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Interconnected Published in Asia in 2017 by Page One Publishing Pte Ltd 20 Kaki Bukit View, Kaki Bukit Techpark II, Singapore 415956 Tel: (65) 6742-2088 Fax: (65) 6744-2088 enquiries@pageonegroup.com www.pageonegroup.com Sponsored by Temasek Polytechnic Edited and produced by Temasek Polytechnic School of Design – Communication Design TD03 Chief Editor: Ho Ying Hui 1403851G@student.tp.edu.sg www.tp.edu.sg ISBN 978-981-4394-90-1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact Page One Publishing Pte Ltd. Printed and bound in Singapore
Contents
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james victore the first step famous works “don’t be a design zombie� achievements acknowledgement references
6 9 10 12 14 16 17
James
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“My work comes di loves and hates. M in my ear, and ide my body like a coo
James Victore was born in 1962, and was raised when he was 19 years old. By age 23, after drop an apprentice to noted book-jacket designer Pau voice as a designer and began to take charge of artist and designer.
irectly out of my Muses don’t whisper eas don’t flow over ol rain. ”
Vic
d in upstate New York. He moved to New York City pping out of two different colleges, Victore became ul Bacon. It was with Bacon that Victore found his f his own education and career as a self-taught
tore
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Victore’s own education was flecked with failure. As a university freshman, he ended the first semester with a 0.04 GPA. He was asked to leave. He was sure that things would be different in New York City, and he transferred to the School of Visual Arts (SVA). He made it to the second year before he was asked to leave. It wasn’t that he didn’t like design, but he just couldn’t find the excitement in it. Never being one to say “uncle,” he pressed-on. Today, he’s one of the most influential designers in the world.
First step
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Victore’s design studio, James Victore Inc., based in Brooklyn, NY, was started in 1990. One of Victore’s early works was a poster called “Celebrate Clumbus” created for Columbus Day in 1992, that casts Christopher Columbus in a negative light. Five thousand of these posters were hung around Washington, D.C., and Victore was thrilled when the police removed them. Victore’s posters have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and are in the permanent collections of the Palais du Louvre in Paris, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Design Museum in Zurich, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Clients include Moët & Chandon, Aveda, Esquire magazine, TIME magazine, Yohji Yamamoto, Bobbi Brown cosmetics, The New York Times, and The School of Visual Arts in New York City.
The image aboves depicts the poster ‘Celebrate Columbus 1492-1992”
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Celebrate Columbus was James Victore’s very first poster. This image was a street poster protesting the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America and the subsequent genocide of native Americans. Celebrate Columbus came from his own desires and frustrations as a designer to use his abilities to comment on the news, society and culture. He just wanted to make a statement with a poster. He used his rent money to print and wheat paste 100 posters around NYC. Thus began an obsession with posters and a bad business plan.
“If you want to be successful in graphic design, all you have to do is shut up”
Works
8 Victore released his very first monograph, James Victore or, Who Died and Made You Boss? which includes the designer’s best work from the last 25 years and was itself designed by legendary Paul Sahre, with a forward by Michael Bierut. When you flip through the book, what hits you in the face, over and over again, is that Victore’s aesthetic is vanishingly simple: His process involves lots of doodling and he doesn’t know much about computers — and that’s part of the charm. He’s not a naif about making things look nice, but his work most notable for what it actually says. “Unlike most graphic designers, I’m not interested in the spaces between letters and making words look good,” he says. “I’m interested in what the words say. I can’t be a graphic designer and not comment.”
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Victore attributes his compulsion to question authority to his childhood on a militray base during the Vietnam War. After dropping out of art school, he began producing self-financed posters for nonprofit organizations devoted to the history and welfare of Native Americans, AIDS awareness, and race issues. Racism is a response to the riots between Hasidic Jews and African Americans in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in summer 1993. Through this straightforward depcition of “RACISM� eating itself, the designer brings attention to its destructive essence.
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“Part of the problem these days is there’s so much choice. At some point, someone just has to say: We’re going to do it like this because I want to do it this way. Because if you don’t, you’re going to be churning out oatmeal. You look at some graphic design today, and you can tell that nobody is in charge.”
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Victore amazingly combines the very best ways of ever creating a work. His work is unmistakably his. Every one of his pieces bears his own handwriting. More often than not, this is literally true: few designers have done more to render typography foundries irrelevant than Victore. The human hand, his hand, is always in evidence. Yet this signature approach takes so many different tones. His handletteting can evoke Spencerian script or the scrawl of a stickup man, a puff of cigar smoke or a mushroom cloud. All of it, though, has one thing in common. It conveys the sense that the words don’t want to wait around to be put into type, justified, and kerned. Instead, the ideas are rushing to get out. And there lies the paradox that makes Victore so hard to classify. His work, so personal, conveys ideas with the directness of a speeding freight train. If his intention is to shock, as sometimes it is, it is because the subject matter – racism, the death penalty, unsafe sex – is shocking. The results can be shockingly funny as well: just ask the subscribers to a leading design magazine who were given a quick and viciously literal lesson on the difference between Sinola and its customary opposite. And don’t expect an apology if you’re offended. You won’t get one. Nor will you ever, ever miss the point.
chievement
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Currently, he holds the position of a full-time senior professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He also delivered lectures on the subject of graphic designing at several art institutes, colleges and seminars around the globe. According to Victore, graphic designing primarily centers on experiences and stories and involves using one’s hands and not just the head. He is of the view that the best design possesses a gut-wrenching effect which means that it surprises or shocks its audience.
Victore has held m including “James Within Reach and We Trust” Future and in 2005 and 2 exhibition is called Bills” DDD Gallery
many solo exhibitions Victore: Dirty Dishes” Design d “James Victore: In Gold Perfect Gallery in Brooklyn, 2006 respectively. His first d “James Victore: Post No y, Osaka, Japan in 1997.
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In honor of James Victore’s contribution to the art he was presented multifarious accolades over the decades. In 1992, he received an Emmy Award for television animation. In addition to that he was awarded Gold and Bronze medals by the Broadcast Designers Association. The Czech Republic, presented him the Grand Prix in 1994. The New York Art Director’s Club conferred on him the Gold and Silver medals. Helsinki Julistebiennale gave him the World’s Best Environmental Poster award, in 1997.
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Achnowledgement We would like to acknowledge our gratitude to the artists and designers for their generous contributions of images, ideas and concepts. We are very grateful to many other people whose names do not appear on the credits but who provided assistance and support. Thanks also go to people who have worked hard on the book and put ungrudging efforts into it. Without you all, the creation and on going development of this book would not have been possible and thank you for sharing your innovation and creativity with all our readers.
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References http://www.jamesvictore.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Victore https://thegreatdiscontent.com/interview/james-victore http://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/james-victore http://www.cmog.org/glasslab/designers/james-victore http://99u.com/articles/6944/james-victore-dont-be-a-design-zombie http://quotesondesign.com/james-victore/ http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662292/the-best-of-james-victore-graphicdesigns-rebel-with-a-cause http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0257/2535/products/Victore_Indian_poster_ Jeg_1024x1024.jpg?v=1377717408