graphic design

AIGA/NY 30th Anniversary posters designed by SpotCo, Bobby C. Martin Jr., and Paula Scher.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of AIGA/NY, tireless uniter of the New York City design community and booster of the design profession nationwide. The organization is marking the milestone with a series of jumbo birthday cards: commemorative posters created by design stars. Michael Bierut, Ivan Chermayeff, and Matteo Bologna are among the 30 designers who were up to the task. Debbie Millman contributed one of her signature text paintings that features the names of AIGA/NY board members—all 30 years worth of them. Meanwhile, Paula Scher was thinking pink in an Empire State of mind, Ken Carbone serves up a New York pizza slice with AIGA in pepperoni, and for dessert, there’s delicious cookies from SpotCo (mind the cookie rat). Check out of all of the 30th Anniversary Series posters on Etsy, where they are for sale in limited editions of 100. We suggest ponying up some birthday money to own of ten signed pieces per artist.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Are you simultaneously comforted and excited by the sight of a bookshelf groaning with goldenrod-spined periodicals? Does your love of explorers and safaris transcend web browsers? Do you aspire to deploy your visual skills to inspire others to care about the planet? Then explore this: National Geographic is searching Earth for a visual communications coordinator to join its Washington, D.C. office, which we imagine as a rectangular golden structure teeming with exotic creatures (blind snakes, mutant penguins, Chris Johns). The full-time post involves “researching and writing intranet stories, producing and editing internal video, event management, and photographing internal events.” Our interview advice? Bone up on your baby animal terminology and try not to flinch when they bring in the giant sea beast.

Learn more about and apply for this National Geographic visual communications coordinator job or view all of the current mediabistro.com design, art, and photo jobs.

Show the world your love of architecture with a t-shirt that supports Architecture for Humanity.

• Can you believe graduation season is upon us? Pratt Institute holds its commencement—the 123rd in its history—this afternoon at Radio City Music Hall. In addition to approximately 1,300 bachelor’s and master’s degrees, honorary degrees will be awarded to artist Ai Weiwei (he’ll accept his doctorate of fine arts via video feed), architect Santiago Calatrava, patron of the arts and education Kathryn C. Chenault, and Philippe de Montebello, director emeritus of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Fiske Kimball Professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts. Calatrava will deliver the commencement remarks.

• The Met Ball wasn’t the only black-tie event in town on Monday. Over at Avery Fisher Hall, the focus was on food, not fashion, as Alton Brown emceed the James Beard Foundation awards gala. In the restaurant design category, Bentel & Bentel triumphed for their overhaul of famed Le Bernardin, while graphic gourmand Richard Pandiscio took home the Outstanding Restaurant Graphics medal for his work for the Americano at Hotel Americano. Meanwhile, Jeff Scott‘s two-volume, 900-page Notes from a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession (Tatroux) was named best photography book.

• And speaking of kitchens, artist and kitchen semiotician Martha Rosler is preparing for her first solo exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and it’s a doozy. Come mid-November, she’ll transform the museum’s atrium into a giant “meta-monumental” garage sale. That’s where you come in: the general public is invited to donate items—clothes, books, records, toys, costume jewelry, artworks, mementos—for Rosler to sell. Click here for the schedule and collection locations for donations. Why not seize the opportunity to get your artwork into a MoMA show?
Read more

Impossibly dapper Jim Nelson once again left New York’s Marriott Marquis clutching an elephant—the coveted yet unwieldy Alexander Calder stabile pachyderm that signifies a win in the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards. The GQ editor-in-chief picked up his publication’s second consecutive Ellie for excellence in magazine design, triumphing over a finalist field that consisted of born-again Bloomberg Businessweek (which nabbed a general excellence award), Fabien Baron-ified Interview, New York, and always-on-its-game Wired. We’ll have to wait until Friday to see if GQ‘s double-header will extend to the Society of Publication Designers’ “Magazine of the Year” award. Meanwhile, back at the Ellies, Vogue was honored for overall excellence in magazine photography, although its spooky Steven Klein-lensed “Lady Be Good” portfolio, singled out as a finalist for best feature photography, was bested by those “Vamps, Crooks, and Killers” at The New York Times Magazine. Harper’s won for news and documentary photography with “Juvenile Injustice,” a photo essay by Richard Ross. Other victories of note: TIME was named magazine of the year, Newell Turner‘s freshened-up House Beautiful took home the Elllie for best lifestyle magazine, and the work of the late Christopher Hitchens earned Vanity Fair the award for columns and commentary.

A U.K. poster for the 1983 film Wild Style!, directed by Charlie Ahearn.

London-based interaction designer and movie buff Eddie Shannon set out to digitize his massive collection of film posters so he could admire them without the risk of damaging the more fragile specimens. Two years and 12,000 digital photographs later, he has launched Film on Paper, an online movie poster archive that spans film genres, design styles, and countries. “All of the posters were bought because of my liking for the design or artwork and none were added to the collection as an investment,” notes Shannon, who began his collection in 1994 and now limits his acquisitions to posters from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. He’s particularly fond of those that feature original illustrated artwork by the likes of Drew Struzan, John Alvin, and Bob Peak. Meticulous documentation and a handy search box make it easy to find their work and to discover a few new favorites of your own.

