100.02
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Bradbury Thompson L谩szl贸 Moholy-Nagy Experimental Jetset The Heads of State Robert Brownjohn Alexey Brodovitch Jessica Hische Milton Glaser Cipe Pineles John Maeda Eddie Opara Corita Kent Alvin Lustig Chip Kidd Saul Bass Louise Fili
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designed by
Juliette Wang
CO KEN
CIPE PINELES
LAZLO MAHOLY-NAGY
design
Frank Del Sa
designed by
Winnie Lee
ROBERT BROWNJOHN
designed by
Katie Hurley
designed by
Vivian Xiong
BRADBURY THOMPSON
ALEXEY BRODOVITCH
designed by
Jinbo Huang
designed by
Audris Park
CHI KIDD
SAUL BASS
designed by
Zack Parker
designed by
Claire Choi
designed by
Hyejin Ahn
MILTON GLASER
designed by
Elena Kim
designed
Natalie
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ned by
ka anto
LOUISE FILI
JOHN MAEDA
designed by
Esther Ko
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CON TEN TS
ORITA NT
100.02/X Spring 2015 is the second edition of a zine of MICA Introduction to Graphic Design students’ interpretations of the work of their favorite historic or currently practicing graphic designers. It is published as a black and white lo-fi print edition and a full-color digital edition.
IP D
EXPERIMENTAL JETSET
JESSICA HISCHE
designed by
Rachel Dunn
EDDIE OPARA
HEADS OF STATE
designed by
Layla Choi
d by
Hawkins
designed by
Morgan Smith
LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY NAGY Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was born in 1895 in Borsod, a small village in southern Austria-Hungary. He first studied law in Budapest but the World War I interrupted Laszlo’s law studies, which he never finished. In 1918, after the war, Laszlo embarked upon his career as an artist. Laszlo’s early paintings and drawings were very figurative and tended towards Expressionism. However, in 1920, his art became completely abstract and was strongly influenced by Russian Constructivism. Laszlo created a new method called “Photogram” which is a photographic image made without camera. Brightness of the image was depended on the exposure time. The longer the silhouette was exposed, the brighter the image gets.
"Design is not a Profession but an Attitude."
During 1923 to 1928, Laszlo worked in Bauhaus, which was pivotal in his career. Working experience in Bauhaus gave him opportunity to meet artists, art historians, museum curators and other members of the American and European Avant-Garde. From 1935 onwards he lived in London, untill in july 1937 he emigrated to Chicago to direct a new design school based on the Bauhaus model; “The New Bauhaus: American School of Design” The German Bauhaus was known as a school where new forms for industry were invented and thus it fit within a perception of cultural modernity that emerged in the United States by the late 1920’s. Moholy-Nagy’s leadership of this school insured a favorable public image. He was internationally recognized as one of the major proponents of Constructivism.
Being in charge of this school, he had to work with a group of capitalist businessmen, whose values did not fully accord with his own. While art educators celebrated the school for its creativity, corporate executives were embittered because the school showed few results. This school closed after only a year because the association withdrew its suport. Moholy-Nagy himself decided to start a second school “The School of Design”, which survived until 1944 and was then renamed the “Institute of Design”. Moholy-Nagy became seriously ill and was diagnosed with leukemia in November 1945. Despite X-ray treatment, he died in 1946.
Alexey
By Jenna Gabrial Gallagher
In 1934, newly installed Bazaar editor Carmel Snow attended an Art Directors Club of New York exhibition curated by 36-year-old graphic designer Alexey Brodovitch. Snow called it a revelation, describing "pages that bled beautifully, cropped photographs, typography and design that were bold and arresting." She immediately offered Brodovitch a job as Bazaar's art director. Throughout his career atthe magazine, Brodovitch, a Russian émigré (by way of Paris), revolutionized magazine design. With his directive "Astonish me," he inspired some of the greatest visual artists of the 20th century (including protégés Irving Penn, Hiro, and, of course, Richard Avedon) to create legendary images. Brodovitch’s signature use of white space, his innovation of Bazaar’s iconic Didot logo, and the cinematic quality that his obsessive crop-
“If an artist is to maintain
his integrity, he must be responsible to himself; he must seek a public which will accept his vision, rather than pervert his vision to fit that public.
