Anthony ILacqua, a portfolio

"Holga 120N" is the back cover’s image. This image is 24 inches squared. I chose a square format in honor of the square images that come from the 120 film in these Holga cameras. I took the initial image of my Holga 120N with a DSLR and manipulated it in Photoshop. I wanted a look reminiscent of a toy camera image with an encaustic wax transfer. “Holga 120N” appeared in the 2022 Emerge Design Exposition and it won the “Creativity Award.” https://www.frccmgd.com/ emergeblog/anthonyilacqua

Anthony ILacqua

I am the co-founder of Umbrella Factory Magazine and remained the editor in chief for 40 issues. My short fiction has appeared most recently in Red Fez, Ethos Literary Journal and Fifth of the Fifth. After becoming an out of print author of two books, I decided to pursue graphic design formally at Front Range Community College where I graduated with honors in December 2022.

I believe the artist, much like the human being, is the sum of their experiences. I learned from an early age the importance of communicating clearly. My neighborhood, much like my family, was comprised of immigrants. Shop window signs were often in one or more languages, some of which were not unusual to me even if I was not able to decipher what it said. The streets were filled with banners and neon and billboards and marquees with ads and graffiti filling the spaces between.

After the earthquake, I not only left San Francisco, I left the continent. Once I left home, I did not find places I went particularly diverse; what I found were cultures and cities and people all of which I experienced as a foreigner. I became an outsider. Whether it was the Middle East or Central Europe, there were just as many billboards and magazines as there were back home. Despite the language being different the message was the same: a set of images and characters specifically designed to convey an idea or to sell something.

I came to Graphic Design later in life, and as a Graphic Designer, I bring a life rich in experience to my work. I love that Graphic Design can be both an enduring logo like that of GE or IBM around for generations or the ephemeral phenomena of a social media post lasting for a few hours. It’s all a matter of communication: billboards of North Beach to the storefront ads of Al Basara.

Much of my work, what I’m most proud of anyway, is more obviously centered around the idea of communication. It’s been principally magazine work, in short, layout. When I began working with Umbrella Factory Magazine it was as the fiction editor, as I do come from a writing background. But over the years my job there evolved to managing editor, editor in chief and later into design and layout. I’ve had the opportunity to work with writers and poets and photographers whose work I have procured into both quarterly magazines and single artist books and ebooks. I took all this experience with me when I decided to return to school to pursue a degree in Graphic Design.

Producing a product, like a magazine, is a big endeavor. A magazine has a tremendous amount of content, much like the street scenes I knew as a kid, some things are familiar and some things are not. Again, it’s a matter of communication, what gets laid on a page for a reader to experience. It’s also a matter of communication from conception to the press with all the people, writers, designers, artists and printers who are involved. It’s a great deal of communication for a product that will ultimately end up on a quiet reader’s lap.

ilacqua.designs@gmail.com

(303) 550-9843 838 Lincoln Street Longmont, CO 80501

linkedin.com/in/anthonyfrankilacqua/ ilacquadesigns.myportfolio.com/ anthonyilacqua.blogspot.com umbrellafactorymagazine.com

Book Jacket Design

The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style. A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway’s most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley.

The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises helped to establish Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. ISBN 978-0743297332

Ernest Hemingway 297332 780743 9

Published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises remains one of my favorite Hemingway novels.

When choosing the color palette, I wanted cool colors, mostly because of the way the setting of the story made me feel. The typography, meant to feel slightly art deco, has the slim stems and wide, open counters.

Although the typefaces are not vintage to 1926, when the novel was published, I think it captures the mood. I drew the bull in Illustrator, did the layout in InDesign and the I had to tinker with the image in Photoshop.

During this project, I reread The Sun Also Rises, and I’m amazed at how well this novel has aged.

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Ernest Hemingway, in full Ernest Miller Hemingway, (born July 21, 1899, Cicero [now in Oak Park], Illinois, U.S.—died July 2, 1961, Ketchum, Idaho), American novelist and shortstory writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.

One generation

passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

The novel is set between 1938 and 1940, after the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Despite being based on real events, the novel does not name either Russia or the Soviets, and tends to use generic terms to describe people and organizations: for example the Soviet government is referred to as “the Party” and Nazi Germany is referred to as “the Dictatorship”. Joseph Stalin is represented by “Number One”, a menacing dictator. The novel expresses the author’s disillusionment with the Bolshevik ideology of the Soviet Union at the outset of WW II.

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Darkness at Noon number eight on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, even though Koestler wrote it in German.

Staying with the mid-century literature theme, Darkness at Noon and Cannery Row are both required reading for generations.

Both of these examples were built in Illustrator and laid out in Indesign.

