Books and Their Covers

Last night I was reading Steve Almond's book The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories, which I have read before, and really enjoy, in part because he writes very convincingly from a woman's point of view, which is kind of weird, but cool. Anyway, I flipped it over and noticed how much I actually like the cover as well. It uses big, blocky primary colors, pencil drawings, and graffiti to create a collage effect. Also, the paper is really nice (it's a hardcover). Scott is always pushing for nice, heavy weight paper in our publications, and I have to admit that it makes a difference.

I started thinking about other book covers that I've seem recently that have made an impact graphically - here are a few.

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris



This book is kind of a postmodern distopian tale of office life. It takes place in a struggling ad agency where one by one, the staff is being laid off. Topical! It's also about the relationships that we develop with our co-workers, and how the office, for better or for worse, becomes a kind of home.

I love the yellow forest of Post-it notes, the words that look like they were drawn in Sharpie, and the haphazard placement of the text. It reminds me of a messy desk.

Candyfreak by Steve Almond



I guess this is a Steve-Almond-heavy post. Though I don't think this is genius design or anything, I love that each letter in the title is taken from on iconic candy bar wrapper. Let's play "spot the brand", shall we?

C = Nestle Crunch, A = Starburst, N = Butterfinger, D = Mr. Goodbar, Y = Almond Joy, F = Butterfinger, R = Snickers, E = 5th Avenue, A = Abba Zabba, K = Kit Kat.

I am both proud and ashamed of myself.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris



I haven't actually read this David Sedaris book, but I've read many of his others, and I like how this grim image belies the humorous nature of the prose. I also like the broad, tactile nature of the brush strokes (the paint looks thick and three-dimensional) and the subtle placement of the title, as if it's an afterthough.

The Book of Other People Edited by Zadie Smith



The cover art for this collection of stories was done by Charles Burns, a graphic novelist who is the author of a creepy comic called Black Hole, which is unsettling and hard to describe. I like the stark black/white/red color contrast of this cover, as well as how the individual faces seem to be gazing at each other but not making eye contact.

Panning for Gold

One really fun part of my job is that I get to sit in and observe photography classes. Last quarter I observed a session of our Master Photographer Series with Roxann Arwen Mills. The students had just completed a panning assignment, and many reported being surprised by how hard it was to get a good panning shot. The assignment also involved crowds, so the added element of photographing strangers might have made it a bit more difficult.

I found a great, simple tutorial about creating sucessful panning shots on Digital-photography-school.com, and was happy to see the author admitting that this seemingly simple technique befuddles a lot of photographers. Now even I understand it!

Digital-Photography-School.com - The Art of Panning (via Lifehacker)

Hello Dave

As anyone who has seen Terminator, or Battlestar Galactica, or Bladerunner, or 2001, or Westworld, or WarGames, or Transformers knows, robots will kill us all. But we keep building them, because the spirit of human innovation cannot be extinguished, at least until we are all slaving in the Martian salt mines under the watchful eye of our Asimo overlords.

Actually, I'm usually more interested than scared when I hear about the latest robot developments, and I imagine that their creators must feel that the process of conceptualizing and constructing these machines is a kind of art form. Which is why I wanted to share these images of robots from universities and tech shows around the world. Their designs are often a subtle mix of functionality and form, some looking like bugs, dogs, people, and other familiar characters. To me, the casual, people-shaped ones are the most jarring - watching a robot do something mundane like make a cup of tea or pick up a straw seems to blur the lines between science and fiction.

Boston.com's The Big Picture (via Laughing Squid)

Slowly Exploding

These examples of high-speed photographs are insane. It's like a whole universe exists in the split-seconds that our eyes can't even record. Though I wouldn't want to be the one holding the egg steady as the guy with the gun takes aim, they make for some amazing images.

See work from 7 high-speed master photographers on Weburbanist (via Gawker).

Lego New York

I saw this on the NY Times a while back and thought it a great example of how the simplest of representations can call to mind specific, detailed life experience. I love the sushi and wasabi rendered in Lego.

