'Red-Blue chair'

The 20th century Dutch art movement known as 'De Stijl' is perhaps best known by some of the paintings of Piet Mondrian, in which he used a white background, with bold black lines creating spaces which he filled with primary colors. A contemporary of Mondrian and adherent of this style was the Dutch architect Gerrit Rietveld. He designed some extremely interesting furniture that embodied the clean lines and bold colors of De Stijl. This example is referred to as his 'Red-Blue chair'. I think the use of colors makes it wonderful to look at. Rietveld said that he usually banged his shins trying to settle into it, but others have said that it is actually more comfortable to sit in than it looks. The red and blue 'planes' are plywood, to make it easier to manufacture. I got to sit on one of his designs, the 'zig-zag' chair, when I was in Holland many years ago. That particular design also doesn't look comfortable, and looks as if it might break at one of the main joints when you use it, and flexes more than you might think, but it works, and it stacks beautifully. There have been several books written about the work of Rietveld. I enjoy good chair design, and a lot of designers and architects over the years have directed their energies at coming up with good examples. A really good chair design has to have a very skillful balance of comfort and visual aesthetics.

book jacket #1

Somehow it was easier for me to come up with a concept for a book jacket than for the posters. This is the full dust jacket; both front and back. I had been thinking about some of the very small, yet fun printed figures I had that were actually printed on individual matches, and I wanted to do something with them, so I came up with the idea of an industry with a community of in-the-closet illlustrators 'yearning-to-breathe-free' by subtly including aspects of their wish for general acceptance by portraying them on commercial matchbooks. This subject has been on my mind lately; I have friends who wish to legally marry, but simply can't because the law doesn't allow it. There was a woman in the midwest somewhere recently who had some sort of rapid and unexpected medical deterioration; the hospital would not allow her partner of 18 years (who a had a legal document giving her power of attorney) - and their 2 young children - to be with her in her final hours, so she died without any family members being able to be with her. The surviving partner filed a lawsuit, and a judge later upheld the hospital administration's policy.

collage assignment #2

A crown prince, on a goodwill tour of the U.S., is experiencing culture shock, and pines for the girl he left back home...
A cut-and-paste job from various sources, including photography books, a book of japanese patterns, matchbooks, and a matchbox label. The sky comes from a photo I took in Arcata, Ca.

Poster assignment #2 (yowzah, yowzah, yowzah...)

There was a veritable explosion of 'men's magazines' in the years following the second world war. The vast majority of them were quite cheap and tacky, yet some of them employed effectively catchy graphics on the front cover to snag the attention of browsers at the local newstand. This is my homage to that visual style. Everything here is intended to keep those optic nerves a-jangling along, including a background of narrow contrasting stripes. There is something about misaligned letters in a line of script that tends to catch the eye. For the words 'kit' and 'kat', I used four different layers for each word: one for each background, and one for each letter, which made it a little easier to manipulate and position each element. 'Club' required five layers. I also wanted to use different typefaces, in different colors, on different backgrounds. Tacky, but it accomplishes its intended purpose. This is an advertisement for a venue that is concerned about neither a social nor visual aesthetic. The performance date was inspired by an ad I once saw in a newspaper for a 'special event' at a strip club on Thanksgiving(!). Just doing a quick count, I think this image had about 40 layers.

Typography assignment #2

This letter has been manipulated to a much greater degree than the earlier one. It is a capital 'A' in 'old English', which has been greatly enlarged, cropped, and distorted, with semi-translucent colored panels overlaid. The colored areas are using the open areas of the letter as a frame, although with some looseness as to the color overlays. I was thinking of Piet Mondrian when I did this.

'alphabet soup'

So, this assignment was all about engaging in an exercise of observation; trying to find letter forms where we could see them. It was a useful exercise in visual observation and mental 'cropping', I think. I don't think I have a lot to say about the following individual entries; if I have to state what each letter is supposed to be, than I have probably missed the mark. We'll start out with an easy one...

'alphabet soup'