These designs are print ready with all marks, CMYK colors and put into all packaged and appropriate files.

Some highlights of this project were the graphic elements I added to Darkness at Noon, the Soviet inspired star and circles. The addition of barcodes and publisher’s logos completed the look.

My copy of Cannery Row, from 1942, came complete with the wartime censorship warning, nothing like a little piece of history.

Arthur Koestler

Born in Budapest in 1905, educated in Vienna, Arthur Koestler immersed himself in the major ideological and social conflicts of his time. A communist during the 1930s, and visitor for a time in the Soviet Union, he became disillusioned with the Party and left it in 1938. Later that year in Spain, he was captured by the Fascist forces under Franco, and sentenced to death. Released through the last-minute intervention of the British government, he went to France where, the following year, he again was arrested for his political views. Released in 1940, he went to England, where he made his home. His novels, reportage, autobiographical works, and political and cultural writings established him as an important commentator on the dilemmas of the 20th century. He died in 1983.

Arthur Koestler

“Honor is decency without vanity.”

“History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unnering flows towards her goal. History knows herway. She makes no mistakes.”

I was teaching freshman comp at the Southwest Early College when I first conceived of Umbrella Factory Magazine. My students, young college hopefuls, were torturing the English language and consequently, torturing me. I was telling my wife that I wanted to leave higher education and learn manufacturing. “Like what?” she said. “I don’t know, umbrellas,” I said.

Living in Denver, as we were, I could think of nothing more frivolous or as unnecessary as an umbrella. “If only we could manufacture literature,” she said. We were both writers. Within 36 hours of that conversation, Umbrella Factory Magazine was formed.

Since launching, Umbrella Factory Magazine has done its best to connect well developed readers to the best writing available. The magazine ran quarterly from 2010 to 2019 and from 2020 to the present, it runs bimonthly. UFM offers fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art. Since 2011 UFM has been a participant in the annual Pushcart Press Prize

Over the years, I have been UFM’s editor-in-chief, poetry editor, fiction editor, copy editor, the marketing department, workshop facilitator, designer and web developer. I am extremely proud of this little magazine, the community it has fostered and its longevity.

Logo Design

Although I’m still forming my philosophies around logo and logo design, I enjoy thinking about logos and creating them. No doubt, I prefer workmarks over symbols, but I know they each have their place. A few things that have influenced my thinking recently are Just My Type by Simon Garfield and Brand Naming by Rob Meyerson.

With Just My Type, I gained some insight to the history of movable type through the science of typography. The book has given me a new appreciation for the shapes of letters, ligatures and all the possibilities to create logos.

As for Rob Meyerson’s book, my view on designing brand identity has changed entirely. It’s a given that a logo, and the greater notion of a logo system is a crucial component to brand identity. It is one of the first things a designer makes. But after reading Brand Naming, I’ve come to appreciate the process of naming a business, a service or a product. Aside from the obvious facets, trademarking, cultural appropriateness, developing a name that can inspire customers is paramount. From a graphic design point of view, choosing a name that can inspire the visual element is another matter entirely. I know not every designer gets to name a product, service or company before starting work on logo design. Oftentimes, the name is already established and the logo comes next, and as the first step in the brand identity.

Creatively speaking, it’s tremendous fun to make logos whether they’re wordmarks, letterforms, emblems or pictorial and symbolic marks. Critically speaking, it’s an equal amount of fun to figure out how to match a logo style with the product, service or company.

My examples were all build in Illustrator.

tool camera flaneur

Typography

Before I began studying graphic design, I may not have known what was good design, but I certainly knew bad design. I have left websites, I have forgone reading books, and I’ve been repulsed by magazines because the choice of type has put me off. If it’s not welcoming to read, then why read it? Now, after spending some time studying, and more importantly thinking about type, if something is not readable, I know why I decide not to read something.

I do not have hangups with certain typefaces. I know Comic Sans infuriates many designers. I recognize that Comic Sans is inappropriate for an email, but it looks great on the back of box of mac and cheese. In short, there is a time and a place for every typeface. Knowing when to use which makes the graphic designer.

Above all else, I believe that typography’s sole purpose is to communicate.

I built the Susan Sontag quote with Photoshop. The image I took of one of my toy cameras. “Bull Skull in Type was built in Illustrator

Not your grandfather’s gin and tonic.

All tosspot logic aside, it is true that drinking whiskey, wine, beer any of that will make you drunk, but drinking gin will make you awesome. Incidentally, I’ve been known to become awesome. My drink, of course, is gin.

Working, as I did, in bars for as many years as I did, it’s hard not to have opinions on booze trends. A generation ago, vodka was the bar mainstay, but even then, I was partial to gin. In recent years, fortunately, gin has regained favor with bar goers.

