Salon.com > Imprint http://www.salon.com Wed, 22 May 2013 00:22:48 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Rebranding Brussels http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/rebranding_brussels/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/rebranding_brussels/#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12960838 ImprintEarlier this year, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN—the nonprofit organization that controls the Internet's domain-name system—announced that it was accepting applications for new domain-name extensions. For a mere $185,000 a pop, anyone could suggest alternatives to .org, .com, .biz, and the other URL standbys. Out of the 1,409 applications ICANN received, there were a few amusing ideas (.ketchup, .gripe, .wtf) and plenty of reasonable if slightly depressing commerce-oriented suggestions from corporations (.pfizer), brands (.calvinklein), e-business niches (.spreadbetting), and tourist-hungry cities and regions (.barcelona, .quebec).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/20/rebranding_brussels/feed/ 6 Illustrator fights back against Marvel Comics http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/illustrator_fights_back_against_marvel_comics/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/illustrator_fights_back_against_marvel_comics/#comments Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12960093 ImprintNever mind whether Captain America is more powerful than Iron Man or Dr. Strange. The real problem is that Marvel Comics editor and publisher Stan Lee is vastly more powerful than Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and many others who originally drew those superheroes for the company. And Lee presently enjoys 100 percent ownership of the Marvel Universe, in both the public's perception and the legal arena. And what do the artists own? Zilch, that's what!

And this makes Arlen Schumer pretty pissed off!

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/19/illustrator_fights_back_against_marvel_comics/feed/ 9 Jean-Emmanuel “Valnoir” Simoulin pushes the limits of art http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/jean_emmanuel_valnoir_simoulin_pushes_the_limits_of_art/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/jean_emmanuel_valnoir_simoulin_pushes_the_limits_of_art/#comments Wed, 18 Jul 2012 03:51:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12959538 ImprintJean-Emmanuel "Valnoir" Simoulin, the founder of the Paris-based design firm Metastazis, has just upped the ante on shock and awe. He is known for making a gig poster using blood as ink (read more here and here) and now, he says in an email, "if you're into embroidery, I thought my last project may amuse you."

Those who are weak of stomach, please stop here. Or, if you're like me, and have an appointment with the dentist coming up in the next few hours, attend to that before (not after) reading this.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/jean_emmanuel_valnoir_simoulin_pushes_the_limits_of_art/feed/ 6 How designers compress ideas to their essence http://www.salon.com/2012/07/17/how_designers_compress_ideas_to_their_essence/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/17/how_designers_compress_ideas_to_their_essence/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12958618 ImprintI was surprised the other day to find settings in iTunes and the radio-streaming app Stitcher that allow users to play a podcast at up to two times the normal speed. I tested them and discovered that, yes, NPR hosts speak slowly. But do we really not have time to listen to a pause for breath, or a moment’s quiet contemplation of a thoughtful response?

Then again, reduction and compression can also be done in a thoughtful way; certainly, designers constantly rely on reduction to inform our work. Logos and app icons require extreme simplification of an idea. From a perfectly composed tweet to a book cover, there's an undeniable art to brevity. Even when a particular designer's work seems to favor complexity, it's often an aesthetic judgment; the designer is choosing to reveal a select part of the spectrum from simplicity to complexity. Some of the greatest "maximalists" of our time show great restraint of concept.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/17/how_designers_compress_ideas_to_their_essence/feed/ 1 Vernacular signage is a joy http://www.salon.com/2012/07/16/vernacular_signage_is_a_joy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/16/vernacular_signage_is_a_joy/#comments Mon, 16 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12957674 [caption id="attachment_367731" align="alignnone" width="594" caption="“Big Fish Eats Little Fish”"][/caption]

I’m easy. Okay, not easy like that—you people and your dirty minds. Vernacular signage makes me happy, and so do objects that have been accidentally anthropomorphized. Not long after seeing an upside-down mop in my driveway turn into a smiling woman with gray dreads, I stumbled upon Ner Beck’s small show up at the New York Public Library. It made me happy.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/16/vernacular_signage_is_a_joy/feed/ 1 Not the Harvey Pekar graphic novel you’d expect http://www.salon.com/2012/07/13/not_the_harvey_pekar_graphic_novel_youd_expect/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/13/not_the_harvey_pekar_graphic_novel_youd_expect/#comments Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:39:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12956512 Imprint Harvey Pekar had been collaborating with the comic book artist JT Waldman on a book project, one that charts the journey from his Zionist upbringing to his questioning of Israel's role in the world. But Pekar died in July 2010. Still, Waldman continued to work on it, and now it's about to be published. Peter Kuper describes Not the Israel my Parents Promised Me as "an insightful look at one of the burning topics of our time. With Pekar's scholarship and humor and JT Waldman's stylistically varied art, this graphic book is both visually entertaining and highly informative."

