vintage book cover patterns - circa 1925 to the early1950's, reminiscent 
of the art work found on very early cool jazz records, and later mid-century upholstery, from the department of - see ...  everything is in style more than once ....

A rare, authentic collection of 282 Vietnam era Zippo lighters went on the auction block last June 21st at Cowan’s Auctions in Cincinnati. The collection belongs to artist Bradford Edwards, whose collection was showcased in the book Vietnam Zippos: American Soldiers’ Engravings and Stories 1965-1973 (Sherry Buchanan, University of Chicago Press, 2010). Some of you hipsters may remember the collection, which received media attention by the New York Times, NPR, and others. The lighter collection had a starting price of $30,000 to $50,000 and was included in the book. Considering the years of search Mr. Bradford spent in Vietnam sourcing and assembling the collection, the starting price seems realistic.

Most Americans remember the Zippo, with its cool flip-top lid and unmistakable clicking sound, as the device used in the 1950s and 1960s by gentlemen to light a woman’s cigarette. Don Draper or James Bond would do it best. Two quick moves — flip, click. Smooth as silk.

The mechanics of a Zippo lighter has remained basically unchanged since it was first introduced in 1933. Just this month, Zippo celebrated the production of its 500 millionth Zippo lighter with an engraved and numbered edition of 10,000 lighters at $45 a pop. 

It’s the stainless steel case that users like to modify and personalize. In World War II, the Zippo was the soldier’s friend, providing dependability for fire whether lighting a cigarette or explosives. 

During the Vietnam War, the Zippo served the same utilitarian purpose, but was often personalized for soldiers by local street vendors in villages. GI’s could choose from any number of preset graphics and words, or they could design or write their own:

35 KILLS IF YOU ARE RECOVERING MY BODY FUCK YOU

STOLEN FROM A GOOK 5-11-67

A common quote that resonated with soldiers and found on many Zippos spoke to complete disillusionment:

WE THE UNWILLING LED BY THE UNQUALIFIED DOING THE UNNECESSARY FOR THE UNGRATEFUL

I LOVE THE FUCKING ARMY AND THE ARMY LOVES FUCKING ME

And then, there was the sentimental, loving message:

I LOVE YOU MARY

TO MOM FROM A LONELY PARATROOPER

The engraved samples in Edward’s collection speak to patriotism, to hopelessness, to anger, and often to romantic longing for the girl back home. In a war where most soldiers served not by choice but by draft, these engraved lighters have a patina and voice that echoes still. According to Edwards, this is the reason he collected the lighters in the first place. 

If you are interested in the final auction price for this collection, check the hammer price at Cowan’s here.  

Jason D'Aquino is a miniaturist. He creates his artwork on an incredibly small scale, many works not exceeding one inch-by-one inch in dimension.

D'Aquino chooses to work on found surfaces such as strike-on-front matchbooks, 18th century animal-skin vellum, and antique ledger pages. His search for these found "canvases" has led him to strange corners of the world and to some unique treasures. He recently unearthed a hand-quilled, illustrated whaling manuscript from St. Petersburg Russia, which made its way to Christies Auction House in New York City.

Jason's influences include H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Darger and Hans Bellmer. His drawings, often political in nature, have graced the pages of the New York Times, Juxtapoz, I.T.A., Rue Morgue, Hi-Fructose and Inked Magazine. His original works can be purchased at Art Basel and other international art festivals.

here's a recent picture of our class president

Eye Creature from Invisible Creature on Vimeo.

from the department of stuff which was once just plain stuff, but has somehow become      
transformed into the capriciously kool - keep a wary eye out for it kids ... as this cool stuff 
reclines in basements and uncle's garages, as if innocent, innocuously hiding amongst the 
ordinary, obscured and hidden in the sameness of things, wary, it's just counting the days ..... 
waiting for just the right moment - when a hipster, deep in an aria of self delusion, 
convince themselves, that the thing as been discovered by them, when in fact, the object 
has actually lain in wait like a predator, waiting for the hipsters gaze to set up on it .......  
eureka !

