Cover Illustration for Polet

Stjepan Micak, a friend of mine, is collecting, retouching, and categorizing my illustrations and comics from newspapers in Croatia, and he knows more about that aspect of my work than I do. He just sent me this front page of Polet from 1977.

Polet was a weekly newspaper of the Association of Socialist Youth of Croatia. The headline of this cover was about the reform of the educational system in Croatia. I was a comic editor at Polet, and I also created many illustrations for them. Most of them, like this one, were drawn on the spot at the office.

By the way, Stjepan collected and assembled a book of my early comics, published under the title From the History of Human Stupidity. Here you can read about that.

 

 

New York Times One-Pager Challenge

Today I came across The New York Times's One-Pager Challenge for middle and high school students.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my illustration for The New York Times Science section is one of the examples of how professional visual artists work with the Times on various topics.

 

New York Review of Sex & Politics

I recently acquired this issue of the New York Review of Sex & Politics (NYRS&P) from 1969 because of this beautiful and vivid cover by Brad Holland, art directed by Steven Heller. Steven was also the co-publisher of the newspaper.

When I received this issue, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I have bonus illustrations from Brad and Steven on the inside pages.

In Steven Heller's new book Growing Up Underground: A Memoir of Counterculture New York, you can read more about his underground publishing days. It's a fun and interesting book worth reading.

 

 

"From History of Human Stupidity"

Today, at Gallery HDD - Hrvatsko dizajnersko društvo / Croatian Designers Association in Zagreb, is the opening of the show of my work. The show is titled From History of Human Stupidity. 

The concept of the show and selection of the work is by Marko Golub. 

The show is going to be open till October 1st, 2021.

"Vecernji list" Interview

One of the leading Croatian newspapers Vecernji list devoted its front page of Sunday edition to the interview about me. 

To all of my friends who cannot read Croatian, I was fantastic.

To all of my friends who can read Croatian, I need to apologize for the mediocre interview. I will try to do better next time.

 

 

Lovesick Skateboards

I created this illustration for Steven Heller, who was the art director of the book review in the New York Times in 1993.

Soon after, I was contacted by someone from Rage Against The Machine to see if I would allow them to use this image for their banners on stage and T-shirts. They had already been familiarized with my work, because the bass player, Tim Commerford, already had a tattoo of my work on his arm. This started our collaboration together for some years to come.

The T-shirt became quite popular and at the time I saw young people wearing them. One of these young people was Aleks Lewandowski from Lovesick Skateboards. Aleks recently contacted me to see if he could use that very same image from almost 30 years ago on one of his skateboards. And of course, because he wanted to reflect that period of that time again, so he also created a T-shirt.

A few days ago I received a package with a few skate decks and T-shirts with my art on them. What is even more important to me, there was a very sweet hand-written note from Aleks that I am posting below without his permission.

Getting this note today was worth the creation of the work itself nearly 30 years ago.

NYTimes DealBook

My design on the front page of today's NYTimes DealBook.
Art direction by Corinne Myller.

Graphic: 500 Designs that Matter

A few days ago I got aware of the book Graphic: 500 Designs that Matter published some time ago by Phaidon. I was extremely pleased and humbled that my design of New York Times Op-Ed pages from 1992 made the cut in 500 Designs that Matter.

The History of Graphic Design: Vol. 2, 1960-Today - Continued

I just received two more spreads containing my work from the new Taschen book The History of Graphic Design: Vol. 2, 1960-Today. This extremely large book was written by Jens Müller and edited by Julius Wiedemann.

The first spread contains my New York Times Op-Ed page designs from 1992-1993:

The second spread features my SVA subway poster from 2008:

You can see more of my work and read more about this book in my previous post.

25 Years Later, on the Walls of The New York Times

Success is a very relative thing. When the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) announced earlier this year that they were putting eight of my designs for The New York Times Op-Ed pages in their collection, I was excited.

However, when The New York Times recently decided to frame and put four of my Op-Ed pages in their waiting room, I was thrilled. Especially because at the time when I was the art director for the Op-Ed pages between 1992–1993, not only were there few Mac computers available in the art department, but also there was a big resistance in general to such a radical approach.









When the NYTimes told me that they were going to frame the Op-Ed pages, I didn't know exactly where they were going to put them. Especially, I didn't know that they were going to put them opposite the wall on which they posted some of the best illustrations created for the Op-Ed pages. And I definitely didn't know that two of my illustrations, created in 1991 and '92 (before I became art director) are a part of that wall.

New York Times Book Review

In the Sunday, July 29, New York Times Book Review "New and Noteworthy" section, there's a mention of Steven Heller and my book, Head to Toe: The Nude in Graphic Design.

Interview in Magyar Narancs (Hungarian Orange)

Because I don't read Hungarian, I think this is my best interview ever! 
The interview appears in Magyar Narancs (Hungarian Orange). The title of the newspaper is a reference to The Witness (1969), one of the most satirical depictions of Soviet Communism in Eastern European film.

Op-Ed Pages in MoMA

I'm proud to announce that MoMA New York acquired eight of The New York Times Op-Ed pages for their collection (images not available yet), which I designed as the art director from 1992 to 1993.

Considering this eight Op-Ed pages as one piece of work, now I have 38 works in MoMA's collection.

Being the art director of Op-Ed pages, I had the pleasure of working with some of the top writers and illustrators. The editorial team, headed by Mike Levitas, supported me in creating some quite unusual pages, which were very "experimental" for The New York Times at that time.

Here are some of them.