Undercard Productions

Big John Buscema Show

My wife Stephanie, me, and her family will be flying over for the exhibit. It would be great to get the word out about this as much as possible. This is the first expansive gallery showing of John's work in a in recent memory. Private collections spanning the artist's entire career will be on display publicly for what very well maybe the first time.  

I will be documenting as much as possible and posting to Flickr as soon as well get back but please help spread the word, and get as much interested generated as possible. Thanks so much.

The Saga of "E"

First and foremost, happy 10th birthday to the Iron Giant! This part still makes me cry.

On to The Saga of E
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Study of E from Rob Harrigan on Vimeo.

Last night was my last class with the esteemed Ed Benguiat. Seriously, the stories are true. The man has eyes on his fingers. He can do three little things to a piece and make it a 100% better. It's amazing. Our final assignment was to create a "dimensional E." Take that for the vague open-ended statement that it is. The entire class then voted on the projects round robin until the best was voted down to. 

I did not win. But I did finish strong. Top 3 is not a bad place at all. Ed said my project was hip. For a jazz drummer to describe your project as hip, he must like it somewhat. The other top two people( the girl who won had cut out numerous E's out of foamcoare(?) and presented them as you would bug or animal specimens in a glass case ) in the top places had really really strong pieces as well. Chris Beesley (he consistently did really strong work in class. he has a very clean style) was also in the top three and he has a really strong piece based off of time elapsed photography. Check his blog out, I'm sure he will post it. Some of the other notables were an E drawn on a face with marker, freshly made sunny-side up eggs with an e burnt in the yolk, & some serious paper cutout action for an E.

I had built an electrified zoe-trope. Animated inside the zoe-trope was a custom designed italic E (based off of Behemoth and ITC Bookman see below) spinning is space. The video is above.

Regular and Italic Version

A dimensional E. Get it? It was a lot of fun, I'm a bit wistful to watch the class go. That man is an absolute legend and it was humbling just to be in his presence. He even signed my type spec books from Photo-Lettering.

My second plan, which I was going to do but I figured Steph would kill me, was to tattoo an E on my leg and make it "dance" like Petunia from Pete & Pete. As aside:

I at one time tattooed a Bouncing Souls logo on my thigh. Didn't hurt that bad, figured I could pull it off again.

But I digress, if you are in/around NYC and have 500 bucks to spare, don't go buy any computer parts, go take his class at SVA. It was one of the best investments I made recently. 

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth saves GM!!??

Bring back Ed "Big Daddy" Roth from the grave and get Detroit to listen. Thats how! 

no Ed Roth piece would be complete without this.

So I am playing catch up this week in class and trying to make up my missed work from Comic-Con and finishing up my final assignment. Last week's assignment that I am making up is redesigning GM for the new age. I guess I have an advantage cause I saw what the other kids did, and I felt like a lot of them didn't push the envelope at all. It was lots of Gill Sans and Helvetica. Not that there is anything wrong, but come one. Look at the beautiful history of car culture. There is soooo much to pull from.

I decided to pay homage the one of my favorite people of all time, Ed Roth. Ed would have saved Detroit, if we wanted to. He didn't want to. Instead he did what he always did. In the 60's this man was making cars got incredible gas mileage, were compact, and were amazing. Mind you they were trikes and what-not, but he saw where it was going. He was doing it before his time. Everyone thought he was crazy. The Surfite was basically a smart car that carried a surf board. How genius right!?

surfite model kit

Sure many people have paid typographic homage to Ed. House did it, tons of people have ripped him off, but I though it would be awesome to draw out the whole wordmark of General Motors if Ed Roth was running it, by hand, like he would have. 

Seconds (1963) | Cover Design

One of my favorite new pieces I've been working on are book comps. I know, I know. Books are dead...Kindles...blah blah blah. As long as books are beautiful and well done, people will buy them.

SECONDS | 1963 Thriller
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Seconds, was & is both a book and a movie. The book was written by David Ely and published in 1963. The movie was released in 1966 starring a fantastic Rock Hudson and directed by veritable genius John Frankenheimer. I watched this for the job and I have found a new top ten favorite movie.

I was extremely taken with the story, acting, & cinematography. Rock Hudson easily gives his best performance of his career, bringing real depth and emotion to his character. I don't want to get too much into the visuals but it is breath-taking.

When I start a job, I always avoid seeing this, I instead prefer to hear about them and experience them. I'm always afraid that when I see things I will absorb it and merely design on top of it. Instead of reading the book, I worked from the movie. But designed a book cover. I know, an abstraction of an abstraction. 

