Book Review: On Tender Hooks
Artist Isabel Samaras is one sick puppy. At least that’s the impression I got while looking through the paintings collected in On Tender Hooks: The Art of Isabel Samaras. Back in the ’90s, Samaras first made a name for herself by adorning cast-off metal trays with provocative images of classic TV characters in the style of old master painters. Picture Mary Ann and Ginger from Gilligan’s Island sharing a tender moment of Sapphic love, the cast of I Dream of Jeannie at Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, or Batman’s Robin posed like a flirty Caravaggio boy. These pieces would seem silly if they weren’t rendered with such obvious affection for the characters.
Interesting as her earlier stuff is, Samaras’ work has gotten even better in recent years. Her painting technique has improved exponentially, giving the work that much more depth. Although she still handles pop culture subjects (a disturbing Marsha Brady with Maori tattoos, for example), more timeless themes such as fairy tales give the newer works a lot more resonance. They’re lush, dark and unsettling, reminding me a bit of Mark Ryden’s art. Supplemented with essays and interviews, this book is a beautifully designed showcase for Samaras’ abundant talents. If I could only get that image of Spock’s family jewels out of my head.
On Tender Hooks is published by Chronicle. Buy at Amazon here. Although I have a few spreads pictured below, you really have to visit Samaras’ official site to fully appreciate this stuff (she does a swell weblog, too).
Book Review: The Handy Book of Artistic Printing
Doug Clouse and Angela Voulangas’ book The Handy Book of Artistic Printing: A Collection of Letterpress Examples with Specimens of Type, Ornament, Corner Fills, Borders, Twisters, Wrinklers, and other Freaks of Fancy is a long-titled exploration of a relatively short-lived trend in graphic design history. This beautifully designed volume covers a roughly two decade-long design fad from the late 19th-century that has previously been given scant attention by historians. With the emergence of letterpress and other new methods in the 1870s and ’80s, printers of the era showed off their wares and attracted clients in the form of promotional specimens. These particular specimens came emblazoned with the typically Victorian visual traits of excess ornamentation, strange color combinations, eclectic typefaces, and randomly jumbled layouts. Artistic Printing delves into every possible aspect of this phenomenon — how it came to be, a representative look at sixty different printers’ samples, and the movement’s ignoble fall in the juggernaut of 20th century modernist dogma.
This was such a cool book to page through, and oddly comforting in a way. Its centerpiece is the sixty printer’s specimens, each generally getting its own page with a nifty paragraph or two of background info on the opposite page. The specimens cover a gamut from the best of their kind to the run-of-the-mill and tacky. Many have a masturbatory “look at what I can do” bravado (in graphic design, some things never change), but the finest examples leave me breathless as to the care and craftsmanship good letter press printing requires. Sure, they may be as subtle as a lady’s hat festooned with a dead bird, but even the worst samples have a giddy exuberance. This book is the kind of effort that has inspiration on every page, right down to the weird and wonderful 1800s fonts reprinted in the back. One small complaint: in contrast to the lively and informative specimen descriptions, the text in the opening and closing chapters is very dryly written and academic (interesting and comprehensive, but still dry).
The odd thing about this particular trend is that it never fully disappeared. Printers’ ornaments of the era fell into the public domain, eventually getting re-published by the likes of Dover for new generations of designers to explore. As noted in Artistic Printing’s concluding chapter, this style is no more immune from other graphic styles for revival, preferably with a postmodern twist. For a good example, check out the cover story layout in the paper edition of the August 2009 Wired magazine — retro ornamentation everywhere!
The Handy Book of Artistic Printing comes from Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Book Review: Seymour
Surely you must know the name of Seymour Chwast, right? As the co-founder of legendary graphic design studio Push Pin, he was a prime mover in deflating the pomposity of modernism and ushering in the freer, more whimsical visual styles that defined the ’60s and ’70s. On a personal note, he was also one of the first artists whose work I noticed in books such as American Illustration 1982-83. One look at Chwast’s charming yet sophisticated imagery made me say “I want to do that” (side note: I’m still attempting to do that). Several decades of Chwast’s art, both commercial and personal, have been assembled in a handsome new book titled Seymour: The Obsessive Images Of Seymour Chwast.
