The post When Famous Artists Were Kids: Barbara Kruger appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Conceived and designed by Bob Ciano, MacWeeney’s longtime friend and art director, At Wit’s End: Cartoonists of The New Yorker is an elegantly designed showcase. An implied question, rhetorically raised by Emma Allen in the foreword—”What makes someone a New Yorker cartoonist, when as this book demonstrates, they work so differently, think so differently, see the world so differently, and draw so differently?”—is not definitively answered, but comes down to one commonality: making people laugh.

I asked MacWeeney and Maslin to talk more about the process and decisions in creating their book, a unique document that pays homage to some of the older (and a few deceased) masters, transitional pioneers and the latest wave of artists. And for those who wonder whether or not the cartoonists resemble their art, you can judge for yourself.

I am presuming that At Wit’s End was triggered by Alen’s photographs that include some principal cartoonists who have passed away, and with them a certain sense of humor. How, indeed, was this project conceived?
MacWeeney: Bob Ciano, my longtime friend and art director of Esquire magazine in 1978, loved The New Yorker, cartoons and wondered what the invisible faces looked like behind them. His curiosity got the better of him and he assigned me to photograph five cartoonists for the magazine to make a good story for Esquire and answer his curiosity. Each cartoonist was a surprise, different, somewhat eccentric and a lot of pleasure to photograph. (Gahan Wilson, Jack Zeigler, George Price, Ed Fisher and Sam Gross.) [They were] enthusiastic about the photographs, but we never saw their publication in Esquire as Bob left working for the magazine soon afterwards. 

What else inspired you to photograph New Yorker cartoonists (and how long did it take to amass this portfolio of images)?
MacWeeney: In 2014, The New Yorker assigned me to photograph eight cartoonists for the cartoon issue of the magazine. The cartoonists were partly my choice and those of the magazine’s, and that was the impetus for me to really get going again.

But, the idea of a book of cartoonists really began then in Bob’s and my mind, too. Bob was the instigator from the start. He pushed the idea and me forward for many years to come. I approached The New Yorker several times over the next years to propose publishing monthly a cartoonist portrait in the magazine; this was before it had published photography at all, and to reveal its hidden assets and identity of the mysterious cartoonists …

With a few notable exceptions, many of the cartoonists in this book are post–Lee Lorenz (cartoon editor from 1973–1993). What determined who you covered?
Maslin: Alen already had photographed 20 or so cartoonists by the time I was brought into the project in 2018. The magic number was 50 for the book (we ended up having 52). I’m not sure if we knew we were looking for a representation of eras ([executive editors] Ross, Shawn, Gottlieb, Brown and Remnick), but we managed to include cartoonists who came into the magazine from 1929 up to the present. We had numerous discussions about who should be considered, but in the end it was Alen’s call. He was the one going out into the field. There were several cartoonists we wanted to include but, alas, geography got in the way.

I had expected a few more of the older generation (you include the late George Price, for instance). Was this even possible?
Maslin: The larger number of photos were taken in the past six years. By that time, the older generation had thinned out considerably. By the time the book was underway, we counted ourselves very fortunate to get Dana Fradon, who was the last cartoonist brought in during the Harold Ross era. 

The gag cartoon, which is the focus of the book, once played a key role in many periodicals. Did your motivation come, in part, from the possible extinction of this once-ubiquitous artform?
Maslin: That wasn’t on my mind. As someone who loves the magazine’s history, I saw this as an opportunity to put in book form an extended yearbook of sorts. I only wish there had been books like this decades ago.

Who decided on the cartoonists that are featured?
MacWeeney: I selected photographing the cartoonists I most enjoyed, with suggestions from Bob and Michael, but some cartoonists lived too far away and my travel was restricted by expense. Sadly, there was a number of very eminent cartoonists not in the book. In recent years it seems from The New Yorker secret source has emerged a flurry of fresh-minted cartoonists’ drawings appearing weekly.

There was a mutual agreement to make the book reflect the surprising differences in our subjects and be unpredictable. I used the same camera for the 46 years it took me to photograph 52 portraits.

Was there logic behind which pair of cartoons were selected to represent each artist?
MacWeeney: I approached Michael as a cartoonist and historian of The New Yorker cartoonists about 2016; he helped enormously, introducing me and contacting our subjects for the book.

Michael and I selected the cartoons together [by] Zooming several times, and naturally it was a very enjoyable activity and fun to share doing.

I originally conceived the book to have only a single black-and-white portrait of each subject, with a sample cartoon and bio on other pages, really to keep some mystery about the cartoonist revealed only by a single image.

Bob thought otherwise about it and in consideration of the book’s layout to integrate the profiles Michael would write and include a sample of one or two cartoons for each subject.

Was there anyone who decided not to be your book?
MacWeeney: One cartoonist chose not to be in the book, disappointingly, and [was] very much missed: Sam Gross, my best cartoonist portrait.

Who decided on the title, which is a tip of the hat to the book Wit’s End: Days and Nights at the Algonquin Round Table?
MacWeeney: We were talking about what could be a good title when Bob came to the rescue with “At Wit’s End.”

The post The Daily Heller: ‘New Yorker’ Cartoonists Finally Show Their Faces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Other recent chopping-abouts on IG.

Rachel Cabitt on the technicolor influence of Kayōkyoku Records, where 1960s Japanese and Western cultures collide.

Loving Fred Aldous’ photobooth collection of goodies.

Director Bryan Woods on putting a “no generative AI was used in the making of this film” statement at the end of Heretic:

“We are in a time where I feel like creatively we’re in one of the big ethical battles, and the race is already ahead of us. The importance is to have these conversations before they force things in, just because it makes sense from a corporate structure. It’s incredibly dangerous. If there’s not people to throttle it, we’re going to find ourselves in five to ten years in a very dangerous situation. … AI is an amazing technology. Beautiful things will come of it, and it’s jaw-dropping. What is being created with generative AI and video … it’s amazing we could create that technology. Now let’s bury it underground with nuclear warheads, ‘cause it might kill us all.”

Could this become standard practice, please? To be posted alongside the “no animals were harmed” and “no this story isn’t real, honest” notices.

Artist and photographer Yasmin Masri’s Near 2,143 McDonald’s, documenting over 2,000 McDonald’s locations through Google Street View. Seen a few books and projects over the years use Street View as a source, but I’m unclear about how fair usage/public-domainy it is.

“For some reason, in July 1985, the Daily Mirror’s pseudo-saucy comic strip Jane ran a series of comics centered on – oh yes – Jane and boyfriend Chris hanging out with Sir Clive Sinclair.”

Kurt Cobain’s Youth Culture Scream Time.

Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature:

“The thing is, “people” weren’t anywhere to be seen in Best Word Book Ever. Instead, the whole world was populated by animals: rabbits, bears, pigs, cats, foxes, dogs, raccoons, lions, mice, and more. Somehow, though, that made the book’s view of life feel more real and more welcoming. A dollhouse-like cutaway view of a rabbit family in their house getting ready for their day didn’t seem to just picture the things themselves—they were the things themselves, exuding a grounded warmth that said, “Yes, everywhere we live in houses and cook together and get dressed, just like you.”

One must never underestimate the power of anthropomorphism in normalising empathy and diversity for children. I grew up with countless Scarry titles (to this day Peasant Pig and the Terrible Dragon is one of my favourite books) and they definitely shaped my view of the world.

It’s November and therefore LEGO have thrown a massive chunk of dad-bait into the universe in time for Christmas. As if a 3000-brick model of Shackleton’s The Endurance wasn’t enough, you can also get an extra set with a minifig of expedition photographer Frank Hurley.

There’s absolutely no need for Suede’s Dog Man Star to be thirty. It’s just unseemly.

That is all.

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image courtesy of the author.

The post Meanwhile No. 219 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Design creativity blooms in spaces where curiosity meets intention, where ideas are nurtured into forms that resonate and inspire. It’s a process marked by exploration, experimentation, and the willingness to challenge conventions to uncover new perspectives. In this fertile ground, creativity is more than a spark—it’s a cultivated journey, drawing from diverse influences and blending intuition with technique.

Celebrating our 45th year, the 2025 PRINT Awards honors design in every shape and form. And, as our industry continues to evolve and our practitioners continue to explore new mediums and methods to advance their creativity, the PRINT Awards have found new ways to recognize outstanding work.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Self-Promotions. The Office of Ordinary Things and D&K Printing. D&K Printing also printed the beautiful 2024 PRINT Awards certificates.

Categories for 2025

The 2025 PRINT Awards offer 28 categories for entries, ranging from Illustration to Motion Design & Video. In recent years, we added In-House, Design for Social Impact, and Packaging and expanded our branding categories. We also expanded the awards to offer students a chance to enter work in each category instead of only one student category. And, this year, our jury will also consider entries in Social Media + Content Design, Title Sequence Design, and Graphic Novels.

Learn more about the 2025 PRINT Awards categories.

2024 PRINT Awards Third Place Winner in Packaging, CF Napa Brand Design; Second Place Winner in Logo Design, Onfire. Design.

Citizen Design Award

Each year, the PRINT Awards highlight a free-to-enter Citizen Design Award to celebrate design work focused on one annually chosen social issue. With societies facing global challenges like climate change, economic instability, and technological shifts, our Citizen Design Award this year will honor work that speaks to social justice.

Social Justice ensures that all people are entitled to human rights and societal respect regardless of race, gender, religion, health, and economic status. Discrimination in the form of economic and educational inequities, combined with enduring legacies of oppression continue to impact many communities, creating toxic cycles of privilege and disadvantage.

Design can profoundly influence social justice through graphic tools that amplify awareness and drive change. Design can make complex issues more accessible, spark debate, inform audiences, and motivate positive engagement. This year’s PRINT Citizen Design category recognizes and celebrates the most impactful work that fosters empathy and action. From social awareness campaigns to apps, community-centered design projects, infographics, posters, social media graphics, and interactive experiences, Citizen Design will honor work that strives to make our world more compassionate and just.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Design for Social Impact, Clinton Carlson and Team.

Our 2025 Jury

With a global jury representing a wide range of disciplines, each entry will continue to be judged on four key criteria: Craft, Longevity, Innovation, and Originality. Top winners will be featured on PRINTmag.com and receive trophies, certificates, and social media promotion. We’ll be adding jury members in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we welcome a few here!

