What are you using to read this right now? I’m going to guess it’s your smartphone. And if I’m wrong, I’m willing to bet said smartphone is within arm’s reach. These ubiquitous black mirrors reveal the intensely personal. You can learn volumes about someone simply by looking at their phone—which is precisely why we tend to squirm in horror at the thought of a stranger grabbing ours. The questions that arise are many, and wide-ranging: Does placing your apps into folders mean that you’re a neat freak IRL? Is your favorite band your background, or is it a photo of your family? When was the last time you went on a date with someone you didn’t meet through one of The Apps on there? In this column we go beyond the screen with designers, writers, artists and creatives-at-large to see how much we can learn about them based on their phones. Up first: artist and author Adam J. Kurtz. If you spend any time at all on Instagram, there’s a good chance you’ve seen some of his work. Or if you’ve been to Urban Outfitters. Or a bookstore. Maybe you’ve seen him speak at 99u, Adobe MAX, HOW Design Live, or one of the many other events he’s done. (He has his fingers in a lot of pies.) Most recently, Kurtz has been focusing on his own business, his relationship and, naturally, Alanis Morissette. Read on. So, your lock screen—that’s your husband, Mitchell, right? Do you remember where and when that picture was taken? Do you ever collaborate? If so, what’s that like? A lot of your artwork is focused on real life. What sort of influence would you say your relationship has in your creative life? Moving on to your app screens—who is that on your homescreen? And why this photo? You have an app folder called “never”—what’s that about? It looks like you also have a folder devoted to photography. Do you have a favorite creative app? Or an app that you think every creative should download? Which game on your phone would you never delete? Why? What’s the most embarrassing thing on your phone that you’re willing to share? Can we see your favorite Boomerang?
Rapid fire either/or: Cash App or Venmo? Uber or Lyft? Google Maps or Apple Maps? Spotify or Soundcloud? Messenger or WhatsApp? Any other weird phone-related trivia we should know about you? What’s the most recent project you’re proud of? The post What’s on Adam J. Kurtz’s Phone? appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr What’s on Adam J. Kurtz’s Phone?
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PRINT is back. And soon, we’ll be relaunching with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future. Stay tuned. With the help of Pentagram, the publisher Thames & Hudson—titan of the world of books on the creative arts—has a new look. Walter and Eva Neurath founded the company in 1949 to create a veritable “museum without walls” with an international focus—and so they named their enterprise after the rivers that run through London and New York. They carried this concept to their logo, with its signature dolphins, representative of the connection between old world and new. “This new identity is part modernization and part restoration of the brand,” says Pentagram partner Harry Pearce, whose team worked on the mark. “The original inspiration for the Thames & Hudson visual identity was two dolphins swimming east to west, respectively, and the initial letters of the two rivers referenced in the name. We recreated the cartouche to allow these elements to appear together in a single mark once more. The new modernist sans wordmark has a suggestion of the artisanal nature of bookmaking through the subtle detailing of its letterforms.” The publisher has long been known for its “World of Art” series, launched in 1958 and containing more than 300 books (perhaps most notably Michael Levey’s A Concise History of Painting). Plans to relaunch the line (set to debut in April, with design by the Dutch studio Kummer & Herrman) led Thames & Hudson to reexamine the existing mark. The new identity will appear on all releases moving forward, in addition to sales and marketing materials, starting with the catalogs below, which were also designed by Pentagram. The post Pentagram Designs a New Identity for Thames & Hudson appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr Pentagram Designs a New Identity for Thames & Hudson Need a little levity today? We do too. As it happens, we were hunting for a particular image on a stock website this morning when the news dropped that the stock market had just plunged more than 2,000 points. So, we instinctively moved to the search bar and typed “stock market crash” to gauge the visual times, as we are wont to do. Here are 14 results that might make your day just the tiniest bit better … and, who knows, might just show up in a media outlet near you. The post The Stock Market Crash, in Stock Photos appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr The Stock Market Crash, in Stock Photos Print has been acquired by an independent group of collaborators—Deb Aldrich, Laura Des Enfants, Jessica Deseo, Andrew Gibbs, Steven Heller and Debbie Millman—and soon enough, we’ll be back in full force with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future. The battle was fierce this primary season. In our Democrat candidate logo bracket, there were decisive defeats. There were upsets. There were, admittedly, contenders we were surprised to see advance at all. There were … bright green logos? The skirmishes have been fought and a victor has emerged in our 12-candidate single-elimination contest. But first, a recap of the results that brought us to this point. Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Ultimately, we were left with two final contenders: As voters made their picks over the past week, Print diligently lingered outside public libraries and churches nationwide to conduct a series of exit polls. Here’s a sampling of what the Biden logo supporters said:
And here’s a sampling of what the Warren logo supporters said:
So: Who won? America’s Graphic Design Choice Is: . . . *Drumroll* . . . . . . . . *Builds tinfoil shelter around computer to ward off election interference* . . . . . . . . . Congrats to the Elizabeth Warren for President graphic design team for claiming 65.3% of the final vote. Print has reached out to the crew for a Q&A about the logo, and will follow up before too long. In the meantime, we also polled voters on what they wish they would see in candidate logos at large—and the results might just offer some clues for the next wave of presidential designers.