This is one cool book. Most of its 262 pages are just what the title says: images, one to a page or spread, with annotations confined to the back few pages. Everything is grouped thematically in topics such as war, food, fashion and sex. There’s also the occasional oddball subject, such as a series of Mexican Wrestler pieces Chwast did in 2002. Although the art dates from as early as the 1960s and encompasses a wide variety of media (dig the cut sheet metal plates of food), certain things have remained constant in his work. A sense of whimsy is first and foremost. The re-purposing of various early 20th century design styles is also ever-present. Chwast also seems to have a constant fascination with exploring humankind’s frailties in a lighthearted way. The uselessness of war and the attraction of consumption are themes that come up over and over again in his work. The biggest impression I get here is that the man is a non-stop art machine. The introductory essay by famed Push Pin designer (and Mrs. Chwast) Paula Scher confirms it. I wonder if he ever has times when he turns the creativity switch “off.”
Seymour: The Obsessive Images Of Seymour Chwast is published by Chronicle. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Book Review: Sketchbooks
When you think about it, a sketchbook is often the only place an artist can truly be him- or herself, with nothing to prove to anyone else. In Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives, Richard Brereton persuaded several prominent people in the field to share pages from their own sketchbooks — weirdness be damned. Each subject gets 4-6 pages of lushly photographed sketchbook spreads, along with a short statement in which the artists explain their own personal histories with sketching and what compels them to sketch. Many choose to doodle or write cryptic passages with illustrations; others do completely uninhibited stuff that may reveal something about the artist’s subconsciousness. In the latter category, I really want to know why the famous British designer Peter Saville felt the need to write his own name dozens of times back in 2001.
Flipping through this book is a little like browsing through the Moleskine: One Page at a Time flickr group. The art on display boasts a diverse variety of subject matter and media (one artist even mentions sticking a hunk of raw meat in a sketchbook!). If I had one misgiving about this book, it’s that the subjects are very Euro-centric with very little representation from Asia or the Americas. I was also disappointed that the handful of American artists here all seem to be based in New York. Other than those issues, this is a beautifully done project, inspiring me to break out the ‘ol Moleskine and draw away.
Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators and Creatives is published by Laurence King. Buy at Amazon here.
P.S. If anybody knows of any other new books coming out of a design/art/retro/pop culture persuasion, please let me know. Thanks!
Book Review: This Is For You
Here’s something I should have written about around Valentine’s Day, but that’s all right. Here at scrubbles, we do not strictly observe time tables. This Is For You comes from the fertile mind of the amazing British artist Rob Ryan. Here Ryan uses his paper cutting skills to tell the story of a young man seeking to fill the void in his heart. The narrative is nicely told, if a bit hackneyed, but the real star here is the intricate handiwork pictured on every page. Although the silhouetted imagery looks as if it were computer generated, they are in fact paper cutouts photographed against white backgrounds (one can even see shadows here and there). Aesthetically, the resulting works lie halfway between Victorian froufrou and the obsessive-compulsive artwork produced by the mentally challenged. I can’t imagine the man hours Ryan put into this, a slim and lovely source of inspiration.
This is for You was originally published in England back in 2007; this recent edition comes from Chronicle. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Book Faire
On the sidebar I added an Amazon link spotlighting a few products that yer humble host recommends, stuff that I’ve come across in the last few months. This will be updated throughout the year, but I want to go into a couple of books in more detail, right here.