A few of the 2025 Jury Members: Marisa Sanchez-Dunning, Bennett Peji, Jennifer Rittner, Eleazar Ruiz, Lara McCormick, Mike Perry, and Miller McCormick. More jurors are to be announced soon!

The 2025 PRINT Awards Presenting Sponsor

The team at PepsiCo Design + Innovation believes that good design is a meaningful experience. A functional product. A rich story. A beautiful object. Design can be fun, convenient, precious, or fearless, but good design is always an act of respect, empathy, and love.

That’s why PepsiCo Design + Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor and, above all, to celebrate the joy of design in all its forms. That’s why PepsiCo Design and Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor, and, above all, celebrate the joy of design in all its forms!

Dates and Deadlines

As in years past, we’ve broken the deadline schedule for the awards into four simple tiers—Early Bird, Regular, Late, and Final Call. The earlier you enter, the more you save because it helps us plan judging schedules and other tasks in advance. Enter now for the best price! (And it’s worth noting that to enable students to enter, the pricing is consistent across the board no matter when they submit their work.)

Join us as we recognize the talent that colors our world and celebrate the beauty of fresh ideas, bold solutions, and impactful storytelling. From emerging talents to seasoned visionaries, each submission is a testament to the boundless growth of design.

Submit your work today, and let’s cultivate the next generation of creative vision!

The post Announcing The 2025 PRINT Awards Call For Entries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Ware is one of the most beloved comics artists of our time, and his recently published ACME Novelty Datebook Volume 3, spanning the years 2002–2023, is a must-have for fans like me who are mesmerized by how he does what he does. Drawn from the sketchbooks of the creator of Jimmy Corrigan, Building Stories and Rusty Brown, ACME offers a rare chance to get to know the artist behind such an incredible body of work.

Ware is one of the most important cartoonists of the past 75 years, a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the first cartoonist to win the Guardian First Book Award and the first American to win Europe’s highest prize for cartooning (the Grand Prix D’Angouleme).

Like R. Crumb’s famously intimate sketchbook series, ACME was not intended to be seen by his fans, but pulling back the curtain is a gift to all who worship at the altar of Ware. I recently had the good fortune to explore some of his thoughts about life, art and the new book.

Over three decades ago I was on the awards committee of The Swann Foundation of Caricature and Cartoon, and Art Spiegelman brought in a newspaper you had published with your early work. The board members were blown away—you were hands-down the winner. How do you feel when you look back at those early attempts at finding your visual language?
Well, you are very kind; thanks for the generous words. Honestly, I can’t look at any of my early stuff—or really too much of my recent stuff, either—without feeling frustrated by my drawing ability. With my early strips all I see are little bits and pieces I was thieving from other artists (nearly all of whom were published in Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly’s RAW magazine, including Art himself) in my attempt to mash together some sort of something that I could somehow consider “mine.” In my twenties I went back and forth between improvising directly in ink or crafting images that were as iconographic and geometric as possible, then eventually combining the two in an attempt to capture contradictory feelings and sensations—or some such thing—but found that these experiments ultimately felt like what David Foster Wallace called “metafictional titty pinching.” I finally just gave up and tried to present my stories as clearly as possible with the occasional shift in approach whenever it still felt instinctually appropriate.

I presume you’re only showing what you take pride in showing, but can you detect a clear evolution—or did you zig and zag before becoming Chris Ware?
Even though Frank Lloyd Wright was one of America’s biggest jerks—an arrogant philanderer who designed a logo for himself and buried his initials in the name of one of his best-known designs (Falling Water)—he was also an indisputable genius who regularly reinvented himself and so avoided staleness and sterility. I think about his relentless “doing the opposite of what he’d done before” and I worry I don’t have the fortitude, intellect or self-confidence to follow his example—but I try. I doodled a little strip about this in this last datebook, including Scott Joplin and Beethoven in the list of artists who regularly re-thought themselves up to their final moments. Theirs is a tough model to follow.

I love seeing the ACME “brand” take form. Was this always meant to be your signature, or was it initially a stop along the way?
I titled my regular periodical “The ACME Novelty Library” so I indeed wouldn’t have to put my name on it, since drawing and publishing is really its own act of quiet arrogance. Also, I noticed that in single-page comics the artist’s signature frequently acted as a sort of punctuation mark—or worse, an advertisement—plus, I didn’t want it to contribute to the rhythm of reading, as it interfered with the sense of life I was trying to get at. So “The ACME Novelty” part of this book’s title is now completely vestigial, if not completely insane, since I haven’t done an issue of my comic book in over a decade. However, the thought of titling a book “Chris Ware’s Third Sketchbook” is way worse. (Though really, what’s the difference? I still essentially made a pretentious logo for myself, just like Frank Lloyd Wright did.)

ACME is such a classic comic/novelty title. What does it mean to you?
“Acme” was a fairly common commercial brand name in the 1910s and 1920s, nostalgically invoked by Chuck Jones in his Roadrunner cartoons of the 1940s and 1950s, and all of which I was also trying to play on in the 1990s when I started publishing my own comic book. At that time, underground/independent/experimental comics tended to have one-word “loud” names, and I wanted to make something that was harder to remember and awkward and, especially, uncool. Also, since I was trying to tell stories in each issue that were as emotionally moving and literary as I could muster, by hiding them within this fussy shell I felt sort of freed up to experiment and embarrass myself.

When you designed your rule-breaking cover for The New York Times Book Review, I was struck by your exceptional lettering acumen. How did type and image become your metier?
Comics drawing, aka cartooning, has more in common with typography than with traditional drawing: the drawings in comics are meant to be read, not just looked at. However, most of the drawings in this sketchbook, done from observation or direct memory, fall more into the latter category. Or, in other words, unlike in my comics fiction where I use a ruler and geometric simplification for the sake of artistic clarity and literary transparency, almost all of what is in this book is just plain old drawings and watercolors about life as lived.

Since I hate wasting time but am still startlingly good at it, when I’m on the phone I nearly always draw, and during the pandemic, like everyone, I spent a lot of time on the phone, so sometimes just for fun I would copy 19th-century and early 20th-century comics, typography or whatever compelled me into my sketchbook—the only rule being that I didn’t know why it compelled me. [It’s an] activity [that] goes back to all of the great books you did in the 1980s and 1990s, and to which I still look to find something unusual that captures that strange balance between the “looking at” and “reading of” typography.

Finally, since you asked, I tried to teach myself to handletter by looking at examples of 1920s original commercial art, specifically those done for the Valmor cosmetics company, original scraps of which were sold by the Chicago novelty store Uncle Fun and run by Ted Frankel, who had inherited the company’s entire back catalog. I learned more from looking at those old inked and whited-out boards than I did from all of the old instruction books I tried to puzzle out, which always seemed reluctant to give up their secrets. These Valmor originals, many of which were by African American artist Charles Dawson, also affected the way I ended up drawing comics, which was to work more typographically than drawing-ly, for lack of a better word.

When you see the three volumes of Date Book, do you have any regrets, second thoughts, nostalgia or other emotions?
Of course; life is full of regrets, and confoundingly, while some of my favorite books are facsimile notebooks and sketchbooks (especially the sketchbooks of Robert Crumb, which, along with Art Spiegelman’s encouragement, saved me in art school), I didn’t realize the effect that publishing my own might have. As I say in my introduction, the decision to publish a sketchbook—where a sketchbook should be a place where one feels absolutely free to humiliate and mortify oneself—torpedoes its basic utility. So almost immediately after printing the first volume I started keeping a separate daily comic strip diary into which I diverted all of the private unpublishable stuff. Now I have a thousand unpublishable pages of a private comic strip diary, which I still compulsively keep mostly for my daughter, as it covers her life more than anything.

In the meantime, I still tried to thoughtfully arrange these three sketchbooks (aka “datebooks”), culled down from 13, into something that hopefully still somehow captures the inevitable passage of time and life, as the books begin when I was a teenager learning to draw and end right when my teenage daughter leaves home—yet here I am, still learning how to draw.

What other alterations, if any, do you have in mind for your work?
Well, aside from simply trying to get better, I’m currently working on three graphic novels, as well as the occasional New Yorker cover, and continue to make sculptures and paintings; also, I’m helping to design the exhibitions for a traveling retrospective of my stuff that began in the Pompidou in 2022 and went through other European venues, which will end in Europe next year at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona and then, finally, at the Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus, OH, in 2026.

The post The Daily Heller: Chris Ware’s Favorite Wares appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

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Studio TK, a furniture manufacturer with headquarters in South Carolina, is on a mission to help companies “bridge the gap between the spaces where we work and the work culture we aspire to create.” The company partnered with Tolleson, a full-service, Bay Area creative agency, to amplify Studio TK’s voice as an exclusive resource for furniture designed to foster creative collaboration, well-being, and connection at work.

The resulting creative, “Santé: Designed by Patrick Norguet” is a meticulously crafted stop-motion animation video that captures the essence of the acclaimed French designer’s work. Our judges awarded Tolleson first place in The 2024 Print Awards’ Motion Graphics & Video category.

Stills from “Santé: Designed by Patrick Norguet”

Inspired by Norguet’s love for music, the video utilizes visual metaphors to convey profound ideas, such as the transition from black and white to color representing the journey from concept to creation. With its tangible, handcrafted quality that feels real and touchable, the stop-motion animation captivates viewers. Every subtle change in direction, the slightest quiver of paper, and the visible texture of handmade sets add depth and authenticity that reflects pure joy.

The French celebrate by saying, “À votre santé” or “to your health.” In the same way that Norquet’s chair collection projects a lifestyle-oriented sensibility that softens the office landscape and expresses a more human work culture, this award-winning stop-motion video bridges tradition and creativity making it enduringly enchanting and worth celebrating!

The post Tolleson’s Stop-Motion Tribute to Designer Patrick Norguet for Studio TK appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“All of our surfaces, our skies, our trees are painted by human beings. There’s no geometry covered by rubber-stamping. With hand-painted backgrounds like these, we’ve come full circle to where this whole craft began. Miyazaki’s backgrounds, Bambi’s backgrounds, The Lion King’s backgrounds: they do the best job of creating a world that you can get. Our goal was to get the finished film looking as close to the initial exploratory development drawings as we could get: so abstract and colourful, loose and free and beautiful, and they reminded me a lot of some of the inspirational art by Tyrus Wong that guided Bambi.“

The Spider-Verse films, Klaus, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, The Mitchells Vs The Machines, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Mutant Mayhem – do we have a name for this new era of painterly animation? New Artistry? Craftcore?