”
-Alexey Brodovitch
ping brought to layouts (not even the work of Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson was safe from his busy scissors) compelled Truman Capote to write, “What Dom Pérignon was to champagne ... so [Brodovitch] has been to ... photographic design and editorial layout.” Sadly, Brodovitch’s personal life was less triumphant. Plagued by alcoholism, he left Bazaar in 1958 and eventually moved to the south of France, where he died in 1971. However, his genius lives on. Thirty-six years later, the work of Alexey Brodovitch never fails to astonish us.
Brodovitch
1934-1958
“If you see something you have seen before, don’t click the shutter.” -Alexey Brodovitch
“Design is concerned with relationships and relationships are always good or bad, never neutral”
ARTICLE BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF GRAPHIC ARTS
A LV I N
Alvin Lustig’s contributions to the design of books and book jackets, magazines, interiors, and textiles as well as his teachings would have made him a credible candidate for the AIGA Lifetime Achievement award when he was alive. By the time he died at the age of 40 in 1955, he had already introduced principles of modern art to graphic design that have had a long term
output, no single project is more significant in this sense than his 1949 paperback cover for Lorca: 3 Tragedies. It is a masterpiece of symbolic acuity, compositional strength and typographic craft that appears to be, consciously or not, the basis for a great many contemporary book jackets and
influence on contemporary practice. He was in
paperback covers.
the vanguard of a relatively small group who
The current preference among American book
fervently, indeed religiously, believed in the
jacket designers for fragmented images, photo-
curative power of good design when applied to
illustration, minimal typography and rebus-
all aspects of American life. He was a generalist,
like compositions can be traced directly to
and yet in the specific media in which he excelled
Lustig’s stark black-and-white cover for Lorca,
he established standards that are viable today. If
a grid of five symbolic photographs linked in
one were to reconstruct, based on photographs,
poetic disharmony. This and other distinctive,
Lustig’s 1949 exhibition at The Composing Room
though today lesser known, covers for the New
Gallery, in New York, the exhibits on view and
Directions imprint transformed an otherwise
the installation would be remarkably fresh,
realistic medium—the photograph—into a tool
particularly in terms of the current trends in art-
for abstraction through the use of reticulated
based imagery.
negatives,
Lustig created monuments of ingenuity and
Lustig’s approach (which developed from an
objects of aesthetic pleasure. Whereas graphic design history is replete with artifacts that define certain disciplines and are also works of art, for a design to be so considered it must overcome the vicissitudes of fashion and be accepted as an integral part of the visual language. Though Lustig would consider it a small part of his overall
photograms
and
still-lifes.
When
interest in montage originally practiced by the European moderns, particularly the American expatriate E. McKnight Kauffer) was introduced to American book publishing in the late 1940s, covers and jackets were mostly illustrative and also rather decorative. Hard-sell conventions were rigorously followed. Lustig’s jacket designs entered taboo marketing territory through his use of abstraction and small, discreetly typeset titles, influenced by the work of Jan Tschichold.
LORCA: 3 TRAGEDIES BOOK COVER, 1949
Lustig did not believe it was necessary to “design down,” as he called it, to achieve better sales. In the 1950s, Lustig decided to emigrate to Israel, not from any religious conviction, but because he believed that in this infant state good design could exert a significant impact on society. But Lustig died in 1955 before he had the chance to test this theory. Instead, he left behind a body of unique design that stands up to the scrutiny of time, and models how a personal vision wedded to modern form can be effectively applied in the public sphere.
cipe pineles Written by John Clifford
Became the first female art director of a mass-market American magazine Inducted into the New York Art Directors Club and elected to its Hall of Fame as the first woman
today, women make up around half of the graphic
In 1950, Pineles became art director at Charm, a
ing for her first design job, prospective employers
women. She designed fashion spreads showing the
that the unusual first name belonged to a woman.
errands. “We tried to make the prosaic attractive
She eventually became an assistant to Condé Nast’s
she observed in a later interview. “You might say
would expand her role there over the next 15 years.
opposed to the glitter of a never-never land.”8
Fair, she learned all about editorial design, art direc-
magazines, while also furthering women’s changing
design profession. But when Cipe Pineles was look-
magazine targeting a new demographic: working
were interested in her portfolio—until they learned
clothes in use—at work, commuting, and running without using the tired clichés of false glamour,”
art director Mehemed Fehmy Agha in 1932, and
we tried to convey the attractiveness of reality, as
Designing for magazines like Vogue and Vanity
Her work helped to redefine the look of women’s
tion, and European modernism. Agha pushed her
roles in society.
