Read my latest piece for the Huffington Post HERE.
Category Archives: Art Direction
Classic Covers
Amazing artist Coralie Bickford-Smith designed these book covers for Penguin‘s classic collection. Flaubert, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Brontë and Austen are among the lucky literati. My favorite, of course, is Wilde‘s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde + peacock feathers = irresistibly genius subtlety. Unfortunately, they are only available in the UK at the moment. Ugh. Of course.
Kemp It Up
Readers know I’m a huge fan of the Botánica – the Spanish-Afro-Carribean beauty-health-spiritual wellness shops that are found in Latin and West Indian neighborhoods, where resources are scarce and superstition is about all you got. I grew up with these stores and I still believe they offer the only perfumes and soaps any girl could ever need. At the top of the list are Florida Water and Rose Cologne by Lanman & Kemp.
Lanman & Kemp was established in 1808 by Robert Murray at No. 313 Pearl Street in New York City (a couple of blocks from our apartment!) and was renamed Lanman & Kemp in 1861. They moved around a few times – from Pearl Street and to William Street to Water Street in 1900, finally ending up in Westwood, NJ.
Their marquee item – Florida Water – has been made famous around the globe for its host of personal and household uses. No doubt this is what made it so popular among the Cubans; we are notorious for using Windex and Vicks as absolute cure-alls. Florida Water is an astringent, a lotion, a deodorant, a shaving aid, an insect bite / headache / nervousness remedy, a salve for sore muscles, a room freshener, a conscience-clearer, and a hair tonic. It also looks quite chic on your dresser or in your medicine cabinet! Get the whole story
Golden Doodles
As I research illustrators for my own book, I remember how awesome those mid-century children’s book illustrations were – most of them could be found in the classic Golden Books series. Remember those? Here a few of my favorites…
Green Away?
Whatever happened to Peter Greenaway? The Cook the Thief his Wife & Her Lover is one of my favorite visual movies ever. Greenaway’s amazing black comedy follows these four characters who come together at the lavish Hollandaise Restaurant, where a crime lord takes over an upscale restaurant while his wife begins a secretive affair with a silent, well read regular. The scenes are impeccable staged. Here’s a taste…
Everyone’s Type
Matt and I do strange things. Recently, at Matt’s suggestion, we watched a full-length movie about typefaces. As skeptical as I was that a film about fonts could keep my attention at one o’clock in the morning (which is when he usually gets the itch to pop in a DVD) I’ve learned never to doubt him on movie selection. He’s really never wrong.
Actually, the eponymous movie was primarily about one font in particular – Helvetica. While the film does provide a history of the Helvetica typeface and its creators for context, the movie is really about the the psychology of graphic design and how type affects our culture and everyday lives.
Created by Max Miedinger with Edüard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland, Helvetica has become the most commonly used typeface in the world. It can be found everywhere from fashion designers’ logos to subway signs, from storefront lettering to IRS forms. I never thought that my default font could provide us with such a fascinating anthropological study.
The Gary Hustwit-directed movie contains rare interviews with some incredible design world luminaries including Massimo Vignelli, Stefan Sagmeister, Neville Brody, David Carson, Paula Scher, and Tobias Frere-Jones that speak to the globalization of visual culture.