Penguin by Design: A Cover Story 1935-2005 by Phil Baines. This volume, published in 2006, was a Christmas gift from some friends of ours (who happened to be attending the inauguration today). Started by Allen Lane in mid-’30s England, Penguin was the first publishing house to bring affordable and handy paperbacks to the masses. Phil Baines’ text forms a too dry yet serviceable history, but the real star of this book are the covers themselves — arranged chronologically and grouped by series (classics, poetry, contemporary affairs, etc.). Paging through the book, one gets a sense that from the very beginning quality was Penguin’s main m.o. It’s interesting to note that many of these cover designs are quaint and even somewhat dull in and of themselves — but when they are presented here, usually four to a page and surrounded by thematically similar designs from around the same time period, it makes me appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into them. I love the covers’ crafty use of color, the grids, the judicious use of type (mostly Helvetica), and the audacity of the more recent ones. The book contains plenty of gorgeous covers from the classical ’40s up through the freewheeling ’60s and ’70s, and the compilers don’t shy away from including some plainly hideous examples of Penguin’s detour into mass market tastes in the ’80s. It’s a well-rounded and beautifully designed book which I’ve already gotten a lot of inspiration from.
Art & Sole: Contemporary Sneaker Art & Design, written and designed by Intercity. This book reminds me of the Entourage episode in which the character of Turtle goes out of his way to acquire a pair of very pricey designer sneaks. Divided equally in two parts, the first half explores the too-hip arena of limited issue designer Nikes, Adidases, Converses and other brands that Turtle would likely covet. The second half delves into artwork inspired by sneaker culture. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, and part of the fun of this book is seeing how the cultures of fine art, Hip Hop, extreme sports, and hipster collecting intersect with each other. To be honest, I actually liked the first half of this book better than the second. It’s strange to think of a shoe as a work of art — but when a real artist applies his or her handiwork to these babies, they really are more worthy of being displayed on a shelf in pristine condition than worn on the feet. The second part also contains plenty of neat stuff (including some Nike Be@rbricks!). One of the coolest pieces of art in the book is the giant LED-lit shoe created by Finnish design firm Freedom of Creation. I first saw this on, of all places, Kanye West’s weblog. Behold:
Book Review: Designer’s Toolkit — 1000 Colors
Every graphic designer (every print designer, anyhow) knows that one of the chief hazards of the job lies in the fact that colors rarely look the same on computer screens as they do in print. Unless you own a super-expensive set of Pantone books or only work in black and white, selecting the right colors is always something of a crapshoot. Graham Davis aims to remedy that situation with his book, The Designer’s Toolkit: 1000 Colors.
Small graphic arrangements of colors make up the bulk of this book. That’s it — simple and effective. On each page, a rudimentary design or pattern is rendered in twelve different colors. These color groupings are repeated in different color arrangements, twelve to a page, organized under cutesy headings like “Yummy Apple.” Most importantly, all colors are reproduced at the bottom of each page with their corresponding RGB, CMYK or Hexidecimal values. Some color groupings are also displayed in faux magazine spreads to illustrate how to effectively use color with text and photography. A CD-ROM embedded in the book’s cover contains all colors in TIFF format for easy reference. The material’s clean design and organization is impressive. Most of the color arrangements convey a bright, cheery mood — which might be a liability if you’re looking for something dark and/or subtle.
I’ve had this book for a couple of months now, using it on some book cover layouts with pleasing results. The very first color I selected was a sumptuous teal blue. When I entered the values, however, the color came out more like an olive green with way too much yellow (a misprint perhaps?). Despite that glitch, the book’s been beyond useful. In addition to the three or four book covers, I also utilized bits of a color scheme called “Deco Artifice” for my Twitter page. It’s true — seeing colors in print with their CMYK numbers right there takes a lot of the guesswork out of designing stuff.
The Designer’s Toolkit: 1000 Colors is published by Chronicle. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Book Review: Leisurama Now
Doesn’t everyone yearn for a special little place that they can get away to, especially this time of year? With Leisurama Now: The Beach House for Everyone, writer/designer Paul Sahre explores a short-lived product of early ’60s consumer optimism which ties into that basic need — the affordable middle-class summer beach house.
Specifically, this book chronicles a tract of 250 homes built under the promise-filled name of Leisurama. For a minimal down payment, ordinary New Yorkers could buy their very own beach bungalow which came fully furnished right down to the toothbrushes in the bathroom, located a short drive away on Montauk, Long Island. This was a big deal at the time — promotional models of the basic “Convertible” Leisurama model were built on the 9th floor of Macy’s and at the 1964 New York World’s Fair — and many a starry-eyed young family wanting a no-fuss summer getaway ate it up. Unfortunately, the costly program proved unprofitable and so the program was discontinued after a few years.
