The Incredible Shrinking Artist
Hollywood studios seem to have a habit of disrespecting talent, at least until someone shows them how much money the talent can make them. Long after Hollywood realized the potential drawing power of their stars, they continued to treat their poster artists like beasts of burden. In his book The Art of Noir, Eddie Muller writes:

Figure 10: Vertigo (1958) – Saul Bass employs a dizzying spiral design to evoke the feeling described by the title.

As the business boomed, a more factory-like efficiency was imposed on the product—and the “paper.” The growth of suburbia, with its thousands of new theaters, the demand for more movies, and the strident clamor for attention in an increasingly competitive marketplace conspired to transform poster art. In the 1940s, studio publicity departments became sweat-shops. Most postwar paper—especially for B-films—was created by anonymous artists who held no copyright or claim of authorship once their work was shipped to the printer. (Muller 10)

Poster artists really began to gain respect in the 50’s. The director Otto Preminger was a pioneer of the scorched earth style marketing campaign that is common place today. Preminger helped bring fame to Saul Bass when he hired the designer to work on the posters and an animated title sequence for The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955. (King 6-7) Bass ushered in a new era of film credits, moving away the dull, stationary lettering of the past. (Rennie)

Bass would go on to become a legend in the world of movie posters, working with horror/suspense master Alfred Hitchcock. Among other’s, Bass’s partnership with Hitchcock produced the famous poster for Vertigo. (See figure 10)

Filed under: Blog, Design, Writing by Ed 4 Comments »

Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

Yes, I caught the logo revision bug again. I know experts on building a corporate identity would not approve of such frequent, and drastic, changes. Good thing I’m just a dude with a web site, and not a corporate giant. Below you can see the evolution of my logo throughout its brief history. As always, comments are more than welcome.

I also created a new favicon, which I like much more than my previous favicon:

And of course, I made up new business cards for me to hand out to imaginary clients:

The new logo sparked an idea for an entire site redesign. If I’m lucky I should get around to doing that sometime before I retire.

Filed under: Design, News by Ed No Comments »

Topics: Logos

This is the first project in my only graphic related course this term:

Project requirements:
Choose between a paperclip, a pushpin, a Q-tip, or a toothbrush, and “present the object as if it is entirely new to the market and no one has ever seen it before.”

Considerations:
-Either present the product as the solution to a need, or create the need in the consumers’ minds.
-Identify the market segment which will be most interested in this product and pitch it to them effectively.
-Explain the benefits of this product to that market.

Here is what I came up with, along with the notes we were also required to turn in:

Notes:
I started this project by doing some quick sketches of the various items. I found the toothbrush and the pushpin had the most visually interesting shapes. Just as a whim I did a sketch of a pushpin with a drop coming off the tip, and that sparked the idea of using a pushpin as a torture device. Given the nature of the “product” I thought a constructivist inspired design would be appropriate. I used Futura for my typeface because of its widespread use in corporate advertising, and its connection with Constructivism.

Positives:
I was happy with the final look of this piece. I think it just screams “corporate evil.” I also like the political irony from using the phrase “enhanced interrogation device.” The headline “creates a need” and the lower text points to the product as the answer to the need.

Negatives:
I think I could have done a more to explain the benefits of the product. Just a few bullet points on one side might have done the trick, and could probably have been done without unbalancing the composition.

Feedback from the teacher:

This is good, subversive fun. Your notes are excellent. My only quibble is with the actual drawing of the Push…uuh, device: The perspective is mixed between the top of the shape and the other ellipses, which makes it less convincing.

Final Version:
I had to agree with the comment about perspective, so I fixed it. Here is the final version:

Filed under: Design by Ed 1 Comment »

Topics: Humor, Illustration, School