Portrait of Madame X

Portrait of Madame X is the informal title of a portrait painting by John Singer Sargent of a young socialite named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of Pierre Gautreau. The model was an American expatriate who married a French banker, and became notorious in Parisian high society for her beauty and rumoured infidelities. She wore lavender powder and prided herself on her appearance. Madame X was painted not as a commission, but at the request of Sargent.

It is a study in opposition. 

Sargent shows a woman posing in a black satin dress with jeweled straps, a dress that reveals and hides at the same time. The portrait is characterized by the pale flesh tone of the subject contrasted against a dark coloured dress and background.

For Sargent, the scandal resulting from the painting's controversial reception at the Paris Salon of 1884 amounted to the failure of a strategy to build a long-term career as a portrait painter in France, though it may have helped him establish a successful career in Britain and America.

Renowned for her beauty, Gautreau represented the parisienne, a new type of Frenchwoman recognized for her sophistication. The English-language term "professional beauty", referring to a woman who uses personal skills to advance to elite status, was also used to describe her. Her unconventional beauty made her an object of fascination for artists; the American painter Edward Simmons claimed that he "could not stop stalking her as one does a deer." Sargent was also impressed, and anticipated that a portrait of Gautreau would garner much attention at the upcoming Paris Salon, and increase interest in portrait commissions. He wrote to a friend:

"I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty. If you are 'bien avec elle' and will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent."

Although she had refused numerous similar requests from artists, Gautreau accepted Sargent's offer in February 1883. Sargent was an expatriate like Gautreau, and their collaboration has been interpreted as motivated by a shared desire to attain high status in French society.

Design one, please peruse the I LoveTypography web site. During the next couple of weeks we will be discussing type, its history, design and contemporary uses. It may seem to you to be a relatively small part of design, but it is an essential aspect - as much as colour, line or concept is. Many interesting designs have failed due to the designers lack of type awareness. So check the site out, especially the popular and recent articles sections found on the right side of the page, and please read sections 1 to 4 of "History of Typography", it's a great site. the word typography is linked

tragically apt

Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.

click on this link, watch the little movie, or I'll smack you and then take your phone...... thanx to NOX

http://www.ted.com/talks/chip_kidd_designing_books_is_no_laughing_matter_ok_it_is.html

The Tour de france. 22 Teams, each with 9 riders. Each rider gets a free helmet, free glasses, jerseys, bibs, socks, shoes and rides on a free bike with a frame, saddle, pedals, wheels and tubes, all of which is provided by sponsors. Each sponsor is hoping to get as much media attention as possible during the Tour de France, which is broadcasted in over 190 countries.

Each sponsor is represented by a logo, which appears on the riders’ jerseys and bicycles. The size of the logo depends on the amount of money provided by the sponsor.

Most of the teams during the Tour de France are UCI World Tour teams, which means they’re competing in de most important races on earth. Some of the major sponsors provide millions of Dollars and Euros. Do high budgets result in good design?

Some team jerseys are a mess, they’re just plastered with logos. Other teams, like AG2R La Mondiale, Garmin-Cervélo and Leopard Trek, managed to find a design agency that created a consistent corporate identity for the team.

We’ve seen high quality design in the Tour de France before, but only sporadically. I don’t know if it’s a trend, but graphic design appears to play a more important role than ever before. Last year’s peloton was possibly the best designed of all time.

a logo design by Mohammed Thiam, for a New Zealand publisher

digone here's the link for the photoshop tutorials

http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/video_workshop/

makes sure you review the sections on 1. making selections and 2. using layers, then repeat ! both are found in the Photoshop CS3, in the getting started section ...

the Design two- "it's not what you know ... ,

BUT, who you know " list "

design two Spring 2013, assignment one, to be assigned/discussed during our first class.

