Cross-hatch

May 9th, 2012 by Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser Collection Box 61 Folder 8. Sports Illustrated mechanical, 1961.

Milton Glaser did these drawings for a 1961 issue of Sports Illustrated on beaches. It’s a lovely example of Glaser’s long-time interest in cross-hatching (scroll down here for his cross-hatched mourning dog for Olivetti), which he has attributed to Morandi’s etchings. The three pieces of original art are especially compelling for their evidence of Glaser’s hand; you can almost imagine he completed these just now, as you were watching.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 61 Folder 8. Sports Illustrated original art, 1961.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 61 Folder 8. Sports Illustrated original art, 1961.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 61 Folder 8. Sports Illustrated original art, 1961.

For the pleasure and edification of all

March 30th, 2012 by Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser Collection Box 112 Folder 23. The Push Pin Almanack September & October 1954. Illustration on left by Ed Sorel.

Before Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Ed Sorel, and Reynold Ruffins had fully hammered out the idea for Push Pin Studios, Chwast, Sorel, and Ruffins began publishing the Push Pin Almanack as a vehicle to solicit freelance work while they held day jobs elsewhere. Glaser returned from his Fulbright study in Italy a year later and joined in on the fun. Steven Heller writes in Design Literacy (Allworth Press, 1997):

In 1953 when the first Push Pin Almanack was first published it would have been impossible to predict that its four principal contributors would develop a graphic style that challenged the prevailing ethic of functionalism imported from Europe (during the Bauhaus immigration) practiced by some leading American corporate and advertising designers, and manifest in work by exponents of the Swiss International Style. Yet when that first four-by-nine-inch compilation of facts, ephemera, and trivia illustrated with woodcuts and pen-and-ink drawings was mailed out as a promotion for these freelancers, other New York designers and artists began to take serious notice. Indeed, the Push Pin Almanack brought in so much work from book, advertising, and filmstrip clients that the four Cooper Union classmates decided to leave their day jobs and start Push Pin Studios, the major proponent of illustrative design in America.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 112 Folder 23. The Push Pin Almanack September & October 1954.

Inspired by the old Farmer’s Almanac, the Almanack had a sweetly humble tongue-in-cheek presentation that belied its ambition. The publication signaled the studio’s complete commitment to concept above all. The Almanack featured here is their “Annual Children’s Issue” (as far as I can tell it was the only one ever published). It’s a tailor-made theme for the artists, and the charming illustrations (including the ones they did for advertisers in exchange for subsidized printing) and whimsical tone draw inspiration from Edward Lear. His “Three Receipts for Domestic Cookery” is reprinted for the intrepid home cook confident enough to attempt an Amblongus Pie:

Take 4 pounds (say 4 1/2 pounds) of fresh Amblongusses, and put them in a small pipkin. Cover them with water, and boil them for 8 hours incessantly; after which add 2 pints of new milk, and proceed to boil for 4 hours more. When you have ascertained that the Amblongusses are quite soft, take them out, and place them in a wide pan, taking care to shake them well previously. Grate some nutmeg over the surface, and cover them carefully with powdered gingerbread, curry-powder, and a sufficient quantity of Cayenne pepper. Remove the pan into the next room, and place it on the floor. Bring it back again, and let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Shake the pan violently till all the Amblogusses have become of a pale purple color. Then, having prepared the paste, insert the whole carefully; adding at the same time a small pigeon, 2 slices of beef, 4 cauliflowers, and any number of oysters. Watch patiently til the crust begins to rise, and add a pinch of salt from time to time. Serve up in a clean dish, and throw the whole out the window as fast as possible.

I know what I’m making this weekend.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 112 Folder 23. The Push Pin Almanack September & October 1954.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 112 Folder 23. The Push Pin Almanack September & October 1954. Illustration by Milton Glaser.

Milton Glaser Collection Box 112 Folder 23. The Push Pin Almanack September & October 1954. Illustration on left by Seymour Chwast.

The Almanack was published until 1956 when it was supplanted by the Push Pin Graphic, which offered studio members the opportunity to radically vary the publication’s concept, look, and format from issue to issue. But Push Pin’s deep intelligence and light touch with abstract ideas had already been established.