Sahre has catalogued and organized everything about this modest outcropping of homes with an admirable anal retentiveness. In the chapter titled “Inventory,” black and white photos of Leisurama’s original furniture, melmac dinnerware, flatware, lighting fixtures and even heating vent grates are obsessively annotated. Another section collects images of the Leisurama homes as they currently stand. Although this part takes up too many pages and the photos aren’t all that exceptional, it is interesting to see how various owners over the years have individualized the spare, modern original designs into something more homey (not to mention often overgrown with shrubbery). Starting with the kitschy clear plastic jacket, this book is full of quirky design touches. I’d even recommend the book more for designers than for architecture buffs or retro-living fans — although those would enjoy it, too.
If anything, the book is less about the properties themselves than about fundamentally what people want from a home and the expectations that are tied within those needs. A neat chapter on architect Andrew Geller contains a remarkable early rendering of a typical Leisurama model in which the design was much more daring and original than the boxy final product. The “illustion vs. reality” subtext continues in a revealing chapter interviewing a couple who have held onto their Leisurama home since 1965. Not only does it deal with the hassles of constructing the home in the ’60s, it also outlines how the neighborhood has changed since then — with many owners converting the homes into year-round residences currently worth many times more than their original investments. The neighborhood in and around Montauk may be radically different today (for an example, check out the galling photos on page 222 of a charming old Leisurama razed and replaced with a horrid contemporary McBeach House), but the basic need for a place to call “home” remains timeless.
Leisurama Now: The Beach House for Everyone was recently published by Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon.com here.
Book Review: At a Crossroads
You just graduated college, now what to do? Conventional wisdom tells us it’s time to get out there in the so-called “real world” and get in on the ground floor of a lifelong career. That’s what you’re repeatedly told in your teens and early ’20s, but from a jaded 39 year-old’s perspective I now know it’s a crock. Many young college graduates go through a strange “holding pattern” which might even involve returning to the reassuring cocoon of Mom and Dad’s place to regroup for awhile. Kate T. Williamson’s sweet autobiographical comic At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place recounts such an experience. After her graduation, Williamson found what was supposed to be a 3-month stay at her parents’ home stretch out to over a year. The book details her mundane life of holidays, concerts, working at a flower shop, noticing the passing seasons, and harboring a strange obsession with the music of Hall & Oates. Although it may seem boring, Williamson has a gift for noticing the bizarre little details in ordinary life that is simultaneously funny and touching. A lot of it reminded me of my own “crossroads” time of being jobless and living with the parents for a few months in the fall of 1992. The book’s minute observations are mirrored in her simple yet effective drawing style, enlivened with lush watercolor paints. This is a brief read, and a bit expensive for such a slight story, but she deals with a subject that is never covered in books and yet remains something that most everyone can relate to.
At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents’ Place was just recently published by the Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon here.
Book Review: Jackie Ormes
I love it when a book exposes me to an event or person that I’d previously known nothing of. This happened recently when a friend sent along an email linking to an article on Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist. This book grew out of author Nancy Goldstein’s interest in a doll modeled after one of Ormes’ comic characters. What emerged from that little pique is this multifaceted portrait of a vivacious lady who channeled the excitement of mid-20th century politics and social issues into her own jazzy drawings.
Actually, cartooning made up only part of Ormes’ life story — between 1937 and 1956, she had a hand in four different comic strips in between stints as a reporter, community volunteer and social hostess on the Chicago scene. Her best-remembered comic was Patty Jo ‘n’ Ginger, a single panel weekly which ran in the black-oriented Pittsburgh Courier in 1945-56. It starred Patty Jo, a smart-mouthed little girl whose beyond-her-years wisecracks often startled her mute yet smartly dressed older sister Ginger (the fashionable Ormes modeled Ginger after herself). Although the strip looked innocuous enough on the surface, Ormes used the Patty Jo character to caustically speak on current issues ranging from segregation to the HUAC Communist witch hunts to Dior’s “New Look” fashions. Around the same time, Ormes also drew a full color romantic saga titled Torchy In Heartbeats, a series notable for its independent Afro-American herioine and Orme’s lush drawing style (a distinct improvement over Patty Jo ‘n’ Ginger’s cute but often stilted compositions). Goldstein also devotes a chapter to the highly collectible doll based on Patty Jo.
