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Design For Living

2011-09-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Christmas comes on December 6th this year when The Criterion Collection releases the delightfully risqué Design For Living, directed by the master, Ernst Lubitsch. Can you tell by the preceding how much I enjoy this movie? Designing this package was pure joy. Of course it seldom hurts to start with a cover image as exceptional as this.

• The Criterion Collection

George Harrison, Living in the Material World

2011-09-08T17:02:00.000-07:00

George Harrison, Living in the Material World will play at the New York Film Festival this October as part of the Main Slate. I had the distinct pleasure of working with Olivia Harrison designing this poster for the Martin Scorsesse directed documentary. I love this image of George Harrison. It's got just enough Beatles-era pop but at the same time transcends all that and goes right to that spiritual/metaphorical iconography we've come to associate with the man.

Kiss Me Deadly

2011-06-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

When The Criterion Collection asked me to design the packaging for the great Robert Aldrich noir, Kiss Me Deadly, they had a particular direction in mind. They wanted to present the lurid and sensational detective picture in the style of one of that era's counterparts, the lurid and sensational detective magazine. A natural combo. I was only too happy to oblige.

A few days latter they sent a terrific volume featuring covers --and a few spreads too-- from Inside Detective Magazine, True Detective Magazine, True Police Detective Magazine, you name it. Almost all were from the mid 1950s.

The best of them, I think, belongs to Dell's Inside Detective. Their covers were stark and immediate --often just two-color, though occasionally three. Their frequent use of the all-American Franklin Gothic presses just the right tabloid button. This was quality sleaze.

These are some my initial sketches which lead to the finished cover: (You can click through all the images in this post to enlarge.)

Here are samples of the twenty page booklet which accompanies the disc. *

As well as some menu designs.*

* Pardon the place-holder copy!

My sincere thanks to The Criterion Collection for making me a part of this one.

• The Criterion Collection

Senso

2011-03-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

[Eric Skillman has a piece about the making of the cover for The Criterion Collection release of Lucino Vitconti's Senso on his site. He worked closely with Glenn Orbick, the cover illustrator. I coordinated with Art Director, Sarah Habibi on the package and menu designs. Since the cover always precedes the design of the package so you may want to read Eric's post before mine.]

My initial task was to create a title treatment for Glenn Orbick's terrific cover illustration. I was brought into the project before the illustration was complete --though Sarah and Eric shared all the notes on direction and visual reference. Every now and again I have the opportunity to marry type with illustration. It's something I enjoy doing because I find it works a different muscle than dealing with photo imagery.

Senso takes place in Venice, during the late 19th Century, though the film's production design makes references all the way back to antiquity. It's a lavish sensibility and, as the opening scene establishes, an operatic one. Sarah directed my attention to the baroque and rococo elements of the film and that seemed an ideal direction for the title treatment and subsequent packaging design.

I pulled some 19th Century type specimen sheets of ornate letter-forms. Not only are they opulent and of the time but upon close inspection, clearly hand-drawn. It seemed like an suitable pairing for the cover painting. Everyone felt good about this direction and I composed the consensus choice; the one with the diamond shaped fill (ZEIST). You'll notice that the sample has neither an N or an O. Those I created for the finished title treatment.

The intermediary sketch for the painting was greyscale and I held off applying color until the painting was through. Though at this stage I knew the background would be black and the type would be reversed. A really nice side effect of this, and I expect anticipated by most of us, would be that the diamond pattern that was the type's fill, when reversed, would make shapes that related to the falling colored sheets of paper.

It wasn't practical to create an entire alphabet of the ornate typeface so for the DVD menus and booklet pages I used a face called Silverland. It afforded us the flexibility to set and revise titles and headings as needed —not to mention that it would be eminently more readable at smaller sizes. When combined with period ornaments and film imagery it let us establish a tone in keeping with Visconti's gorgeous film.

Here are a few spreads from the accompanying booklet as well as some DVD menus to give a sense of the package as whole. (Click to enlarge.)

America Lost and Found, The BBS Story

2011-01-06T12:03:00.000-08:00

I've had some fantastic design opportunities afforded to me by The Criterion Collection but nothing quite like America Lost and Found, The BBS Story -- a boxed set of seven quintessential (or is it septessential?) 70's films. I'm new to writing process posts and really, I'm not sure this even qualifies as one but here it is:

The Cover: I pitched two concepts, one of a battered American flag and the other of an old-style movie marquee. I thought the flag would prevail but Criterion really dug the run-down marquee. I'm glad they did. There's a lot of type on this cover and virtually all of it needed equal prominence. The marquee hit the right metaphoric note and it provided an organic solution to the problem of all those words.