in fine art. She became art director at Glamour
Beginning in 1961, Pineles worked independently
major American magazine.
forming Arts. From 1962 until 1987, she taught
She moved on to be art director at Seventeen, a
directed the design of the school’s publications. Her
tine. While competing titles saw young women as
style. During a career of many firsts, Cipe Pineles
to consistently outdo herself and to find inspiration in 1942, the first female to hold that position at a
for such clients as Lincoln Center for the Per-
editorial design at Parsons School of Design, and
magazine for teenage girls edited by Helen Valen-
approach to teaching was to focus on content, not
frivolous husband hunters, Seventeen considered its
led with her work and she led by example.
readers smart and serious. By commissioning fine artists like Ad Reinhardt, Ben Shahn, and Andy Warhol to illustrate articles, Pineles rejected the
idealized style typical of magazine illustrations at
the time, and exposed her audience to modern art.
As an artist herself, she was a hands-off art director. Her only request: that the artists produce illustrations that were as high in quality as their gallery work.
“ I believe an avid interest in type necessarily includes a zest for everyday life.�
BR
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OM
BU
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ON
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Bradbury Thompson (1911-1995) was truly one of the giants
of 20th-century graphic design, and was recognized for his achievements by every major American design organization: National Society of Art Directors of the Year Award (1950), AIGA Gold Medal Award (1975), Art Directors Hall of Fame (1977) In 1983, he received the Frederic W. Goudy Award from RIT. A wonderful essay published by the Art Directors Club asks: “How did he become ‘architect of prizewinning books, consulting physician to magazines,’ pre-eminent typographer, designer of stamps, multiple medalist? It all started in Topeka...” He was born in 1911 in Topeka, where he attended Washburn College, graduating in 1934. After a brief period as a designer at Capper Publications, where he thoroughly learned every aspect of printing production, Thompson moved to New York in 1938. Over the next sixty-some years he unfurled an astonishing talent and embraced every graphic design opportunity he could. He worked as art director at the Rogers-KelloggStillson printing firm and then at Mademoiselle magazine, consulted and designed for Westvaco Corporation, designed a new alphabet, and began a teaching career at Yale University, where he stayed for many years. His career was marked by many triumphs, but three stand out prominently as exemplars of his versatility. As the designer of more than 60 issues (1939-62) of Westvaco Inspirations, a promotional magazine published by the Westvaco Paper Corporation, he reached many thousands of typographers, print buyers, and students. He had an uncanny ability to merge and blend modernist typographic organization with classic typefaces and historic illustrations, all seasoned with affectionate sentiment and impeccable taste. Working with modest resources, he saw himself as teacher and guide: “The art of typography, like architecture, is concerned with beauty and utility in contemporary terms... the typographic designer must present the arts and sciences of past centuries as well as those of today... And although he works with the graphics of past centuries, he must create in the spirit of his own time, showing in his designs an essential understanding rather than a labored copying of past masters.” (from Westvaco Inspirations 206, 1956).
Another triumph came with the publication of The Washburn College Bible, the most monumental and innovative reassessment of bible typography since Gutenberg’s own edition appeared in 1455. Some ten years in the making, the WCB presented the text in cadenced phrases, such that its meaning for both reader and listener was conveyed through typography. Set in Jan Tschichold’s Renaissance-flavor typeface Sabon and featuring chapter openings with beautiful reproductions of paintings based on biblical stories, the WCB respects the long and inspiring history of this sacred Christian text even as it breaks new ground. A third area of interest was contemporary postage stamp design. Though credited officially with more than 90 stamps of his own, he consulted with the U.S. Postal Service in guiding the design of many others. Many of his designs became iconic snapshots of American history and culture, including the famous “Learning never ends” stamp of 1980 with its colorful Josef Albers painting, and the irrepressibly jaunty “Love” stamp of 1984. Bradbury Thompson died in 1995 as one of the most genuinely admired and influential graphic designers of the 20th century.
