Daily Heller by Steven Heller

How effective are posters in altering people's perceptions? Are they only worth the paper they're printed on or are they truly persuasive papers? The debate rages at the exhibition Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now at Exit Art in New York, where hundreds of posters, photographs, moving images, audio clips, and ephemera document more than 40 years of activism, political protest, and campaigns for social justice. Many of them have indeed altered perception and triggered action. Curated by Dara Greenwald and Josh MacPhee and organized thematically, the current show presents issues from Civil Rights and Black Power in the United States to democracy in China to anti-apartheid in Africa to environmental activism and women's rights internationally. "The exhibition also explores the development of powerful counter-cultures that evolve beyond traditional politics and create distinct aesthetics, lifestyles, and social organization," say its organizers. Exit Art exhibitions are famous for presenting a critical mass of unique artifacts and this one is no exception.

Design | Politics | Posters

10/31/2008 5:59:44 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [1]

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Don't Forget to Vote
Posted by Steve

Whatever your party, your VOTE is important. The following initiatives have been launched by designers to help get out the vote next Tuesday.

PLUS ONE: "Some people donate money. Most don't volunteer. But what if
everyone got just one more person to vote?" asks Scott Stowell. PLUS ONE (above) is a way to get involved that is modest and personal. If enough people do it, it really could make a difference. And if people send their PLUS ONE stories to hello@plusonevote.org, "we might have a nice collection of anecdotes to share for the future."

VOTEHOUR.ORG: This from Ji Lee: "According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in the last election, the #1 reason eligible voters didn't vote was because they were 'too busy.' This shouldn't happen in this important election. Let's encourage EVERYONE to vote!" Get employers to designate one hour on November 4 for voting. Show your boss the video on votehour.org.

NOV4.NET: From Brent & Andrew: "Promote the vote NOV 4. Let NOV4 help you get out the vote in 2008." This site sells media kits, stickers, iron-ons and tattoos (below) all with NOV 4 emblazoned in stark type.

AIGA GET OUT THE VOTE: "Help motivate your friends, family and others in your community to vote by spreading the AIGA Get Out the Vote campaign. AIGA invited designers from across the United States to create nonpartisan posters."

Design | Election

10/30/2008 4:38:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [1]

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Iraqi Refugees
Posted by steve

The Iraqi diaspora may become the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time. Although the U.S. has promised to accept 20,000 out of the 4.5 million refugees, so far only a fraction have been admitted to the country. "These are truly innocent victims of the war, and in many cases, have supported American troops," says Milton Glaser, who has developed a poster campaign for the International Rescue Committee. (The one above is partly sponsored by The School of Visual Arts in New York and hangs on one of the school's buildings.)

The IRC initiative is based on interviews with, quotes from, and photographs of refugees who continue to be at risk. For more information on the IRC's involvement, click here.

This one reads: "I was first in my class and headed for college when my street became a war zone. My cousin was killed, my father was threatened. We left everything and fled. Now we are refugees. We're not allowed to work. We've run out of money. How will we survive?"

Advertising | Design

10/28/2008 8:14:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Legendary Wall
Posted by Steve

"Okay, wiseguy, what would you do?" With those words, Frank Stanton, former president of the Columbia Broadcasting Company, challenged Lou Dorfsman, the creative director, who died last Thursday at 90, to devise a concept for the 35' x 8'6" cafeteria wall in the new corporate headquarters. Dorfsman replied, "Give me 30 seconds ..." and the mammoth "Gastrotypographicalassemblage" was conceived, subsequently rendered by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnese (Lubalin's sketch below). The wall was dismantled after 25 years (once the "Tiffany Network" became the Wallgreen's network) and left to the termites. Recently, artist and illustrator Nick Fasciano obtained the nine panels, which are currently housed at The Center for Design Study in Atlanta, Georgia. Together with Richard Anwyl, he has mounted a campaign to "Save Lou's Wall." See a wonderful video here. And here is a great tribute by Michael Bierut.

Design | Obit | Television | Type

10/27/2008 8:25:46 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [2]

Friday, October 24, 2008

London Calling
Posted by Steve

I love looking at sketches, especially those of storied graphic icons. The London Underground "roundel" logo, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this month, was originally designed in 1908 by an anonymous artist, but redesigned (above) in 1913 under the auspices of Frank Pick, commercial and publicity manager of the London Underground Group of Companies, and Edward Johnston (bottom), who also designed the Underground's typeface. In 1938, Man Ray designed an extraterrestrial-looking poster that equates the roundel with the planet Saturn--it's still one of the most progressive commercial posters ever created.