It seemed a natural extension of the theater concept that the individual covers should be like movie posters. Though what kind of movie poster? I didn't want to do straight pastiche yet somehow they needed to be era appropriate. There's a kind of high-concept approach to graphic design that I associate with the late sixties/early seventies --the work of Bob Gill came to mind-- and I let that notion dictate my choices. Criterion liked the sound of this and approved the direction --it was suggested by Criterion president, Peter Becker that I consider placing the artwork inside a poster case. Great idea and as it turns out just the kind of bridging element that would tie the set together. Wish I'd thought of it!

Head: Creating a pop confection that referenced the Monkees of TV didn't ring true to me. True, Head is a Monkees movie but it's hardly a movie version of the TV show and all that might imply. Head is something else and it seemed to me a Pop/Magritte collage could best convey that surreal else-ness. They say that Head has no opening titles. I suppose that's true but I wonder if you found the first reel and examined the leader you might discover differently?

Easy Rider: I didn't work alone on this project, if not for the estimable talents of my colleagues Fred Davis and Peter Grant, making the deadline would have been impossible. I had about five days to do six covers. Not a great deal of time but I was feeling particularly inspired by the material. Ideas were coming fast. I was confident I could generate a cover a day --though not necessarily two. So on the Wednesday of that week, with two and a half covers done I called Mr. Davis. I showed him what I had made and asked him to contribute some Easy Rider concepts. He did. We had some back and forth and soon thereafter arrived at this piece of visual poetry. He explains his process far better than I ever could here.

Five Easy Pieces: An idea that came fully formed in my head: lines of music fused with the classic method for counting to five (albeit turned on it's side). It seemed befitting of Jack Nicholson's character, Bobby Duprea: it's a little oblique, takes some figuring out and something about it feels self-negating. I was pleased to render a solution that referenced the piano prodigy/road picture aspect of the movie. For so long the primary image associated with this film has been Nicholson in a hard hat next to an oil well. Handsome sure, but how well did it really relate to the story?

Drive, He Said / A Safe Place: It was learned some time into the process that there would be approval issues for any new image for Drive, He Said. There wasn't so much time for that so we went with an image which had been used during the film's general release. I played around with some Noah's ark imagery for A Safe Place but the universal reaction was that it read as too childish. Contemplating the Drive image, I was struck by the symmetry and that led me to the idea of turning the Tuesday Weld shot on it's side. Combined, the two have a Rorschach quality which may befit A Safe Place more so than Drive, He Said but since Drive is in the lead position I think on balance it works.

The Last Picture Show: Another image that came fully formed in my head. The ticket corresponds to the film's title while the tear underscores the destruction of what was once whole --innocence perhaps? People like to keep tickets as souvenirs and in this sense the image too, speaks of memory and things from the past. Like the film, the cover is made in black and white.

The King Of Marvin Gardens: My original version of this used the silver top hat, Monopoly token as the image within the title deed card. It seemed like an amusing metaphor for how the main characters saw themselves. Some at Criterion agreed and some didn't. Further, director Bob Rafelson wanted to see some Atlantic City imagery on the cover. So the hat was scrapped. I merged this shot of the two leads on horseback with another shot of the boardwalk as seen from the beach. In the end it worked out for the better. I'm very fond of the ticket image for The Last Picture Show and to have two covers in this set premised on objects-as-metaphors would have diminished the impact of each--especially when side-by-side in the collection.

As I mentioned, I didn't work alone on this project and I'd be in great remiss if I didn't acknowledge everyone at Criterion who gave excellent notes, support and direction not the least of whom is the wonderful art director, Sarah Habibi. A heartfelt thanks to all.

• America Lost And Found, The BBS Story

The Golden Age of Television

2010-02-24T15:17:00.000-08:00

It's going around the internets that The Golden Age of Television was The Criterion Collection's biggest seller of 2009. It's great set --just about worth it alone for The Comedian. I loved working on it.

Vintage air raid defense posters

2009-03-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

"Asphyxiant Gas: Evacuation and Aid
Do not allow victims to walk. Carry them gently.
Head to a nearby shelter.
Move to a safe location upwind."

• Pink Tentacle

Finger painting 3

2009-02-10T21:12:00.001-08:00

Finger painting 2

2009-02-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

Finger painting

2009-02-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

An series of images I've made using the Brushes application for the iPhone. I call them finger paintings even though not a drop a paint is used to create them but it's all done with fingers. So there. Its a nifty application -- well designed and pared down to just the essentials. I could hardly ask for more. Though I'm hoping the makers give us another brush shape or two on the next go round.