The post And the Winner of the Dem Logo Bracket Is … appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr And the Winner of the Dem Logo Bracket Is … Norman Ives has an historic place in the American Mid-Modern canon as a member of a crew that used typefaces as art. It was not until after his passing in 1978 that I became aware that his work contributed to placing the Yale School of Art—a modern design hot-house under Josef Albers—on the map. Ives’ design and art appeared to be an outlier of the percolating type-as-art movement that may have been popularized by Robert Indiana’s LOVE sculptures, but has since become ubiquitous not just in painting and sculpture but other massive architectural “type works.” Ives’ work fits squarely into this genre that has roots in the early 20th-century Modern movement. I feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to become absorbed in his work through an as-yet-unpublished book: Norman Ives: Constructions & Reconstructions by John T. Hill. Ives has been examined before, but not with the same intensity as many of his peers and followers. Hill has done his job well. I asked him to explain his interest in this relatively forgotten yet no less significant Modern master. Why are you working to preserve Norman Ives’ legacy? While Ives is perhaps best known for his designs, his paintings and collages are collected by major museums: The 1967 Whitney Annual exhibition of American painting, the Guggenheim Museum, YUAG and various others. An artist with this wide-ranging recognition leaves a rare legacy and one worth preserving. Were you colleagues and friends? What is it about Ives’ work that makes him a “modern master”? Was his intent to design and then transition to painting, or did he feel the two arts could co-exist? He was a renowned teacher at Yale. What distinguished him from the other luminaries? This was balanced by his equally demanding assignments dealing with formal aspects of letters and lines of type, very similar to Josef Albers’ teaching methods at the Bauhaus. It’s hard to imagine, but in the Yale Art School of the 1960s especially, there were awards given to teachers by their peers and students. Several years Ives received that award. What do you want to ultimately achieve by making his work accessible? PRINT is back. And soon, we’ll be relaunching with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future. Stay tuned. The post The Lives of Ives appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr The Lives of Ives Print has been acquired by an independent group of collaborators—Deb Aldrich, Laura Des Enfants, Jessica Deseo, Andrew Gibbs, Steven Heller and Debbie Millman—and soon enough, we’ll be back in full force with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future! In the meantime, we’re looking back at some of our most popular pieces online. Enjoy. So far, we’ve tracked the visual evolution of vintage printer and graphic design ads in Print magazine through the ’50s and the amazing ’60s. Here, we bring you the final* installment in our series: The ’70s. (*Unless we should do the ’80s … but sometimes that seems like a door best left closed.)
Advertising Design and Typography by Alex W. White offers a comprehensive overview of advertising design strategies helps students and professionals understand how to create ads that cut through the clutter. Design principles such as unity, contrast, hierarchy, dominance, scale, abstraction, and type and image relationships are thoroughly discussed.
— Zachary Petit (@ZacharyPetit) is the senior managing editor of Print.