Animation Obsessive Staff help me out here.

Ooh a colour Kindle is finally here. That sound you hear is a thousand cover designers gently weeping with joy! Curious that one of the promo shots has Ms Marvel on the display, but there’s no mention of Marvel Unlimited integration. I realise these things are essentially shop windows for Amazon and only Amazon, but MU plus a dedicated e-ink reader would be incredible.

Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Red Rocket, Anora) talks to MUBI’s Adrian Curry about his ongoing use of Aguafina Script Pro and how a simple design solution turned into a unique brand identity.

My current favourite jam¹ is LCD Soundsystem and Miles Davis playing in side-by-side browsers. Somehow this works.

Couch to 100k – John Grindrod’s tips for non-fiction writers:

“I’m firmly of the opinion that no subject is a bad subject for a book per se, it’s what you do with it. Perhaps you have the desire to write a book about frogspawn. Or gravel. Or ribbon. Sure, that one word might taunt you. Who is going to be interested in that? But nothing is innately boring. Not when you can communicate what is actually exciting you about the subject. Frogspawn contains the miraculous secret of life; gravel a doorway into the ancient formation of geology and stardust; ribbon the tale of industrial revolutions, global culture and the history of fashion. Actually, why am I writing this blog post, all of those books sound amazing.”

I used to get excited about boring subjects every month for my MacUser column² – “you write interestingly about any old crap” was basically my editor’s pitch. Not sure I have the stamina or attention to go beyond a two-page spread, but maybe one day I’ll give it a go.

In Hidden Portraits, Volker Hermes reimagines historical figures in overwhelming frippery. Great name for a band right there.

Revisiting the Horst P. Horst monograph Style and Glamour after seeing Jack Davison’s incredible Saoirse Ronan shoot for Vogue. He’s captured and modernised Horst’s already-ahead-of-its-time 1940s style³ impeccably.

Oh dear lord I’m trying Bluesky again. Basically just biding my time on this social network carousel until somebody revives mySpace.⁴

That is all.

1. Jams? Do we still talk about our jams? Or did we kick out the jams? ↩︎
2. They’re all pretty much lost to the sands of time now, unless anyone is hoarding old copies of MacUser in their basement … ? If anyone fancies a read, I’ll see if I can dig them out and upload them here in some manner. ↩︎
3. Running with Scissors’s Lisa McKenna put it perfectly in her reply to a recent note: “I’ve always appreciated how [Horst] kept his cover design behind the lens”. ↩︎
4. Seriously, it baffles me that something that still has so much brand recognition and clear purpose – social media based around music – is still up on the shelf, gathering dust. ↩︎

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image courtesy of the author.

The post Meanwhile No. 217 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Karin Fong appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Visual effects magazine befores & afters looks at the impressive array of seamless VFX shots in Ripley.

More gorgeous photography – Richard Weston and family follow in the footsteps of Mr Ripley along the Amalfi Coast.

More Farrow-meets-Kubrick than the rest of Richard’s pics, that up there is Anish Kapoor’s Dark Brother at Museo Madre. No family holiday is complete without a big black hole in the ground filled with nothingness and despair.

Back in Blighty, The World of Tim Burton is opening this month at the Design Museum. I’m very much “love the early stuff, and then … ehh” on Burton², but heck, I’ll still lap this up. Can’t wait to see the range of gift shop merch. I love gift shop merch.

The Folio Society have continued their Dune series with a new edition of Children of Dune, illustrated by Hilary Clarcq. At some point I’m going to get all three of these books and make a little sandy shrine to them.

Pretty certain that Harold Fisk’s Meander Maps of the Mississippi River (1944) are some of the most beautiful images ever made. Do I need one of these on my wall? If so, which one? All of them, you say? Every wall? FINE.

A brief history of a graphic design icon: Chip Kidd/Sandy Collora/Tom Martin’s Jurassic Park logo. Features the greatest fax of all time.

Very pleasantly surprised to find myself alongside other fantastic newsletterists in this week’s Substack Reads digest, curated by Coleen Baik.³ Apparently I’m a “known quantity in design circles” and should be enjoyed with a dirty vodka martini. This is all I’ve ever wanted.

An LP a Day Keeps the Doctor Away – excellent guest post by Rachel Cabitt on Casual Archivist, delving into the world of educational record sleeve art.

“I have been told to stop stealing muffins from the bakery. Unfortunately, it’s the only way to keep my lucrative muffin stand in business. Everyone is fine with this.”

That is all.

1. If anyone needs me, I’m out here perishing on the “remakes and re-adaptations are distinct cultural entities that each deserve their own critical discourse” hillock. ↩︎
2. Slavishly copying Burton’s art occupied most of my time at school. Ideally, this show would have one room dedicated to nothing but nineties teenagers’ exercise book doodlings of stripy snakes and Edward Scissorhands. ↩︎
3. This has created quite a spike in subscribers, which will immediately correct itself the moment I hit Send on this thing. Nothing loses you newsletter subscribers quite as effectively as sending a newsletter to your subscribers. ↩︎

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image by Osarugue Igbinoba for Unsplash+.

The post Meanwhile No. 212 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Here James discusses the most recent edition (#14) devoted to Dale Messick, the creator of the comics page heroine, Brenda Starr, the first adult professional woman to star in her own strip. The text was written by Connie Ziegler and Debbie Millman. As Sholly notes in an introduction to this superb body of research and reflection, “Commercial Article continues to serve as a resource for anyone looking closely at the many varieties of notable design associated with the state of Indiana.”

What triggered your interest in Dale Messick’s “Brenda Star, Reporter?”
I think that my interest was really in Dale Messick. I was intrigued to learn that she was from a small city in Indiana and had become a renowned cartoonist at a time when there were very few women in that profession. As our writer Connie Zeigler uncovered more about her, the more fascinated I became. She was truly a pioneer and navigated sexism and all of its associated ugliness, to create a profitable career and a comfortable life for herself and her family. Learning about “Brenda Starr, Reporter” came later, but was so much fun! I had known about the comic strip as a kid but dismissed it as too grown-up and serious to be any good. But now I can see that I was really missing out. Dale Messick created amazing characters, wild adventures, and some seriously wacky humor. It’s been a blast to catch up on it now!

The Brenda Starr comic strip was in the New York papers and I recall it was popular. Did you know about the character prior to working on this issue?
At the height of its popularity, “Brenda Starr, Reporter” was actually syndicated in about 250 newspapers across the country! I first heard the name Brenda Starr in the Blondie song “Rip Her to Shreds,” but had no idea who that was. I later made the connection that Brenda was that woman from the funny pages. Brooke Shields also starred in a not-great Brenda Starr movie in the early 1990s, at a time when I was really into comics. But even Debbie Harry and Brooke Shields weren’t able to get me interested in the character. It was only in researching Dale Messick’s story that I finally became interested in her creation.

Who Was Brenda Frazier?
Rita Hayworth served as Dale Messick’s model for Brenda Starr’s beautiful appearance, but Brenda Frazier was the inspiration for her name. Brenda Frazier was the Kim Kardashian of her time. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, she was the “it girl” — a beautiful debutante who appeared on magazine covers, in gossip columns, and in ads for prestige products like Studebaker automobiles. The columnist Walter Winchell regularly reported on her love life, which never seemed all that stable. She was married two times, but neither relationship was lasting, and she lamented her inability to choose someone who wasn’t a cad.

Was “Brenda Starr” Dale Messick’s full-time gig?
It was! She wrote and drew “Brenda Starr, Reporter” for over 40 years! At times, she worked in a mobile studio that allowed her and her family to take long road trips across the country. She would frequently weave aspects of her own story into the plot lines. In real life, Dale had a daughter named Starr, which was the same name that Brenda gave her daughter after giving birth in a storyline from the 1970s. In the early 1960s, Brenda traveled to the Canal Zone in Panama shortly after Dale Messick took a trip there to visit friends. I was also impressed to learn that Dale drew “Brenda Starr, Reporter” using a brush and ink, which must have been incredibly difficult. I looked at some of the original art at the Lilly Library on the campus of Indiana University and was blown away by the control and expressiveness of her line work. 

Why was Brenda Starr such a popular strip?
People I’ve spoken with say that particularly for young women, Brenda was a role model. Even in a fantastical sense, Brenda was a smart, savvy, career woman who went after what she wanted and didn’t let obstacles or expectations of what she should be slow her down (still a novel concept in the 1940s and 50s). She was unafraid of adventure and unbowed by people trying to get in her way. I think this kind of symbolism is really powerful to a young person with aspirations to achieve great things. Dale Messick had similar qualities in that she left the stability of her family life in Indiana, and came to New York on her own for a promising job (drawing greeting cards) and life in the big city. Messick was also savvy in presenting Brenda in the latest designer fashions, so she always looked incredible! She was able to build connections with readers by drawing their suggestions for Brenda’s clothes and including them as paper dolls in the Sunday editions of the strip. These sorts of gestures helped to create a loyal and dedicated readership.

Do you see any relevance today for Ms. Starr?
“Brenda Starr, Reporter” ran in newspapers for over 70 years. The characters and scenarios definitely evolved with the times. But at her core, Brenda remained a stalwart seeker of the truth and a character that always followed her heart and her instincts (despite sometimes leading her to the undersea lairs of nefarious villains or other exotic and dangerous places). Brenda always knew what she wanted and worked hard to achieve it. She loved her family and friends and would do anything to help them. Those characteristics never go out of style. 

The post The Daily Heller: Brenda Starr, Comics Star appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“Don’t wish you could be a famous photographer. If you do, you will fail” – Martin Parr joins WePresent’s excellent pile of manifestos.

All Tomorrow’s Pencils – in which Spencer Tweedy reviews the stationery stores he visited on tour. My favourite bit is the comment from his dad (Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy):

“Remembering one of the only real complaints I ever heard from your teachers growing up, I’d say ‘drummers’ love writing utensils because pencils double as tappity tap tap tapping drum mallets and pens can clicky click click like maracas. In fact they’re probably the first ‘drum sticks’ a future drummer ever holds. Which comes first? The drummer or the innocent child with a maddening urge to tap out a paradiddle with a pencil on a trapper keeper?”