R
obert Brownjohn in the early 60’s began to change graphic design forever. Until then titles and images had existed om different worlds. The words used to describe a film or an object in a picture had been separated and acted almost as subtitles for the image itself. Brownjohn broke those barriers and changed not only the nature of graphic design but also the accepted relationship between words and images. Some of Robert Brownjohn’s most notable works are the Rolling Stones “Let it Bleed” cover, title for Goldfinger, his published work in vision in motion and his various freelance work. Along with his professional career Robert Brownjohn was also a professor for several institutes. The list includes: Chicago Institute of Design, Pratt and Cooper Union. Although, his professional and academic life where quite with a thriving drug addiction his personal life suffered immensely. His wife Donna Walters and daughter Eliza left him in 1962. In 1963 he begins his relationship with Kiki promising age of 45.
By: Katie Hurley
Robert
Brownjohn
1925-1970
"
Saul bass
"“design is thinking made visible.”"
by training and profession,
Saul Bass was a graphic designer who filled the American landscape with such designs as Exxon service stations and the jars for Lawry’s seasonings. But it was in the movies that he made his most lasting impact, as the man who invented the opening credit sequence as a free-standing moviebefore-a-movie and elevated it into an art. Movies had always had opening credits, but until “The Man With the Golden Arm,” in 1955, they were little more than perfunctory afterthoughts rarely more creative than having the names of the movie’s stars and production staff revealed by the turning pages of the book. But when Bass designed a grotesquely deconstructed arm for Otto Preminger’s movie, about heroin addiction, and Mr. Preminger accepted his idea of using the arm as the moving focus of the opening credits, a mini-genre was born. The jagged arm was such a powerful symbol of addiction, Bass once said, that when “The Man With the Golden Arm,” opened in New York, a poster depicting the arm served as the only advertising. When Mr. Preminger learned that projectionists were in the habit of running the credits on a curtain as latecomers were finding their seats, he ordered that they wait until the curtains were opened. Bass, who designed his first credit sequence for Mr. Preminger’s 1954 movie, “Carmen Jones,” was not the chief practitioner of the art he invented. While Nina Saxon, for example, has more than 100 titles to her credit, Mr. Bass produced only 42 and a dozen with his wife, Elaine, but they tended to be memorable.
He designed the segmented body for “Anatomy of a Murder”; had an aerial camera swoop across Manhattan before zooming in on a schoolyard at the beginning of “West Side Story,” and set a black cat walking through the titles of “Walk on the Wild Side.” In what was perhaps his most daring innovation in opening credits, he created a reprise of the story of “Around the World in 80 Days” in a 20-minute sequence that did not run until after the movie. Bass, who did the titles for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “North by Northwest,” did even more for “Psycho.” The director had become so impressed by Mr. Bass’s work that he recruited him to help plan the famous 70shot shower sequence of this 1960 film. The same year he also helped Stanley Kubrick design the final battle scene in “Spartacus.” Moviegoers may have thought that Bass had retired by the 1980’s, but while he stopped producing title sequences he stepped up his work for corporate America, adding to a list of credits that included trademarks and corporate identification for A.T.&T., the Bell System, Minolta and Quaker Oats. For United Airlines, Bass designed virtually every image used by the company, including the very airplanes. He won such wide acclaim that he was sometimes called “the Picasso of commercial artists,” and his work was included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian Institution. article by robert mcg. thomas jr.
MILTON GLASER Few designers evoke as much praise from their eminent peers as Milton Glaser. Over the last five decades, he has been one of the most internationally renowned and highly influential figures in design. Vastly prolific, his versatility as a practitioner spans many design disciplines, including graphics, exhibitions, interiors, furniture and products. To many, Milton Glaser is the embodiment of American graphic design during the latter half of this century. His presence and impact on the profession internationally is formidable. Immensely creative and articulate, he is a modern renaissance man—one of a rare breed of intellectual designer-illustrators, who brings a depth of understanding and conceptual thinking, combined with a diverse richness of visual language, to his highly inventive and individualistic work. Having initially trained as a classical fine artist, his historical roots in design were as co-founder of the New York-based Pushpin Studio in 1954, with Seymour Chwast, Edward Sorel and Reynold Ruffins. In Pushpin, Glaser was in the vanguard of a movement that reacted against the strict authoritarianism and austerity of modernism. Exploring and re-interpreting the visual material of previous era’s of both fine art and commercial art, (including that of Victoriana, wood-cut illustration, comic books, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco), they sought to bring fresh ideas, humour and a new decorative and illustrative approach to the design of record sleeves, book covers, posters and magazines.