Branding | Design | Logos | Posters

10/24/2008 11:09:50 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pardon Who?
Posted by steve

Here's a weekend guessing game to take your minds off the current economic woes: With George W. Bush's presidency coming to an end, he's entitled to give out a few get-out-of-jail-free cards (i.e. presidential pardons) to a lucky few. Can you guess who they might be? The folks at Pure Products U.S.A. offer a few possibilities pictured here. I wonder who'll be the first?

Election | Photography | Propaganda

10/23/2008 8:12:05 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [7]

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Chwast Versus Ogden Nash
Posted by Steve

Thanks to Art Chantry, design archeologist par excellence, I am now the proud owner of Funniest Verses of Ogden Nash, illustrated by Seymour Chwast in 1968, and published by Hallmark Editions. It features such wry witticisms as "Lines on Facing Forty": I have a bone to pick with Fate. / Come here and tell me, girlie, / Do you think my mind is maturing late, / or simply rotted early? (image below, top). Then, there's "Assorted Chocolates": If some confectioner were willing / To let the shape announce the filling. / We'd encounter fewer assorted chocs, / Bitten into and returned to the box. (image below, bottom)

There's more, like "Ask Daddy, He Won't Know," "Lather as You Go," and "The Hat's Got My Tongue," all splendidly illuminated in Chwast's early, colorful linear style.

Happily, if you look, / you may find the book. / The online dealer is not a crook, / and his prices do not rook, / so surf here yourself to get the book / I guarantee it will look very good in that special nook.

Books | Daily Heller Vaults | Illustration

10/22/2008 9:28:56 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [1]

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I Want My 3rd Reich TV!
Posted by Steve

Television was introduced by RCA in the United States at the 1939 New York World's Fair (bottom), but actually premiered in Nazi Germany in 1935, beating out the competition here and in Great Britain. Reich Broadcast Director Eugen Hadamovsky (who was also a deputy of propaganda--and who I quote in Iron Fists) launched "Greater German Television," which broadcast entertainment and political programming into the homes of a mere few thousand Berliners who owned sets. The hope was that everyone would eventually be a proud recipient. The extraordinary Spiegel TV documentary, Television Under The Swastika, by Michael Kloft is now available in the United States as a DVD but also on the web in its entirety here and here. It's well worth a look to see the birth of TV and never-before-seen programs (including variety, exercise, and dance shows, featuring a Nazi cowgirl hopping through a lariat and a tennis player balancing tennis balls, as well as rare footage of Adolf Hitler himself) direct from Nazi Germany. The film certainly underscores how visual media played a major role in the banality of evil.

Documentary | Propaganda | Television | Videos

10/21/2008 7:53:58 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Monday, October 20, 2008

A Week Devoted to Design
Posted by Steve

Why can't every week be National Design Week? Well, maybe that's asking for too much. Or maybe we should be careful what we wish for. In any case, on Thursday, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum will host the National Design Awards, featuring winners Scott Stowell for Communications Design and Michael Bierut, the Design Mind. The museum also has designated this week, October 19-25, as its third National Design Week. In addition to events across the country, the Cooper-Hewitt will offer free admission to all visitors. Moreover, the museum will host a series of free public programs in the Target National Design Education Center and Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden. And don't forget that the winners of the People's Design Awards will be announced on Thursday at the awards gala: Nominees (and you can still vote) include the McCain and Obama logos, as well as Helvetica, the movie, and Design Observer, the blog. BTW, The Cooper-Hewitt invites the public to comment on the awards here.

Competitions | Design | Events | Museums

10/20/2008 3:21:44 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Cool Cat
Posted by steve

Marshall Arisman dedicates his new book The Cat Who Invented Bebop to Dee (his wife) and Katman (their cat). Indeed, Katman was the inspiration for the cool cat in this delightfully penned, beautifully illustrated saga of feline frolic on the jazzy streets of New York. The coolest of all the cats is Stringbean McCoy, a stray with a penchant for swing (who you can see and hear here). Of course, as Arisman notes, the real swingin' cats were Charlie "Bird" Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, and "any resemblance to actual cats, living or dead, is purely coincidental." But this book makes you want to believe. (Published by Creative Editions and designed by Rita Marshall).

Animals | Books | Illustration

10/20/2008 11:35:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [1]

Friday, October 17, 2008

The Great Debate
Posted by steve

Forget about Lincoln v. Douglas, Kennedy v. Nixon, and even Obama v. McCain. The real Great Debate, the one that will have the pundits sputtering, is Batman v. The Penguin (just click on the frame above or here if you're the type that has problems doing "a Google"). See why the nation is divided on who will best lead us in times of crisis. Wham! Bam! Pow! My vote goes to . . . .

