me studio

a double page spread made for a one-off magazine entitled ‘made you think’ i chose to make a typographical piece using a quote once made by designer ‘milton glaser’ to ‘steven heller’:

‘every generation has to make it’s own discoveries,
even if they are old discoveries’

(taken from the 1994 publication ‘looking closer, critical writings on graphic design’)

i found this quote very liberating as a designer when i first read it and decided to apply that principle to the way i made this design, i would do it differently for example, if i were to start again, which i do not intend to do…

the piece was made entirely by hand using thousands of steel pins and one continuous piece of 100 meter long kite string, one side is negative using black type and white string, the other side is positive using black wool…

it took ages to make (more than a week in total) and i decided to show the whole process, so there are lots of images to see here, at the end is one of the sketch ideas i had using a pun on the title of the magazine (made you think), but later rejected…

i have also uploaded this piece to my behance and got a few positive reactions there and also from ‘steven heller’… but as yet no reaction from the man who originally said it: ‘milton glaser’ to both of whom i also sent it…

in april this year one of my ballet posters (see below) with a manipulated image by photographer/illustrator ‘ingrid baars’ suddenly popped up on the website ‘photoshop disasters’; the initial comment which sparked the whole storm of rather inane reactions later was, in itself pretty juvenile to start with, i quote:

…I will give $1 billion cold hard cash to anyone who has the original image…

the idea being (i have to assume) that someone felt they had spotted a serious mistake and that we, the makers had actually not realised that the female dancer had been modified to have more than the average number of limbs… after all the whole premise of the site seems to be catching people out who do ‘bad’ photoshop work, take note of who is doing the judging here people… for example: a typical comment that followed:

This has to be a record – three right arms on one person. Is there a PsD award contest?

i actually posted myself aiming to point out that it was intentional and luckily several other visitors did so too:

I don’t think this belongs here. I’d say it’s more or less a statement on image/body manipulation just as this blog is. And it’s obviously very extreme but nontheless well done. Rather typical for Dutch poster art.

and this (my favourite) one:

And another artistic image falls to rabid literalism. "Hey! Those clocks aren’t REALLY melting!"

we needn’t have bothered however, because the tactic then only changed and the comments suddenly switched to claiming it was ugly and badly done… fine if you don’t like it that’s a different story, i made the mistake of trying to argue with a whole bunch of bored teenagers not really looking for a rational or serious discussion, i quote:

Good Lord… every time I look at this image, it looks more disturbing. I can’t believe there are actually any bones in her neck either.

the comments kept pouring in swaying one way, then the other:

I actually think it’s quite beautiful and literalism is certainly not the stance with which to approach this piece. It’s a beautifully surreal image, and doesn’t belong on PSD. Way to go guys. *clap clap*

then a dutch photography website/news blog ‘photoq’ picked up on the story and tried to explain that they were missing the point too, the comments continued for several days and i suppose the lesson that i learnt from it all, was the futility of actually trying to have a worthwhile discussion in this way on a blog forum, it was also one of the reasons that i chose not to allow comments on my own blog, you have something intelligent to say, mail me… you want to bitch and be negative, go flame people anonymously on other blogs, thank you…

the epitath to the whole story came from an unexpected source, when a designer living in tokyo ‘andrew pothecary’ wrote the following piece on his blog:

Then a couple of days ago, a good quality ballet brochure cover from designers at me studio was featured. Oh, the comments ? despite the imagery being an intentional expression of movement and dance. I couldn’t fault the cover, but if someone else doesn’t like it, fine. However, the determined appearance of those who think that there is only one correct way to represent things seems almost worrying. Many people commenting would shiver at Picasso ("wow, that’s not where an nose should go! Didn’t he have time to finish the job?") and while I’m not comparing the illustrator of the ballet cover with Picasso, it does seem to me that too much of comment ? on the web generally, in fact ? is meaningless and creating some kind of new grouping of you might call the dictatorially normal. Good that someone from me studio replied and then posted his own news about democracy disasters (the April 16 entry).

