DESIGN PHILADELPHIA (OLD CITY WINDOW DESIGN EXHIBIT & CONTEST)

Hey there fellow design addicts,

I know that I usually do Type Tuesdays this time every week, but this week I'm going to tell you about a cool project that I did this past weekend. On late Thursday afternoon, I was talking to Stefan Sklaroff, he's my contact person, and Showroom Manager for a new client of mine, Hollandia International, and he asked if I'd design their front window for the Old City Windows Design Exhibit & Contest.

The contest is part of DesignPhiladelphia, what's DesignPhiladelphia you ask, well, it's a series of events that celebrate, as their website puts it, every damned kind of design you can think of! It is completely AWESOME!, and if you live in Philly, you should check it out! O.K. back to the story, ya see, the past two designers that Hollandia was assigned by the Old City Business Collective, backed out on them at the last minute. Stefan, knowing that I was reliable, asked if I could come up with something quickly. The project was unpaid except for the money supplied by Hollandia, for supplies. It sounded like a lot of fun, so I said yes right away. 

But here's the tricky part, we were already a week behind the other stores, and I had to have it done by the end of the weekend. So I had to come up with a concept, and have it installed by Sunday at the latest. We talked for a few minutes about the windows and showroom space, and I knew right away what I had in mind. I went back to my home studio and got to work. I had the concept down and would go over it with him on Friday morning to see if he liked it. Luckily, he really loved the concept, and I could get started on the design and production. I want to send a special shout out to my homeboys Troy and Dave. Troy, dude, without your help this weekend, I would have never got the thing installed! And Dave, thanks again for the use of your saw, and for cutting the wood! I also want to thank Stefan, and Hollandia for letting me help them with this fun event! Hope everyone enjoys this weeks post!

DESIGN PHILADELPHIA
(OLD CITY WINDOW DESIGN EXHIBIT & CONTEST)

HOLLANDIA WINDOW CONCEPT & PROCESS
“THE HOME OF TOMORROW TODAY!”
-> TRUE ROMANCE
-> SPACE-AGE BACHELOR PAD
-> STORE SHOW ROOM

 *INSPIRATION:

VIEW-MASTER TOY

 

1939 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR

POP ART- RICHARD HAMILTON’S:
“JUST WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES TODAY’S HOME SO DIFFERENT, SO APPEALING?”

COMMERCIAL ADVERTISING ART OF THE 40’S & 50’S

Project Concept & Process:

1.)

2.)

3.) Each collage was made in Photoshop

Collage 1: Space-Age Bachelor Pad

Collage 2: True Romance

4.) Then each layer was separated, printed at 100 % on clear acetate and stepped one behind the other inside the light box to create the illusion of looking into a View-Master Toy.

Again, this was a really fun project to work on, and I hope you enjoyed viewing the process!

To see it all in action, come on down to Old City at Hollandia International's store located at 149 N. 3rd Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106.

P.S. Look for the poster in the window with the code on it, and vote for my design by texting my Entry # 3232 to 215-259-VOTE! ;-) 

Thanks!

For more info on how to hire me as a graphic designer, check out my website:
www.gusdesign.com

For more info on DesignPhiladelphia go to:
www.designphiladelphia.wordpress.com

For really cool beds, check out the Hollandia International website:
www.hollandiainternational.com

Saul Bass Tribute Continued - Type Tuesday: Title sequence Cape Fear

This is the last film in my Saul Bass Tribute. I will be posting some great examples of his posters and other designs, and over the next few days this week, I'll be taking a look at designs that have been clearly influenced by him.

Before I go into the last post about Bass's design work on the open titles of films, there are a few things to know about Cape Fear the film, and river it's self.

Cape Fear is a 1991 thriller film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is a remake of the 1962 film of the same name and tells the story of a family man, a former public defender, whose family is threatened by a convicted rapist who wants vengeance for having been imprisoned for 14 years because of the lawyer's purposefully faulty defense tactics, prejudicing the accused. [1]

The Cape Fear River is a 202 miles (325 km) long blackwater river in east central North Carolina in the United States. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. [2]

(video link at the end of post)


I remember taking a date to see this film my senior year in design school at Rochester Institute of Technology  (R.I.T.) I wanted to see it for two reasons, one, because Martin Scorsese was the director, and two, because I heard from another student that Saul Bass had done the open title credits for the film. I had learned about Bass for the first time just a year before, and was excited to see a new movie that he had worked on.

