A Bad Call for Design Freedom

My poster for a play about Anne Frank was rejected by a design website for featuring a swastika.

Steven Heller explains more here: https://goo.gl/HtsDUs

October Revolution exhibition in Šibenik, Croatia

To mark the 100th anniversary of the 'October Revolution' Serge Serov decided to invite a big group of prominent graphic designers around the world to create a poster as a personal assessment on what has happened in those 100 years.

Serge Serov is the President of the Moscow International Biennial of Graphic Design "Golden Bee" and Head of the Department of School of Design RANHiGS.

On September 6th, after Moscow, and before Germany, UK, Czech Republic, Montenegro and the US, 49 works from the project will be shown at the 5th FALIS Festival in Šibenik, Croatia.

I'm honored that my poster is one of the selected ones.

You can read more about the exhibition opening here: https://goo.gl/mhLDcR

Roman Cieslewicz's posters

Not to think I just like and collect comics, I like and collect other things too. Recently, I got myself this two beautiful posters by Roman Cieslewicz, Polish-French designer. His Amnesty International poster is probably one of my favorite posters. This one is even signed and numbered. I wrote about the influence of that poster on my work in Stefan Sagmeister's book Made you look.

This is the second time I own a copy of this poster. The first one I donated to MoMA.
Later, I regretted it and managed to get another one.

Don't misunderstand me, I like the poster for Moscow Paris show too.

More about Roman Cieslewicz here: https://goo.gl/LCjwu9

Art Deco sketch

I got myself this little Art Deco sketch probably from the 1920s and probably for a movie poster. Seems like the male actor was Louis Staub. Hard to know.

Louis Raphael "Bull" Durham (born Louis Raphael Staub; June 27, 1877 – June 28, 1960) was a pitcher in Major League Baseball. He pitched in 2 games for the Brooklyn Superbas in 1904, 2 games for the Washington Senators in 1907 and five games for the New York Giants during 1908 and 1909.

Durham was born in New Oxford, Pennsylvania and grew up in Pennsylvania. After he began playing minor league baseball he got into trouble with the league due to a fight in a bar. He was banned, but found a loophole by changing his name to "Bull Durham." Once he finished his baseball career in 1909, he began acting and had roles in several silent films.

Freedom to Vote 2016

Wolfsonian Museum's graphic remix project, Thoughts on Democracy: Freedom to Vote 2016, co-curated by Steven Heller with Wolfsonian's Ian Rand and Meg Floryan.
I was among four designers selected to create a poster.
More here.

Casey Ruggles Caught.

I just caught "Casey Ruggles" with his pants down.

Original daily strip "Casey Ruggles" by Warren Tufts from the "The Marchioness of Grofnek" from
4-6-1953, one of the few relatively light-hearted Casey Ruggles stories.

Even without Modesty Blaise

When you know... you know. Even without Modesty Blaise or having much drawing this still looks great. Modesty Blaise comic strip from 1969 by Jim Holdaway

"Modesty Blaise" by Neville Colvin and John Burns

Having already a few original strips of Modesty Blaise created by author Peter O'Donnell and illustrator Jim Holdaway I decided to get originals from a few other artists who worked on the comic after Jim Holdaway. Of course that doesn't mean Romero is included. I have my limits. Here is an original from the early 1980s story arc titled Balloonatic by Neville Colvin who drew the strip until 1986.

Hmm... morning after. As I promised yesterday here is one more Modesty Blaise artist. This original daily art is from the late 1970s by John Burns. Nice drawing of lips in the second frame.

Tony Weare's "Matt Marriott"

I just got myself another piece of my lost youth an original strip by Tony Weare's “Matt Marriott”. This strip appears in the episode called "Marshal of Ochre Flat". In my country it appears under the title "Veliki brat" in the "Zlatnoj seriji" booklet. 

David Lloyd (V for Vendetta), an admirer of Tony Weare's work, wrote: “Tony was one of just a very few strip artists here and in the US whose creative identities owed nothing to the heritage of stylisation which influenced many other newspaper adventure strip creators—he was primarily an illustrator who just happened to love drawing strips. . . . He also had a superb command of light and shade, which promoted the impression that he was drawing something he could see in front of him, rather than something he'd built up from his imagination." “Matt Marriott” is a British newspaper comic strip that ran in the [London] Evening News from 1955 until 1977. More about comics and his artist here.

Featured in BranD Magazine

My cover illustrations for Varoom Magazine - the illustration report a Dutch Magazine was featured in the international brand design publication from Hong Kong BranD Magazine.

Paolo Garretto

To not think that I'm only interested in collecting original comics I also collect almost anything related to illustration and graphic design.

This is my new acquisition, it's a original 1935 caricature of King Haile Selassie by Paolo Garretto.
Paolo Garretto was in the 30s and 40s known as one of the most influential illustrators. He illustrated some of the most iconic magazine covers such as, Fortune Magazine, Vanity Fair, and etc. However Garretto's reputation soon after that declined, partly because he was tagged a "Fascist Artist". It turns out that not only did he design the uniforms for the Italian Fascist but he was also a part of Mussolini's honor guard.

More about Paolo Garretto in this article by Steven Heller here.

How To Make Comps the Good Old Way.

I just recently acquired these announcement, envelope, and invitation envelope comps, created in circa 1930-1940. The comps are by Harry Brown.

The artwork is amazingly fluid, and appears easily done. It’s pure poetry.
His on the fly comps would stand as final artwork now a days.
This is partly because Harry Brown was a prolific and well known illustrator for many different American magazines, brands, and labels.

Below are also a few of his New Yorker illustration covers.

Head to Toe: The Nude in Graphic Design mentioned in The Wall Street Journal.

In her article for The Wall Street Journal 'What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?' Julie Lasky kindly mentions Steven Heller and mine upcoming book 'Head to Toe: The Nude in Graphic Design.'
The book will be published by Rizzoli and will be available in the spring of 2019.

Carol Day

Carol Day is an original English comic strip by David Wright from 1959.
These comic were always beautifully cross-hatched and richly textured.