The post 32 Beautiful/Bizarre Design Ads From the ’70s appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr 32 Beautiful/Bizarre Design Ads From the ’70s Print has been acquired by an independent group of collaborators—Deb Aldrich, Laura Des Enfants, Jessica Deseo, Andrew Gibbs, Steven Heller and Debbie Millman—and soon enough, we’ll be back in full force with an all-new look, all-new content and a fresh outlook for the future. As a sneak peek at our new lineup: Expect Design Matters, and an exclusive piece to accompany it, right here, every Monday. If there’s something that seems so refreshing in Tosh Hall’s design work, it’s probably because, well, he never intended to become a designer. Rather, Hall’s educational foundation was in economics and journalism, which he studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As he told The Dieline, “Journalism was great because I had to learn how to tell a story, and that thinking is the way I approach design and approach a problem. Economics helped because we are a business and we must work with businesses. As much as I’d like us to be in the arts space, we’re in the business space.” At UNC, he worked in the full-scale offset print shop that produced the school’s communications—and there, through trial, error and the cruel tutelage of the old-school press gurus, he began his own design education. After graduating, he got a job as a designer at Revlon, spent seven years at Landor, and then became creative director at Jones Knowles Ritchie—and eventually global executive creative director and global chief creative officer. Not bad for a journalism and economics major. Here, as a complement to the new episode of Design Matters, we present 15 of Hall’s wisdoms on branding and design—showcasing the mind at play behind brilliant work he has produced for everyone from Stella Artois to Kashi to the nonprofit Fonderie 47, which makes luxury jewelry from assault rifles reclaimed from war zones. // “We are part doctors and part Boy Scouts. Boy Scouts leave campsites better than they found them, and doctors must diagnose before they prescribe treatment and first promise to do no harm. Our job is to understand the business problems that design can solve, provide the right solutions and ultimately leave brands better than when we found them.” (source) // “It’s best for the brand to go in a long-term direction of health and growth instead of zigging, zagging back and forth between whatever the marketing plan du jour is, and a hope for short-term success.” (source) // “People are obsessed with the next. Be present and do the best work possible in that moment. It’s easy to say in retrospect, but the rest of it will take care of itself.” (source) // “I believe everyone deserves great design. Whether you are holding a can of beer, eating a fancy ice cream bar or flying first on a great airline, brands can no longer get away with mediocrity. Ugly costs brands money. Great design adds profit much faster than it adds cost. We seek to influence what consumers hold in their hands and experience in the world, and we aspire to create the ideas that persist in people’s minds.” (source) // “The answer isn’t always packaging.” (source) // “My favorite artists comment on culture, commercialism and design: I love the intensity of Robert Longo, the combination of message and medium from Ed Ruscha, the scale of photographer Andreas Gursky, the geometry of Frank Stella and pattern of Bridgett Riley.” (source) // “We wear black because it’s simple and everything else should be the color—your ideas should be the color.” (source) // “Craft is almost table stakes. We have to have work that is representative of the best quality of craft in brand communications design, but what will differentiate the great from the good is what power design and communications can wield in the world. Going beyond being well-executed and well-crafted, ideas can not only drive strategic business objectives but push the industry forward and create cultural impact.” (source) // “All you really need for a good idea is a pen and a piece of paper, and a brain. The more we can tap into that in this technological world where you’re always on, the better we’ll be.” (source) // “My advice to designers comes from one of my favorite motorcycle racing formulas for winning. Success is only 20% talent, 30% being at the right place at the right time and 50% tenacity. Plenty of designers are more talented and many will have better connections—the trick is to identify the right opportunities, doggedly pursue your goals and work fucking hard.” (source) // “We redesigned Budweiser because it deserved to be redesigned. It is an artifact of our culture—it deserves to be great.” (source) // “The challenge was, how do we change everything and change nothing?” (source) // “To me, nothing is worse than being right, but five years ahead.” (source) // “It doesn’t matter what direction you’re moving in as long as you’re moving.” (source) // “Spending time just crafting is a rare luxury. So enjoy it.” (source) The post Design Matters: Tosh Hall appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr Design Matters: Tosh Hall The search—described by AIGA as “exhaustive” and taking more than a year—is over. AIGA announced today that the organization has landed a new