This is the original 1966 cover

My 2009 versions

 

The two pieces I created are 180 degrees from this one. I went it two directions, a play of young and old, reversing of time. And in the movie and novel, our Protagonist is blackmailed into agreeing to this. He is blackmailed with a video. I got the feeling that it was the fulcrum of the story really. If it wasn't for that, he would have never agreed

Wednesday Comics | Design Crit

FOR COMIC WEDNESDAY | A DESIGN CRITIQUE OF WEDNESDAY COMICS 

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I was/am/is/still really excited about this idea. I’ve seen/or heard about other companies doing the newspaper angle before(Fantagraphics I believe did one) but they were mainly one-offs. And the idea of giant editions have been around since what the 70s or 60s?

 

image via giantsizemarvel

However, combining them together was a great idea. You get the great large format of the old funnies and you have an “edition” that doesn’t blend in with all the others on the racks at your shops. You also get the collectible aspect, with many recent collectible editions: Kramer’s Ergot, Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, George Sprott, you have an oversized appeal. Can you imagine these collected hard-bound & oversized? The DC “Absolute Edition” Wednesday Comics. 

 I’d pay for it now.

 This project combines amazing art, amazing writing, and superb art direction. It has been put out with a purpose and a vision, whenever you do that, people will respond. 

  

I want to take a look at this from a design perspective, most notably, the mastheads, typography, and feel. I will not be putting whole pages up. You wanna read it? Go and buy it. Support your local comic shop. I will by putting up snippets and things I believe are notable or wish to discuss. I think this is one of the freshest things I have seen from the big two in a while, and I am really anxious to see what comes next, coughmarveli’mlookingatyoucough...I’m sure they have something up their sleep. Healthy competition shakes off the cobwebs.

Old blogs and visitors stink after three days.

I've been absolutely terrible about blogging as of late. I apologize. (not that many people read this) I have been a terribly busy boy, with both the day job and the night jobs.

I've been working on a lot of freelance work as of late.

NEW WORK | STEPHANIE BUSCEMA

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First and foremost, me and my wife Steph sat down and gave her site a nice overhaul. I think it turned out really great. I used the beautiful Girard Script and Sansusie from House Industries(@twitter) along with their Rat Fink Sans.

(home page)

(comics gallery)

(blog roll)

 

NEW WORK | WASH YOUR MOUTH OUT SOAP COMPANY

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I've also been working on really fun branding and design exploratory with a handmade soap company Wash Your Mouth Out Soap Company(as I said, these are glimpses, none of the branding has been rolled out yet... their soap is also FANTASTIC, they sent us a box when the project started). I can put up a few glimpses into the visual studies. Most of these were done for their catalogue but are in process for packaging and website.

(logotype visual exploratory)

(bug/secondary visual exploratory)

They have this really great tag line, "So good, it'll make you wanna cuss." It was a lot fun to play with that aspect for a secondary mark.

(catalogue layout exploratory)

I really wanted to keep this project clean and very type heavy. Make it more about then high details of the soap than the actual "designy-ness" of the packaging. They have a really hands-on soap making process, and I didn't want to lose that focus on the details. I tried to pull that through in the photography of the catalogue and the logotype itself. No fuss, no gingerbread.

NEW WORK | SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS

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Gingerbread brings us to my next topic. I have also been taking a night class. This class is a blast and it is with one of my idols Ed Benguiat. Ed has been teaching at SVA for something like forever. I didn't get a chance to study with him while I was an undergrad, but the chance arose to take his "Designing with Type" class this summer at night. I am having a blast. I don't know if some of the kids aren't sure who he is (I feel rather old in the class) but basically I get to spend 4 hours a week in the presence of a living legend in the type world. It's extremely humbling and super inspiring. I will write more about the class and share some of our assignments. I don't see why everyone shouldn't have access to this man. But I basically have a nerd-fest/fanboy moment in every class. PLANET OF THE MUTHERFUDGIN APES people!? Guns of Navarone? Chanel? I mean come on. 

This was my most recent assignment.

SPEC

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MOVIE LOGOTYPE

"Bad Day at Blackrock"

Cowboy movie, real cowboys, cow wranglers, not a shoot'em up.

ONE LINE. MAKE IT TALK.

He viewed it favorably, minus the "AT", which I felt was a throwaway as well. I didn't want to go with a Playbill or something along those lines. I wanted something more ubiquitous, not something that cliche. As I said, he received it well. They weight concerned him a bit with the A's and Ks. I just wanted to keep in black for the sake of weight avoiding the gaps. I am a House Industries whore and used their Nuetraface Slab. Which might be my new go to font for a bit.