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/13/not_the_harvey_pekar_graphic_novel_youd_expect/feed/ 3 London 2012 anti-logos http://www.salon.com/2012/07/12/london_2012_anti_logos/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/12/london_2012_anti_logos/#comments Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12954398 ImprintMaybe it's just because I'm based in London and so more aware, but this Olympics, more than any other, has been a target for spoof, protest, and conspiracy. Its staging has proved, so far, to be widely unpopular. Maybe this will change on July 27. It was unfortunate that just after London won the race to stage the Games, the global banking system collapsed, with its repercussions still painfully felt. An event that takes such an investment is always going to have to fight a battle of ideology with other worthy recipients of public finances. In a time of austerity, the idea (not necessarily true) that money directed to the Olympics was coming from welfare payments or hospitals was doubly problematic. The Olympics seemed a luxury London couldn't afford, and the Olympic movement became an idea people were mistrustful of.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/12/london_2012_anti_logos/feed/ 8 Litho-mania http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/litho_mania/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/litho_mania/#comments Wed, 11 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12954390 ImprintMy last post concerned the photoengraving industry of the pre-Depression period. This week it's pre-WWII lithography!

"Litho Media: A Demonstration of the Selling Power of Lithography," published in 1939 by Roger Stephens and edited by H. Homer Buckelmueller and Colin Campbell, is a 206-page, 12-by-15-inch slipcased bible produced to help publicize the successful and effective results of using the lithography process for marketing purposes. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than a "Toot Your Own Horn" compilation of uses (employing tipped-in examples of the produced work discussed), accompanied by testimonial letters from the various people responsible for utilizing the craft for their products. There are no technical descriptions or images that explain the process.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/11/litho_mania/feed/ 2 Stan Mack’s Occupy-the-Fourth-of-July funnies http://www.salon.com/2012/07/10/stan_mack%e2%80%99s_occupy_the_fourth_of_july_funnies/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/10/stan_mack%e2%80%99s_occupy_the_fourth_of_july_funnies/#comments Tue, 10 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12954373 ImprintIt’s 1776 in Philadelphia. Congressional delegates “sweat, swat flies, and argue independence.” They retreat to a tavern and casually dump Jefferson with the job of composing a declaration: “Tom, write us something dignified, yet magical.” Once he’s finished, all the congressmen shout out changes at him: “Drop 'independent’;” “Why ‘happiness’ instead of ‘property’? What’s ‘happiness’?”

The process is loud, sloppy, and often chaotic. It also feels like real life.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/10/stan_mack%e2%80%99s_occupy_the_fourth_of_july_funnies/feed/ 3 Remembering Roy Kuhlman http://www.salon.com/2012/07/09/remembering_roy_kuhlman/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/09/remembering_roy_kuhlman/#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12953443 Imprint Roy Kuhlman (1923–2007) is not forgotten—his work has been written about here and here, his book covers have been collected here and here, he was inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, my 2007 obituary is here, and there is even a spare website waiting for an infusion of content, launched by his daughter, Arden Riordan. For Imprint, Steven Brower recently wrote about Evergreen Review, where Kuhlman was once art director.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/09/remembering_roy_kuhlman/feed/ 0 Shepard Fairey gets his sticky fingers on the Stones http://www.salon.com/2012/07/06/shepard_fairey_gets_his_sticky_fingers_on_the_stones/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/06/shepard_fairey_gets_his_sticky_fingers_on_the_stones/#comments Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12951355 ImprintCan anyone believe the Rolling Stones are 50 years old? Now that Shepard Fairey designed the Stones' official 50th-anniversary logo using their famous tongue, first seen on the Sticky Fingers album sleeve in 1971 (designed by John Pasche, a student from the Royal College of Art in London), we gotta believe. Yesterday I asked him about this incredible milestone:

Are you a Stones fan?