As a relentless desk-drummer and stationery fetishist myself, yep, this all adds up.

Thoroughly enjoying Michigan-based book designer Nathaniel Roy’s A Book Designer’s Notebook, a regular peek behind the curtain of the craft.

Recent Letterboxding, including scattered thoughts on Alien: Romulus and a slog through the Fantastic Beasts films, equal parts cheekbones, coats and gibberish.

Got a little bit lost in Kottke’s posts about maps. I particularly like Andrew DeGraff’s maps of cinematic paths, although the Fury Road one does remind me that the two recent Mad Max movies frustratingly reduced the endless expanse of the apocalypse to an area about the size of the Isle of Wight.

Weird little animations from photographer Jack Davison.

Nolen Royalty (great name) made a website that simply had one million checkboxes and unwittingly created a surprisingly complex canvas for hexadecimal-savvy teens. Love this sort of thing – the internet needs more purpose-less sandboxes like this cough cough cough bring back myspace.

If you’re going to be outed as a serial killer with a trophy wall of decapitated heads in your basement, it might as well be through the medium of LEGO.

The Belvédère du Rayon Vert, a 1920s hotel that teeters above the railway tracks in the southern French town of Cerbère. Stunning. Desperately needs to be covered in neon and rain and plonked into a cyberpunk movie of some sort

SPINNING NEWSPAPER INJURES PRINTER and other Simpsons headlines.

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash.

The post Meanwhile No. 211 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

At his full-service creative agency—Bob van Dijk Studio / Fool of Ideas—Bob van Dijk has collaborated with the likes of Leagas Delaney, R/GA, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Wieden+Kennedy, The Martin Agency, Ogilvy, Fallon, Translation New York, Collins and 180.

But on the side, he has pursued a string of notable personal projects: “Happy Collection,” a cheerful series of minimalist graphic portraits; “The Image Building Collection,” a system of free graphic forms for creating custom wall art; “Happy Landscapes,” a series of black patterns that, when zoomed in, reveal collections of buildings; and “Block Art,” depictions of celebrities and comic characters made up of … blocks, referencing 1920s De Stijl (and doing so without the aid of computer programs).

For “Block Art,” he created a piece for Instagram every day. But ultimately, the process of painting precise blocks on canvas proved creatively limiting. He found himself more focused on technique than artistic expression. “In response, I began applying paint to the canvas in a more expressive and fluid manner,” he says, which rekindled his creative enthusiasm and led him, somewhat unexpectedly, to a new style: expressive comic art.

While traditional comics emphasize bold, clean lines, “expressive comic art is characterized by … energetic surfaces that collectively form the image.” Van Dijk’s approach explores how far one can push this technique while still retaining a level of recognizability—and this has become the core of his recent work. Below, he tell us a bit more about his foundation and evolution.

When and why did you become interested in comics? 
My interest in comics began in childhood—like many kids, I was fascinated by drawing and the world of comics. In the 1970s in Holland, we had a weekly comic magazine called Sjors, which later became Eppo. Most of the comics were created by Dutch illustrators. My uncle also collected the annual red yearbooks of Donald Duck, which compiled the entire year’s issues into a single book. With a father who was a drawing teacher and a mother who also attended art school, drawing became a natural part of our daily life at home.

As a child, I created comics but never pursued it further—until now. Currently, I’m working on a series of children’s books titled Mr. Hat and Cat. The story revolves around a man and his cat, who embark on exciting adventures together. Mr. Hat wears a very colorful hat, and when he places it upside down on the floor, they can jump into it and dive into a world of great adventures. I’m writing the stories and creating the illustrations, and once completed, I’ll look for a publisher to bring these books to life. I’m confident that it has the potential to become an international hit!

What were the first comics that appealed to you?
The first comics that captured my imagination were Trigië, Storm (with its incredibly realistic artwork), Lucky Luke, Asterix and Obelix, and Guus Flater—all from European cartoonists. And, of course, I was also drawn to the classic world of Disney!

Tell us more about the beginnings of your expressive comic art.
The journey began with my own portrait. While working on a book titled Mind You, I was dissatisfied with the poor quality of photos provided of the authors. I wanted to simplify and unify their portraits, leading me to use block art. I created block-style portraits of all the authors, transforming them into a cohesive visual family. This process also included a block portrait of myself, which became my personal signature.

The post The Daily Heller: Bob van Dijk’s “Expressive Comic Art” appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In my first year working with the large-format camera I saw how it was too slow for street work. I thought if I had a subject against which I could pit street life, perhaps I could develop a strategy for working in the city. My goal was to have the Empire State Building ever-present, presiding over the scene like a Mount Fuji, while I would watch for the signs of daily life that would make a new kind of photographic sense when seen all together.

Joel Meyerowitz

Popped into Tate Modern for the first time in ages – particularly loved seeing Joel Meyerowitz’s Empire State. Tempted to try something similar in old York.

Coming soon from Unit Editions: 1,000 Marks, a collection of symbols and logotypes designed by the Pentagram since its founding in 1972. It’s BIG. Seriously, the girth of the thing. Crikey.

Winona Ryder visits Criterion’s closet, shares her profound connection to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life, recalls the deep impact Gena Rowlands had on her life and career, and selects favorites by Gordon Parks, Jim Jarmusch, Albert Brooks, and John Sayles. SEE ALSO: There is no love affair more enduring than Ryder and a black jacket and a Tom Waits t-shirt.

When a film doesn’t look like its concept art – another fantastic read from Animation Obsessive, looking at the influence and frustrations of Disney artist Mary Blair. 

A brief lesson explains the visual impact of an early cinematic favourite, the Sustained Two-Shot. 

Julia Schimautz on how to make a risograph animation. 

“Stålenhag’s most personal work yet, Swedish Machines explores masculinity, friendship, and sexuality in a queer science fiction tale about two young men stuck in the past – and in each other’s orbit.” – only a couple of days left to back Simon Stålenhag’s long-awaited new art book.

“Please roll the back window down and approach the White Zone at exactly 2.6 mph. Staff are standing by to launch your student into the window, Dukes of Hazzard style, with a trebuchet handmade by the LARP Club. If you cannot achieve this speed in the requisite time, simply CIRCLE THE BLOCK” — McSweeney’s new school year drop-off and pick-up rules.

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image by Daniel Farò, Death to Stock

The post Meanwhile No. 210 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

What triggered your interest in C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, aside from them being popular fantasy authors and “Mythmakers”?
This book comes primarily from the great debt that I owe to Lewis and Tolkien. I write in the book that their works shaped my early life so significantly that I doubt I will ever be able to escape their influence. The way they saw the world validated my imagination and carved deep grooves in my heart and mind. Their work and their faith wrestled with the notions of purpose, myth and, of course, dragons.

Can you explain the structure of your book? It is about a “fellowship,” but it is also about a quest.
The story, in title, is about C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, but I am really using a dual biography as an avatar for telling a deeper story about the origins of fairy tales, the meaning of myth in the history of the human story. Yes, this book is a quest! Historically, the two greatest themes inside of ancient myth were war and quest. In crafting this book, I wanted to build a structure where the book itself was a quest and not just a biography.

You state that, “they longed to make stories like the ones they loved. But their quarry was much more elusive.” What was their quarry? Was it simply “joy”?
The thing that drew Lewis and Tolkien together initially was their love of Norse mythology. But underneath the love of those stories was a longing for something they could not put their finger on. They would say most of us feel it when we read a great story. C.S. Lewis called this longing for longing by the German word “sehnsucht.” Lewis said this: “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.” And Tolkien described joy as a feeling that reaches “beyond the walls of our world.” Both of these authors came to believe that stories and fairy tales allow humanity to access truths that are unknowable in any other way.

Lewis was a very devout Christian. But his mission was to inform doubters in God. How did this emerge in his work?
As readers will learn in the book, both Tolkien and Lewis came from a deeply Christian worldview. In fact it was Tolkien that showed C.S. Lewis the first pathway to break through his atheism—to consider God not just a logical possibility, but ultimately the one true narrator of the human story. After World War I, Lewis was a staunch atheist who was quite cynical about the world, and yet it was in the reading of fairy tales where he felt the most joy! He could not square the circle of his own love of stories, (which in his mind were “lies but breathed through silver”) and that of the stark realities of a materialist world. When he met Tolkien, he found a mentor he admired who quickly became a close friend who had a sober and reasonable belief in God and the supernatural. 

To tell the story of Lewis and Tolkien, you must understand their shared faith. While they were different in the sense that Tolkien was a Catholic and Lewis was an Anglican, What they shared was a belief in being a part of a greater story. In the book I talk about this pivotal conversation that Lewis and Tolkien had on Addison’s Walk, on the grounds of Oxford in September of 1929. They talked for hours, late into the night, about the nature of story, myth and God. The title of my book, The Mythmakers, is a reference to this pivotal moment. Tolkien famously convinced Lewis that humanity writes myths, not because we long to be told comforting lies, but because our hearts were created by a Mythmaker. “We make in the manner in which we were made,“ Tolkien said. This single notion was the turning of the key in Lewis’ heart. It allowed him to write the rest of his works. Scholar Alan Jacob says that Lewis was convinced that the Christian story was true not by a set of facts but by “learning to read a story the right way.”

How did Lewis’ work differ from Tolkien’s?
Their works shared much, but also were very different. They were also very different creators in terms of process. Lewis’ works are more immediate, less interested in the fidelity of perfect world-building. He also wrote fast. Many times his works would be completed in a single draft. He also became fascinated with popular apologetics. It seemed that Lewis’s theological works were aimed at demystifying theology. His writings often took the great moral and spiritual questions and turned them into the kinds of things you could talk about over a pint at the Eagle and Child. 

Their relationship was fraught at times. Lewis did not tell Tolkien about his marriage, for instance. What was the tension between them?
Yes, their story is both a triumph and a tragedy. They did suffer a falling out over the years they knew each other. Some of it is, in my opinion, attributable to older British men who did not often talk about their feelings together. They did grow apart on some theological issues, related to Lewis marrying Joy Davidman. But mostly, Tolkien was hurt because Lewis didn’t tell him he had married! Lewis didn’t tell him because he feared it would disappoint Tolkien (who as a Catholic was not agreeable to divorce), as Joy was divorced from her first husband, who was physically abusive. They did still support one another, and Lewis’ sudden death rocked Tolkien to the core. I think they ended their lives with regret as to how their story concluded. 

