i-tees

Yesterday I visited the School of Visual Arts Gallery at 601 West 26th Street (15th Floor) in New York City. The exhibition of Milton Glaser’s exceptional work was closing on Saturday, and as an alumni and a great fan of his work, I had to see it.

As the elevator doors open you are greeted by beautiful double glass doors and a huge SVA logo to the left side. Inside there was a wonderful variety of his poster designs and in two of the rooms, the occasional glass case, where we were able to view his sketches, getting a glimpse into other solutions he thought of before creating the final piece.

For those of you who think they do not know who Milton Glaser is, I’m sure you are familiar with his work.

From Wikipedia on Milton Glaser:

“…best known for the I Love New York logo,^[1] his “Bob Dylan” poster, the “DC bullet” logo used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005, and the “Brooklyn Brewery” logo. He also founded New York Magazine with Clay Felker in 1968….In 1954 Glaser was a founder, and president, of Push Pin Studios formed with several of his Cooper Union classmates….Glaser has taught at both the School of Visual Arts and at Cooper Union in New York City.”

The posters ranged from statements about why an artist should enroll at SVA (my favorite copyline is, “To be good is not enough, when you dream of being great.”) to the tragedy of Darfur or revisiting the “I Love New York” campaign after 9/11 and creating, “I Love New York More Than Ever.”

Click here to see the full gallery I photographed at the show, including a few shots of the view of the Hudson River and New Jersey, from the balcony.

I’m thrilled to report about the fastest selling book from Oregon State University Press, “Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists Are Changing American Cities, by Jeff Mapes.” I’m going to pick this up! (amazon link)

Artist and musician David Burne, (link to his blog) wrote about this book, in The New York Times Book Review last week. (NY Times article) Byrne, a bicycle enthusiast has his own book, “Bicycle Diaries” due out in September. (NY Times article) (I’ll get this one too!)

From the NY Times article about “Pedaling Revolution”

David Byrne writes: “…But the book is useful — for those of us who occasionally find ourselves on the defensive, Mapes provides names, dates, facts and figures. He details how cities from Amsterdam to Paris to New York to Davis, Calif., have developed policies encouraging cycling in recent decades, and how other towns are just beginning to make way for bikes…”

From the NY Times article about “Bicycle Diaries”

“…Mr. Byrne’s travelogue uses a bicyclist’s perspective — “faster than a walk, slower than a train, often slightly higher than a person” — to take us from his home in New York City and around the United States, as well as to Berlin, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Manila, Sydney and London, stops on the tours he has made in support of his musical and art careers…”

As I’ve written in a previous post, I just love to ride my bicycle, and not just on the “Greenway” in NYC, so these new books are on my reading list. Thanks to David Byrne and Jeff Mapes for writing on this subject. I hope it will make an impact on people who haven’t yet gotten on a bicycle, but will now.

New “Green Graphic Design” book

A new book has come out that I’m going to get, asap! (amazon link) Green Graphic Design by Brian Dougherty and Celery Design Collaborative.
“This book begins by asking designers to look at the end result of their work – what will happen to it after it’s been used? It then challenges designers to “design backwards”, a process similar in concept to backcasting. In this case, designers would begin by considering where the piece will end up, what the user experience will be, how it will be distributed (including delivery and warehousing) and what the production process will be (including printing and bindery).”

Green printing

It’s important to recycle. As designers for our clients, we need to help them make the right decisions about what needs to be printed, the purpose, and judge the right quantity for less waste. We can also think of creative ways to reuse a piece. A few of my theatrical clients ask the audience to leave the programs on their seats after a show if they don’t need them, that way they can reuse them.

I see a reduction this year in print promotional products, because client’s budgets have been cut. There is a beneficial side to this in that it’s saving trees and producing less waste. However, they still need to promote, so there is an increase in e-mail campaigns.

What are vegetable and soy inks?

I found this very helpful site, GreenPrinter.com, and they explain about the different types of ink:

“Soy and other vegetable-based inks are less harmful to the environment than their petroleum-based counterparts. Soy and vegetable products are used in ink for their oils, which act as the vehicle for the ink pigments. There are several types of vegetable-based printing inks, including linseed (Flax), tung (Chinawood), castor, canola, and safflower.

Soy is popular because it is a very stable material that exhibits excellent “wetting” properties which enhance its ability to carry solid pigments. Most manufacturers of soy and vegetable based inks today actually “blend” ingredients, in order to take advantage of the unique characteristics of each oil.

Some portion of raw materials are emitted into the atmosphere during both the manufacture and printing of ink. The heightened environmental consciousness of recent years has resulted in a campaign to reduce VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) in inks.”