Ex Libris

2008-11-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

Here's a find! Seven Roads has posted an amazing collection of book trade labels, stamps and imprints --hundreds of them. "Anyone who handles old books will have come across these small and sometimes beautiful labels pasted more or less discreetly into the endpapers. Publishers, printers, binders, importers, distributors and sellers of books --new, second-hand and antiquarian-- used to advertise in this way their contribution to bringing the books to market" Check it out. Submissions welcomed.

• Seven Roads, Gallery of Book Trade Labels

Vampyr!

2008-09-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

Speaking of digital restorations. The good folks at the Criterion Collection asked me to lend a typographic hand to their release of Carl Theodore Dryer's Vampyr-- a wonderful and wonderfully surreal picture. Even though Vampyr is a sound picture it's full of subtitles and written text. Criterion puts it this way: "Subtitling Vampyr presents a special challenge. Dryer relies heavily on written text that fills the frame, and subtitles can be hard to read -or even see- against this background. For this reason, the Criterion Collection, taking care to reproduce the look of the original as closely as possible, prepared a version of the film in which the on-screen text has been digitally replaced with an English translation."

The design of that typeface, as well as the layout, fell on me. That meant, firstly, drawing a font in the style of the original hand-lettered inter-titles. What made it all sing was the fantastic work of the video production crew who added the requisite dust specs and halos around the letter forms.

Thrilled? Honored to be a part of a picture as great as this one? You bet. Purists, don't be alarmed. History was neither harmed or rewritten for this production. Both versions of the film are available in this release.

Click on the image for a larger view.

• The Criterion Collection

My Gang

2008-08-31T22:10:00.000-07:00

That's my great-grandmother Aliene and her brother Bud. -- I think that's his name. I'll have to check -- They lived in Gardena, California when this picture was taken. Their parents owned a flower farm there. I wonder if they knew Stymie and Dickie? If ever a picture could use some digital restoration, its this one. Stay Tuned.

Les Sucettes

2006-08-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

For the dog days of summer: pure filth. Aside from mentioning France Gall claimed to have no idea the lyrics of "Les Sucettes" might have had a double meaning, I'll let clip speak for itself.

View the Clip.

Read the lyrics.

Translate the lyrics.

The Amazing Screw-On Head

2006-07-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola's daft one-off "The Amazing Screw-On Head" has been adapted for television and it's previewing now on SciFi.com. It's too bad the animation doesn't always keep pace with Mignola's singular style —something aggravated further by limitations of online viewing. I suspect the washed-out hues are actually more saturated. Never-the-less, these deficiencies are amply redeemed by some witty writing and terrific voice work by Paul Giamatti as Screw-On, David Hyde Pierce as his arch nemesis and a droll Molly Shannon playing Mr. Head's once and former lady love. The twenty-four minute cartoon opens with a muddled and fitful start —the music doesn't help—but quickly finds it's feet, um, head. The loopy, shaggy dog story manages to incorporate President Abraham Lincoln, a zombie emperor, a parallel universe in the heart of a turnip and even the Homestead Act of 1862 —to name but a few. It's pretty much like the comic and that's says alot. America is a better place for it. And by America, I mean the world.

View The Amazing Screw-On Head

I Can't Turn You Loose / Shake

2006-07-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

Everything's Better With A Go-Go Dancer Month continues on fLOG. This time it's the indefatigable Otis Redding performing live on Ready Steady Go. Which is to say: no lip syncing on this clip. Peter Croft's direction rises well above de rigueur 1960's TV. Dig those crazy cross-cuts. Eric Burdon and Chris Farlowe join Redding on "Shake". If you aren't up and dancing before this one ends, brother, sister, I can't help you. Have I mentioned already the Go-Go dancers?

View the Clip.

I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better

2006-07-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

July is Everything's Better With A Go-Go Dancer Month on fLOG. I would say "I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better" is a rather perfect song as it is. Even a go-go dancer is but a cherry on this parfait.

View the Clip.

The Melrose Neighborhood —4

2006-06-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Last time around I said I'd be concentrating on the period between 1900 and 1920. It turns out I'm not that disciplined a blogger. I go where the material takes me. While browsing the online archive of the Los Angeles Public Library — a great cache of photography— I discovered a dozen or so images related to the neighborhood. Here's today's selections. The first (3) shows Melrose Avenue at Detroit Avenue, facing west. It's from 1928. I assume the building on the right is the original elementary school. At the western boundary of the neighborhood, also on Melrose, (4 & 5) is Fairfax High. These two images are each dated 1927 yet there's slight differences in the details —like the baseball diamond inside the track. I suspect they were taken a year or so apart. Something that interests me about all three of these pictures: while the neighborhood had begun to fill considerably there's many vacant lots along Melrose.

