A final cover design has been selected for my upcoming book Volume; Writings on Graphic Design, Music, Art, and Culture. The design and concept is by my teaching colleague, Jiwon Lee. He arranged and photographed an assortment of artifacts from my office.
I Proclaim You Cultish
For Eye magazine’s summer 2009 “Agenda” section, Steven Heller produced another cult alert. By titling the piece “Cult of the Squiggly,” he obviously meant to invoke his earlier, infamous “Cult of the Ugly” essay. It’s a fair reference: both articles decry and advocate suppression of anti-Modern graphic design phenomena Heller deems disadvantageous to the field. [...]
A Valentine from Marian
This year’s Valentine card from Marian Bantjes was a design laser-cut from a repurposed Christmas card. (Weeks in advance of the day, she was soliciting donations of old cards via Facebook.) Each card is therefor unique, as far as the card design is concerned. An additional delight was the illustration of a Cupid’s arrow-shot Santa [...]
Authenticity is a Groove
Years ago, I worked at a national historic site on Boston’s Freedom Trail. A frequent question of visitors was “How much of the building is original?” I knew what they meant by the question but sometimes I felt waggish (or was a smarmy asshole, depending upon your point of view) and would answer that it [...]