Yes, for over 30 years.

How did you refine the tongue?

I didn't ... it's perfect.

Did you have to show it to the lads?

Of course. I spoke to Mick often. He has a great design vocabulary and is very decisive.

How many iterations?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/06/shepard_fairey_gets_his_sticky_fingers_on_the_stones/feed/ 4 Graphic design’s role in “Girls” http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/graphic_designs_role_in_girls/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/graphic_designs_role_in_girls/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12950593 ImprintViewers of HBO’s new series Girls can be forgiven for not paying much attention to its title sequence. Buzz about the show, which follows the complicated, passionate, and often narcissistic doings of four young women in New York City, quickly grew into a divisive debate over its feminist intentions. And that was just the pilot. With the first season now complete, it's finally safe to shift our gaze to the striking sans serif that opens every episode.

The custom typeface is the work of the Los Angeles–based production company Grand Jeté. “Truth be told, there were countless hours spent on the pitch, because I believed in the project,” says Howard Nourmand, the firm's creative director. After landing the job, he worked closely with Girls' creator, Lena Dunham—who also wrote, directed, and stars in the series—to strike a balance between something bold and something beautiful.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/05/graphic_designs_role_in_girls/feed/ 2 War swept under and over the rug http://www.salon.com/2012/07/04/war_swept_under_and_over_the_rug/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/04/war_swept_under_and_over_the_rug/#comments Wed, 04 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12950404 ImprintAs the U.S. prepares to draw down troops from Afghanistan this summer, what remains is a land of wounds left by Soviet, Taliban, and U.S. forces. Many scars are carved deep into the nation's psyche, and some are woven into their textiles. War Rugs: The Nightmare of Modernism (Skira), by Enrico Mascelloni, chronicles the history of a genre of beautiful yet disturbing objects, which I have found frequently at New York flea markets. Afghan war rugs are produced in different tribal workshops and refugee camps to either commemorate or celebrate the battles that have for so long ravaged the nation. This tension between modernism (represented by mechanized warfare) and craftsmanship is the underpinning for Mascelloni's overview.

[caption id="attachment_356201" align="aligncenter" width="492" caption="Photograph by John Hails. Used with permission www.ucalgary.ca/fyke_war_rugs"][/caption]

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/04/war_swept_under_and_over_the_rug/feed/ 1 Famous writers’ art and design http://www.salon.com/2012/07/03/famous_writers_art_and_design/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/03/famous_writers_art_and_design/#comments Tue, 03 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12949523 ImprintI attended the High School of Music and Art in Harlem, graduating in 1970. As one might expect, it was a place rich with talent. The program was split in two (as the name implies), and as I walked the halls, music would pour out from every corner. What I found interesting then was that many of the talents spilled over from one side to the other. I can’t speak to the visual art of the music students, as it was not so evident, but many of the art students were among the best singer-songwriters and rock musicians in the school. Indeed, our most famous classmate, Paul Stanley (née Stan Eisen) of Kiss, was an art student. I played in bands for fifteen years or so myself.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/03/famous_writers_art_and_design/feed/ 7 Graham Moore’s midcentury http://www.salon.com/2012/07/02/graham_moores_midcentury/ http://www.salon.com/2012/07/02/graham_moores_midcentury/#comments Mon, 02 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12948616 ImprintGraham Moore creates fine-art pieces that put you in a dancing mood, just by looking into them. In fact, many of them began as vintage LP record album covers, several decades pre-mp3. Then, under his knife, texts lose their legibility, images lose their identity, and those often dull cardboard sleeves are reconfigured into visual bop rhythms and beats that delight the eye.