I LEGO N.Y. - Abstract City by Christopher Niemann

Yoshitomo Nara Arrested, I Don't Know How to Feel

I'm not one of those people who thinks everything should be covered with graffiti. Sometimes graffiti is awesome and great, and waiting for the bus is a lot less boring if you're looking at something by Banksy. But isn't most graffiti lame and ugly? Are taggers really graffiti "artists?"

So I was conflicted when I heard that famed Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara was arrested and spent the night in jail after being caught doodling on a Brooklyn subway platform while waiting for the L-train. We have whole classes devoted to the practice of public art, which is a much larger conversation. Also a larger conversation: should the NYPD be stopping to ask themselves "But is it art?"

But I can't help but feel like a little magic is lost when art is whitewashed over and confined to small, enclosed spaces. The rigid definition of what is and isn't an appropriate forum for art takes some of the spontaneity and joy out of the process.

Plus, that platform would have been worth a ton of money.



New York Post - NY 'SUBWAY VANDAL' A JAPAN CELEB

Sister Wendy Explains It All For You

Though raised in a secular household, I was introduced to Art History by a nun. My Dad had Sister Wendy's 1,000 Masterpieces on his shelf, and one day I took it down because it looked interesting, and I wanted to see what the nun on the cover was all about.

Now I know that her BBC series made her an unlikely household name, but at the time I had no idea who she was, or what nuns had to do with art. But I remember poring over every image, and being fascinated both by the work and by her concise, enthusiastic explanations of the pieces. Her commentary was unpretentious and invited me to explore the details and history of work that was totally unfamiliar to me. I specifically remember pausing over Allori's Judith with Head of Holofrenes and thinking "Woah. That is a cut off head. Art is cool."

Like Sister Wendy, our best art history teachers are the ones who bring the same kind of enthusiasm to this complex subject, and open up the whole history of art to our students. Sister Wendy made me realize that art is supposed to be exciting and emotional, and her good humor and insight helped me connect with some of history's great works.

Mural as performance art

We plan classes from time to time at UCLA Extension - looking at mural art around Los Angeles. While we know that murals and street art can be fleeting, this project bring this to an entirely new level, I'm not sure what to call it - performance art - installation art, video art that happens to use street muraling as a base?
http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm

It's Your Show UCLA Extension | Call for Entries | Reception June 20th 6:30pm

We have a show coming up for students and instructors. We usually do an instructor show (in photography), and a Student Show (in Design Communication Arts) This is the first I know of where our unit is commingling students and instructors from Design, Photography, and Studio Arts. Should be fun, I'm very curious to see which areas step up and which ones shy away from public displays.
Content took a back seat when I designed this postcard, as I felt I should put student and instructor art in the two art frames on the 'wall', but played with box blends (no images) using InDesign and liked the Rothko like painterly effect so much, I left it and decorated instead of designed. (Something I always speak against.)
Read the brief on submission guidelines
Submission Deadline: Monday, June 9
Opening Reception: Friday, June 20, 6:30-9:30p
Location: The Gallery
1010 Westwood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90024

The Thirty-Three Million Dollar Lady

I know this is old news, but I'm still stuck on the record-breaking sale of the Lucian Freud painting at Christie's a few weeks ago. Sold for $33.6 million, the painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping set a new record price for a piece sold by a living artist.



Here's the painting. I really like it, but at this point, I wonder if aesthetics even enter into it. Roman Abramovich, a Russian billion, was revealed as the buyer of the Freud painting, as well as artist Francis Bacon's Triptych as part of the same lot. Mr. Abromovich, who also owns the Chelsea English football league, has a fortune valued at $25 billion. Does he like the painting, or is it a savvy investment decision? Maybe both?

The mental image that this story leaves me with is that of a staff member carefully, carefully hanging the painting up in this guy's house (though I have no idea if he even plans to have it in his home). What would it be like to personally own such a work? To look at it at you're eating cereal in the morning? The commodification of fine art always seemed like a little bit of a contradiction to me. Artists have to eat, and there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to make millions off their work as well, but I just think I'm a little bit in the Indiana Jones camp, and that "it belongs in a museum!" I like the idea that great works are available to the public to be studied and enjoyed. Can you put price on beauty, historical significance, and cultural relevance? I guess so.