I was not disappointed! My date on the other hand, was not as impressed as I was. There was no second date. Not because she didn't like the movie, I think she didn't like me. I did go on and on about how great the movie was at dinner afterwards. I also kept saying, "Really, you really didn't like it? How could you not like it? It was amazing!" Hmm... maybe that's why. Anyway, I still stand by that today! It was an amazing film, and I can't even remember her name.

As I have talked about in my previous posts, Saul Bass has an uncanny way of foreshadowing events in the film to set the tone, and bring the audience into the world of it's characters. 

Here Bass starts out with the sound of a storm. We can hear the thunder crashing, wind gusting, and the rain relentlessly hitting the water. We see the water of the river of Cape Fear as we are jarred by the score of the film by Elmer Bernstein, an arrangement of 'Bernard Herrmann''s original "Cape Fear" score. [3]

Next reflected in the water we see a Bird of Pray, possibly a Peregrine Falcon; a bird I found out in my research, is indigenous to the Cape Fear region. [4] This menacing bird descends upon and swoops just past us to reveal Robert De Niro's name. This is important for two reasons.

1. it prepares the audience to see De Niro as a vicious predator, descending on the innocent family and tearing them apart in the film. 

2. It's not the first time Bass has used an animal to capture the idea of a character in a film. The first time was when he used a black cat to embody the spirit of the main character "Kitty Twist", played by Jane Fonda, in the 1962 film Walk on the Wild Side. This self-referencing is done a few times throughout the opening titles of Cape Fear.

Another self-reference is the fractured type, used to convey the tone of the film. Bass used this technique in his film titles for Psycho.

As the title of the film appears, and then sinks into the dark water, we see an unsettling image of an eye looking up at us from the abyss.

As the face emerges  from the deep, we see a mouth form, and teeth show almost animal like, in the lower part of the screen. This also foreshadows a pivotal seen later in the film.

The face almost comes into full view before disappearing back into the depths of the water.

As the opening progresses, we see a shadowy image of a torso come straight towards us from out of the depths.

Next is a droplet of what we are to see as blood, into the water turning it red with vengeance.

Another set of eyes appear from the red of the water. Was concentrating on the eyes of characters in this opening title a self-reference to his work on the opening of Vertigo, or was it a nod to Scorsese and the opening of Taxi Driver? I'm not sure, but it's very effective.

We soon realize that the new set of eyes are that of an innocent young girl, Danielle Bowden, played by Juliette Lewis and she begins to speak.

"My reminiscence. I always thought that for such a lovely river the name is mystifying: "Cape Fear". When the only thing to fear on those enchanted summer nights was that the magic would end and real life would come crashing in."

(Cape Fear title sequence link)


References
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [1] - [3]: Wikipedia   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_%281991_film%29

[2]: Wikipedia   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_River

[4]: Star News Online  http://critters.blogs.starnewsonline.com/12384/birds-of-prey-to-be-featured-at-halyburton-park/

Saul Bass Tribute Continued - Type Tuesday: Title sequence and poster art of The Man with the Golden Arm

In the 1955 film, The Man with the Golden Arm from director Otto Preminger, the title sequence caused quite the buzz, and the film propelled Bass to the status of Master of Film Title Design. Bass had single-handedly reinvented the movie title as an art form! It's stated that before this film, the opening titles of the cast and crew of movies were so dull, that projectionists would only pull back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. [1]

The film is about a Jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra, who is struggling to overcome his heroin addiction. Knowing that the arm was a powerful symbol of heroin addiction, in a controversial decision (for a controversial film), instead of using the famous face of the films star, Bass chose to use the design of the arm for the films titles as well as the films poster. [2]

(video link at the end of post)

In this title sequence we see Bass use simple geometric shapes and lines accompanied by Elmer Bernstein's Jazz soundtrack, to help set the tone of the film. Some have compared the lines to a syringe piercing the skin of the main character. Others have compared it to the veins in the arm. I can see both comparisons as true.