Los Angeles Public Library.

You Don't See These Sights On The Regular Tours

2006-06-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a paradox. Craig Yoe of "Arf Lovers" posted his recent find —a comic / pamphlet from 1958 that looks at Americans traveling abroad. It's got contributions by greats like Charles Schulz, Walt Kelly, Milton Caniff, Al Capp —the list goes on. As Yoe says, "It's not exactly clear who the audience is. Is it trying to educate insensitive Americans? Or is it an arrogant defense to ungrateful foreigners who should be damn happy for the American dollars being spent on their lands?" Frankly, I'm just as confused!

Click for slide show of the pamphlet

Arf Lovers

The Melrose Neighborhood — 3

2006-06-25T17:51:00.000-07:00

Unlike the rest of the neighborhood, homes around Wilcox Avenue date closer to the turn of the century. These were typically clapboard houses and California bungalows. The eastern fringe of the neighborhood has always been a funny mix. Farm houses cozy up to commercial structures and film stages. What used to be called a working neighborhood, I suppose. Almost all of those original dwellings are gone —though examples are plentiful in other, nearby Hollywood neighborhoods. They've been replaced by large —and largely unattractive— apartment complexes. This is practically the last bungalow standing on Wilcox (1). Certainly the last one in it's original state. It's flanked by apartments. I doubt it's long for this world.

Go west just a few blocks and the zoning is stricter. Residences are mostly single-family and the neighborhood is relatively intact. There's definately a spirit of preservation and renovation. Many of these houses came in the next generation of building. I'll get to those later. For now I'd like to show some of what came first —circa 1900-1920. Like this example on Orange Avenue (2). I adore that wrap-around porch. Check out the built-in bench/porch rail. The house is on the west side of the street making the front porch an excellent shady spot at the end of the day. Click on the images for a closer look.

PES and the Art of War

2006-06-22T00:19:00.000-07:00

For anyone who's looked at a piece of broccoli yet saw a fallen tree or pretended a dab of ketchup on the end of a french fry was a lit match or looked at a gelatin mold and saw The Emerald City or —well, you get the idea. "KaBoom!" is a dime store riot of found objects, skeleton keys and clown heads. "Roof Sex" is pretty funny too.

View KaBoom!

The Melrose Neighborhood — 2

2006-06-21T00:10:00.000-07:00

These days it's called the Melrose neighborhood though I'm sure there was a different name for the original tract development. That appellation's lost now —either to time or a dusty archive of the Los Angeles Public Library. As defined by the Melrose Neighborhood Association, its boundaries are Wilcox and Fairfax Avenues to the east and west with Wiloughby and Rosewood Avenues to the north and south. Melrose Avenue runs right through the middle.

There was a Melrose family. They were ranchers. Their property was a few miles east of here in an area known as Melrose Hill. I mentioned in a previous post that my neighborhood was originally California scrub. When this was Spanish domain the land was part of Rancho La Brea. The principle industry of the Rancho was the extraction of tar from the famous tar pits. Later, mineral extraction turned to oil. Lots and lots of oil.

This picture, taken in 1912, shows the view from Orchid Street just above Franklin Avenue. The orange patch in the middle distance indicates the highlighted area on the map. Those are oil derricks in the far distance around what would later become the Miracle Mile of Wilshire Boulevard.

A city map from 1926. All the black squares indicate developed properties. The circles dotting the bottom portion of the map are oil wells.

The United Artists Studio on Santa Monica Boulevard —highlighted in green on the map. The enormous set behind it was constructed for 'Robin Hood" which dates the photo around 1922. The studio's still there though under a different name. The grassy field behind it with the winding roads and gullies is where the Melrose neighborhood would be built.

Click on the images for a closer look.

Dents de Lait, Dents de Loup

2006-06-20T00:11:00.000-07:00

More France Gall. This time, an all too short blast of a yé-yé, swing-fest with collaborator Serge Gainsbourg playing big bad wolf to her red riding hood. Génial!

