Speak Up is run with Six Apart’s 
One of the ever pressing matters for graphic designers is how to display our work, especially work that is best experienced by interacting with it or seeing it at 100% size and reality. With online and PDF portfolios becoming the norm, it is increasingly hard to convey the experience of flipping through a book or magazine, or holding a bottle of some fancy vodka, or staring at a poster half the height of a human being — of course, we have figured out how to show posters, through the preeminent Finger Hold.
The top 15 out of a 42-quip week.
I see you. I see you not. I see you. I see you not. I see…
At some point during the late 1990s I saw Modern Dog’s poster work for the first time, and it then became a consistent recurrence to see it again and again in design annuals, year after year. What impressed me the most wasn’t the actual work but the indomitable breadth of styles and approaches that they were able to work in. Nothing looked the same twice, and everything had a sensation of being scraped at the last minute from resources unbeknownst to anyone living outside Seattle or not last-named Chantry. I’ve always enjoyed their work, but I never knew why. Maybe it was “peer pressure” that I had to like it, because everyone else did. But much like the work of Art Chantry, Aesthetic Apparatus or even Peter Saville I never quite “got it” — meaning, the visual references or choices appeared arbitrary, or simply chosen for their coolness, or as an inside joke funny only to a handful of people — even if I enjoyed looking at it. Of course, that is my problem not theirs, and there is always a good reason behind everything when you have a chance to hear these designers speak or read their monographs. With the publication of Modern Dog: 20 Yearsof Poster Art — chronicling the poster work of the firm founded by Robynne Raye and Mike Strassburger in 1987 — I’m relieved to know that, in fact, some of these assumptions on my part are true, but also that there is a story to be told behind almost every poster (and there are 226 of them in the book) and that each story illuminates a different aspect of what it takes to be a graphic designer.
The top 15 out of a 22-quip week. Yes, a day late, sorry.
The top 15 out of a 23-quip week.
I've been pretty irregular about updating our book recommendations, so herewith dear readers are a ton of new additions and, yes, some books might already be a few months old, so we are trying to catch up. The full list can always be accessed here.
I was recently invited, by the author, to participate in an upcoming book from the jolly group at HOW Books. "My name," started the e-mail "is Ethan Bodnar, I am a graphic designer, blogger, and entrepreneur. My first book is being published by HOW Books and is a collaborative visual book." I initially thought that, well, I just had never heard of this designer, blogger and entrepreneur, and how nice of HOW Books to be publishing his first book. Curious as a racoon, I visited his web site — a dapper-looking one at that — and after a few minutes of sniffing around I realized why I had never heard of Mr. Bodnar: He has not been around the profession too long… well, in fact, despite being a soon-to-be-published author with strong typographic inclinations, he is not a professional designer yet, not even a graphic design student, nope, he is an 18-year-old high school senior. This preceding sentence is in no way mocking, it's authentic surprise and enthusiasm, even more so at Ethan's preternatural conviction to become a graphic designer, which he expresses consistently and adamantly in his blog with joyful eloquence.
Last bit of self-promotion, at least for the foreseeable future. We are happy to introduce Opposites Attract ’08, a four-part series programmed by UnderConsideration and hosted at the Art Directors Club in New York.
The top 15 out of a 29-quip week.