I think it can be said, that it may also be cards being dealt by the main character of the film, as he was at one time a skilled card dealer. As the title sequence progresses, we see the cards being stacked, albeit in a precarious way, and we watch as the cards come tumbling down. (However, in my research of the opening I found nothing stated by Bass or anyone else, to support this idea.)

Although much has been written about Bass's arm design in the title, and on the movie poster, and not much new can be added that hasn't been said before, I'll just relay what was written on the website saul-bass.com:  "Bass created the famous jagged arm design, suggesting the jarring and disjointed existence of a drug addict. With this design, Bass exploited what he termed the significance of content in design." [3]

Title sequence "The Man with the Golden Arm" Link

References
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 [1] - [2]: Design Museum www.designmuseum.org/design/saul-bass

[3]:  www.saul-bass.com by Tony Nourmand: This article was published in the international magazine, Patek
Philippe, Number 9, Spring / Summer 2000

Saul Bass Tribute Continued - Type Tuesday: Title sequence of North by Northwest

(video link at the end of post)

In Alfred Hitchcock's quick-paced espionage thriller, North by Northwest, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) finds himself running for his life as he's pursued across most of the United States. During this massive  cross-country chase, he finds himself not only mistaken for a U.S. agent, but implicated as a suspect in the murder of a U.N. official. All of this leads his normally sheltered, and privilege life to intersect with foreign spies, counter-spies, the FBI, the police, and a mysterious beautiful blonde. (Eva Marie Saint) [1] Ahhh... If only graphic design and advertising were truly this exciting.

Saul Bass's title sequence opens with lines crossing the screen and intersecting in rapid succession,  just as the lives of the characters in the film do.

The lines then begin to form a grid and the names of the cast move quickly up and down the screen as if they were on an elevator, all the time staying in perfect perspective with the lines of the grid.

The concept of the elevator soon makes sense as the grid dissolves into an live shot of a New York City skyscraper, with traffic rushing here and there, again in perfect perspective, and reflected in the mirrored façade of the building.

 North by Northwest Title Sequence Link

References
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/

Type Tuesday: PSYCHO

This year marked the 50th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's ground breaking film, Psycho. This film is credited with inventing the genre of the modern horror film. As most of us who attended design school know, the opening title was designed by the Master of Title Design, Saul  Bass (1920-1996). This is my opportunity to pay respect to him. Over the next few weeks, I'll be looking at Mr. Bass's work on such films as Psycho, and his contributions to Graphic Design over all. For those of you who may have never heard of Saul Bass, he has been credited with reinventing, and turning film title sequence into an art form. As a student at the famous Art Students League and at Brooklyn College,  he came under the influence of Gyorgy Kepes and that of Russian Constructivist typography and Bauhaus design theory.[1] Bass however was able to take those principles of thought and mold it to his own design sense and style of visual story telling, adding a certain avant-garde feel, as is evident in the work that I will be highlighting in my tribute to him. His corporate work has included corporate identities for United Airlines, AT&T, Minolta, Bell Telephone System and Warner Communications. He also designed the poster for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, and for the Academy Awards celebrations from 1991-1996 [1]

Today's pick, Psycho, showcases his ability to use the simplicity of horizontal and vertical bars cutting and slicing across the screen.

 

The opening set to the score by Bernard Herrmann, sets an unnerving feeling for the viewer. The bars cut the the type used for the credits at the opening of the film.

The title PSYCHO it's self fractures, foreshadowing the mental state of Norman Bates.
(video link at the end of post)






Not only was Bass responsible for the title design of the film, he is also credited as Pictorial Consultant, and storyboarded the famous shower scene and stated in 1973 that he was invited by Hitchcock to direct it. This is a claim that is definitively contradicted by both Janet Leigh and Assistant Director Hilton Green. Janet Leigh points out in Stephen Rebello's book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Hitchcock met with Bass and gave him detailed instructions concerning the scene, from which Bass then developed storyboard pictorial ideas [2] I have included the storyboard [3] for fun, so let the "Norman Debates" continue. (sorry, I couldn't pass up that chance for a cheesy pun!)