Beefeater is an old brand, established 1820. Beefeater has been through dozens of trends, and probably have set a few. Even now, looking at the Beefeater website, they have have an image: young, urban, hip. But in all the years I worked in the bar, I seldom served Beefeater to anyone younger than me.

These banner ads, I developed with the urban and hip in mind. The images are photographs of street art, murals. And the tagline? It’s true, Beefeater is not your grandfather’s gin and tonic.

These ads were built in Photoshop. The largest ad, I featured a small animation highlighting all three of Beefeater’s gin.

Internet banner ads in Pixels:

728x90 320x50 300x250 1200x628 775x515

September is National Bourbon Month. Come celebrate with us.

The Texas Woodsman

TX Bourbon Longtucky Amaro Chocolate bitters

Fun Bourbon Fact

A bourbon barrel spends the first two-plus years of its life imparting rich flavor and color to the bourbon aging inside its charred oaken staves. By law, a barrel can be used just once.

I come from a service industry background, and I worked at Martinis Bistro for my last years in the industry. Sure, I had to tend bar and I waited tables, which is the nature of restaurant work. I also got to write drink menus. I got to prepare special events menus. With all that, I had promote what we were doing.

It doesn’t mean anything if you create a great drinks list. Without telling everyone you know, and plenty of people that you don’t, no one sees the drinks list and no one buys. Over the years, we created seasonal drinks lists, themed drinks lists and pairing dinners. Some of our events were successful, others weren’t. When relying on social media alone, I did not find overwhelming responses. In the case of Martinis Bistro, social media was a nice spring board, but it wasn’t the end all.

What really worked was a combination of in house advertising, personal networking between our staff and guests and the most effective: the carefully cultivated email lists.

I built these particular ads for September’s National Bourbon Month. These were giant social media ads: 1020 px by 1390 px. They were built as a template, so that the colors could be changed out easily, but the typeface choices remained the same. Since we were highlighting a particular drink with a particular bourbon, I added the “Fun Bourbon Fact” as an added engagement.

These were built with Photoshop and layout was with InDesign.

Classic Collection Classic Bourbon cocktails for the 2021 season.

Mavis Gamble Branding and Package Design

Labels for “medicine” bottles. 3

Popular history suggests that the drink originated at the Manhattan Club in New York City in the mid-1870s, where it was invented by Iain Marshall for a banquet hosted by Jennie Jerome (Lady Randolph Churchill, mother of Winston) in honor of presidential candidate Samuel J. Tilden.

ManhattanLabels for bottle tops. 3

In 1962, the Universidad del Cuyo published a story, citing the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio de Iquique, which indicated that Elliott Stubb created the "whiskey sour" in Iquique in 1872. El Comercio de Iquique was published by Modesto Molina between 1874 and 1879.

Composed of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Campari, its creation is ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called Boulevardier, which appeared from 1927 to 1932.

Developed during the 19th century and given its name in the 1880s, it is an IBA Official Cocktail.It is also one of six basic drinks listed in David A. Embury's The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.

The Mavis Gamble concept came out of a marketing ploy for a different company: Seance Spirits. Seance Spirits has an almost Victorian feel with their concepts, and their packaging. Being a woman owned company, the Mavis Gamble character developed as a logical and fun spokeswoman.

The Mavis Gamble Holiday Collection was solely for the 2021 holiday season. Drinks were packaged in small medicine bottles, further hearkening back to the days of traveling carnivals, snake oil, and health elixirs.

The larger logo is based on a tattoo belonging to one of the owners. The font choices: Harrington is just decorative but still heavy enough to be reminisce of the fat faces the Victorians used. Adding Arial Narrow was an easy choice for no other reason than it is easy to read. The labels were printed as stickers and added to the bottles with the smaller circular logo sticker on the lid.

Logo design was built in Illustrator, the layout in InDesign.

The primer issue of AVANTART Magazine launched in December 2022. The magazine was designed and developed by the Multimedia Graphic Design capstone students at Front Range Community College, it included all the various schools within the Liberal and Creative Arts department at the college.

Although AVANTART is a 72 page magazine, I was only responsible for

8 pages of content: interviews, fiction and the theater spread. Our staff was small, four students and two faculty members. We chose the content as a group and worked the subsequent layout together.

I am no stranger to magazine work. The years working with Umbrella Factory Magazine has taught me a great deal about communicating with writers and artists, and the laying out

of content. Ultimately, with Umbrella Factory Magazine, it is a simple matter of working with a small number of contributors and a small staff. What I gained with AVANTART was the perspective of working with many, many contributors in several different disciplines and how to work within a larger team to get to the end product.