The book itself is a nice and thorough summary of Ormes’ life and career. My only complaint is that Goldstein’s text often detours into unnecessarily long passages giving context to the times she lived in. On the other hand, I did enjoy her paragraphs describing the often obscure topics covered in each Patty Jo ‘n’ Ginger panel. Ormes’ comics are presented in the best possible way, despite many of them only surviving on grungy microfilm reels. All in all, with this book I was left with the impression of getting to know a fascinating lady who lived in a fascinating era.
Jackie Ormes: The First African American Woman Cartoonist is published by The University of Michigan Press. Buy it at Amazon.com here.
Book Review: Art Out of Time
Dan Nadel’s Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969 arrived as a Christmas gift from my s.o., who bought it off my Amazon wish list after I blindly put it on there a few years back. Something about the cover design and the concept of trolling through old newspapers for comic obscurities appealed to me. For once a stab in the dark paid off, for this is a beautifully produced book chock full of eye-popping images — not only from the world of newsprint but from short-lived standalone comics as well.
The various comics collected here mainly tell me that the word “visionary” in the book’s title carries a wide definition. In some cases it might be a series that never caught on, while a few pages later a popular and long-running newspaper strip which wound up getting lost over time might be showcased. Some (like Gene Deitch’s Midcentury Modern Terr’ble Thompson) contain brilliant visuals supporting rather dull stories, while others crackle with subversive wit but are ordinarily drawn. A few others, like the work of Rory Hayes and Fletcher Hanks (who recently got his own anthology published by Fantagraphics), are so singularly bizarre they could have only come from one mind. Whatever their origins, all of the included comics are at the very least fascinating glimpses into the times they came from. Dan Nadel arranged the comics non-chronologically in loosely thematic groupings, so paging through them gives the reader an eclectic experience. Nice touch.
On another note, I want to point out how gorgeous some of those early, pre-WWII newspaper Sunday strips were. Being able to lay out a strip on an entire full page must have been a luxury that some artists undoubtedly used to full advantage — and you get to see a lot of lovely examples of this in the book. It’s especially heartening when looking at today’s pathetically scaled-down newspaper comics.
Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969 is available now from Harry N. Abrams. Buy at Amazon here.
Bette in Bookstores
Although only the latest in a long string of similar bios, Ed Sikov’s Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis is an excellent book which manages to uncover new insights into the subject. Having considered Sikov’s 1998 bio on Billy Wilder one of the finest books on filmmaking ever, I devoured this one in galley format last summer. It’s a great, brisk read. Well-worn topics like Davis’ unfulfilling marriages and the production of All About Eve get a good going-through here, but the most satisfying parts are when Sikov simply describes the films themselves — even the most rudimentary Warner Bros. programmer in Davis’ career gets a fresh perspective. It leaves you with the impression that Bette was the consummate actress of her time, which is the ultimate compliment for a woman who made sacrifice over sacrifice for placing career over everything else in her life.
Another thing I have to mention: perhaps as a gift to Miss Davis’ most ardent fans, Sikov doesn’t shy away from giving his book a pronounced gay sensibility. The result is that even his most offhand observations have a zippy panache. Take his quip on the costuming in her 1942 soaper The Great Lie: “Orry-Kelly went out of his way to make Bette look dowdy — at one point he sticks her in a bizarre bonnet that makes her look like a cross between Little Bo Peep and Elvira Gulch …” Or this bit on daughter B.D. Hyman’s scathing tell-all book: “My Mother’s Keeper is a sour, whiny book written by a spoiled child who grew up and found Christ.” The book is filled with delicious little nuggets like those.
Perhaps the most tantalizing passage in the book comes when Sikov describes an unsold TV pilot Bette made in the mid-’60s. This show (which I’d never heard of before) was a sitcom scripted by Boys in the Band playwright Mart Crowley in which Miss Davis hams it up as a flamboyant interior designer. Dahlings, what I wouldn’t give to see that!