executive director: Bennie F. Johnson. Johnson comes to the role following his most recent position as chief strategy officer of the Council of Better Business Bureaus—notable here for its chapter-based structure—where he oversaw strategic partnerships with the likes of Google, the FTC and Coca-Cola, and managed an enterprise-wide restructuring. Prior to that role, he served as chief global marketing/global business development officer of the HR Certification Institute, advisor to Kaleo Software, and director of marketing at other organizations. According to AIGA, Johnson first connected with design through professor Robert Reed at Yale, where he earned his bachelor’s degree before pursuing his master’s in strategic communications at Columbia. As he said in the official announcement, “I have been passionate about design as a part of innovation and creativity my entire life. … I’m drawn to organizations where I can play an active role leading and creating new modes of business and enterprise to inspire stronger visions for the future. Since AIGA is entering a new decade of growth, I am thrilled to join this organization where my educational background, professional experience and personal passions merge and align with the organization’s needs and vision.” Based in Washington DC, Johnson also serves as chairman of the advisory board of the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. Alongside the AIGA board of directors, the firm Nonprofit HR assisted in the search for a new executive director, which began after Julie Anixter left the role in the summer of 2018. Anixter officially joined the AIGA in January 2016, following the departure of Richard Grefé, who served at the helm for two decades. PRINT will be following up with more coverage soon. Stay tuned. The post AIGA Announces New Executive Director appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr AIGA Announces New Executive Director (Author’s note: A longer version of this essay ran as an “Introspectives” in Print magazine in 2001. This article was originally published on July 14, 2011.) When I was eight years old a friend gave me a Nazi flag that his father had brought back from the war as a souvenir. Despite my parents’ warnings not to upset my grandmother, whose family (I much later learned) perished in Auschwitz, I would often streak through the apartment in her presence wearing the flag as a kind of superman cape. At the time, I knew nothing about the holocaust except that Jews were not beloved in Germany, but since religious taunting was common in my Manhattan public school, this fact had little consequence. I was also addicted to watching movies on TV about World War II and, as a wannabe artist, drew more pictures of Nazis than Americans because their uniforms were better. The German steel helmets, with those menacing ear-covering brims, were a thousand times more threatening than the GI “pots” or Tommy “pans.” As a designer I have long been fascinated by the unmitigated power of the swastika. Yet as a Jew I am embarrassed by my fascination. This paradox is one reason why I wrote the book The Swastika: A Symbol Beyond Redemption? Though working on it did not resolve my conflict. Indeed I have become even more obsessed with the symbol — more drawn to yet repulsed by it. I still own that Nazi flag and have subsequently amassed a collection of over one hundred additional swastika artifacts, from buttons to banners of Nazi, neo-Nazi, and non-Nazi origin. And I feel guilty. So over a decade ago I decided that I had to find out why this symbol (see video) had such hypnotic force for me (and others) particularly in light of the horrors it represents. I began researching the origins of the swastika as a Nazi symbol, which lead me to seek out even earlier historical roots dating back to antiquity (even prehistory) when it was ostensibly benign. How Adolf Hitler created an aesthetic that millions of people willingly followed is, for me, a continual source of bewilderment. The swastika was his instrument, though not solely the mark of his political party. It was his personal emblem – his surrogate. Arguably, like any symbol it is only as good or bad as the ideas it represents. But as the icon of Nazism the swastika was transformed from a neutral vessel into monstrous criminality itself. A case can be made, and I try to make it, that the swastika is not the bottle in which an evil genie lived, it is the incarnation of that creature. Studying the swastika has been a means for me to ameliorate my guilt over being a voyeur. I often wonder how my grandmother would feel about my my book. She had emigrated from Galicia (Poland) in the early teens. Her father had left her and two siblings in New York while he returned to collect the rest of the family. The Great War prevented his own emigration and after it was over he remained in Poland with his ill wife and younger children. The only time my grandmother ever spoke about the Holocaust was when I was thirteen and she showed me a postcard from her father, which was dated 1940. She had received a few years after the War. It was stamped with three official Nazi seals that included the swastika. The postcard had a acrid smell, as though it had been in a moldy sack for all that time. The short message said everything was fine. But the