"My initial thoughts about what a title can do was to set mood and
the prime underlying core of the film's story, to express the story
in some metaphorical way. I saw the title as a way of conditioning
the audience, so that when the film actually began, viewers would
already have an emotional resonance with it"
—Saul Bass

Link for PSYCHO Title Sequence

References
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. RIT Graphic Design Archive:  http://library.rit.edu/gda/designer/saul-bass
2. wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass
3. splinder.com: http://and.splinder.com/tag/saul+bass

Your mom likes opening credits. Type Tuesday: Napoleon Dynamite

When trying to think of what movie I wanted to talk about this week, I started to think of how the fall is upon us, and kids are returning to school after the Labor Day weekend. So the natural and only choice I could come up with, was Napoleon Dynamite.

(video link at the end of post)

 

I have to say that I love this movie! In a time of over production and reliance on CGI it's such a refreshing change to see opening credits like this, and they fit so well with the story. In all the shots for the opening, they show objects or food that appear in the movie as part of Napoleon's life.

The use of hand written type on food that Napoleon, or one of the other characters eats in the movie [1] , is a genius and fun idea that Director Jared Hess and Cinematographer Aaron Ruell, the guy that also plays Kip in the movie came up with.

Each food item or object is placed over a very textured, vibrant or muted, but always rich color palette of carpet. According to an interview with Hess on the website artofthetitle.com, he got the carpet from a guy he knew in his neighborhood who owned a carpet shop. [2] This is one of the subtle touches that lends to the organic feel that Hess was looking for. All of these images accompanied by the song "We're Going to Be Friends" by the band The White Stripes, sets the over all tone of the film. It shows that this isn't your ordinary movie about teens, it's an extraordinary movie about ordinary teens, and the innocence, vulnerability, and hilarity of growing up.

Napoleon Dynamite Opening Credits Link

"Tonight I'll dream while I'm in bed
when silly thoughts go through my head
About the bugs and alphabet
and when I wake tomorrow I'll bet
that you and I will walk together again
Cause I can tell that we are gonna be friends
yes I can tell that we are gonna be friends"

—"We're Going to Be Friends" The White Stripes

References:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.  wikipedia.org
2. artofthetitle.com

sk8's Up!

As the summer draws to a close this Labor Day Weekend, many people will be heading to the beach. I'll be staying here in Philly as I do most weekends. But the idea of the beach, and sand, and surf got me thinking about a cool post. While all the surfers will be hitting the waves all over the U.S.A., why not talk about the city and all the sidewalk surfers. (a term for skateboarding, that I've always loved!) After all, Philly, and LOVE Park are known all over the world as an awesome place to skate!

I got my first "real" skateboard in the summer of 1985, not the crappy plastic kind I had when I was 9, but one made of wood, and with a cool design on the bottom! Although I'd like to tell you I was awesome at it, I sucked! Big Time! So... at some point I had to face it, It didn't matter how much I would read THRASHER Magazine, I was never gonna be any good at skateboarding. But I did love skateboard art, and the art thing was working for me, so I kept the board until my first year of art school here in Philly, and then sold it for drinking money.

Anyway, here's a brief look at Skateboard Art & Graphics.

When you look back to the 80's most of the graphics fell into two categories:

1. The Comic Book style of dismembered body parts such as hands screaming, skeletons and monsters with eyes popping out of their noggins, zombies in all their slimy glory, and other Punk looking characters.




The most well known artist of this category is probably Jim Phillips, who led the art and design for Santa Cruz Skateboards in the mid 80's.

Here's a cool example of his art!




Visit his site at:

http://www.jimphillips.com

2. The vibrant strait up graphics using lines, dots, and animal patterns.

The graphics would often use vertigo inspiring shapes in fluorescent colors, and of course the famous checker pattern, linking it again to the Punk Movement and it's idea of anti-establishment.

This 80s Vision Psycho Stick goes for $850.00 at Vintage Surf and Skate Emporium




http://www.vintagesurfandskateemporium.com.au/shop/80s-vision-psycho-stick-p-167.html


So in doing research for this weeks post I found this great book on skateboards that you should check out! DISPOSABLE: A History of Skateboard Art. It's by skateboard artist Sean Cliver, and gives an awesome in-depth look at skateboard art and graphics!  It's on my must have books about art!

Here's a link to info about the book:

www.disposablethebook.com

All right kids, have yourself an awesome holiday weekend!