Immediately recognizable, the work of Pushpin Studio evolved to become an international force in graphic design during the 1960s and 1970s. Such was the international success of Pushpin that, in 1970, they were the first American studio to have an exhibition at the prestigious Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, a show which subsequently travelled to other cities in Europe and on to Japan. Glaser eventually left Pushpin in 1976 to pursue other design work, and through his own company, Milton Glaser, Inc., has concentrated on expanding involvement as a multidisciplinary designer, undertaking exhibition, interior, product, supermarket and restaurant design projects. Developing a major interest in publishing design (he was founder of New York magazine), he established with Walter Bernard (former art director of Time), WBMG, a magazine and newspaper design studio. Among his publication credits are Paris Match, L’Express, Esquire, The Washington Post, Fortune magazine and Banaradia (Barcelona). As a lecturer, Glaser has taught at the Cooper Union and regularly (since 1961) at the School of Visual Arts in New York.
Recognized for her rebellious spirit as an artist and educator, and for her inventive use of graphic type and vibrant color in communicating messages of protest and social change
By Susan Dackerman When I first saw the way Corita Kent used language in her work, it reminded me of her famous pop art contemporaries Andy Warhol and Ed Ruscha. But while Kent depicted comparable subjects, employed similar visual strategies, and used the same vibrant color palette, she’s hardly, if ever, included in surveys of the ’60s art movement. Consequently, her work was unknown to me for many years, and I surmised that her obscurity was because she was a woman and, from 1936 to 1968, a nun. An article in the June 28, 1966 edition of Look magazine stated, “Long before those young men in New York invented pop art, a small nun in Los Angeles was showing her students at Immaculate Heart College how to discover the novel and beautiful in popular magazines and packages from the supermarket. But Sister Mary Corita is a different kind of pop artist. Whereas the New York boys deal in a certain brittle archness (they are chic), Sister Corita and her students unabashedly affirm and celebrate the here-andnow glories of God’s world—the words of Beatles’ songs, the pictures on cereal boxes, the sheen of stamps, the typography in movie magazines.” Kent was often asked to explain why she chose to forgo figurative imagery and rely solely on words. “I think a picture with all words is as much a picture as something with abstract or recognizable shapes,” she said in a 1976 interview. Three years later, she echoed that sentiment. “I really love the look of letters—the letters themselves become
a kind of subject matter even apart from their meaning—like apples or oranges are for artists.” From even the most cursory glance at her screen prints, it’s clear Kent loved playing with well-designed letterforms, but she also found special meaning in the words. In 1966, she transformed Canada Dry’s slogan, “Give the gang our best,” into an affirmative call to action to give to others the best of oneself. She changed the look of the catchphrase. Instead of presenting it as it appears in the advertisement, she stacked the words and turned two of them upside down. An emphatic “NOW!” on the left balances the mustard rectangle and blue circle on the other side, and the yellow words, “Turn, Turn,” provide an underlying architecture to the composition. In many printed designs just like this, Kent reconfigured assorted visual information to deliver messages of hope and salvation. She found these words and sayings in the most ordinary places: the pages of popular magazines; ads for soda, tomato sauce, and potato chips; and street signs that declared “STOP” and “WRONG WAY.” Unlike many of her contemporaries, Kent did not march or attend protests, but instead created screen prints that clearly articulated her views. Phrases such as “Stop the bombing,” “Make love not war,” and “Why not give a damn about your fellow man” fill her carefully composed printed work. What’s so remarkable about that work is how relevant it remains today. Her 1969 “American Sampler,” a jumble of red, white, and blue words spelling “AMERICAN,” “ASSASSINATION,” “VIOLENCE,” and “WHY” is not only visually compelling, it is timeless. If not for her inclusion of the word “VIETNAM,” we might think she was referencing Iraq, Afghanistan, Ferguson, Missouri, or other places that consume the contemporary political imagination. Now, as Kent’s life and work becomes better known, we should remember that her oeuvre is not just graphically intelligent and innovative, it is also laden with meaning. It was created to inspire us to act for the common good, to help those around us, to resist greed and other selfish impulses, and to be part of a beneficent world community. That is the message that Kent continues to offer us in her vibrantly colored, brilliantly designed work.
