what do you do?
examining my collection over the last couple of years has opened my eyes to how much i have (so much so that one psychologist has actually put my blog on his reference list for ocd. funny, right? though not sure i’m in agreement.), and to the fact there are so many wonderful examples of design out there, many of which i own. the idea of ownership and collecting is a problematic one for me. as someone who has collected from a early age, who has been a shopper and worked in the retail environment for over twenty years, i don’t fully embrace the idea or the act of being a consumer. i admire making. sculptors like martin puryear, james turrell and the early work of the painter ellsworth kelly make me go weak in the knees. i have dreamed of stepping ‘off the grid,’‚ although not the typographic one‚ to fly to japan and apprentice with this japanese master. why? well, i would be forced to learn japanese, for one. also, i would work with my hands. i would make something i could give my daughter. ‘see? i made this.’ rather than ‘say, look what i found today in the street. look what i bought at the flea market.’
i once posted a cartoon from the new yorker about art direction. to this day, i still struggle to answer the question, ‘what do you do?’ when i travel or find myself meeting new people, i rarely ask this question of others. i prefer to start a conversation with a women by asking, ‘what scent are you wearing?’ as an aside, i once had the pleasure of working with chad lavigne, a man of amazing ability, the designer of perfume bottles and so much more. he was visiting our studio and reviewing a presentation with one of our designers. he turned to her and said ‘is that helmut lang you’re wearing?’ indeed it was. it was impressive. not just for the ability to remember a scent (unfortunately i do not have that ability; dates are another matter) but for how that knowledge transformed the interaction between our designer and chad. there was an ease in the conversation; a softness and openness. chad’s ability to communicate was appreciated and received.
now, what does all of this have to do piet zwart? take a look at this booklet, for a door manufacturer no less. it is an amazing tour de force of typographic and design skill. remember, this is the 1930s. this man zwart was an architect. a typographer. a photographer. i highly doubt he ever paused when asked his profession. when i pull this brochure off the shelf to admire it, i can recall exactly when i bought it. i came to new york city in august of 1989. i was invited to apartment-sit two cats and i never returned to new haven. i bought this at the famous ex libris, from michael sheehe and elaine lustig cohen. i paid six hundred dollars in january of 1991. six hundred. crazy. this is certainly one of my most expensive purchases of design ephemera. i would expect there are few examples of this booklet, i have never seen another. zwart designed it, did the photography and, i would expect, worked extremely closely with the letterpress compositor. i have read that this is how he learned typography. for me, he made this. just as puryear makes his sculpture. or karl martens does his design today. he would call it being authentic. i would like to think my blog is authentic. chad was authentic when he recognized doris’s perfume. zwart’s designs are authentic, of his time and his profession.
take covers
covers, postal history and handwriting. i never tire of looking for these covers. unfortunately, i haven’t bought many covers for several years now. why? well, as i have said, my collecting has been mitigated these last few years, and also i try to ask myself ‘do i really need another example? these covers are not expensive‚ five to twenty dollars usually‚ although there are times when i choose a cover and the dealer looks carefully at it and names a high price. often the stamp or a rare cancellation contributes to a higher price. collecting covers is a fine art in itself, and there is so much information contained on them, generally revealing their history only to the trained philatelist, which i am not. however, to help clue you in, i once purchased a lovely example which a collector had analyzed and recorded the information about it. i think you will get a kick out of what is revealed: the st. petersburg/warsaw railway, the traveling post office marks. this letter was written on the 6th of july, 1863, and arrived in bordeaux on the 23rd of july that same year. awesome, right? the letter is written in french but I am unable to decipher it and unable to reveal to you what story it has to offer. thankfully a collector took the time to decipher the story on the outside for us, noting the hands through which this letter has passed. it was posted almost 150 years ago, and still it speaks to us. as much as i love the information revealed on this cover, i myself have never taken the time to decipher what is contained on those in my possession. for now, their only purpose is inspiration. maybe some ofthe covers i post this week will inspire you to decipher them.
good luck!
pick a card, any card
i was fortunate to have taken chris van allsberg’s pen and ink classes at risd, in which you spent a great deal of time drawing—and i mean the most exacting kind of drawing. if you are familiar with his work, you know what i mean. i wasn’t terribly good, though i believe i was on the other side of competent. mind you, this was thirty years ago and long before chris had attained the stature he holds today. while drawing, i would often play a game with myself. i was using a dip pen then and occasionally a blob of ink would fall where it wasn’t supposed to. if this happened, i would stare at that blob and wonder what drawing could emerge from it. a face, a hand, an image that would come from the imagination rather than drawing what i saw. when i bought these cards, this memory returned to me. i have written about similar playing cards before but what makes this deck special is that each card is hand-drawn and unique. each card is a unique work of art. it’s a folk art deck and the cards, with the exception of the face cards, exhibit the most original depiction of each suit. every card is a canvas that tells a story: the fishermen; men riding donkeys; fencers and more. it’s like exploring someone’s truly wonderful imagination.
