out. There are even sample books that show you different headbands you can specify when you're designing a book, like these from Talas:

I recently received a fascinating catalog of books about bookmaking from Oak Knoll Press/Oak Knoll Books, and even though I knew about headbands, I was surprised to find an entire book devoted to them, titled Headbands: How to Work Them, and they're not talking about Pat Benatar or Jane Fonda, Bjorn Borg or Olivia Newton John.

Further googling about headbands yields some really interesting book conservation materials...worth a look!

Cheers, Chang

2011-02-10T09:47:00.000-05:00

A meeting of the minds went down the other night at Bao Noodles in Gramercy. Designers B & S met for salt and pepper squid and a bucket of happy hour Chang beers to discuss the state of design today (stay tuned!). Our intrepid bloggers were charmed by the Tiger brand water glasses, Chang mugs and bottles, and the plastic bucket (which would make a great beach pail!).

When ham was king

2011-02-08T22:21:00.000-05:00

Pat's mother's recipes remind me of a Woolworth's menu someone sent me recently, purportedly from the 1950's, when ham salad was all the rage. Later decades brought pork chops, bologna, pork rinds, and now bacon. What part of the pig will be next?

A mother's hand

2011-02-08T17:30:00.005-05:00

We've been so sporty lately! Superbowl's over, but a short visit to the Steeler Nation (aka the Eastern PA division of Pat's family, to watch the game) yielded a Pittsburgh treasure that to me is far greater than Big Ben Roethlisberger: recipe cards that Pat's mom handwrote when youngest son/bro left the nest. I'm astounded by the beautiful handwriting, especially the swash "T."

Another of Grace O'Neill's recipes has a gorgeous "heading" for the "Ham Loaf", written with the thoughtful care she put into everything. The letterforms are gorgeous, far fancier than you'd expect/spec for a loaf with ham etc. If I were typecasting, I'd set a bold sans. This is better—and honors the home cooking of a family without vast resources. Humbling!

Note to self: see if the baby digital camera works on macro; good tip, Suz!

Ken's Predicament

2011-02-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes it's not your ad campaign that's the problem...it's the XXX store right underneath your ad. At least it gives Ken another Valentine's Day option.

More (other) sports

2011-02-07T20:42:00.001-05:00

I'm absolutely in love with the new NJ Devils advertising campaign...makes me all homestate proud! The taglines are funny and the type choice is terrific.

Superstuff

2011-02-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

Is football folklore and iconography weird or what? A towel is terrible. A pillow is a helmet.

Egypt

2011-02-04T20:29:00.003-05:00

I espied this classic-to-kitsch clock a few weeks before the upheavals in Egypt. Were the nearby pain relievers a foreshadowing of mind-boggling current events?

Hygenie

2011-01-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's absolutely silly, but this happy avatar for tooth care cracked me up.

Communication

2011-01-28T17:50:00.002-05:00

Hitting a wall. Firewall. Brick Wall. The visual metaphor for getting nowhere bizarrely appeared in the office soon after I spent a day sans internet and on the phone with the other service provider. Coincidence?

Square Sans

2011-01-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

New York team spirit didn't help the Jets against the Stillers (I'm using a Pittsburgher's phonetic pronunciation), but it wasn't for want of hoopla, promos, and even soda-pack typography. Did every NY store get a diagram showing how to create the word "Jets"? Did the self-same national brands do the same kind of promo with the Steelers in Pittsburgh? (that'salotta packaging).Stay tuned. . . .

Practical Advice: design contracts

2011-01-12T11:24:00.001-05:00

I hear from a lot of my students about crazy contract negotiations they get involved in with clients (where the client writes the contract and the student wonders if they should sign it).

Worse yet, I know that many of my students do design work without a contract and a letter of agreement. Don't do it, not even for friends...not even for a drawing for a tattoo! Always take the time out to write a contract, even just a simple one. Contracts let your clients know you are serious about your business, and can help lead them through the steps of the design process and to understand the design fees and related expenses. They protect both the designer and the client.

I always go to the Graphic Artists Guild website to read up on contracts (and I wouldn't be anywhere without my Pricing and Ethical Guidelines Handbook that I got free for joining (you must be a freelancer to join; they also offer benefits like group health insurance and job boards).

Don't neglect to click on the Letter of Agreement tab, too! Extremely helpful!

Clever packaging

2011-01-10T21:17:00.005-05:00

I was going to take my empty bag of Indian rice (from a jaunt to the richly colorful stores in Jackson Heights) and turn it into a tote of some sort, but Phaidon cleverly took the bag of rice concept further and used it as a jacket-equivalent for a book on India's cooking.

Zippy Three Kings Day

2011-01-06T01:00:00.000-05:00

We three kings of orient are
Seek a manger . . . ? . . . looks like a car!
It's Alessi, trendily bless-y,
Shot with phone from afar . . . .

"Hush"-ering in the New Year

2011-01-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

NJ Transit is now reserving the first and last cars of trains into Penn Station during peak hours as "Quiet Cars." Sshhh! They even come with their own logo, playing on the tail of the Q and putting the mute in commute.

Another blast from the past

2010-12-28T18:12:00.003-05:00

I LOVE the Woolworth "O." Gone are the days. Gone, too, is the floppy disk, wittily resuscitated by the savvy n' sassy folks at the
Webby Awards.

Let it $now!

2010-12-23T22:49:00.000-05:00

Happy holidays...
This fabulous window display is at the antique shop The Lively Set over on Bedford Street. The "O" in Noel is one of 2 original Woolworth's signage O's. Only $1200 for the pair, Santa dear!

Please don't enter

2010-12-22T12:18:00.000-05:00

By the time you read this sign, I'm guessing you will already have run into the hospital. Maybe not the best design, eh?

We've got you covered (in gloom and doom) this holiday season

2010-12-15T14:17:00.000-05:00

Did Allstate (and their new ad agency) cook up another ridiculous promotion with the New York Times?

You may remember that they previously had just swiped some Saul Bass looking type for some banner ads (discussed here.)

Now they're full-on sponsoring NY Times Casts, supposed little time capsules about what happened on this day in history. Guess what happened? Catastrophes! Airplane Crashes! Bad health insurance! Nukes! Auto accidents! Would things have gone better if the TimesCastees were in Allstate's good hands?

Covering Philadelphia

2010-12-13T17:40:00.009-05:00

Philadelphia's Independence Hall is having a little work done. Its temporary veil is sheer (and oddly chic). On the opposite site of coverage, this knit tree a few cobbled stone's-throws away brings a nice DIY moment to the city.

The last bit of coverage is about something defunct: Lit Brothers Department store, which covered its facade in more than one spot with "Hats Trimmed Free of Charge." Gone are the days.

For information about another issue that's getting a lot of coverage on the news (and interpretation by DIY constitutionalists), The National Constitution Center is wonderfully informative, with an impressive and inspiring introductory show.

Non-stuffed ballot box

2010-12-10T18:12:00.003-05:00

Currently, I have no info whatsoever about this 19th-century ballot box. Perhaps I'll be able to find the former owner / seller and learn its provenance, age, back story. In the meantime, I could be political and simply create my own version of its history.

Recycling a la Steinway

2010-12-09T12:33:00.002-05:00

This moving sale sign has some creative recycling of a Steinway top, perfect for a table top. Just add legs. Now that's an easy recipe!