Graphic Design Blogger

Hitler declared his paintings degenerate. Of course, Lyonel Feininger was actually one of the 20th century's most important American avant-garde artists: at various times a Cubist, Expressionist, and Secessionist. He's also well known as one of the Bauhaus's original faculty, and was even a distinguished newspaper comic strip artist. But a photographer? Really? Truth is, [...]

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As long as advertising has existed, advertisers have looked for places to affix their advertisements. Bananas were the big thing in the 90s. Thermometers were the big thing in the 30s. It was one place, among many, that a prospective consumer was certain to look. Here are a few French thermomads (my coinage).

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I picked up this book years ago because I was astounded by its naïve “design” and its raw unadulterated (hardly PC) presentation of a GI’s view of the Vietnam War.  I also haven’t seen many cartoon-books done by or about Vietnam GI’s. I wouldn’t go as far as comparing it to Bill Mauldin’s “Up Front” [...]

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David Mayes is proud to be a CMYK guy in an RGB world. He's in sales – and community outreach – at Typecraft Wood & Jones. This Pasadena, CA company has roots dating back to 1907 and a reputation for handling the most demanding designers. Clients range from universities and non-profits to museums and fine [...]

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Every publication makes a decisive choice about the tone it wants to set when it comes to covering a revolution. One obvious approach over the years is to use edgy, gritty, journalistic photography on the cover to capture the seriousness of the events. But often those images, no matter how hard hitting, pale in comparison [...]

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Mad Men season five… about time! But that new outdoor ad of the guy suspended in white space… what's the big idea? It's certainly eye-catching. And it's already become controversial after just a few days. In those respects it may be meant to announce "Don Draper: the George Lois years." People are offended by the [...]

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This is the second half of my interview with Claudia Bohn-Spector and Sam Mellon, curators of Speaking in Tongues: Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken, 1961 – 1976, a Pacific Standard Time exhibition currently at the Armory Center for the Arts. In part one we discussed Berman and Heinecken as designers, jokesters, and rear-guard revolutionaries. . [...]

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(This piece is a much expanded version of an article co-written with photographer/writer John Gruber for Print Magazine and the British trade mag Ads International in 1998.) The thought of Chicago in the 1920’s usually conjures up images of gangsters, Prohibition, and other Roaring 20’s clichés, but there was another movement in the Chicago area [...]

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Several decades before AdBusters, there was Wallace Berman and Robert Heinecken. Hardly anyone knew that these two media-manipulating L.A. hipster artists were intimates, beginning in the early 1960s. But now their relationship has been exposed to the public for the very first time. Naked women are also involved. A lot of naked women. And drugs [...]

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Biased. Disrespectful. Offensive. All sterling job qualifications for any good editorial cartoonist. But "racist"? Woah! Thomas Nast was the granddaddy of the American political cartoon. And having lived in New Jersey, he's been nominated for induction into the state's 2012 Hall of Fame. But last month, legislators of both political parties fought to take his [...]

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