Or perhaps I shouldn’t write that on a blog.

you can see his original article here on his ‘move your teeth’ blog, thanks andrew i couldn’t sum it up any better…

the green cover shown (above right) belongs to a british ‘highway code manual’ dating back to 1970 which i have had in the bookcase for years, it represents a certain period in the history of graphic design and the advent of a form of modernism in british design that had been steadfastly avoided by pretty much all areas of design in the UK untill that point, this in stark contrast to the surrounding countries such as holland and germany whose golden age of modernism was by that point already so ingrained in their cultures that it was a given

the (then) brand new national roadway signage system by ‘jock kinneir’ had just been introduced (see earlier post in ‘me stuff’ from 2007) and it’s characteristic dark green, white and blue colour scheme serves as a basis for the cover design, i recently discovered a previous issue of the same publication dating back to 1961, displayed in full on the wonderful ‘things magazine’ site

the two publications laid side by side show some interesting developments in design technique but to my mind, perhaps also reveal certain cultural traits albeit unintentionally, both books were published by ‘her majesty’s stationary office’ (HMSO) and were intended to be a formal, no frills instruction manual for the correct use of ‘her majesty’s roads’, but compared together they also clearly show an evolution in design, fashion, automotive, typography and printing technology between those nine years… whereas the first one still displays some of the ‘homely’ naivety of the late fifties with kids sat on fences and young men in open-top sports cars etc. the second has a certain serious, more business like tone of voice to it, to me they represent and nicely illustrate the end of one era and the birth of the following one

the first thing that i note is that the former version relies entirely on pen illustrations (in very typical style of that era, reminiscent to my mind of walt disney’s ‘101 dalmations’ film released in that same year) to show the various forms of information from graphic road signs to anecdotal illustrations describing the various situations a driver nedds to understand, both the ’61 & ’70 versions are produced in a set of 5 spot colours for the 1961 version this is black and four very ‘fifties’ looking and rather washed out pastel tints of red, green, blue and yellow, to me they look hopelessly nostalgic but perhaps at the time they were impossibly modern, who knows? by the time the book was remade in 1970 these colours made way for a set of harsher and more business like tints, the signal function of red used very modestly before now also became much more prominent as does the ‘corporate’ dark green; whereas the graphic styles, clearly influenced by new technology in plate separation and printing, had become more diverse and adventurous, boasting a mix of line illustration, icons, bold use of colour bars, even photography and scale models were now put to good use for the various levels of information and the whole was printed with relatively complex transparent colour separations and overlays

the typography, previously a mix of such british stalwarts as ‘gill’ and ‘times roman’ mixed in with a modest amount of various condensed grotesque sans serifs made way for the more modern and very sixties sans serifs such as ‘helvetica’ and bold display fonts like ‘frutiger condensed’, the format remained unchanged although the stock quality appears to have been upgraded by 1970 (judging from the available images and my paper copy alone)

some of the details in the images provide a fascinating insight into the culture of the time: for example, whereas in the ’61 version shown here below the illustrator allows himself the luxury of combining the necessary infographic information with more ‘informal’ and almost decorative elements (such as the happy family waiting for dad on the wall, the ‘crazy paving’ on the garden path) it is quite a detailed depiction of the street scene and the cars (the whole book is full of open top bentleys, rolls royces and american exotic cars like the ford consul with ‘fin tails’ and chrome hub caps)

in the 1970 version a similar scene is reduced down to more factual information, the scene is now devoid of humans, our viewpoint is now higher and more graphic than pictorial, the streets have become a more spartan affair and the scale model has been photographed in black and white with colour overlays added to show the relevant areas for the reader, the cars have now made way for more contemporary ones like the ‘austin 1300’ (shown here above), at the time a modern wonder and a source of great pride for motorists? the scene has somehow lost it’s innocence and charm, perhaps in much the same way that society was moving away from the post-war comfort and great britain was facing a more outward-looking perpective, the economy became global, america was at war in vietnam and society began to emancipate and diversify rapidly

having said all that i still really love the technique used on the scale model images with black and white photos and semi-opaque spot colour overlays, the crude masks and hand-cut separation shapes have a lo-tech naivety to them that for me always hold a lot of charm, interesting to note that a similar yet much complexer and certainly much more sophisticated mix of techniques had been used many many years before in such publications as for example the legendary ‘het boek van ptt’ from dutch modernist pioneer ‘piet zwart’ back in the mid 1930’s

i recently sent a complete set of scans of my 1970 version to the editor of ‘things’ magazine (jonathan bell) who has uploaded them on his website so that you can see & compare both versions 1961 here and (albeit incorrectly dated) 1970 here (many thanks to jonathan for allowing me to use his images for this piece too)

what still remains a mystery to me is why the braking distance chart on the back cover suddenly reversed direction facing upwards, was there a specific reason for this other than chance? and what was it? and does anybody even care, except me? probably not…

update (february 8th ’10): i have recently found an even earlier version of this book: posted on a UK blog here and dating this time from 1954…