swastikas said otherwise. In 1946 my grandmother learned of their fate. I always remember that smell when I see a swastika. The postcard piqued my interest to the extent that I read whatever I found on the Holocaust (and in 1963 there was not a lot on the subject). I could not get the idea out of my mind that my own flesh and blood was subjected to such cruelty. I often pictured myself in their situation, being continually in fear, constantly abused, and ultimately murdered. I developed a healthy hatred for Nazis. Yet I continued to be engrossed (perhaps even awestruck) by their regalia, especially the swastika. I accumulate and write about swastika material because I believe the form must forever be remembered as a kind of portal to evil. Because if I can be seduced by the swastika as a form, and I know the legacy, then just think how younger generations will be engaged as memory of Nazis fade (and other atrocities supercede it). My book is a way for me to address two things: How Adolf Hitler came to adopt the symbol for the Nazis and what it meant before it was appropriated. I knew that it had other incarnations within other cultures; I had seen it on old greeting cards and architectural decorations. But even when I stumbled across benign applications I felt as though it was a knife in my face. So I began to read many vintage histories of the swastika. I learned that it had a long heritage and that in the late nineteenth century a swastika cult emerged in Germany within a youth culture similar to the Hippies. I found that it was adopted by German racialist and nationalist cults, which imbued it with anti-Semitic connotations, and this filtered its way into the Nazi liturgy. I also learned that it had roots in various other lands where it was a sacred religious icon for Buddhists, Jains, Hindus, Native Americans, Africans, and many others, akin to the Cross, Star, and Crescent. When Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf about the mark’s symbolism, however, he ignored all these earlier representations. In the mythology of Nazism the swastika was immaculately conceived – it was Hitler’s sole invention. Although this was false, Nazi myth triumphed over reality. Since my book was published in March 2000 I have received various letters from well meaning people accusing me of bias. A Native American wrote that the swastika is his people’s symbol and my assertion that it should never be revived in Western Culture is presumptuous and racist. He argues that the whites stole his land and now his icons. Another critic stated that no one remembers the logos of Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan, likewise in 1000 years or less who will remember the symbol of Hitler’s 12-Year Reich. He feels that the ancient meaning of the Swastika will ultimately triumph. Similarly, an Asian American wrote that in his culture, the red swastika is his emblem of good fortune, and described how his local green grocer displays it in his shop. Why, he asks, if the meaning is diametrically opposed to the Nazis should I care whether or not it is used in this cultural context? My book has been called polemical. I agree. After laying down the history, I attack neo-Nazi uses of the swastika and condemn work by ignorant graphic designers who incorporate it into their hip graphics. I also argue against those who want to reclaim, through art, the swastika in its benign form. It is too late for such righteous attempts. The atrocities committed under this magnificently designed form must never be forgotten. Because the swastika has such allure, and because memory is so fleeting, it functions as a mnemonic. I have revised and reconfigured the book (as The Swastika and Symbols of Hate — Allworth Press)now that extremism, white nationalism and racism is again on the rise to recognize its enduring nature. People for whom the swastika has spiritual import have a right to this symbol, nonetheless, I would feel even more guilty if I did not take a stand against its use in our cultural context as anything other than an icon of evil. (Photo of Swastika Laundry provided by Rick Meyerowitz.) The post Swastika Guilt Redux appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr Swastika Guilt Redux Ezio d’Errico (1892-1972) was writer, painter and playwright, born in Agrigento. He died in the most guilty isolation, surrounded by his paintings and with only his wife next to him. Author of thrillers published with Mondadori, of theater works translated and represented also abroad, among the first abstract painters in Italy, d’Errico, a sort of Renaissance genius, is still a universe to be explored. His biographical events seem wrapped in an aura of mystery: soon left Sicily moves to Paris, where he attempts the adventure of a painter and where he meets important artists. Then, he returned to Italy, to Turin, to teach drawing: among his students, Armando Testa, who, as he later admitted, knew the works of Picasso, Chagall and Mirò thanks to his small reproductions in the magazine “Graphicus,” for which the same Ezio d’Errico draws, among other things, the first abstract cover in Italy. The post Another Renaissance Genius? appeared first on Print Magazine. via Tumblr Another Renaissance Genius? |
Charles Gorton
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