We’ll let the reader discover the true grit of this remarkable story themselves. But did you have a favorite character? How did you feel after your time spent in their lives?
I feel great affection for both of them. I owe them so much, and it is hard to not feel like you know them when you have read so many of their letters, spent time in their homes, and visited their graves. I have a particular affinity for Lewis, as his works were so important to my own faith. In my own books, I have a clear focus on taking complex stories and translating them to younger audiences. I feel like Lewis did much the same with his works like The Problem of Pain and Mere Christianity.

To make this book, I believe you did more investigating and research than in your other projects. Am I right?
Yes, there is always so much reading, but this had twice as much with two subjects. The goal is to take it all in and find a form that is understandable. All these books require curation. Leaving things out is harder than putting them in! Mythmakers was written and designed for young minds—middle-grade and young-adult audiences. As I said, with all my work, I desire legibility. My own brain loves when complicated things are made clear. I use words and images to translate stories to a curious audience. The research is critical, but then you have to know how to format it so that it isn’t too much, and also doesn’t leave a reader feeling like you’ve whitewashed challenging issues. 

How did you feel during the making of the work? And how long did it take to feel comfortable enough to do such a massive project?
This is such a tough question to ask. During any kind of project that takes five years, you go through many cycles of emotions. There were times that it felt too long, or too obscure. There are also times when I was just so excited to be making these images. I couldn’t wait to share it with others, and now the book is finally (almost!) in the hands of actual readers. 

The structure of the book is, well, something more than a “graphic novel”—it’s a visual language in its own right. What factors went into deciding how you would create Mythmakers?
At one point I suggested to Abrams that we should not call my books graphic novels but “Novel-Graphics” in that they almost subvert the normal relationship between comics and text. I often describe my format as both 100% words and 100% pictures at the same time. There are passages of prose, comics, maps, illustrations, and lots of drawn lettering. In many ways, I’m making a book for the 12-year-old version of myself. This is how I tend to learn and retain information, when there is a blended language of word and image on the same page. 

I’ve got to ask. Why do you have the lion and sorcerer as the guides of this story?
These two came about both as a practical matter and also a simple problem of entertainment. When you’re telling a richly visual story in graphic novel form about two professors at Oxford, the fact is that most of what they did together was mostly sitting around and talking. Which makes for an extremely boring comic book. So these two avatar figures allowed me to inject a bit more physical adventure into the book. Thanks to Lion and Wizard, the reader gets to take some of the things that Lewis and Tolkien were talking about and put them into practice. 

How does humor play a role in this book?
It was great fun writing the dialogue for both Lewis and Tolkien and Lion and Wizard. I grew up with a deep obsession with Monty Python, Red Dwarf and Faulty Towers. But I realized I did not want to be writing fan fiction that sounded like a bad Blackadder parody, so I made sure to find a friend in England (the amazing illustrator Sophie Killingley) who could review my dialogue to make sure that it sounded possible coming out of a 1940s Oxford professor. But, yes, outside of “The Holy Ghost” comics, this is probably the funniest book I’ve tried to write.

Are you pleased with the outcome?
Most people may know the basic shape of Lewis and Tolkien’s story. Yes, they were colleagues at Oxford, but most don’t realize how essential their fellowship became. Each man gave the other the precise gift needed to complete their own story. Tolkien gave Lewis the freedom to love his imagination. Lewis gave Tolkien sheer encouragement, without which he never would have completed the 17-year journey of writing Lord of the Rings. In the end, I hope readers learn something about fellowship, and that our work always gets better in community. I’m pleased to see it made in such a beautiful format by Abrams Fanfare, and I do hope readers enjoy it—I poured my heart into it. 

The post The Daily Heller: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Together Again appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Eva and Marta Yarza, aka the Yarza Twins—PRINT New Visual Artists in 2016—said in that issue that good design is “knowing the rules and breaking them.” As they launched their successful design careers, everything else stayed intact—most importantly, the twin’s dynamic and supportive relationship as sisters, collaborators, and business partners.

The twins grew up drawing in their hometown of Vigo, Spain, before moving to London to study. Eva finished her degree in art and then immediately started her master’s. Marta finished her degree a year later in construction engineering and then joined Eva at Central Saint Martins in London, where they both graduated with master’s degrees in communication design.

Then, a few doors opened—most notably, an internship for Eva at Sagmeister & Walsh in New York in 2014. While Eva was working at Magpie Studio and Marta was freelancing in London, they were motivated to submit their work to PRINT New Visual Artists for the 2016 class.

And more doors opened.

We were motivated by the impulse that being on the list would give to our career.

Marta Yarza, 2024

Clockwise, concept cover for PRINT; designs for AIGA’s “Quoted” project | from PRINT Magazine, Summer 2016

People started taking us more seriously and we felt that for once someone gave us a chance.

Marta Yarza, 2024

Today, as Yarza Twins, the award-winning design studio based in London and Paris, their projects range from large-scale commissions that reach broad audiences to initiatives with social and cultural impact. They’ve launched brands, campaigns, editorial designs, websites, illustrations, retail products, and experiences. Their clients range from global food, tech, music, and retail companies to independent artists, startups, and institutions.

Yes, break the rules. Break down some walls. But also be sure to notice the doors in your path, just waiting for a knock.

Like this one: the PRINT New Visual Artists 2024 competition is accepting entries through August 20.

The post Opening Doors, in 2024 as in 2016 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Welcome to the DesignThinkers Podcast! Join host and RGD President Nicola Hamilton as she digs into the archives of the DesignThinkers conference, reconnecting with past speakers about their talks and ideas that have shaped Canada’s largest graphic design conference. Follow the RGD on Instagram @rgdcanada or visit them at rgd.ca. Purchase tickets to the upcoming DesignThinkers conference at designthinkers.com.

The post DesignThinkers Podcast: Annie Atkins appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I’m currently rereading The Hobbit with my son, and this particular line from chapter three immediately brought to mind one of my favourite Rob Turpin photos of Iceland.

The best thing about Minsuk Cho’s new Serpentine Pavilion design is the name. Archipelagic Void. Of course, it also serves the basic purpose of the annual architectural installation: being a nice place in the middle of the park to top up your sunscreen and eat a Pret.

Yes, you do need this Stop Making Sense coaster set.

Everything All At Once: Postmodernity 1967–1992, Studio Yukiko’s dense and intense catalogue for the latest exhibition at the Bundeskunsthalle Museum. So big, they could only promote it by having a bodybuilder rip it apart. Apparently.

Similarly hefty and year-rangey: Thames & Hudson’s Comics (1964-2024), published to accompany the new exhibition at the Pompidou Centre, Paris, a survey of the international comic book landscape over the past sixty years.

Also – apologies for the bookshelf-burdening this week – this 334-page tome exploring Olivetti’s design heritage. So pretty. And while you’re cruising around the Present & Correct website, don’t miss these delightful 1950s Japanese matchbox labels or these 1960s postage labels that desperately need to be t-shirts.

Saltburn: Music From The Motion Picture (Bath Water Edition). I’m so sorry.

Jacques Monneraud makes ceramic pitchers and pots that look like they’re made out of cardboard. Because somebody has to and let’s face it nobody’s holding their breath waiting for you to do it.

John Grindrod returns to Ladybird modernism, revisiting an optimistic vision of the future from the past. Euston Station looks almost slightly bearable.

Seriously though, Archipelagic Void.

This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.

Header image by Saad Chaudhry.

The post Meanwhile No. 203 appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Liza Donnelly has been a contributing gag cartoonist for The New Yorker for 40 years. She has authored two books of history on women in the cartoon world. Now, a documentary film on the horizon is seeking additional funding on Kickstarter. Women Laughing is about the women cartoonists of The New Yorker, past and present, “and the power of their work to help us see differently.” With less than two weeks left to contribute, I asked Donnelly to talk about her inspiration and practice of cartooning, the role that The New Yorker cartoon has played in entertaining us readers, and why we always look at all the cartoons first.

Liza, you are the author of Funny Ladies, a history of the women cartoonists at The New Yorker from 1925–2005, and a sequel, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists. Is this film documentary an extension of the book, or a totally different experience?
My publisher agreed to publish a sequel in 2022 called Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker’s Women Cartoonists, with two new chapters, and a foreword by David Remnick (editor-in-chief) and Emma Allen (cartoon editor). The documentary is indeed an extension of the book, and will have some about the past, but it will be a totally different experience. In the documentary, I want to go deep in conversation with contemporary women cartoonists and talk about the creative process and what motivates them. I also want to know from them if they believe their work can have an impact on change. Also, I plan to draw with my colleagues!

I’m fascinated by the history and the present of The New Yorker cartoons. What was going on in The New Yorker that inspired you to become a cartoonist? Was it that it was such a rare venue for women humorists?
My parents got The New Yorker and my mother loved James Thurber, so at a very young age I copied his drawings. It made her happy and I was hooked. I grew up in Washington, DC, during a tumultuous time in our country, and it made me want to do something with my drawing ability—I was attracted to Ben Shahn, Gary Trudeau, Brad Holland, Ed Sorel and other political artists. My artistic influences straddled humor and activism, and when I was in college I realized that The New Yorker had political cartoons—in a New Yorker sort of way. I found that interesting—it was a quieter way to express political and cultural ideas, which suited my personality better. So I began submitting to The New Yorker during college; it wasn’t until two years after I graduated that I sold one. I was well-aware I was in the minority as a woman in cartooning, particularly being only one of four women drawing cartoons for The New Yorker in 1979. I was a feminist (and still am, of course) but didn’t think about gender too much; I felt that just being a cartoonist was a feminist “statement.” I just wanted to be a cartoonist. It was later on that I started to investigate why more women didn’t draw cartoons, and that led to writing Funny Ladies.

Mary Petty and Helen Hokinson were kind of household names (at least in my home). What was it about their humor that caught on to readers?
Those two wonderful artists had very unique drawing styles. Mary Petty was self-taught and Helen Hokinson classically trained; but they both had a keen eye for humor. As far as we know, Mary wrote her own ideas, whereas Helen worked with a writer, James Reid Parker. What they had in common I think is that their characters were so relatable. I also think that since they both did covers for The New Yorker (not all cartoonists did), they got more famous because of that.