Comics | Politics | Television

10/17/2008 6:15:16 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Thursday, October 16, 2008

More Stupid Dog Pics
Posted by steve

I can't believe I'm blogging this, but like the proverbial fascination with train wrecks I can't seem to get enough of dogs (or monkeys, for that matter) dressed up in bizarre costumes. Well, it can't hurt to promote the Times Square Dog Day Masquerade on Sunday, October 19, (from 1 to 3 pm) to benefit Animal Haven's Adopt-a-Pet program. While I feel for the poor canines who are put through this ordeal (especially the ones who have to wear shoes), it is a sacrifice for a good cause. (Pepe, above, is the 2006 champ, but my fave is the nameless bling-adorned dawg, below).

Animals | Competitions

10/16/2008 5:10:57 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [1]

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Master of Caricature: David Levine
Posted by steve

David Levine is America's foremost political and literary caricaturist. Although his signature linear style has been copied by more illustrators for more decades than any other cartoonist, no one has equaled his acerbity and wit. He's had more direct hits on presidents and prelates than any other contemporary. Who could forget his Lyndon Johnson showing the scar of Vietnam (above) or Richard Nixon as Captain Queeg from The Caine Mutiny or Henry Kissinger's relations with the world (bottom)?

But as David Margolick writes in Vanity Fair: The 81-year-old Levine's "universe had grown darker and fuzzier." New work appears much less frequently because "He could no longer see very clearly without strong light and magnification, or rely upon his hand: the lines that had always been his friends, the spare, crisp ones that defined someone’s shape, and the elaborate cross-hatchings that gave him soul, he could no longer control. His ophthalmologist had put it bluntly. 'Mr. Levine, you don’t look your age,' he said. 'But your eyes do.' His diagnosis: macular degeneration. Medications and injections didn’t help. Levine worked on, but laboriously. He abandoned pen and ink for pencil, which, as he puts it, 'was more forgiving if I made a mistake.' But the results were plain enough. For the first time—except for those very few instances when it had been too tart for the publication’s taste—the [New York Review of Books] rejected his work." (Photo of Levine by Gasper Tringale, below.)

Levine's presidential caricatures (including those of John McCain and Barack Obama) and selected paintings are on view at New York's Forum Gallery until November 8.

Celebrity | Illustration | Politics

10/15/2008 7:42:57 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [2]

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Remembering the Classics, Illustrated
Posted by steve

When I was twelve years old, I made a pilgrimage to the offices of Classics Illustrated Comic Books on Third Avenue and 16th Street in New York. The walls were covered with illustrated covers, each done in a realistic pulp style that tickled my imagination. I was particularly taken by their approach to Frankenstein (no Boris Karloff monster he), frightened by The War of the Worlds (which now seems so quaint), and I marveled at The Time Machine (I still believe someone will invent one). The other day I found a few of my favorite issues and was reminded how these comics taught me the joy of reading--comics, that is. Although I never got away with only reading these comics for class assignments (I also read the CliffsNotes), seeing how the Classics Illustrated artists portrayed Paul Bunyan, Oliver Twist, and the Prisoner of Zenda helped me to visualize these stories and their protagonists more easily than reading the original books.

I also recently found a copy of Robinson Crusoe, a Classic Comics book, the precursor of Classics Illustrated, and was reminded where graphic novels really came from.

Comics | Daily Heller Vaults | Illustration

10/14/2008 9:34:17 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [4]

Monday, October 13, 2008

As the Campaign Heats Up
Posted by steve

As the campaign veers towards the finish line, various new initiatives, exhibitions, and personal projects are surfacing. Here are a few worth noting:

On October 15, Parsons The New School for Design, in collaboration with The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, presents an international and interdisciplinary exhibition investigating democracy as a global brand. Ours: Democracy in the Age of Branding (above), curated by Carin Kuoni, features an international roster of more than forty emerging and established contemporary artists and an extensive array of performances, workshops, and new commissions. The exhibit is described as "[examining] the desires generated and promoted by democracy as a brand and investigates aesthetic and political systems of representation developed in response to these desires." Given my latest book on branding totalitarian states, I am particularly interested in how branding is acomplished in U.S. politics.

Also on October 15, the Philoctetes Center presents Voters and Friends: Group Influence in Individual Political Belief and on October 22, The Design of Influence: How Images and Words Sway Minds (with me as moderator).