Book Review: Hand Job
Michael Perry’s Hand Job: A Catalog of Type gathers the work of 55 artists who, in rebellion against computers, excel in hand-drawn typography and design. I remember first noticing this trend in the opening credits to Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, with cast and crew names floating around in lettering mimicking the loopy and unpolished writing on a high school girl’s notebook. The designer of that sequence, Geoff McFetridge, appropriately enough counts among those featured in this book — a group that collectively draw their inspiration from vernacular sources like graffiti, homemade signage and, yep, notebook scribblings. The resulting pieces are a mixed bag, however. Some of the work is truly awe-inspiring or appealing in a scruffy way; others have the lunatic aimlessness of mental patient drawings. By and large, I liked it. It makes me wonder what I can do with just a pen or pencil and a scrap of paper. Judge for yourself — Perry’s website contains several spreads from the book.
Hand Job: A Catalog of Type is available now from Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon here.
Book Review: Uncovered
You might have seen the work of photographer Thomas Allen floating around the weblogs a few months back — he’s the guy who cuts out and arranges pulpy paperback books from the ’50s in surprising and delightful ways. Now some of his work has been collected in a new monograph, Uncovered: Photographs by Thomas Allen. In his intro, celebrity designer Chip Kidd likens Allen’s work to those old Warner Bros. cartoons in which characters pop out of various books covers and have shenanigans with each other — a totally apt comparison. It might sound gimmicky, but his work is actually gorgeous to look at, with carefully considered compositions and a shallow depth of field which creates beautifully blurred shapes around the edges. The figures pictured in the cover art represent the typical fantasy archetype of that era — lots of busty babes and square-jawed manly men — and putting them in this setting makes them appear even more dreamlike. I also get the sense that Allen simply enjoys the variety of visual textures in these musty paperbacks — not just the covers but the spines and the pages. The more “used” they look, the better, with resulting imagery so sumptuous you could just dive into them.
Surprisingly, Aperture chose to bind Uncovered as a board book, meaning the pages are printed on thickish cardboard. An unconventional format for a non-kiddie book, for sure, but I like how it allows you to easily see a photo spread across two pages without the binding getting in the way. Although sporting a nifty die cut, the cover is blandly designed and gives no indication of the depth of Allen’s work. Also, I wish there were a few more photographs, but the ones they did choose to include are excellent.
Uncovered: Photographs by Thomas Allen is available now from Aperture. Buy at Amazon here.
Book Review: Taking Things Seriously
Back when I worked at the local newspaper, one of the things I confiscated for myself was this ancient metal Swingline stapler which appeared to date from the Kennedy/Johnson era. Streamlined in design, heavy as a rock, painted Industrial Tan and covered in years of grime and scotch tape detritus, the stapler was so out of its element in that modernized office that I just had to adopt it as my own. I proudly kept it on my desk — and when I subsequently had to leave that job it got smuggled home, where it still sits on my desk. Though I rarely have the need for a stapler (much less an ungainly brick like the Swingline), I like to have it around to imagine the chain smoking, rumpled Broderick Crawford type who undoubtedly owned the hell out of it when it was new.
The stapler is a prime example of how we tend to bestow meaning and history onto the most banal and seemingly worthless of objects. With Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance, Joshua Glenn and Carol Hayes took the idea one step further by asking several semi-known folks (mostly fringe writers and artists) about their favorite objects. The stories they collected are as diverse as the objects themselves: a bath towel, an antique wooden horse, a pine cone, a glass jar, a light bulb, worn plastic toys and mummified food. Although some of the contributors’ stories have a purely nostalgic bent, many of the people chose items that they associate with deeper things like the power of social ties or the utter randomness of life. Some of the stories are funny, others are unexpectedly touching. Admittedly it’s a strange idea to build a book around, but ultimately the project is beautifully executed in boxy paperback form. This would make a good gift for everyone’s favorite oddball.
Taking Things Seriously is available now from Princeton Architectural Press. Buy at Amazon here.