Who were some of the other women with ink-stained hands?
Barbara Shermund is perhaps my favorite cartoon artist from the early New Yorker. She was very funny in a snarky kind of way—she almost seemed like a flapper to me—and her drawing style was breezy and loose. She was classically trained (so many were back then), but she used her abilities to splash beautiful figures and tell stories on a page. Her ideas/captions also had a unique feminist tone.

You have a great roster of current talent. And it is sobering to see the old photos of the old boys’ club of cartoonists, as you show in the video, compared with the gender diversity today. Was there a prejudice against women, per se, or were women just not doing much humor until 40 years ago when you began?
I don’t believe there was a prejudice towards women at The New Yorker in the early years. But like so many other places, prejudice creeped in in the 1940s and ’50s, extended to the 1970s. With the cultural changes after the second wave of Feminism, things got a little better, but humor had become so misogynistic! It took time to turn that around. With those changes, and a new cartoon editor in 1973—a cartoonist named Lee Lorenz, who was open to new ways to express humor—slowly the numbers of women drawing cartoons increased bit by bit. He and senior editor William Shawn brought me and Roz Chast on board in the late 1970s, and a few others in the 1980s.

I remember when M.G. Lord broke the gender ceiling in editorial cartoons. Do you feel that you and Roz Chast did similar ceiling-breaking for gag cartoons?
Well, the ceiling had been broken—or cracked, perhaps—for us in 1925 by Ethel Plummer, the first woman who drew a cartoon for The New Yorker in the first issue. And I would say that perhaps the editorial cartooning ceiling was similarly cracked by the women who drew cartoons for Suffrage in the early 1900s. Both fields, editorial and single panel, got worse for women midcentury, so we had to do more breaking in the 1970s and ’80s.

Were women in past or present New Yorker also getting gags from gag writers?
Some cartoonists did use writers in the past, not all. Now some do also. When I started out in the 1970s, using a writer was sort of frowned upon. The idea was that you were supposed to have a voice, not illustrate a joke.

Is there a fundamental difference in cartoon wit between any gender identity?
Nope. Not at all.

The New Yorker has, for most its history, had male cartoon editors (and male chief editors selecting the offerings). How has that gender imbalance impacted cartoons and cartoonists?
Now we have a woman cartoon editor, Emma Allen. I think her appointment may have encouraged more women to submit cartoons to The New Yorker, and that helped change the gender imbalance. I have interviewed Emma and she says she doesn’t really pay attention to what gender a cartoonist is when selecting what she thinks is funny. You also don’t always know what a person’s gender is anyway, so she and David [Remnick] select what they think is funny.

For me personally, I believe it’s important to check unconscious bias at the door when deciding if something is funny or not. The humor may be unfamiliar to you, it may be about a lived experience you haven’t had—but that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. That’s what I am trying to get at: Humor is based on personal experience, and when creating, we try to find our commonality and laugh together. Does that make sense?

Totally! What do you want the viewers to take away from this film?
I want to show the creative process in a deeper way than has been done in other documentaries. I want to shine a spotlight on this strange and wonderful artform, show how it tells us about ourselves as humans, while it tells us about the lives of the women who drew/draw the cartoons. Cartoons are a great way to talk about needed change in our society, and women are doing just that in their drawings. I want to explore that and share what I find with viewers. I will be drawing with the cartoonists as we talk, so the documentary will really try to show how it all works.

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The threat of violence against Jews and other persecuted chosen people led to The American Jewish Committee launching an anti-hate campaign … in secret! Strategically, it was important that the campaign not be about Jews alone, but all forms of bigotry. Hispanic, Irish and Asian American hate was lambasted in pamphlets, booklets and editorial cartoons. (Arab Americans had yet to be recognized.) In order to condemn bigotry, the American Jewish Committee enlisted many popular graphic commentators of the day from multiple ethnic and religious backgrounds to work on the project.

The American Jewish Committee’s role in the campaign has been dubbed a “secret war,” and has now been collected in a slim yet powerful volume titled Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry (Yoe Books/Dark Horse) by Rafael Medoff, a founding director of The Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, and artist and comics historian Craig Yoe.

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Have you ever wondered about the clothing you see in your favorite anime? In “100 Days of Fashion in Anime,” Bora, an avid manga reader and student in SVA’s Masters in Branding Program, explores the diverse garments worn by anime characters. Bora, who aspires to become a creative brand strategist and moonlights as a freelance writer, dives into the different styles seen in both contemporary and niche anime.

Every story transports its viewers to a different time and place, where the clothing meaningfully enhances the narrative. Bora not only finds dupes for readers interested in dressing like their favorite anime characters but also aims to learn more about Japanese culture through the clothes featured in anime and manga. Explore more of her project and read her musings on Medium.

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When Harvey Kurtzman, the godfather of alternative comics, walked into a nondescript classroom in SVA’s main building back in the early fall of 1970, the din of student chattering instantly stopped. We all sat anxiously waiting for him to start critiquing, one-by-one, the previous week’s assignment. For a little under a year I was among this pack of mostly 18–20-year-old boys, a sophomore in the illustration and cartooning program, and arguably one of the least illustrious students in the bunch.

Having left NYU, SVA was briefly my sanctuary from being swooped up into the Vietnam War draft—an expedient way to retain a 2-S student status, as I wrote in my 2022 memoir, Growing Up Underground. I did not go into detail, however, about Kurtzman’s influence on me at that time because I did not experience it until a year or so after being asked to leave SVA. Instead, my major takeaway then was the realization that I had no talent for ever becoming an exceptional—or competent—comic strip artist. Although I was a MAD magazine addict as a kid, that was after Kurtzman had left MAD over a pay dispute, so I only knew his work from the issues of Playboy that contained Kurtzman and Will Elder’s “Little Annie Fanny.”

Rather than enjoy the fact that I was taking a class with a grand master of comic art, Kurtzman’s course was just one of many I could not afford to fail or I’d be dropped from SVA and reclassified as 1-A (fit for active service). Which is exactly what happened. In a nutshell, my comic strips sucked; I failed the course (and others too), was booted from school, and was subjected to a year of worry that my low draft lottery number (50) would be called. It wasn’t.

The benefit of this class, however, was inestimable. Indirectly, Kurtzman helped change my life, and so did his creation, Alfred E. Neuman. Despite my gross artistic inadequacy, somehow Kurtzman and I became professional friends when, four years later, I was hired as the art director of The New York Times Op-Ed page, where my mandate was to bring in surprising visual contributions. The editor gave me license to occasionally commission a written (and illustrated) article from someone of note on any notion that piqued my curiosity (subject to his approval, of course).

I had always wanted to know the real origins of Alfred E. Neuman, MAD’s resident trickster and mascot. So, I proposed that Kurtzman write a guest OpEd on just that. He jumped at the chance and invited me for a tete á tete at a bar around the corner from SVA. It was during this time that Kurtzman’s work had fallen into a slump, and he was taking on almost anything that paid, including advertising (the kind of work he and his fellow MAD artists once savagely parodied). For the first half hour of our meeting, he apologized that he had to do some emergency revisions—then and there—for the agency art director who had joined us at the booth in the bar. He brought Kurtzman’s sketch (I cannot recall the client) covered with a messy marked-up tissue overlay, ostensibly redoing the entire idea. No compromise; deadline yesterday! Kurtzman was noticeably perturbed but nodded agreeably.

When the self-satisfied art director left, a resigned Kurtzman sighed and apologized again. Then we continued to discuss his proposed OpEd contribution, which surprisingly he delivered the next day, as though it was an antidote to the toxicity of the previous night’s MadAve experience.

In honor of the current MAD magazine exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum (covered here last week), and since at this moment I am scraping together random notes of memories for volume two of my memoir (working title: The Times Marches On), I give you a link for Kurtzman’s origin tale—and, as he wrote: “So that’s the story, once and for all. Don’t ask me anymore.”

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My family are all Nancy fanatics, and have been for decades. Nancy and Sluggo kept us from sinking to the depths of despair in our darkest hours, when housebound on short dreary winter days, during bouts of cold, flu and sciatica, and a cure for many other disappointments. Nancy‘s exploits drew us into Bushmiller’s world; through Nancy he sedated us with pure, unadulterated serenity. Nancy imparts peace, joy and, unlike a puppy, demanded nothing in return. She gave without taking. Nancy was clear, clean and unfettered by plot, moral or philosophy. Try to do that, Little Lulu, you sellout to Kleenex and poor excuse for a comics character!

Now, if you’re asking, “Ernie, how’d you do it?” And you haven’t yet read Bill Griffith’s enlightening Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller: The Man Who Created Nancy, Mark Newgarten’s How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels or any of the edited collections large and small—and you happen to be vacationing in Columbus, OH—you can see for yourself how Ernie did it. Just hop on over to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum for The Nancy Show: Bushmiller and Beyond through Nov. 3. Or, alternatively, if Columbus is not on your summer itinerary …

… Now’s the time to preorder The Nancy Show exhibition catalog by curators Peter Maresca and Brian Walker from Sunday Press and distributed by Fantagraphics, featuring a collection of the best Nancy Sunday pages from over the decades, meticulously restored and printed in near full-size.

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Lerer inhabits the worlds of cartooning, illustration and fine art. He has exhibited his drawings at New York Cityʼs Nexus Gallery, Broome Street Gallery, Lincoln Centerʼs Cork Gallery, and New Century Artists. His illustrations ran in the “Careers Plus” column of the New York Post from 1996 to 1998, and he was the art director of Street News from 1995 to 1996. He has written extensively on comics for The Rumpus, and was assistant editor and designer of Marvel Age Magazine in the early ’80s. On Facebook, Lerer documents the adventures of The Little General, who has starred in a graphic novel and series of mini-comics since 2009.

The arc of this work builds on the premise, What happens when three 18-month-old babies plot against each other with the goal of gaining world power and fame? Although it sounds a bit like a certain presidential candidate, any similarity is purely coincidental (and for that matter, no living babies were harmed in the making of these comics). Here Lerer speaks candidly about his Little General and asks you to draw your own conclusions.

When and why did you launch The Little General and his cohorts on social media?
Facebook is the ideal venue for posting cartoons. I started off in 2009 with simple one-panel line drawings, and they evolved into more sophisticated color multi-part continuities with (drumroll, please) allegorical content that I compile into zines. The fellow who instigated the whole “baby general” idea, a writer named Andrew Coe, was very pleased with my efforts, and the rest is history.

