MILTON GLASER
Principal, Milton Glaser, Inc. New York
Milton Glaser has been a seminal figure in graphic design for over fifty years. He was one of the original founders of Pushpin Studio, which was instrumental in shaping the modern graphic design genre. Glaser currently heads the multi-disciplinary design firm, Milton Glaser, Inc. He draws on our entire visual history to create contemporary solutions applied to two and three-dimensional projects and web sites. His work has been exhibited worldwide. Glaser is a member of the New York Art Directors Hall of Fame and received the AIGA Medal in 1972. (source: Icons of Design, Sibley Peteet Design, Dallas)
On Feb 25th, 2010, Milton Glaser received the The National Medal of Arts. The award was presented by President Obama at The White House. Glaser was the first designer to ever receive the honor.
Here is a small sliver of some of the more recognizable pieces from his huge body of work.
Update, post 9.11
Who says leather is only for bikers chaps, and Adam Lambert?
Take a look at this incredible artist: Mark Evans. He uses leather on a grand scale to create massive and beautiful art. It looks like a pain-staking process, but the result is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I bet is smells nice too? Enjoy.
If I was a bachelor and needed to class up my high-ceiling, modern loft I’d consider the Planet of the Apes full wall leather carving… who wouldn’t?
What artist’s portfolio would be complete without the late, great rap legend Biggie?
Check out his site, his story and his art: www.markevansart.com
Giorgio Armani made a grand entrance into the the world of hotels this week by opening the Armani Hotel Dubai. Very interesting. I bet the robes will be nice. Since I’ll never be staying at one of his hotels, and chances are you won’t either, I wanted to share some of the beautiful design that lies within…
“John Rushworth and his team at Pentagram have been responsible for the naming, identity, visual brand positioning and marketing collateral to bring the distinctive Armani philosophy and style to this and three other hotels due to open in Milan, London and New York. Designer Giorgio Armani is looking to build ‘the Armani universe into a comprehensive lifestyle brand.’ ”
See Pentagram’s press release for the Armani brand and identity here. The Dubai Armani does a fabulous job of saying elegant, tasteful and expensive. Check out some of the materials created by the Pentagram design team for the launch of hotel and residences.
I’ll tell you what, if I got this invite in the mail, I’d go.
Oh, and did I mention that the Armani Hotel and Residences happens to be in the tallest building in the world? It occupies roughly 10 floors of the 160 available. If you’re a geek for tall buildings check out the Burj Khalifa’s resume here. It is the tallest building in the world (160 stories/828 m/2717 ft), has the fastest elevator in the world (40 mph), the world’s highest mosque and the highest swimming pool in the world. Dang!
The hallways alone are enough to want to make you stay a night.
I came across this site the other day, and it makes me wish I had a barcode to put on something. If you do, maybe you’ll be brave enough to use one? You can see their full offering here: vanitybarcodes.com. We use barcodes for clients so infrequently that these haven’t been an option…yet. I can’t wait to suggest the underwear shaped bar code… to the appropriate client, of course.
Here are some of my favorites:
Do you dip or squeeze?
I’m generally a ketchup dipper, if I can get a small paper cup, my ketchup feels completely at home. There is, however, one exception to that rule: Chick-fil-A french fries. They’re waffle criss-cut fries, and they always convince me to squeeze my ketchup rather than dip. I’ll blame a close friend, for converting me to a waffle-fry-ketchup-squeezer. I don’t know what it is, I guess that waffle fry platform just begs to be drizzled in ketchup rather than making the plunge? Well, enough of my personal ketchup confessions.
I was watching the news the other night, and the anchor mentioned the redesign of the Heinz ketchup packet. I had to know more. Has anyone seen or used one yet?
Heinz says: “A true packaging breakthrough, the Heinz Dip & Squeeze dual-function package gives ketchup lovers two ways to enjoy Heinz Ketchup: either peel back the lid for easy dipping, or tear off the tip to squeeze onto favorite foods. The new package holds three times as much Heinz Ketchup as the traditional packet.” Read more than you could ever want to know about ketchup in this Heinz press release.
Obviously, this hand model is a dipper…
And this hand model (I have suspicions that it’s the same one) is a squeezer…
The new Heinz Dip & Squeeze product marks the first ketchup packet makeover for the food service industry in 42 years. Whoa.
Lastly, a shirt for all the ketchup lovers out there
One last confession, my wife actually would put ketchup on her ketchup. She loves it more than anyone I know.
This is surely funnier if you’ve ever been asked to do these things. Behold the Killer Jellyfish of Graphic Design favors. For all the photographers… maybe there’s a “Killer Jellyfish for Photography Favors” poster out there???
Came across this poster on Clients from Hell.
See the full size image on Flickr. By the way, this Lunchbreath guy is pretty stinkin’ funny. See more posters/illustrations here.
I caught myself laughing out loud to these witty drawings by Marc Johns. These are from his book called Serious Drawings, but he has a ton more on his site: MarcJohns.com. I particularly like his collection of drawings on sticky notes. The last three in this post are all sticky note master pieces. Enjoy your dose of artsy-fartsy Friday inspiration…
Marc Johns website
Marc Johns on Twitter
Guilloche: gē-ˈ(y)ōsh: a pattern (as on metalwork) made by interlacing curved lines.
This post is all about a new ornamental typeface that lets you go hog-wild with guilloches.
Guilloches were – in the old days – used to make the falsification of banknotes more difficult. The engraving of these intricate lines was done by a highly specialized mechanical machine, which was operated by an equally highly specialized engraving artist. Once the settings for a specific curve were changed back to zero it was very difficult, if not impossible to set them back to the old design.
The elegant type designer, Gert Wiescher says: “I have designed a useful set of Guilloches that join to form ribbons that create a kind of op-art 3d effect. Under the keys A-U and a-u you find joining pieces. Under the keys V-Z and v-z I placed start- and end pieces. 0-4 are different length straight extensions and 5-9 are not quite so straight extensions. All other keys are corner pieces that can be used as stand-alones or put in rows to make for superb decoration. With a little bit of experimentation and maybe colored overlays you can achieve super-phantastic designs.”
I took Gert’s advice and dove right into my guilloche experimentation. Here’s what I came up with including the letters used to make my “super-phantastic” designs:
Create:
Color:
Los Angeles:
Reddoor:
AEFY (spells nothing, but was my quick attempt at creating a pleasing looking ribbon):
Well done MyFonts. I thoroughly enjoyed my 15 minutes of playing around with your font preview functionality. Thanks. Give “Guilloche A” a try for yourself.
Now all we need is a client who wants to use Guilloche…