 A research assignment, so, pick one, for next class. You'll be doing a Keynote or Powerpoint presentation on your choice after mid-term

Walter Gropius

Edgar Brandt

Harley Earl

Alexey Brodovitch

David Carson

The Eames

Art Nouveau

Norman BelGeddes

U&Lc
Lucian Bernard
Arts and Crafts Movement

Weiner Werkstatte

Arne Jacobson

Marcello Nizzoli

Wesley and Sean
Bugatti, Daimler and Benz

Tangerine Studio

Joseph Hofmann

Henry VanDerVelde

Gerrit Reitveld

Saul Bass

Rudy Van derLans

George Jensen

George Nelson

Peter Behrens

Dieter Ram

Adbusters

Georg Kleeman

Richard Sapper
Tiffany 

Peter Saville

GTF

William Morris

the Bauhaus

Hoefler & Frere Jones

Micheal Graves

Marian Bantjes
Victor Horta

Frank Lloyd Wright

Phillipe Starck

Chermayeff & Geismar

Norman Foster
Adrian Frutiger

Alvar Alto

Milton Glaser
Louis Fili

R. Buckminster Fuller
Ed Fella

Eric Gill
A.M. Cassandre

Brad Holland
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Herb Lubalin

The Arts and Crafts Movement

Memphis Group

Herbert Mayer

William Van Allen

Marrianne Brandt

Jonathan Ive

Alvin Lustig

Chip Kidd

Tangerine

Paul Rand
Winterhouse
Neville Brody

Henry Van de Velde
Charles Rennie Macintosh

William Morris

April Greiman

Welles Coates
Kurt Schwitters

Michael Beruit

Raymond Lowey

Peter Saville

Robin and Lucienne Day

Wally Olins
Antoni  Gaudi
Jules Cheret

Mies van der Rohe

Emigre
Paul Rand

Ray Gun

Ellen Lupton

Tobias Freres

Winterhouse

Joseph Muller Brockmann

LeCorbusier

Tibor Kalman

Barbara Kruger
Hector Guimard

Seymour Chwast

Pentagram and Push Pin Studios

Aubrey Beardsley

the Dadaists

John Heartfield

Ettore Stottas

the Constructivists

Hector Guimard

Firmin Didot

Jasper Morrison
herbert matter

Christopher Wren
Massimo Vignelli

Bruno Matheson

Victor Horta

Antonin Gaudi

Alexey Brodovitch

Alphonse Mucha

Fredric Law Olmstead

Alessi

Rene Lalique

Johannis Itten

Richard Neutra

d is for designers, at work in the dark, E is for effort, required from the start !

assimilate the following people, it's a design scavenger hunt, as it were .... 

digital one Spring 2013, assignment one ! ~ introduce yourselves to each of these graphic designers & typographers below -look carefully at their work, learn to recognize their styles, and read about their lives and influences. Many have their own web sites ..

One of the names is intentionally quite jumbled, others a little miss-spelled, mixed up on purpose. If you can decode/deduce who they all are, beaux Koo extra marks ..... ( hint ) She's part of a very famous design couple, and the creative force behind an  influential company/magazine specializing one might say in all type of types. 

this assignment is due second class.  no showing off, digital one students only, to be assigned/discussed during our first class.

Earl R. Dean (March 19, 1890 – January 8, 1972) designed the famous contour Coca Cola bottle.

" In 1916, Harold Hirsch, a lawyer for the Coca-Cola Company, came up with a plan to launch a national competition in which bottle manufactures across the country would be asked to design a distinctive bottle – a bottle which a person could recognize even if they felt it in the dark, and so shaped that, even if broken, a person could tell at a glance what it was.

The bottle manufacturer that won this competition was the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana. Inspired by a picture of a cocoa pod which was found in an encyclopedia, Earl R. Dean made a pencil sketch of the pod. From this sketch, Dean designed the contour bottle prototype. The prototype never made it to production since its middle diameter was larger than its base. 

According to Dean, this would make it unstable on the conveyor belts. Dean then equalized the middle and bottom diameters and the Contour Coca-Cola Bottle was born."