Designers have also produced graphics expressing feelings and anxieties about the current election: NotAnotherCstudent.com by Julia Ames focuses on the lack of intellectual rigor among the nation's highest office holder and seekers (quotes by Sarah Palin, John McCain, and George Bush, below), a site that could easily be described as "Everything you say may and will be used against you"; Spelling for Change, "a political activation kit developed by a group of creative professionals to spread awareness and passion about the Obama campaign"; Seymour Chwast's lapel pin statement about the uncanny relationship of old and new; and 30 Reasons, which offers 30 posters in 30 days about the election--from a particular perspective, of course.

Branding | Conferences | Politics | Posters | Propaganda

10/13/2008 10:33:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [5]

Friday, October 10, 2008

My Eleventh Most Favorite Record Cover
Posted by Steve

I keep lists of my ten most favorite just-about-everythings (in case anyone asks me for them). But occasionally, I add an eleventh for good measure. So, my eleventh favorite album cover of all time is the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour (above). Not only is it the oddest Beatles cover, it's the strangest album and film, goo goo ga choo, too. (Who was the Walrus, again?) The cover was designed by John Van Hamersveld, who also designed The Endless Summer film poster (bottom), the emblem of surf culture, and one of the more recognizable Jimi Hendrix posters (below), which he sells at his online poster store.

In this 41st anniversary year of the Summer of Love, it's nice to remember those who were responsible for the graphics of that age.

Music | Packaging

10/10/2008 5:21:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [5]

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Padua by Proxy
Posted by steve

The next best thing to being in Italy might very well be spending time with Russell Maret's Medieval in Padua, a molto bello letterpress, eight color, 44-page fine press book devoted to Romanesque and ornamental Gothic inscriptions found throughout this ancient city near Venice. Maret, an expert printer, introduces a new digital cut of Baskerville's Great Primer typeface for the text along with 16 pages of plates of typographic inscriptions. It ain't cheap ($260 including shipping) but at least it ain't Euros, and it's worth every penny. So order here.

Maret started printing while a poetics student at the New College of California and apprenticed with Peter Koch in Berkeley, California. In Boston, Maret worked as associate printer, Monotype caster and chief Linotype caster of Firefly Press until settling in New York where he started his own press.

For information about Maret's earlier letterpress work click here.

Books | Travel | Type

10/9/2008 8:52:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Barack The Brand
Posted by Steve

I have yet to see a company or firm integrate the John McCain brand into their own identity the same way that Barack Obama's has been used in conjunction with existing business identities. The New York design firm LOLZ has combined its logo and the Obama "O" as sign of solidarity and self-promotion for its unofficial Obama site. And my favorite vinyl toy company, Kidrobot, is touting Kidrobama with an integrated logo (below) that juxtaposes product and candidate.

The Obama logo is designed to fit perfectly into any agenda. There's now a site, Logobama '08, that invites you to customize your own Obama logos, even if you're not voting for him. Check out these counter-logos here (bottom) and the Flickr page here.

Branding | DIY | Election

10/8/2008 6:07:44 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [4]

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Going to the Dogs
Posted by Steve

For his 1966 Bob Dylan poster, Milton Glaser used a silhouette inspired by a self-portrait of Marcel Duchamp; the rainbow hair derived from Persian miniatures. The confabulatory result was a graphic design icon that epitomized the late ’60s. Although it is not as iconic, Glaser's 1969 poster for the industrial design icon, the Olivetti Valentine typewriter, designed by Ettore Sottsass and Perry A. King, featured another of his sublime borrowings. As Gerrit Terstiege of Form magazine notes, Glaser referenced The Death of Procris (above), painted in 1495 by Piero di Cosimo. Glaser told Form: "When I got the assignment to design a series of posters for the Valentine, I thought it would be quite charming to design each motif as a paraphrase of works from Italian art history. I particularly loved this painting by di Cosimo, above all because of the sorrowful dog in this magnificent, metaphysical landscape. It reminded me a little of the dog on the RCA Victor logo, listening to his master's voice."

Advertising | Animals | Design

10/7/2008 6:23:07 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Monday, October 06, 2008

Comrade Stalin, Art Director
Posted by steve

Boris Yefimov, comrade Stalin's favorite--and Herr Hilter's least favorite (see below)--Soviet political cartoonist, died last week at 108. His 1947 cartoon titled "Eisenhower to the Defense" (above) was the first salvo in the Cold War. Stalin ordered Yefimov (born Boris Friland in Kiev, the second son of a Jewish shoemaker) to draw General Dwight D. Eisenhower leading the U.S. Army to the North Pole, looking for a war. A civilian asks him why the U.S. should fight in such a peaceful spot and the General answers: "Can’t you see that the Russians are threatening us?" (Shades of current Alaskan foreign policy, perhaps.)