CHIP
“the best style i Chip Kidd Biography by Cooper Hewitt
Chip Kidd, the New York based graphic designer and
Kidd graduated from Pennsylvania State University where
Kidd’s dinosaur skeleton also became the central image
he majored in graphic design and became interested in
of the movie marketing campaign as well. He also
the work of Paul Saville, the designer of British record
designed the catalogue cover for the Cooper-Hewitt’s
sleeves for whose designs he still considers a major influ-
“Mixing Messages” exhibitions.
ence on his work. Kidd’s work has been featured in Vanity Fair, Time, The
writer, has become one of, if not the most famous
Most of Kidd’s more famous book jackets have been
book jacket designer to date. Born in 1964 and raised
created during his ongoing fifteen years plus run at the
in Reading, Pennsylvania; his designs have been, ac-
venerable Alfred A. Knopf publishing house under art
cording to Graphic Design: America Two, credited with
director, Carol Devine Carson, who according to The New
“helping to spawn a revolution in the art of American
York Times “is credited with helping overhaul old ways
book packaging in the last ten years.” One of the most
of using type, artwork, photography and color on book
consistent characteristics of Kidd’s revolutionary style
jackets.” Kidd’s list of clients is made up of some of the
is the fact that his book jackets do not have a signature
most well known and celebrated authors of today includ-
Kidd is currently associate art director at Knopf, an imprint
look. According to Kidd, “A signature look is crippling...
ing Anne Rice, John Updike, Dean Koontz and Michael
of Random House. He first joined the Knopf design team in
[because] the simplest and most effective solutions
Crichton for whom he created the now iconic illustration of
1986, when he was hired as a junior assistant.
aren’t dictated by style.”
a dinosaur skeleton for his book “Jurassic Park”.
New York Times, Graphis, New York and ID magazines. Chip Kidd has also written about graphic design for Vogue, The New York Times, the New York Observer, Arena, Details, The New York Post and Print magazines. He also wrote and designed the cover for his novel “Cheese Monkeys”.
K
P
Turning out jacket designs at an average of 75 a year,
Publishers Weekly described his book jackets as “creepy,
Kidd is as a fan of comic book media, particularly
Kidd has freelanced for Doubleday, Farrar Straus &
striking, sly, smart, unpredictable covers that make
Batman, and has written and designed book covers for
Giroux, Grove Press, HarperCollins, Penguin/Putnam,
readers appreciate books as objects of art as well as
Scribner and Columbia University Press in addition to
literature.”USA Today also called him “the closest thing to
several DC Comics publications, including The Complete
his work for Knopf. Kidd also supervises graphic novels
a rock star” in graphic design today, while author James
at Pantheon, and in 2003 he collaborated with Art
Ellroy has called him “the world’s greatest book-jacket
Spiegelman on a biography of cartoonist Jack Cole, Jack
designer.”
Cole and Plastic Man: Forms Stretched to Their Limits. His output includes cover concepts for books by Mark Beyer, Bret Easton Ellis, Haruki Murakami, Dean Koontz, Cormac McCarthy, Frank Miller, Michael Ondaatje, Alex Ross, Charles Schulz, Osamu Tezuka, David Sedaris, Donna Tartt, John Updike and others. His design for
History of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, The Golden Age of DC Comics: 365 Days, and the aforementioned Jack Cole and Plastic Man. He also designed Mythology: The DC Comics Art of Alex Ross and wrote an
Kidd has often downplayed the importance of cover designs, stating, “I’m very much against the idea that the cover will sell the book. Marketing departments of publishing houses tend to latch onto this concept and they can’t let go. But it’s about whether the book itself really
exclusive Batman/Superman story illustrated by Ross for the book. Kidd once stated that the first cover he ever noticed was “no doubt for some sort of Batman comic I saw when I was about 3, enough said. Or maybe not enough
connects with the public, and the cover is only a small
said: the colors, the forms, the design. Batman himself is
part of that.” He is also known to be humorously self-
such a brilliant design solution.” Veronique Vienne, who
deprecating in regards to his work with statements such
wrote an eponymous book about Kidd in 2006, described
design their books.
as “I piggy-backed my career on the backs of authors,
Kidd’s Batman fandom as a “childhood obsession and
Kidd is currently working with writer Lisa Birnbach on
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I’m lucky to be attached
True Prep, a follow-up to her 1980 book The Official
to that. Cormac McCarthy is not lucky to have me doing
Preppy Handbook.
his cover.”
Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel was carried over into marketing for the film adaptation. Oliver Sacks and other authors have contract clauses stating that Kidd
e is no style”
not the other way around. The latest example of that is
lasting adult passion.”
Design by Hyejin Ahn
KI DD
John Maeda is an Ameican Executive, Designer, and a Technologist who was named as one of the 21 most important people in the 21st century. His work explores the area where business, design and technology merge. As an artist, Maeda’s early work redifined the use of electronic media as a tool for exoression by combining computer programming with traditional artistic technique, Laying the groundwork for the interactive motion graphics that are taken for granted on the web today.
J
essica Nicole Hische was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1984, making her 32 years old. In 2006, Hische graduate from the Tyler School of Art with a degree in Graphic Design and Interactive
freelance designer for a studio in Philadelphia. to Brooklyn and worked on some illustrations and lettering but the freelance work was overwhelming and she wanted to work on too many side projects. She has been on her own as a letterer, illustrator and designer since 2009. Some of her bigger, more important clients include Penguin Books, Wes Anderson, Starbucks, Victoria’s Secret, American Express,
Say it with Flowers. 2012. via JessicaHische.com
Eggers and Chronicle Books. Some people that Carter, Marian Bantjes, Chris Ware, Doyald Young, Ed Benguiat, and Alex Trochut. One of Jessica’s most important pieces of work was her Daily Drop Caps series. It’s a project that has been going on since 2009 where an illustrative initial cap has been posted online ally helped get her a jump start with her handlettering. Another project that got her a lot of recognition was her “Should I Work For Free” fonts. Buttermilk, Tilda, Minot, Silencio Sans,
Florence and the Machine. via JessicaHische.com
A lot of Jessica’s feedback and critiques are very works and how even though she loves typography, she does not limit her self strictly to young designers to work harder and her book, In Progress, has received amazing reviews. People love that she has given an insight into how she does her work and how to improve on handlettering. Jessica currently living in San Fransisco, California and working in a by-appointment only collaborative studio with her fellow designer Erik Marinovich.
Starbucks Advertisment. via JessicaHische.com
Graphic Designer
A zine about the graphic designer Eddie Opara Created by Natalie Hawkins
Eddie Opara - Graphic Design “Eddie Opara is a contemporary English-born America based graphic designer. His multifaceted work encompasses refreshing design, modern technology and strategy. He primarily focused on the projects involving the design of interactive installations, software, publication and packaging, brand identity and user interface.”
Life Eddie Opara was born in Wandsworth London in 1972. Although born in London, he spend most of his time after school, in America. He is a well known comtemporary artist, who uses grids, and confied space to his advantage.
Education Opara graduated with his Formal art education from the London College of Printing and Yale University. He majored in Graphic Design and earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree in 1997. He at- tended these schools on many scholarships. He now is a proffesor at Yale University.
Work
Soon after graduation Opara moved from London to New York. He began his professional career working with a
variety of different firms including Ambassador Theater Group, Imaginary Forces, and 2X4. At 2X4 Opara was ap- pointed the art director of the influential design studio.
Guides Something that stands out to me, is Opara’s love for placement. You can see in his work he uses grids, lines, and guides to his advantage. “If you work with a set of bound- aries, the content makes the design come alive. If you don’t have a restriction, well, anything can happen. It be- comes more like an illustra- tion. I prefer to think in sys- tems, more like an architect. When you place type or im- agery in a system, it gives the design a rhythm.”
“Opara worked for a number of companies including Pantone”
Type Opara chooses his fonts wise- ly (as any graphic designer would). When looking fora font to use he focuses on something with great spac- ing, great attention to detail, but something thats not too trendy. ‘-It also needs some element of the future, of new- ness, of the time we’re living in’. Some of his favorite fonts to work with are Blender, Al- bertus, Theinhardt and Venus SB Medium Extended.