View the clip

Yesterday, Tomorrow and Last Weekend

2006-06-19T00:18:00.000-07:00

I attended an auction preview over the weekend held by L.A. Modern. A pretty amazing collection of mid century stuff. Mostly furnishings. Some fantastic wood pieces. They had photography, posters, ceramics, textiles — you name it. The draw for me was news they'd be auctioning large panels from the Charles and Ray Eames designed IBM Pavilion for the 1964 Worlds Fair. One item —a steel kiosk— was so large it wouldn't fit in the showroom. It was displayed in the Pacific Design Center's lobby. I'm a wee bit young to have seen the '64 Fair but I dig a certain Go-Go vision of the future. The closest I ever got was Disney's Tomorrowland during the mid seventies. Many of those exhibits at the time were transplants from the Fair. Whither the Mighty Microscope? By all accounts the IBM Pavilion was something to have experienced. Here's a couple of shots of two favorite panels. The circuit board stands about 10 feet tall. It went for $24,000 The Sherlock Holmes panel is about three feet tall. It's painted trompe l'oeil and entirely hand lettered —click for a closer look. Sold for $7,000.

More about the IBM Pavilion

'64 Worlds Fair Guidebook, The IBM Pavilion

L.A. Modern

2006-06-19T00:05:00.000-07:00

Big Fun

2006-06-15T00:08:00.000-07:00

Mark Schwartz at American Comic Archive sent an e-mail this week announcing publication of the latest Big Fun Comics. Big Fun reprints classic adventure strips from the 1930's, 40's and 50's. It's a good looking magazine and one that lives up to the name on the masthead. What distinguishes it in my mind is the care taken to reproduce the artwork —especially when one considers the source material is old newsprint. It's well designed and printed too. The cherry on the cake for me is the inclusion of Scorchy Smith by Noel Sickles. Sickles was a contemporary of the great Milton Caniff. For several years they shared a studio together —with facing drawing tables as I understand it. It's said Sickles use of chiaroscuro was a huge influence on Caniff. There's even some controversy as to whether Sickles ghosted on Terry and the Pirates. I have no idea if that's true or not but there is a stretch on Terry that bears an uncanny resemblance what went on in Scorchy. Sickles work can be found in Big Fun issues one and two. Mark says the current issue won't be sold through stores. Though you can pick it up online at the American Comic Archive website.

American Comic Archive

More Scorchy Smith
Update: I recieved my copy of #4 today. For whatever reasons, it's bound laser copies, not the offset litho of the previous three editions. Alas, not quite the same. Buyer beware.

The Melrose Neighborhood

2006-06-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Here's the view from my kitchen window on a typical spring or summer morning. Brilliant sunlight dappled through sycamores onto green lawn. I never tire of seeing it while I make coffee in my quasi Edward Hopper reverie. My neighborhood, as best as I can tell, was established around 1922. Before that it was California scrub. The little yellow house in the picture was here before mine —which was built in '27, the same year movies began to talk. I realize using the motion picture industry as a yardstick for one's neighborhood is a little odd but I do live in Hollywood.

Tes Lacets Sont des Fées

2006-06-13T00:03:00.000-07:00

Dionysos from spacewang on Vimeo.

A favorite bit of animation by Marie Pommepuy and Sébastien Cosset, aka Keroscoët. I love their drawing style —the line work, the backgrounds— especially their way with poses and costume. Keroscoët really seems to take delight in the risque. They know how to navigate the twin currents of naughty and nice without being overtaken by either. I've just finished their recent comic 'Miss Pas Touche' (Dargaud), a saga of murder and intrigue set in 1930's Paris. If only my French were a little better. Dommage. Perhaps by the time part two is published. Still, isn't that what the pictures are for?

Miss Pas Touche

Keroscoët

Kind Hearts and Coronets

2006-06-12T00:22:00.000-07:00

Last fall the good people at The Criterion Collection had me design the package for "Kind Hearts and Coronets". For anyone unfamiliar with the movie, it's about a distant heir to nobility who moves to the head of the line by knocking off all those standing between him and dukedom. A comedy! Dennis Price plays the plotting heir and Alec Guiness takes the parts of all the hapless royals. "Can we do something with a family tree?" the art director asked. I love notes like that. Specific yet open ended enough so there's room to interpret. I admire old movie posters about as much as I do old movies and I wanted the DVD cover to have the look of another time and place —an old movie poster that never was.

The Criterion Collection

Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son

2006-06-11T11:41:00.001-07:00

La jeune fille, France Gall, at the 1965 Eurovision contest performing her first big hit. About a dozen France Gall clips can be found on YouTube. Some are even watchable. "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" is a catchy tune, to be sure. Though when it comes to mademoiselle Gall give me "Teenie Weenie Boppie". Now there's a clip I'd love to see. I wonder if such a thing exists?

View the clip (.wmv)

{ via: wfmu.org }

2006-06-10T18:49:00.000-07:00