Enhance your resume and your vacation photos with the mediabistro.com mothership’s online course in Adobe Photoshop, back by popular demand. In four short weeks (May 3-May 31) you can get up and running on the program of programs—the subject of many an ethical debate—under the guidance of images whiz Rob Tannenbaum, a photo editor who has worked for The Martha Stewart Show and wields a master’s degree in newsroom graphics management. Learn more here.

Virtual decoupage? It’s an oxymoron come true thanks to John Derian. The New York-based purveyor of whimsical plates and paperweights, who has proven his range (and boundless appeal) in previous collaborations with the likes of Astier de Villatte and Target, has taken to the web with a collection of ephemeral yet fine stationery for Paperless Post. “My artistic vision of textures and colors has been translated into this collection of digital stationery in an amazing way,” said Derian in a statement announcing the collaboration. “I’m excited that people who enjoy my work will now be able to experience it so beautifully online.” His signature eclectic imagery—jaunty letters, sea creatures, ferns, a possibly enchanted frog—appears on 65 digital notecards, save-the-date cards, and invitations that Paperless Post users can customize and send (for a small fee). Derian joins a growing stable of guest designers that includes Thornwillow, Boatman Geller, and calligraphy god Bernard Maisner.

Frederic Goudy had one, so did Philip Johnson and Robert Rauschenberg. The Eameses had two. Pentagram is awash in them. George Lois wears his to bed. We’re talking about AIGA Medals, the graphic design world’s highest honor. This year’s medalists are Ralph Caplan, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Armin Hofmann, and Robert Vogele. Caplan will be honored for his “discerning eye, deftness with words, and wonderful sense of humor toward defining design over half a century through writing, editing, and teaching,” while Lustig Cohen gets the nod for for her integration of “European avant garde and modernist influences into a distinctly American, mid-century manner of typographic communication.” AIGA recognizes Swiss graphic designer Hoffman, who Paul Rand once described as a shape-shifting “daredevil driver, mountain climber, teacher par excellence, and guru,” for his broad and deep influence in “teaching the power and elegance of simplicity and clarity through a timeless aesthetic, always informed by context” while the entrepreneurial Vogele is singled out for having “nurtured the creative potential of generations of Chicago designers, challenging all to think about design for the greater good.” They will be presented with their James Earle Fraser-designed medals tomorrow evening at Bright Lights.

Innovative. Refreshing. Full of ideas. Three ways to describe both TED and Chip Kidd. The charismatic graphic designer, author, editor, Batman expert, and rock star made his TED debut at the recent Full Spectrum conference in Long Beach, California, thanks to “guest curators” Chee Pearlman and David Rockwell, who organized a smashing session entitled “The Design Studio” that featured creative superstars including architect Liz Diller, Metropolitan Museum of Art director Tom Campbell, and IDEO’s David Kelley, bracketed by the whimsy of Maira Kalman‘s tapestry-cum-stage set and the wisdom of John Hodgman, who provided interstitial interrogations on design classics such as Philippe Starck‘s Juicy Salif citrus squeezer (“When you fall asleep it comes alive,” warned Hodgman. “Mr. Starck, I have revealed your terrible secret.”) In the leadoff spot was Kidd, who managed to bring the tech-heavy crowd to its feet by talking about the wonders of books: the analog kind, with dustjackets, odors, and, according to Kidd, “tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness—a little bit of humanity.” Treat yourself to his freshly posted TED talk:

Better living through typography? See it, believe it, achieve it at The Happy Show, an exhibition of Stefan Sagmeister’s work that opens Wednesday at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania (it will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles early next year). “I am usually rather bored with definitions,” says Sagmeister. “Happiness, however, is just such a big subject that it might be worth a try to pin it down.” The fruits, both literal and figurative, of the designer’s ten-year exploration of happiness will be on display through August 12.

The ICA promises a portal into Sagmeister’s mind as he experiments with potential happiness inducers ranging from from meditation and cognitive therapy to mood-altering drugs and maxims spelled out in jaw-dropping flights of typographic fancy. Visitors will also get a sneak peek at the Happy Film, his still-in-the-works documentary (check out the titles in the below video). Slated for release in 2013, the feature will offer “a proper look at all the strategies serious psychologists recommend that improve well-being,” according to Sagmeister, who decided to do the project as a film in part to stave off the complacency that can come from working in familiar media. “It might fail miserably,” he says. “But if I’ve gotten a hair happier in the process, it might have been worth my while.” Until you can make it to Philadelphia, check in with the ICA’s Happy Show Tumblr, which chronicled the preparation of invitations to next week’s opening party: slices of bologna laser-cut to reveal the word “HAPPY.”