Experim mental Jetset “ to turn We are trying objects into language ”
BEYOND THE BARRIER OF TYPOGRAPHY. Experimental Jetset is a small, independent, and Amsterdam-based graphic design studio, founded in 1997 by (and still consisting of) Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers and Danny van den Dungen. Focusing on printed matter and site-specific installations, and describing their methodology as “turning language into objects”, Experimental Jetset have worked on projects for a wide variety of institutes.
bets/ Heaps of Language’ at MoMA (2012), ‘Graphic Design: Now in Production’ at the Walker Art Center (2011). Solo exhibitions include: ‘Kelly 1:1’in the Casco Projects in Utrecht (2002), and ‘Two or Three Things I Know About Provo’ in Amsterdam (2011), and Cooper Hewitt. Experimental Jetset’s methodology is best described as “turning objects into language.”
Their early work takes its inspiration from punk rock movements, and modernism, both of which are still present in their graphic aesthetic. As teenagers, they claimed to have been “completely absorbed” by all kinds of post-punk movements: psychobilly, garage punk, new wave, two tone, and American hardcore. They were drawn to the music, as well as to the graphic manifestations that came with it, such as record sleeves, t-shirts, patches, band logos, posters, among others. Today their inspirations remain modernism and rock culture. Their portfolio consists of printed works and site-specific installations that have been exhibited at various institutes and group exhibitions, such as ‘Ecstatic Alpha
They appearance in the documentary Helvatica, and their dogmatic use of that typeface has become a defining aspect of their work and has influenced new generations of graphic designers. Helvetica is one of the most popular typefaces in the world. Helvatica is created in 1957 at Swtizerland for succession of traditional style taste of the designer excluded neutral disposition. Helvetica captured the modernist preference for using clarity and simplicity to suggest greater ideas. The fact that the typeface is clean-cut and simple means that it can be used as a neutral platform in a wide variety of settings it is the particular context and content of the messages, that convey their meaning.
What advice would you give to someone starting up a studio? It might sound like a cliche but we really believe in this: “slow and steady wins the race”. And we like to add, there’s not even a race to win. There’s no rush. Hypes and trends come and go: just stick to your own principles, and you’ll be fine. People will predict the end of print, and then its return, and then its end again, etcetera; magazines will state that “minimalism is out, ornamentation is in” or vice versa; critics will attack you, and attack you even more, until they run out of breath and move to another target. Just don’t pay attention, and keep on moving forward, step by step. It’s all about the long-run, not the short-term. Wim Crouwel just turned eighty, Jan Bons just turned ninety, and both are still designing. These are our role models. It’s our plan to keep on designing for years to come.
Experimental Jetset, March 2008
The Heads of State Behind The Design by Karli Petrovic
H
ailing from Philly, the innovative design firm The Heads of State blends a fun atmosphere and challenging projects with a no-nonsense motto: It’s all about the work. “We make all the stuff we make, if that makes any sense,” says principal and creative director Jason Kernevich. “We’re focused on the intersection of design, illustration, branding and entrepreneurship.” The firm, founded in 2002, created the playful, collage-style cover of HOW’s July 2014 issue, collaborating with Adam Ladd, HOW’s art director, along the way. “The ideas of layers being ripped away to reveal something more emulates the whole ‘Behind the Design’ theme of the issue,” Ladd says. He also remarks that The Heads of State team was very organized and detailed, which contributed to a smooth working relationship. Despite a small staff comprised of two principals, a graphic designer, an assistant and a few interns, The Heads of State maintains an open structure that encourages everyone to get involved. “We discuss all aspects of the process, from top to bottom,” Kernevich says. “It sounds cliche, but we treat it like a conversation. And that includes
pricing, hiring, revising, brainstorming, etc. We’re also constantly making adjustments and trying to streamline our process.” Part of developing this collaborative, highly motivated environment comes down to the firm’s emphasis on having a personal stake in the design success. “We want our employees to feel like they can include their voice or their sensibility in the work,” Kernevich says. “We try to keep the projects challenging and the process evolving. It’s really that simple. Of course, that itself is a challenge.” Having a fun place to work doesn’t hurt either. “The atmosphere is that of a workshop,” he says. “It’s a nice blend of stylish and a little messy, as we’re always juggling various projects. There’s good music playing, and friends and collaborators dropping by. It’s a really loose and fun place to work.” The laid-back-but -diligent approach of The Heads of State’s offices seems to reflect The City of Brotherly Love’s work/life mentality. “Philadelphia is a tight-knit community. Everyone knows one another, and that can be both amazing and also frustrating,” Kernevich explains. “But I think Philly’s salt-of-the-earth attitude maintains a focus on doing good work and living a quality life.”
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