If you want me to put up the rest of the assignments let me know. I think it's a great thing. I have all them written down by spec. FYI, this is the first time I have really put *REAL* work up. PLease, let me know what you think,  I'm looking for some good input.

Comic Sans: A Watchmen comedy of errors?

Are you looking for somewhere to place your ill feelings towards this font? Then look for Vincent Connare.

 

He designed the font for Microsoft many moons ago, namely as something to be used in word bubbles by "Microsoft Bob." I'm not at all familiar with it either, it's ok. If you send this man hate mail, spam, or some ill-vibes, he may give it back to you. He provides an interesting back story on its creation and many of the ills it's poor use has created. He approaches the subject with humor and insight, which may confuse some of us in the design world who seethe over it's use.

In the presentation on his site, he goes through then history of MS, the intended use, and some of the "amazing work" people have created with it. He also references his inspirations behind the hand of Comic Sans. He references two beloved DC comics book; The Dark Knight Returns & The Watchmen. The Dark Knight Returns was lettered by John Costanza and The Watchmen was lettered and drawn by Dave Gibbons. Both comics were published originally in and around 1986. It fits the time lime for Comic Sans creation with and the tale that Connare shares.

"Comics use primarily uppercase letters. I found the DC Comic ‘Watchmen’ more consistent and it seemed appropriate for the job.  I looked at the best versions of the various forms of the letters. And began manually drawing the letters on the computer with Macromedia Fontographer. I drew the letters over and over until I had a good letter that captured the feel of the hand drawn letters in the comic." 

-Vincent Connare

I find great irony in the fact that Comic Sans was created out of two of the most acclaimed comics of the last 30 years. I would definitely check out the slides(about half way down then page under the photo above), there are some great tidbits in there. 

*swoon*

I was doing some serious vibin' on this book cover archive(from SwissMiss), when I came across this cover by Jason. The Norwegian comic artist whose work I adore. I would have preferred less emphasis on the title, underplay it a bit. I feel like the sparseness plays to the actual story of Dharma Bum. I actually like this cover a lot aside form my gripe with the title. The colors actually remind me of my copy from college.

The new WPA

The Work Projects Administration helped put millions of Americans back to work following the Great Depression. It formed a work force which completed many public buildings, projects and roads and operated large arts, drama, media and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing and housing. It's almost safe to say, that America will need a new "new deal" to help our economy & workforce recover.

We can only hope that it will be created with the environment in mind. Doing so can help quickly change companies and labor forces impact on the environment, faster than any government regulations could. We could create a entire workforce, form scratch, with new morals and beliefs in place. I only hope our government can meet then challenge. I just was playing around with some WPA era posters and wanted to create something pro-union & pro-environment.

I hope everyone likes it, I'm gonna make an effort to overcome my fear of general criticism and get some more of my work out there.

Polish Pink Panther

Say that three times fast. A coworker sent this link to me at work today. I've never really looked at foreign movie posters before, but apparently the Polish ones are known for their creativity and seem to be at odds with the actual plot of them movie. The most curious one for me that I picked out is The Pink Panther.

I love the original Pink Panther and I think Peter Sellers is extremely understated and fantastic in the role of the bumbling Inspector Clouseau. I don't really care for much else concerning the pink panther movies or brand. I in fact greatly dislike the cartoon series. I never understood why they made it. It's a diamond. Not a cat. It confused people. I think they just loved the opening sequence so much that they wanted more of it.

However, the poster above, boggles my mind even more. I love the stylized design of the "Pink Panther icon", but I get confused by the fact it is on a jaguar-ish cats body, as if he is in disguise. I like the type treament, I'm not jazzed about the face of the body text, but it is not terrible. It's interesting though, how then poster conveys little to nothing about then actual film. Nothing about the diamond, nothing about "The Phantom", nothing about Clouseau. However, it is a very intriguing poster. Here is then US' counterpart.

Again, I am not entirely enthralled by the layout. I think the actual movie title is underplayed to the starring cast. The actual illustration of the cast is amazing. It does tend to tell a bit more about the story, well the cast at least, but in an way has little to do with the movie as well, other than there are pretty girls, some booze, and a bit of skiing. Side by side, I think the US is more appealing because of the inviting illustration, but it is much less intriguing than then Polish counterpart. Interesting to see them together, that fact that I don't see there being a clear cut superior design. Either way, the movie is fantastic. You should watch it again, and watch the sequel "A Shot in the Dark". Another great Clouseau film.

 I doubt I will be blogging much over the holiday but everyone please stay safe and warm.