What ideally do you want The Little General to be saying to the reader?
Bottom line? The mission is satire. Jonathan Swift wrote that, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.” I think of satire as a mirror. Stan Lee once said that because the news of the world we receive is so heavily sugar-coated, if you present things exactly as they really are, it will come across as satire.

I used to draw storyboards with soldiers galore. As a kid did you draw military figures and stories to excess?
I always drew to excess! But never soldiers or anything military. What I really enjoyed drawing were the vintage Marvel Super-Heroes and Peanuts characters. In fact, my father framed my Charlie Brown and Schroeder drawings and hung them in his office.

There’s a hint of Dada humor in your comic books as well as surreal absurdity. Are they or are they not intended to be political?
You honor me by spotting an element of surrealism in my cartoons and, as I become a more confident draftsman, I’ll be able to dispense with the conventions that I’m now laboring earnestly to master. Political? Well, In the second graphic novel, currently in progress, a character with absolutely no knowledge of how to run even his own affairs claims he knows everything better than everybody else, and subsequently makes a huge mess. Absurdity, in cartoons as in real life, rules. 

How much of The Little General (or his guerrilla pal, Chiquita Bañana, for that matter) is some kind of autobiographical fantasy?
It’s not really my dream to be a Central American guerrilla leader, but I can’t help finding Chiquita Bañana (with the tilde over the n) irresistibly cute. That’s usually how she gets things done, in fact.

Are the three 18-month-old babies who star in the Little General really able to save the world? And if so, how?
In the Facebook continuities, our diminutive hero always responds to any crisis with great earnestness (if that’s a real word), like an American Tintin. In the graphic novel, though, he’s the heavy, more motivated by egocentrism and greed, like, say, Blackadder. In a future graphic novel, I’ll have him explain to the readers in a framing sequence that he’s just a character playing a part, and that offstage he really does respect Admiral Kips-Bay and loves Chiquita.

But “save the world?” Nah. They’re more about frantically clinging to power than helping others, like a lot of babies. 

How regularly do you create different scenarios for your characters?
The first graphic novel was about a real place called La Magliana, a 16th-century papal retreat in the Italian countryside that the babies fight over (I won’t give away the ending). The second graphic novel, which we hope to have ready for MoCCA Fest in 2025 (fingers crossed) is inspired by John Ringling, the circus impresario who longed to be a member of the American aristocracy. 

The recent Facebook cartoons deal with the war in the Middle East and my frustration that the world’s nations were so slow to respond to the invasion of Ukraine. Now I’m doing “Scenes From the Life of the Little General,” which places the little fellow in various historical situations.

Do you have a strong fan base? How do your readers respond?
They’ve been wonderful! We’re developing an enthusiastic readership among people who enjoy sophisticated wit and humor. Our Facebook posts keep getting more and more likes and comments, and we’re winning a lot of support from friends in the cartooning profession like Barbara Slate, Elwood Smith and Craig Yoe. Art Spiegelman himself was very encouraging. What’s most flattering is that I’m hearing from old high school and college chums I haven’t seen in years who love the drawing style.

There seems to be many villains, but I can’t tell who they are. Can you give me a hint?
Again, in cartoons, as in life, most of these characters are their own worst enemies. 

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Founded in November 2006 by a team of insurance experts, Go.Compare has long been recognized for its meticulous approach to comparing various products and services, including insurance policies, financial products, energy tariffs, and more. Unlike traditional comparison sites, Go.Compare distinguished itself by prioritizing the display of policy details alongside prices, setting a new standard in the industry.

Over the years, Go.Compare’s mission has evolved while remaining steadfast in its commitment to providing reliable and comprehensive comparisons. The company has cultivated a vast network of trusted partners, ensuring users can access a wide range of reputable options. Authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (equivalent to the SEC in the US), Go.Compare offers users peace of mind in their decision-making process.

The rebrand signifies a strategic step forward for Go.Compare, solidifying its reputation as a dependable ally for consumers while injecting a burst of new life and character into the brand.

Go.Compare’s standout feature is its accessibility. The service is free for users, a testament to the company’s dedication to empowering consumers with transparent information.

Unlike others, Go.Compare doesn’t just list options; it serves up choices that are genuinely beneficial for users, placing their interests at the forefront,” says Max Ottignon, co-founder of Ragged Edge. “So we amplified that difference, positioning Go.Compare as the Champions of Choice.”

With an impressive 97% awareness rate, the recent rebranding initiative aims to capitalize on the website’s recognition and attract even more users. At the core of Ragged Edge’s rebrand is a genuine point of differentiation: Go.Compare is the sole comparison site accredited by BIBA (British Insurance Brokers’ Association), emphasizing trustworthiness in every recommendation.

“Ragged Edge worked closely with every part of our business to ensure they understood exactly what our aspirations were and how we wanted to evolve in the future,” says Paul Rogers, Marketing Director at Go.Compare. “Insurance can be heavy going – a grudge purchase. Ragged Edge has made it fun and rewarding. The rebrand has helped us to evolve visually and strategically and given us an even stronger sense of purpose, authority, and momentum as we continue to provide transparency and support for customers across a broad range of complex products.”

Central to the rebrand is the iconic figure of Gio Compario, Go.Compare’s beloved mascot. Gio, portrayed with exaggerated features in charming cartoon form, serves as the brand’s “choice champion,” advocating for users across every aspect of the Go.Compare experience.

In collaboration with artist Rami Niemi, the rebrand introduces an illustrative style that breathes life into the brand’s insurance products, departing from conventional stock imagery to offer a fresh, engaging visual narrative.

Complementing the visual overhaul is a new verbal identity – “the voice of choice” – characterized by relatable wit that resonates with customers. A custom-designed typeface adds warmth and character, reinforcing the brand’s distinctive personality.

The rebrand, designed to be instantly recognizable and scalable, ensures maximum visibility and engagement across various platforms. Ragged Edge’s collaboration with Go.Compare extends to the brand’s high-profile sponsorship of the Wales rugby union team, further solidifying its presence in the public eye.

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In addition to Landekic’s praise, the director of Saltburn, Emerald Fennell, shared an inside scoop about the title card via Twitter/X in conjunction with the film’s release.

Hand drawn? Gilded? Stop motion? This title card pushed all my buttons— and I had to learn more! So, I reached out to the graphic designer and illustrator behind the title card, Katie Buckley, to hear more about the meticulous process that Fennell alluded to in her post. Buckley generously responded to my questions below, illuminating the journey she and her assistant, India Paparestis-Stacey, took to bring the Saltburn title card to life.

(Interview edited for length and clarity.)

Can you describe what process(es) you used to create the beautiful effect of the opening title card? I know illustration, gilding, and stop motion were all involved.

The process for the animation was hand drawn, hand painted, then gilded. I did, however, send Emerald some pencil stop animation of each thorn growth to check she was happy with the feel of it. 

There were over 300 cells for the piece of animation. We needed to check that the gold leaf read as gold because gold is notoriously not great unless it’s real. A lot of time goes into digitally creating the gold sparkle; without that, gold can look very “grey.”

Is this process something you’ve done before, or did you develop it, especially for this project?

Saltburn was my first title card and animation project. I was lucky that Emerald believed in my style enough to let me into the world of the title. So, yes, this was specially developed for this project; I relied on my instinct rather than knowledge.

Emerald asked me to do the Saltburn titles because, I quote, ‘I’d like it to feel like the crazy lady in the attic, scratching at the rafters.’ How could I resist that brief?

Katie Buckley

How did the concept for this title card develop? Did you work closely with Emerald to land on the idea, or was it something you conceived and pitched to her?

Emerald asked me to do the Saltburn titles because, I quote, “I’d like it to feel like the crazy lady in the attic, scratching at the rafters.” How could I resist that brief?

To start with, Emerald had said she didn’t want any animation— just 25 title cards, hand drawn and painted. She had mentioned that she liked the Hammer House of Horror (1980) “feel” to the lettering. 

Emerald had said she would like “Saltburn” to be in a banner; here are the first sketches that we talked about regarding what she wanted:

After seeing the banners, Emerald thought she would like the Saltburn titles animated and asked if I was prepared to do it. I said yes, but I was honest. I hadn’t done animation before, so I would always keep her up to date in case she wanted to go to someone with more experience. I was so lucky that Emerald had complete faith in me because there were moments when I had to take a few huge gulps! (So did she, I’m sure!) There were doubting voices, but I kept saying that none of us knew exactly what Emerald wanted, so let’s buckle up for the ride.

At first, I played with creating a font that Emerald liked. We went through a few different samples of fonts below. The third one is the font that Emerald decided on as soon as she saw it.

[Spoiler alert below]

The whole concept developed quite organically. Emerald had said she wanted the lush green foliage to turn into thorns and be black and threatening. It felt right that the blood red seeped into the black and that the gold was the final creeping vein as the want of riches killed off the whole cast. One of the mood boards had the saying, “Everyone wants to eat the rich because they are so delicious.”

While creating something so time-consuming and meticulous, do you find yourself getting impatient and going a bit mad, or do you relish the lengthy process and enjoy it? and enjoy it?

I felt the pressure of being hunched over tracing, drawing, painting, and gilding for sometimes 15-hour days with very little time. I never felt impatient, but I definitely thought I was going mad. I sent Emerald a photo of my studio one day just to show her that I was the crazy lady in the attic; it was completely covered in gold leaf (it does go everywhere; I still find bits of gold leaf in my garden today), paint, and screwed-up bits of trace and paper.

I can honestly say I have never been so invested in a project.

Katie Buckley

How did it feel once you finally finished the title card? What was it like seeing it in use in the movie?

I can honestly say I have never been so invested in a project. I am so proud of the work my assistant, India, and I did on this. It was thrilling to see the final film and to be part of the coolest film … ever! And to top it all, it’s probably the only film I’ve ever worked on that both my 17-year-old daughter and 82-year-old mother completely loved.

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Under the nom de plume TraceLoops, Brown is on a glorious journey of visual experimentation through his animation practice, in which he deploys various tools and techniques that he’s constantly pushing in new and innovative directions. Perusing his body of work is a thrilling experience, as you can chart his evolution as an artist over time, seeing what styles or tools he’s using for a period before morphing in a different direction for a spell. Brown also composes the music accompanying his animations, creating immersive sensory worlds in a bite-sized form.

