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Steve Heller interviewed (at 4:30 a.m.)

Does 'the city that never sleeps' actually get a wink or two? Getting up at 4 am is a good way to figure that out. I awoke at this time to conduct an interview with Steve Heller during the week he was honored with his Masters Series Award and show. Along with UnBeige.com establishing Steve Heller Week, we were astounded by the pop-beautiful exhibit on his oeuvre at the SVA gallery, and amused and entertained at the Masters Series conversation between Heller and Michael Bierut, given to a packed house.

That talk raised the oft-asked question— “how early do you get up again?”  For those who don’t (but should) already know, Steve Heller gets up earlier than you. He likes to be writing around 4:30- 5 am, and stays awake until “Jon Stewart does his interview”, after 11pm. So what’s a good interviewer to do, but see what that foreign landscape is like?

Your confidence is my respect

As I write my first post on this blog I am listening to Radiohead's new album "In Rainbows". On October 10th, 2007 at 2:29am U.S. time I received my link and I downloaded my 48.4Mb Zipped album from www.inrainbows.com with lots (LOTS) of excitement. It was the first time in my life I was paying whatever I wanted for a product that was for sale. I remember never being as excited as I was about listening to a recently purchased album. I imagined the rest of the fans listening to the first track "15 Step" on the album all at the same time. I don't feel like "lending" the album to a friend because they will miss the opportunity of feeling how I felt by purchasing it themselves at the price they decide.

The CW and The Feed

I’ve taken to watching television online. An increasingly busy schedule at school and various personal obligations mean that I am rarely, if ever, at home during designated primetime hours. Rather than plunking down a couple large for a DVR box, I’ve opted to download torrents of my favorite shows or track them down on their respective networks’ websites. It’s no muss with only a modicum of digital fuss.

Most of what I watch is quality stuff; strictly highbrow, critically acclaimed, narrative-driven stuff, OK? And I say that only because in order to tell this story, to tell it right, I have to admit a shameful secret. Here goes. On Thursday night…ahem…on Thursday night my wife Claire and I watch Gossip Girl on The CW. Life can’t be all Chelsea galleries, MoMA Design Store fetishizing and heady debates with classmates about typographic fluency. I need a little low culture with my advanced degree. And we only suffer through the show for Kristen Bell’s narration because we can’t have her on Veronica Mars. And, um, we watch because one of these days the network programmers are likely to slip and just run an unseen episode from a heretofore-unfilmed season of Gilmore Girls. Right? It could happen!

The Masters Series: Steven Heller

Visual Arts Museum at the School of Visual Arts, 209 East 23rd Street, New York, NY
October 22 - December 1, 2007
Reception: Monday, October 22, 6 - 8pm
Lecture, A Conversation between Michael Bierut and Steven Heller: Tuesday, October 23, 7pm at the 3rd Floor Amphitheater

School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York City, will honor Steven Heller with the Masters Series Award and retrospective exhibition. He is the author, co-author or editor of over 100 books on graphic design, illustration and political art, was an art director at The New York Times for 33 years and is a columnist for The New York Times Book Review. Heller is also the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Design Department and co-founder of the MFA Design Criticism Department at SVA.

Best of the Next

Last week, some of our distinguished alumni were selected by a number of design icons to participate in 20/20 at the AIGA's National Conference. Continuing the tradition, 20 under-thirty folks were asked to present a 1 minute film on the conference's theme "What's Next?".

In some particular order (alphabetical that is), Masood Ahmed, Ryan Feerer, Naz Sahin, Serifcan Ozcan and Amy Wang made us all proud.

Get your copy of "Hand Job" signed!

For those of you not familiar with the book "Hand Job: A Catalog of Type" by Mike Perry, it's a lovely book about hand drawn type which was recently published. Our own recent graduate Sarah Foley wrote about the book on Crit this past summer. For those of you who already know the book and have a shed a little drool on the pages, there's an event this weekend that you won't want to miss. Likewise, if you are familiar with Kate Bingman-Burt's project Obsessive Consumption.

Mike Perry and Kate Bingman-Burt will talk about art and design and sign books from 3-5 pm at the Jen Bekman Gallery at 6 Spring Street.

Dunny Series 4 Is, Like, Totally Dunzo

A couple of years ago, I was stuck in a job that, in the most affectionate of terms, could be described as a "soul suck”. One of the few perks was the copious amount of down time that provided me a chance to wander aimlessly around various lonely corners of the Internet. During one of these web drifts, I began haunting the Dunny forum on Kidrobot.com. Kid Robot is a major player in the designer or “urban” vinyl toy movement and the Dunny is their signature figure: a 3-inch, alien-bunny hybrid.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I now regard those forums as kind of a gross place. The people are friendly, but as with much online discussion, no one is saying anything of particular import, the typed shorthand is embarrassing and the collectors’ naked desire to collect every toy, ever, seems to me an empty quest. Discussion about the merit of a figure has little to do with aesthetics and everything to do with subjective personal bias:

Serious Fun, and Suitcases!

Last semester, we had two classes for which the work we did was later chronicled in a web site. The first one, Serious Fun was our big exhibit and product design class with Kevin O'Callaghan. We designed toys with a social and political twist, with an accompanying display. Check out the Serious Fun web site here. You can even see photos detailing the installation process.

The second class was with Maira Kalman, and was more interpretive in format. We each found suitcases that had some sense of age and personality to them, and made things to put inside. It's best if you see for yourself, because the suitcases are all so different. Check out the Suitcase Project web site here.

People's Design Award

Is it good design? Is it form? Is it function? The Cooper-Hewitt wants your opinion.

The People's Design Award is back and its time to cast your vote for your favorite design, or nominate your own favorite. Check out the other nominees, from earnest to playful, it's a good slice of the past year of design. Who am I voting for? I must support my party.

Music + Design for an Indian Summer Day

October shouldn't make us feel this way— the city steams and smells of stinky trashcans, and everyone is much sweatier than necessary. In spite of this Indian Summer day (by the way, is it time for a different branding for that term?), I'm posting a couple items related to one of my favorite hot-evening activities: listening to music. First, check out this amazingly passionate (and opinionated) infographic created by Andrew Kuo. This summer, he attended a string of shows by Bright Eyes and charted his reactions for the New York Times. His responses resonate with all the emotional complexity of a music fan; ornery, hyper-critical, and always ready to come back for more.

To Design is to Lie

The idea of deception in design came up several times in the past week. I designed a duplicitous poster inspired by Errol Morris's films and his recent blog post on photography and truth. Morris posits that images "are only true or false with respect to statements that we make about them or the questions that we might ask of them." and that "truth, properly considered, is about the relationship between language and the world." And what is design if not image and language together? To associate words and image is to assert a claim about the image.

The previous night, we had a similar discussion with Martin Kace. I put forth in class that all graphic design could be considered a lie, at least a lie of omission. Is it ethical to design for a dangerous product, or to persuade viewers to spend money on something we know is inferior (a book, a show, etc.) Perhaps saying "to design is to lie" is a bit extreme, but design is certainly a nudge in a certain direction. We frame a message and present it with a point of view, like the little devil/angel on your shoulder. And as Martin put it, design seeks to elicit a change in the viewer, whether it be good or otherwise.

Are we liars? propagandists? Were you ever called upon to lie?