Saturday’s Generation

March 13th, 2012 by Beth Kleber

Milton Glaser Design Collection Box 57 Folder 14: mechanical for Bloomingdale's advertisement, c. 1970.

It’s 1970. You’re young, you’re bored in your Upper East Side apartment, you have a little money to spend. Bloomingdale’s tried to capture the weekend leisure time of this trend-seeking crowd with their “Saturday’s Generation” boutique, inviting customers to hang out in their curvy, psychedelic, over-the-top model interiors designed by Barbara D’Arcy (who, strangely enough, was also responsible for popularizing “Country French” style in American interior design). The in-store environments featured simulated aquarium living, inspiration from Earth Houses, and a structure called “The Cave”, which was wrapped entirely in white polyurethane. There was plenty of plastic, foam rubber, shag rugs, jagged greenery against soft curves, projected wall images. See here for some of the rooms, which were featured in Bloomingdale’s Book of Home Decorating (1973). A few more are here, including some (relatively) staid examples.

I don’t know if this groovy ad designed by Milton Glaser was ever produced; it seems to have gotten pretty far in the production process at least (this mechanical was done in cello-tak). There are plenty examples of flowers sprouting from human heads in Glaser’s ouevre — see, for one, this poster for the Push Pin Graphic, or his art for the Utopia record label (or, further down, the poppy shooting up from a concrete block for Poppy Records — a flower growing amok).

Urban Outfitters’ Slant, Part 2

March 5th, 2012 by Beth Kleber

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. From Slant no. 3 for Urban Outfitters. Collage by Winston Smith.

Having already covered some background and intent for Urban Outfitter’s mid-90s promotional magazine, Slant, I thought I’d take a look inside. Slant presented notably few advertisements for Urban’s products, instead trading in cool by association. Contributors were paid a relatively modest $250, so no one was getting rich off their work for Urban Outfitters. The magazine was pretty remarkable for the quality of its art and writing, but most impressive was its unfailingly consistent anti-establishment tone. Art Chantry, godfather of low-tech design, supplied several pieces. Below, he presents the DIY manifesto – “Don’t Buy It! Don’t Listen to Them! Don’t Be a Fool!! Do It Yourself!!!!”

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 3 for Urban Outfitters. Art on right by Art Chantry. Now go buy something.

The nine issues are populated by obscure and not-so-obscure (then) underground writers and artists. There’s work from distinctive illustrators like Joe Ciardiello, David Sandlin, and Edwin Fotheringham (aka Mr. Fotheringham); comics from Chris Ware and David Mazzucchelli; collage from Dead Kennedys collaborator Winston Smith; articles by Porkchops & Applesauce editor Lyndsey Parker and WFMU’s Lowest Common Denominator editor Rex Doane.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 5 for Urban Outfitters. Illustrations by Joe Ciardiello.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 6 for Urban Outfitters. Illustration by David Sandlin.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 2 for Urban Outfitters. Illustration by Edwin Fotheringham.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 2 for Urban Outfitters. Comics by Chris Ware and Steven Cerio.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 3 for Urban Outfitters. Comic by David Mazzucchelli.

Mark Dancey, co-founder of the late great Ann Arbor-based music magazine Motorbooty, which was clearly a template for Slant, contributed this poster, ready for your dorm room wall.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 3 for Urban Outfitters. Illustration by Mark Dancey.

Luc Sante, who was already established (he’d published the acclaimed Low Life in 1991), wrote about the grand New York tradition of finding free stuff on the street. “Sasha Frere-Jones of Ui” described touring with Stereolab and Trans Am (he found a more effective way to make a living when he became music critic for The New Yorker in 2004).

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 7 for Urban Outfitters. Article by Luc Sante.

Design Study Collection: David Mazzucchelli. Slant no. 7 for Urban Outfitters. Article by Sasha Frere-Jones.

Over the course of just nine issues, you can see a rise in the magazine’s ambitions; the Sante and Frere-Jones articles were in the same issue, along with a Kenneth Anger piece on Berlin, and an article called “Inside Miss Los Angeles” by Jerry Stahl (of Permanent Midnight fame). The publishers of Slant had designs on moving beyond the realm of freebie promotions (which, I believe, never materialized); the last few issues included an offer for a year-long subscription (3 issues) for $4.50. It’s easy to imagine a more independent Slant, but that wouldn’t be nearly as fun.

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.