Urban Outfitter’s Slant

February 1st, 2012 by Beth Kleber

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 2.

Big box retailers like Old Navy and Target have long tapped into a lightly ironic sense of nostalgia in their marketing, but in the early 1990s, Urban Outfitters fully embraced a retro, anti-consumerist consumerism, snarky and winking – alternative style gone mainstream. Urban’s tabloid magazine Slant encapsulated all that the company hoped to represent to its customers. Slant was published for nine issues between 1995 and 1997, and was distributed to more than 500 retail outlets beyond Urban Outfitters, including cafes and clubs. Cleverly riding the zine explosion of the 90s, Urban differentiated itself from other clothing franchises early on by employing underground artists and writers to grab a bit of their cachet. Slant published the writing of John Maar, Nick Tosches, Kenneth Anger, and Luc Sante, implicitly trusting the cultural literacy of its target reader. Mike Calkins, Urban’s Assistant Art Director at the time said, “The pretense of Urban Outfitters assumes that the people who shop there know who those writers are.” (Communication Arts Jan/Feb 1998). Slant also employed many of the artists creating the best comics, illustrations, and gig posters of the time, thus producing the coolest advertising circular ever – one with a DIY aesthetic and tons of street cred. Art Director Howard Brown, hired in 1992 at age 25, put the magazine’s mission succinctly in a 1998 article in Communication Arts:

We want each page to work on its own as a poster, so you can tear it out and put it on your wall. Even if you don’t like to read, it’s eye candy. People see this and realize that Urban Outfitters is different. We’re giving them more than stickers. We’re giving them culture.

(To that end, Urban assiduously pursued associations with indie rock bands, carefully yoking their brand to alternative music. Store soundtracks were carefully curated and Urban’s designers created concert posters for preferred bands, which were sold in the stores. Below, posters for Blur and Sebadoh.)

Posters for the Trocadero in Philadelphia, mid-1990s. Blur by Mike Calkins (UO's Assistant Art Director). Sebadoh by Howard Brown (UO's Art Director).

The magazine also benefited from the role of Charles Spencer Anderson, whose studio participated in the design and concept of covers and articles. Anderson’s refined retro-ironic style served as a nice counterpoint to the un-designed zine look Slant also strived for. (For more on C.S. Anderson’s self-described “Bonehead” style, see Steven Heller’s article “Bonehead Design: Style as Language” in Design Issues, Vol. 12, No. 2, Summer 1996.)

In case there was any confusion, the cover of the first issue of Slant offered a definition of the term: “to present (information) in a way that favors a particular viewpoint.”

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 1.

It’s an unexpected statement coming from a retailer that aimed to flatter its customers’ sense of individuality. Urban Outfitters, after all, was specifically positioning itself in opposition to the Gap uniform. In any case, thanks are due to David Mazzucchelli, who recently donated the complete run of Slant to the Glaser Archives. Receiving a pristine set of a significant ephemeral publication is an archivist’s dream, of course. I’ll feature some of the interior comics and illustrations in a future post, but here are some covers by Mazzucchelli, Gary Panter, Michael Mabry, and Chip Kidd. To see more covers, visit our Flickr account.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 1.

David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 3. Cover by Gary Panter.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 5. Cover by M.K. Mabry.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 6. Cover by Chip Kidd.

James McMullan on the grid

January 19th, 2012 by Beth Kleber

James McMullan Collection Box 1 Folder 6: illustration for unknown publication.

I’m not sure there’s a greater significance to James McMullan’s use of grids in his art, but I noticed them in sufficient number to start thinking about why they might have appealed to him.  The grids impose order, but I’ve always thought of McMullan’s work as deceptively methodical.  He often creates works based on staged photographs, and at first glance, the drawings can appear to be a wholly faithful representation.  A close look, however, reveals something brooding and wistful, maybe dangerous.  The grids add a sense of being confined and a longing for escape (intentional or not).

James McMullan Collection Box 1 Folder 6: illustration for unknown publication.

p(caption). James McMullan Collection Box 2 Folder 4: original art for unknown publication.

p(caption). James McMullan Collection Box 2 Folder 10: Four-Stroke book jacket, 1974.

Some abstracted versions of the grid:

James McMullan Collection Box 2 Folder 1: Cover for Push Pin Graphic, "Notorious Subjects as Children," No. 47, 1964.

James McMullan Collection Box 1 Folder 6: illustration for unknown publication.

Illustrating ‘Seventeen’

December 7th, 2011 by Zachary Sachs

Illustration for Seventeen by Milton Glaser, ca. 1957

I wrote last week about some ads I came across for Seventeen. Those appeared somewhat surprisingly in the promotional end pages of the Art Directors Club annuals in the 50s-60s. Here are some of the illustrations from that magazine that won awards from the ADC that year.

Illustration for Seventeen by Doris Lee, ca. 1955

I apologize for the black and white reproductions, but now that I think of it I can’t be certain if—in the mid-50s—the color versions of all of these drawings were even printed originally.

Illustration for Seventeen by Robert Weaver, ca. 1955

Contributions by Seymour Chwast, Phil Hays, Ad Reinhardt, Raphael Soyer, Ben Shahn, Jerome Snyder and Andy Warhol also got awards. Which is quite a list. But this credit took me by surprise:

Illustration for Seventeen by Sol Lewitt, ca. 1957

Fed up with mediocrity

October 25th, 2011 by Beth Kleber

School of Visual Arts Collection. Folio 8 for Sanders Printing Corporation, 1964.

In 1964, the Sanders Printing Corporation invited SVA’s graduating class to produce its periodic promotional publication, Folio. In an insert, Seymour Sanders jovially noted that some of his friends were concerned that an issue designed by art students was bound to be a fiasco. Of course, he was delighted that Folio 8 turned out to be “as distinguished and professional as any of the earlier issues.” But he got down to business on the back cover, lobbing his grenade in the Great Paper Company Wars of the 60s.

School of Visual Arts Collection. Folio 8 for Sanders Printing Corporation, 1964.

Sanders’ overconfident ad talk contrasts nicely with an essay in Folio 8 entitled “Industry’s Responsibility to the Gifted” by SVA founder Silas H. Rhodes, who took the opportunity to present a serious-minded argument in favor of art education that is both practical and demanding. SVA was founded as a trade school in 1947 and as its mission expanded Rhodes decried the fact that art schools were so eager “to avoid the stigma of vocationalism, [they] ignore[d] the problem of livelihood. No one has ever suggested that at Harvard the preparation of ministers for the ministry or stock brokers for the stock exchange is illiberal or vocational.” Needless to say, “Art school” and “vocationalism” are generally not uttered in the same breath any more.

In any case, Folio 8 is indeed exemplary. George Tscherny and Louis Donato served as faculty advisors and Tscherny’s influence is evident. The illustration portion reflects the impact of instructors like Robert Weaver and Phil Hays.

School of Visual Arts Collection. Folio 8 for Sanders Printing Corporation, 1964.

School of Visual Arts Collection. Folio 8 for Sanders Printing Corporation, 1964.

School of Visual Arts Collection. Folio 8 for Sanders Printing Corporation, 1964.