Four of our posters are included in the 2nd Cyprus Poster Triennial, now on view at SPEL, the State Gallery of Contemporary Art in Nicosia, Cyprus.
We have been impressed by the range and quality of the work in this exhibition, and are thrilled to be included!
We are honored to have our poster “Sláva Ukrayíni” awarded Gold in Graphis’ “Designers for Peace” international poster competition. All of the competition entry fees will benefit Ukraine humanitarian aid organizations.
We realize our contribution to this effort is minor. Nonetheless, we are committed to exploring non-commercial ways to extend our design practice. Designing agitprop is one of the ways.
Thank you to Kit Hinrichs, Jury Chair, for organizing this designer effort to support Ukraine.
Image: Antoine Coypel’s 1690 painting “The Baptism of Christ,” courtesy of LACMA.
Typeface: Thalweg Poetica by Ani Dimitrova.
Out now! My profile of illustrator Katherine Lam in Issue 30 of 3×3 Magazine. Here is an excerpt:
Theatrical lighting is a consistent motif in this work. Most of Katherine’s editorial illustrations are set in the late afternoon, early evening, or at some indeterminate time of night which results in heavy shadows for the late afternoon illustrations and predominantly inky backgrounds for the others. (Or as Katherine put it in a recent social media post, “Damn my images are dark af!”) Somber palettes allow Katherine to articulate space, create depth, and add drama with judicious hits of brighter colors. “I use light and shadow to make my environments feel surreal,” says Katherine. “I don’t see a point in making things realistic or grounded in reality because photography can achieve that quicker and better. Also, my subjects tend to be rather mundane and boring—usually just a person sitting or standing in front of a building or setting—so by lighting a scene in an unnatural but still believable way I can add some interest to my work.”
Although the ethos of film may be its crux, Katherine’s illustrations nonetheless harness the aesthetic cues of traditional media, including visible brushstrokes, roughened textures, and washes of modulated color. “It’s all digital, even the brushstrokes,” explains Katherine. “I don’t like the flatness of digital art so I put a lot of textures back into my work.” The result makes for a surprisingly good marriage between two starkly different aesthetic impulses: cinematography and painting. It is as though Katherine’s work is a digital amalgam of John Ford’s long shots, Citizen Kane’s high-intensity carbon arc lighting, and Edward Hopper’s painterly alienation.
Read the entire profile (as well as prior articles) under Design is Play Articles. [MF]
BLKLAB—a.k.a. Black Lab—a trademark we designed for one of our favorite clients.
See Mark’s original inking under Design is Play Process.
The exhibit “Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest” opened tonight at the Letterform Archive in San Francisco. Curated by Silas Munro and Stephen Coles, the show features more than 100 examples of agitprop, including posters, broadsides, buttons, signs, and other ephemera. Two of our pieces are included: “Trump 24K Gold-Plated” (2016), and Mark’s “Patriotism ≠ Consumption” (BlackDog, 2002).
Mark gave the following remarks at the opening:
“I would like to start by acknowledging Silas, Stephen, Rob, and all of our friends at the Archive for including Angie’s and my work in this exhibit. Thank you!
“I have two quotes to share with you. The first is from the writer Joan Didion; the second is from the artist William Wegman.
“In her preface to Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion writes that she ‘had been paralyzed by the conviction that writing was an irrelevant act.’
“Later, I came across an interview with William Wegman in which he said, ‘When I paint I feel like I’m doing something irrelevant, but I no longer care.’
“For many of us—artists, designers, writers, curators—what we do can seem like an irrelevant act. I have learned that this is to be expected.
“I have been designing agitprop posters since 1990. Not one of them has ever prevented a war, or ended police brutality, or kept fools like Donald Trump from getting elected. One might reasonably conclude that this work proved ineffective and is therefore irrelevant.
“However, I’ve come to the conclusion that asking if my work is relevant is like asking if breathing is relevant. I work for the same reason that I breathe: to live.
“I find relevance in the very act of creation; in giving my thoughts a physical form—even when that form is ephemeral. Or imperfect.
“I also find relevance in the gathering and preserving of these ephemeral forms to establish a historical record or construct some larger narrative. Like this exhibit.
“We are lucky to have the Letterform Archive here in San Francisco. To everyone at the Archive: thank you for the work that you do. Your work is vital and relevant, and it makes relevant the work of many others, myself included. Thank you.”
See our “Trump 24K Gold-Plated” poster and others under Design is Play Studio Posters.
Photographs courtesy of the Letterform Archive.