Yefimov worked all night, drawing a family of peaceful Eskimos around an igloo. "The next afternoon, Stalin rang and demanded the picture by six in the evening," Roger Boyes reported recently in the London Times. "Two days later, Yefimov was called in. He was quaking in his shoes. The likelihood of displeasing Stalin was high: He had been friends with the archenemy Leon Trotsky, his father was Jewish, and his brother, [a journalist and] the editor of Ogonyok magazine, had been killed after falling foul of Stalin. But the cartoon was approved. Stalin scrawled the title in red crayon, 'Eisenhower to the Defense.' He even failed to spot that Yefimov, in the rush to meet the deadline, had mistakenly put penguins at the North Pole."

For a fascinating obituary, read Douglas Martin's article from yesterday's New York Times. And don't miss this Guardian obituary.

Illustration | Obit | Propaganda

10/6/2008 12:20:17 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Friday, October 03, 2008

After the Quake
Posted by steve

The devastating earthquake in China last May prompted American designer Robert Appleton, who has been teaching in China, to design and co-curate 5.12: China's Massive Earthquake: A Commemorative Exhibition, held at the RCM Art Museum in Nanjing.
Appleton notes: "The website has more than 100 works out of 200 in the show. It includes pieces from Niklaus Troxler, Pierre Bernard, Kari Piippo, Melchior Imboden, Ben Bos, Michael Mabry, Peter Good, Rick Valicenti, Randall Enos, myself, and a host of Chinese including Wang Xu, Cao Fang, Pan Qin and many designers whose work has never been seen outside China before." The exhibition is scheduled to travel to Toronto during the next months and is intended to raise global awareness of this natural disaster. Above and below are some of the posters (designed by Cao Fang (above), Li Yingwei, Chen Yu & Shen Weiwei, Pierre Bernard, and Yossi Lemel).

Events | Posters

10/3/2008 8:39:14 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Logos Is Hard
Posted by steve

"Dying is easy, comedy is hard," the famous quote goes. Similarly (albeit ungrammatically), you could say, "design is easy, logos is hard." What Paul Rand called "the rabbit's foot" is a difficult conceptual design process even for masters of the form. But that doesn't stop designers from making logos, companies using them, and competitions from showering them with kudos when kudos are due--or not.
After viewing the international winners of this year's Wolda, the Worldwide Logo Design Annual, I was a little dismayed by what the jury awarded "Best of the World" in the categories of both "Talent" (above) and "Professional" (below). The former was designed for a Japanese music label, Atsushi Yamamoto Records Tokyo KK, by Daniel A. Becker; the latter was designed by Landor Associates Sydney for News Limited's One Degree initiative to battle climate change.
Although the upside-down elephant is amusing, and the One Degree mark (looking like a supplicant with bended head) gets the message across, I question whether they are indeed the "Best in the World" or just the best of what they had to choose from--a fundamental problem with all competitions. In fact, with the exception of the "Best of Malta" (below middle), designed for Safeguard by Bulldog, and the unreadable though nonetheless clever "Best of Serbia," (bottom, see the chairs?) designed by Kontra Studio, the rest of these "Bests" are rather lackluster. Maybe "Best of" is too loaded a term. Perhaps "Good of ..." would be safer.

Competitions | Logos

10/2/2008 7:59:08 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [6]

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

16 pages of Joy
Posted by steve

Un Sedicesimo, which, in Italian, refers to a 16-page signature, is an experimental magazine (or booklet, depending on your perspective) published by Corraini Edizioni in which illustrators and designers are invited to do whatever strikes their fancy for 16 pages. Louise Fili and I just completed one devoted to luscious script typefaces. But other artists, including Italo Lupi, Steven Guarnaccia, Daniel Eatock, Paul Cox, and more, have each assembled their own modern-day festschrifts that reveal their respective passions, obsessions, and folly for images, letters, and assorted things.
    Un Sedicesimo is not the only one of its kind. The Pentagram Papers and The Push Pin Graphic are among the most famous. But one of the first was Feliks Topolski's Chronicles, a journal of his drawings from the 1930s through the 1940s. Un Sedicesimo, produced by Stefano Corraini, is a fresh approach to experimental graphics. A subscription for 6 issues:
•    24 € for Italy
•    24 + 12 € shipping expenses for EU countries
•    24 + 18 € shipping expenses for outside EU countries
For more information about subscriptions and terms of payment, please visit www.unsedicesimo.com or write to unsedicesimo@gmail.com.

Design | Magazines

10/1/2008 3:24:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]