This art grew out of Moore's graphic design career. He worked at studios and ad agencies in London back in 1985. In 1991, he landed in Los Angeles, where he now freelances and earns awards such as Print's Certificate of Excellence. He also teaches at Art Center College of Design and other schools around town, where his students learn non-digital, handmade methods of operation.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/07/02/graham_moores_midcentury/feed/ 0 Leave nothing untold http://www.salon.com/2012/06/29/leave_nothing_untold/ http://www.salon.com/2012/06/29/leave_nothing_untold/#comments Fri, 29 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12946333 Imprint

Anyone following the posts I've done for Imprint should be left with the impression that I get off on tasty examples of graphic art. Regardless of how well and even superior the reproduction of images is now, thanks to new technology like the iPad, there's nothing like leafing through some of the publications that presented the art of lithography and photoengraving in their original form. Two publications in the library here that have become my favorites are Achievement in Photo-Engraving and Letter Press Printing (1927) and the separate softcover addenda,The Art of Photo Engraving (1929). Both were published through the American Photo Engravers Association, and are the result of editing and compiling by Louis Flader.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/06/29/leave_nothing_untold/feed/ 0 The education of a typographic innovator http://www.salon.com/2012/06/28/the_education_of_a_typographic_innovator/ http://www.salon.com/2012/06/28/the_education_of_a_typographic_innovator/#comments Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12943071 ImprintRolando G. Alcantara was born and raised in Torreón, an industrial city in north-central Mexico. He attended a technical high school there. Since childhood, he’d planned to become a doctor—a radiologist, like his mom.

[caption id="attachment_355091" align="alignnone" width="564" caption="Rolando Alcantara wearing a shirt that says, “No soy de aquí, ni soy de allá” ("I'm not from here or from there"), from a popular Mexican song."][/caption]

A few weeks ago, he received his MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and brought a compelling presentation of typography to AIGA New York’s “My Dog and Pony: Fresh Blood III” event, which introduced the best of this year’s graduate student thesis projects from East Coast art schools and universities, including Pratt, Parsons, SVA, and Yale.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/06/28/the_education_of_a_typographic_innovator/feed/ 3 Pinstripe legacy http://www.salon.com/2012/06/27/pinstripe_legacy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/06/27/pinstripe_legacy/#comments Wed, 27 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12943062

ImprintWhen the New York Yankees’ historic 1923 home in the Bronx was torn down to make way for a new, luxury-box-stuffed stadium, it seemed as though the House That Ruth Built would be nothing but a memory. That gave Stephen Doyle an idea.

Doyle was tasked by the city with commemorating the old stadium in Heritage Field, the park that was built in its footprint and opened in April. He came up with a ghost outline of Yankee Stadium—he prefers the term “indelible field”—traced over three new community ball fields. “The initial idea was to draw the field in bluegrass,” says Doyle, the creative director of Doyle Partners. “It would be sort of like a time exposure, and eventually Yankee Stadium would melt away.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/06/27/pinstripe_legacy/feed/ 1 Italy’s Fumetti http://www.salon.com/2012/06/26/italys_fumetti/ http://www.salon.com/2012/06/26/italys_fumetti/#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12943052 ImprintFumetti literally means "small puffs of smoke," which suggests the speech balloons common to most comic strips. In Italy, fumetti has become synonymous with comic strips, and particularly photo-comics, where written dialogue (in a balloon or not) is superimposed over a photo that was probably shot especially for the comic or, perhaps, a series of stills excerpted from a film.


Italy is the land of the fumetto. It started in 1908 with the premiere of Il Corriere dei Piccoli; this newsprint magazine was the first mainstream journal dedicated to comics. Other comics periodicas followed, including Il Giornaletto (1910), Donnina (1914), L'Intrepido (1920), Piccolo mondo (1924), Il Vittorioso, L'Avventuroso (1934), Il Monello (1933), and L'Audace (1937).

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/06/26/italys_fumetti/feed/ 0 Designer for the age of austerity http://www.salon.com/2012/06/25/designer_for_the_age_of_austerity/ http://www.salon.com/2012/06/25/designer_for_the_age_of_austerity/#comments Mon, 25 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12943035 ImprintUnit Editions’s forthcoming monograph on Herb Lubalin already seems poised to be the design publishing event of the summer. Scheduled to begin shipping in August, Herb Lubalin: American Graphic Designer, 1918–81 is the first major work on Lubalin since 1985 — and it is indeed a major work, with 448 pages and including hundreds of examples of the pioneering designer's work, many never before seen, as well as a lengthy and revealing biographical essay by Adrian Shaughnessy (who co-edited the book with Tony Brook and Alexander Tochilovsky). Recently, Shaughnessy gave Imprint a preview of the limited-edition book, which can be pre-ordered from Unit, and took some time to answers our questions about Lubalin’s work, his sometimes prickly personality and the rampant misuse of his most famous typeface.

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