Captivated by both Brown’s stunning work and the audacious mind behind his creations, I felt compelled to learn more. His thoughtful reflections on his background and ethos as an artist are below.

(The interview has been edited for clarity and length.)

Why stop motion? How did you first come to this process, and what do you enjoy so much about it?

In, I think, fifth grade, I took a week-long summer class that was generally about using some computer programs—Photoshop, Premier, Macromedia Flash—and I enjoyed making things move. I also made flip books during year-end standardized testing in middle school when we were only allowed a book for when we were done. 

When making animations in Flash, tweening always looked bad, so I would do mostly frame-by-frame animation. I’m not sure what I do now is exactly “stop motion.” I do some work that takes an object, moves it, photographs it, and then moves and photographs it again, but the shift is meant to advance to a preexisting frame. I think of stop motion as progressively repositioning or augmenting an element and not replacing it all at once.

I like things that re-contextualize an understanding of information. Animation constantly jumps from one state to another, and what you perceive is never what you see. It’s flashes of information that compile into a sense of motion. It’s a very time-consuming process that gets crunched down into fractions of seconds that gain new meaning when reformatted. I struggle sometimes to be clear in words. I can talk and talk about an idea that feels very direct and concise, but when the idea is realized, it communicates better than I can. A complex, perhaps bloated, collection of ideas and processes crunched down into fractions of seconds that are understood.

I never want to feel like I can’t share how something is done for fear that it will be the end of my ability to create work…I have learned from people who share and I appreciate that I might be able to do the same for others.

Matthias Brown

Looking at the evolution of your experimentation is such a fun way to experience your process. Is laying out your work sequentially like this on social media intentional, or did you stumble into it? How did this sharing process come about?

I really like process. There’s a quote I think about often that gets attributed to different people: “A joke is like a frog: there are few who want to dissect it, and the frog dies in the process.”

I’m a comedy nerd. In middle and high school, I used to download audio recordings of Comedy Central Presents episodes and burned CDs that I would fall asleep while listening to. I wanted to know why things were and weren’t funny with slight changes. I get the sentiment of the quote, but I wouldn’t say I like to leave things unknown. For me, the joke doesn’t die when dissected; it takes on new meaning while broadening the scope of possibilities.

IIn that same summer course, when learning about the basics of Photoshop, the teacher showed us work from Jerry Uelsmann, who would make surreal photographs in darkrooms, combining imagery from several negatives into one final image. Uelsmann published books on his processes, which felt like a sharing of knowledge, a means of documenting work, and letting go of being too precious about techniques. I never want to feel like I can’t share how I’ve done something for fear that it will end my ability to create work. Some people hold on to techniques and are very successful, but I don’t like that idea. I have learned from people who share and appreciate that I can do the same for others.

What’s your process for composing the music that accompanies each video you’re creating? Do you create the visuals, and then the music is produced in response, or vice versa? Or are they made simultaneously, each informing the other?

I started making music when I started doing more live streams. During early COVID, streaming platforms began cracking down on the use of licensed music; it used to be a lot more lax. I started making simple note patterns with a drum machine— initially, songs were 10 minutes long because I was trying to fill hours from scratch. I got more intentional and better about it as time went on. I bought better equipment and have made hundreds of songs over the last few years.

I use Korg Gadget on my Nintendo Switch now. I record to an old cassette deck I bought on eBay, then digitize the playback of the cassette. I bought a bunch of used blank tapes and recorded most of the runtime but left little clips between my songs. Since first buying used blank tapes, I started seeking out tapes with interesting spoken word content: self-help, comedy radio hours, travel guides, and hypnosis. When I’m in the habit, I’ll make a song every day.

The music comes first, but the animations aren’t made for the music most of the time. I will listen to songs and see which fits well for an animation and then edit videos accordingly. I have done things where I make a tape with a constant BPM, and that will dictate the animation loop length. I’ve done 120 BPM, which works out to four beats every two seconds. Fifteen frame-per-second animation means 30 frames, and the animation will sync up with the audio no matter what.

Where do the ideas for your areas of exploration typically come from? For example, when thinking about tools to harness for animation, I wouldn’t think that using an airbrush would come to mind for most. How did you come to the airbrush as one of your go-to tools?

If I see something interesting, I like to try it. I like tools and less popularly known means of manufacturing and production. I don’t mean secretive things, but when a part of a machine has a name, I like to know the name of the part, if that makes sense. There are so many subcultures and groups of people that are hyper-focused on their subsections of the world and have meaningful ideas and opinions about things I’ve never heard of. Sometimes, those groups are insular and don’t really cross-pollinate with other groups. I think associatively and do my best not to think of a tool as only having its designated purpose. Tools are refined for a purpose, but they aren’t just for that, and so I like to explore those groups in forums and stuff, so I try new approaches.

The airbrush came from trying to make something more automated but still very physical. I got a Cricut machine to cut stuff out of paper after doing simple animations by hand-cutting stuff. I started messing with doing pencil rubbings, painting sticker paper, and then cutting it out. I then started messing with splattering paint using cheap toothbrushes. Certain things are easy to do one to five times and inspire the confidence to jump to doing something 30 times; splattering paint using a cheap toothbrush is one of those.

I made stencils using the Cricut, and it is weirdly tiring to hold a toothbrush and pull your thumb across the bristles repeatedly. My thumb got tired in a way that I didn’t know it could, and I didn’t feel like it was a good idea to do that long-term, so I looked into other methods of getting paint onto a surface through a stencil and bought a small compressor and an airbrush.

There are things about any tool or process that give it a sense of identity. People often try to obscure those identifiers because the idea isn’t informed by the tool, but I like process, so I want the tool to work with the idea. With airbrush and stencils, you’d typically want the stencil flush with the surface and the paint to be evenly applied. I might as well work digitally for that effect, so I lift the stencil off the surface instead, and let things get out of focus in ways inherent to the process.

I work in a variety of mediums, and I forget that not everybody is aware of the techniques and processes I’ve explored. I have a habit of getting into a process for one to four months, producing a lot of work, and then abandoning it for six-12 months until that skill is reintroduced as practical, either for a paid job or a new, different process. I’m only saying that because I don’t feel like the airbrush is my go-to tool, but it is part of a collection of tools. I’ve been working most recently with stacked, cut paper animations, informed by the work I did with the airbrush stencils, which were informed by pencil rubbings that were informed by 3D animation rotoscoping, which came from an attempt to do traditional cel animation, and so on.

I’ll undoubtedly start using the airbrush again in a few months. I took a break because I messed up the fans in my laptop with the aerosolized paint.

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Lola Landekic is the editor-in-chief of the wonderful website and critical resource Art of the Title, an online publication dedicated to title sequence design in film, TV, and beyond. I had the joy of interviewing Landekic last year about Art of the Title and title design at large. Now, the always generous Landekic shares her favorite opening titles across TV and film from 2023.

Dead Ringers (TV series)

“[Dead Ringers] features a main title reveal—rather than a full sequence—that appears at the opening of each episode, but it’s done with flair. The typography itself is a beautiful choice: the blood-red typeface with wide open curves and sharp serifs. The title appears differently in each episode, giving a sense of the unexpected, melding with the footage in an often fascinating way. I really appreciated this simple yet effective approach. It’s designed by Randy Balsmeyer of Big Film Design, previously of Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc., who actually designed the titles for the original Dead Ringers film 35 years ago.”

The Killer (film)

“David Fincher loves a title sequence, and this one was clearly part of the vision from day one. The sharp, slick slideshow of weapons being prepared and deadly actions taken fits in neatly with Fincher’s standard aesthetic and sets up the world of the titular killer.”

Poor Things (film)

“I loved the opening and closing titles for Poor Things—and the chapter headings throughout the film—done in a hand-lettering that immediately seemed to me a beautiful ode to Pablo Ferro’s long-limbed inky style from films like Men in Black, The Addams Family, and Stop Making Sense. The design is by Vasilis Marmatakis, who also created the fantastic posters for the film.”

May December (film)

“May December features elegant, gentle opening titles with typography that’s large yet light, a hollow all-caps sans serif in a pale color overlaid with footage. I was delighted to see it was designed by Todd Haynes’ regular titles collaborator, the activist, artist, and designer Marlene McCarty, who was also joined by designer Teddy Blanks.”

Infinity Pool (film)

“I’m obviously a fan of the Cronenberg clan, so I had to check out his son Brandon’s third feature film, Infinity Pool, which has a vibrant, colorful opener of various incarnations of typefaces and styles. The title logo is fun because it has a sense of symmetry and reflection, which echoes the film’s themes of death, rebirth, and the eternal return. It was designed by Aleksander Walijewski with music by Tim Hecker.”

Leave the World Behind (film)

“I enjoyed this title sequence because it was so unexpected and because it’s an obvious nod to titles of the past, specifically those designed by Saul Bass for Alfred Hitchcock: the simplicity of Psycho, the spiral abstraction of Vertigo. The imagery in Leave the World Behind‘s titles hints at what’s to come—the scale of the dreadful events, the gravity of the impending situation—but doesn’t give too much away. The film’s narrative arc reminded me very much of Hitchcock’s The Birds—what initially seems to be a harmless getaway for the well-to-do turns into a mysterious, apocalyptic nightmare—so the stylistic nod and connection feels apt. Antenna Creative designed the sequence with music by Mac Quayle.”

Saltburn (film)

“I can’t forget Saltburn’s terrific opening titles! A stunning crimson red blackletter typeface with gold embellishments shimmies and shakes, almost mimicking an optical effect, over footage of main character Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan) and the opening scene. It’s a grand spot of style— modern meets old money, designed by Katie Buckley with assistance from India Paparestis-Stacey.”

What sort of trends in the opening titles space were prevalent in 2023? 

Landekic: Recent title sequences increasingly embrace the history of the art form. We see this in the nod to Pablo Ferro’s work in the titles to Poor Things, the use of the original Dead Ringers film title designer Randy Balsmeyer for the new series, the collaboration between veteran designer Marlene McCarty and relative newcomer (he’s worked in the field for ten years, so truly not that new) Teddy Blanks for May December. I want to think that’s because the history of title design has come out of the shadows and become more accessible to designers, filmmakers, and fans thanks to sites like Art of the Title and the attention that the art form has gotten over the last decade.

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