Poster for "The Last Cowboy"

This is my poster design for the documentary film "The Last Cowboy”.

"The Last Cowboy is documentary film about the eternal dreamer from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hari Džekson. The American wild west was out of his reach so he created his own right at home and in the sixties officially changed his name from Aljuš Musli to Hari Džekson. This is a film about a man who created an illusory reality from his dreams of being a heroic cowboy who would save the world, in which he himself lived. He was a fan of westerns and he filmed a couple of them, in which good always triumphs over bad. When the world he dreamed about collapsed due to the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so did his dreams collapse and he along with them. His film about cowboys who saved and at the same time decorated the world in the middle of Balkan, remained unfinished. But some of his friends tried to finish the open ending he had left.”

"Few years ago in Ljubljana I met Mirko Ilić, graphic designer who was born in Bijeljina in Bosnia and Herzegovina and who lives and works in New York City today. I interviewed him for RTV Slovenia. He told me about the man who filmed westerns by the river Drina, who knew everything about western films, who officially changed his name from Aljuš Musli to Hari Dzekson, whom the inhabitants of Bijeljina considered a kind of court jester… I didn't believe him. The story sounded unbelievable. It sounded too Hollywood. I thought, of course, Mirko comes from America. The next day I verified the story online and I saw movie material. It was a script that wrote itself. In other words, Mirko Ilić offered me a script that just needed to be written. Thus was born a film about a cowboy who lived his dreams and dreamed his whole life.” 

–Tadej Čater, documentary film director

You can read more about Hari Džekson here and here.

 

Photo of city of Bijeljina is by Ajdin Kamber.

 

 

 

Robert "Bob" Benton's Comic

Recently I acquired this unsigned comic page. It took me a little while to find out who drew it. It turned out it was a drawing of Robert "Bob" Benton. And it seems that it was drawn when he was an art director at Esquire Magazine in the mid-60s before he turned his attention to movies. 

 
Benton (1932) is an American screenwriter and film director. He wrote or co-wrote screenplays for Bonnie and Clyde, The Late Show, and Superman, amongst others. He also wrote and directed Places in the Heart and Kramer vs. Kramer, for which he received two Oscars.

 

Poster "Gog" by Ferdo Bis

I just acquired this very unusual movie poster from Croatian artist Ferdo Bis (1910-1980) for American science fiction movie Gog. It is an unusual design for a poster created in 1954.

My Work Featured in Book "Graphic Style"

I just received the Ukrainian version of the book Graphic Style: From Victorian to Hipster by Steven Heller and Seymour Chwast. 

I am honoured that my animation, design and illustration are featured in it.

The Move "Sretno dijete" (Happy Child)

In 2003, I was asked by Igor Mirkovic to appear on his documentary Sretno dijete (Happy Child). The documentary was about the beginning of the Punk and New wave in my home town Zagreb/Croatia. After the documentary was done, Igor asked me to design the poster for it. 

I decided to ask the photographer to take photos of the coffee shop Zvecka where we were hanging out and from which everything all started. Also I was trying to figure out something very punk in the attitude, not necessarily in the look. I came up with the idea to create a glued fold on the poster. That way, the poster became square-shaped and it looked more like a record cover. And to see the title and the main part of the image, one needed to lift up the fold. 

Of course, there was also a little provocation here. Lifting up the thing in the middle you will make a happy child. 

 

Mayor Daley by Ron Cobb

 

Lately, I have seen lots of writing about Ron Cobb.

The first time I saw his work was in "A History of Underground Comics" by Mark James Estren in the early 70s. I didn't see his work earlier because at that time, he was mostly publishing in underground newspapers. Unfortunately, at that time, American underground newspapers were not available in Communist Yugoslavia.

I immediately fell in love with his work not only because of the quality of his drawings which are very close to my heart, but also because of his ideas and concepts. Maybe then I was not lucky to have access to underground newspapers, but today I am lucky to have one of his originals from that time. What is quite fascinating about his originals is that how small and detailed they are. Even his signature and copyright line are extremely small on the original, and they are handwritten.

Ronald Ray Cobb (1937 – 2020) was an American-Australian artist. As well as being an editorial cartoonist he worked on numerous major films including Dark Star, Star Wars, Alien, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Conan the Barbarian, Back to the Future, The Abyss, Total Recall, and Southland Tales. He had one credit as director, for the 1992 film Garbo.

 

 

 

"The Logo Design Idea Book"

I just received  The Logo Design Idea Book - Inspiration from 50 masters by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson in the mail. My Jewish Film Festival logo's are featured in the book.

More of my design for the Jewish Film Festival can be seen here, here, here and here.

 

  

Walt Disney's "Fantasia" Re-release Poster

Fantasia is a 1940 film produced by Walt Disney which consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski. 

The film was re-released in December of 1969 to a whole new audience clamoring for films with psychedelic visuals and dynamic soundtracks. To capture the interest of the "Summer of Love" drug-experimenting crowd, this is the most vibrant, printed in florescent colors, and unusual Disney poster. Another very unusual feature of poster is that Disney tried to integrate and at the same time hide a Mickey Mouse on the poster.

I managed to acquire a full sized (27 x 41 inches) version of this poster. But what is even more attractive about this is that I managed to also get a mini-poster (9 x 14.5 inches) which is actually printed with much more brilliant and solid florescent colors.