i don’t have an interesting story about these cards. i was not rummaging in an attic. i was not at some far-flung flea market. alas, they were found on ebay. evil ebay. it’s a love/hate relationship. i recall visiting a bookshop, a small one upstate, at a time when my partner still joined me in the hunt— a time long ago. i discovered a book with an alvin lustig jacket, one from the new direction series. lovely. not sure which one but they’re always hard to find and this one had no price. i brought it over to the dealer and he told me to wait a moment. he went to his computer—this was very early internet days—and brought up bookfinder.com. he typed in the title and voilà, a dozen examples of the book appeared. five dollars to fifty five. i was blown away. the search was forever altered. ebay has refined its search engine and now proposes ‘you might like.’ among the search results appear, i generally opt for ‘other items from seller.’ that’s how i found these cards. needless to say, i was in awe. i hope you are, too.
paper boy
rifling through boxes of old papers excites few. it is something i don’t do that much anymore but when i do there are many factors that lead me to start digging. the dealer and what else he’s selling is one. what’s on top. is it old? if so, how old? legal papers? letters? is this just one person’s stuff or has the dealer merely thrown everything together? often the dealer has never looked through the papers in question. i have carefully combed through the materials and discovered a little letterhead or old photo, something that i think has some wonderful typography or uniqueness, only to have the dealer say, “wow that was in there?! it’s not for sale.” crazy, right? and annoying. if i were a hobo i would mark the dealer’s booth with a sign saying “beware: untrustworthy.” this piece of stationery was found in just such a way. a box full of random papers and what seemed to be discarded papers. there was no rhyme or reason to what was thrown together, but i was familiar with the dealer and he generally had a good eye. i felt there might but something he had overlooked, though he’s not know for selling things cheaply. he expects a fair price and never gives a deal. so running across this letterhead was a surprise. i had never heard of henry j stahlhut but just loved his letter of september 17, 1934. almost 80 years ago. doesn’t it inspire you to write such a lovely thank you? it seems mr stahlhut and gus traveled to jackie’s and heyworth’s for dinner and stayed over. he lovingly illustrates the highlights for us. as you might suspect, mr stahlhut is an illustrator. google images turns up many wonderful examples of his work. he has done many gourmet magazine covers, cookbooks and the like. i can’t help but love each little drawing. the cats are my favorites. how could you throw this away? i recall discovering the second page and spending a significant amount of time trying to find the first page of the letter. often i don’t like to buy just one item after searching for so long. that’s because it puts too much emphasis on the one item, causing the dealer to examine it much too carefully, and his price usually goes up. the price turned out to be twenty dollars. more than i wanted to pay, but i didn’t argue. contentment comes in many forms, and happiness is finding an overlooked treasure in a big pile of papers.
juiced on joost
die form. november 1926. the only issue i own of this marvelous journal. this particular copy was designed by joost schmidt. stunning, don’t you think? you normally see the magazine in this design configuration. walter dexel, if i understand mr. weider correctly, designed the format in subsequent years. moma’s collection of joost’s items has one design in a similar vein, also done in 1926. lovely, too.
collecting can be so gratifying but until i started this blog i never spent enough time really looking at my collections. i have forty or so archival boxes filled with stuff that i have found over the years, and i am only beginning to share them. this journal is certainly one of the specific pieces of modernist design and typography in my collection. at the beginning, it was my wish to focus on this particular window into my collection, and i found along the way that my collection tends to ramble this way and that. i’m not the strict modernist that i thought i was. this issue of die form was bought from another collector-friend in germany. he is an avid collector, more active than i. he knows what i collect, and when he comes across something that’s not too expensive he gives me a call. he is responsible for many of fine examples of letterheads i own. buying from a dealer has a similar feeling to buying on the internet. it’s missing the flea market or the book fair experience. there’s no dealer telling you the merits of the piece, why you should buy, showing off his knowledge and trying to impress you. it’s devoid of that sense of discovery.’i found it!’ however, i do recall walking thought the paris flea market six years ago and seeing a stack of this journal; over a hundred issues. needless to say, i was speechless. i did not look through them nor buy them, though i should have done both. i see individual issues priced at a hundred dollars each. this group was priced at several thousand dollars. i try and forget these moments but they continue to haunt me. for now, i’ll just keep staring at this one. time to frame it, wouldn’t you say?
drama design
martha graham. merle armitage. an alliance i love. not sure how many of you out there know mr. armitage’s work. he made his way, his own way. the linked article fills you in and gives you a nice overview. i discovered his work after buying an annual of aiga’s fifty best books. these are amazing references for any book collector. (the current fifty best books exhibition is up now.) i sought out early copies of these books and then tried from the illustration of each book to determine its value and sought out the ones that looked interesting to me. i discovered many book designers i had never heard of. i think there should be a show of fifty books from fifty years. the best of the best. that’s one jury i would love to be on.
as you can see in this book on martha graham, mr. armitage has a flair for the dramatic. i would never say his designs were subtle; expressive would be more like it. this is my favorite of the books he designed. it was the first book on graham and he does it right. i have not read it, though, so i can’t opine on the prose. in the article i reference, he says he often wrote the books just so he could design them. his books are not expensive to collect. i don’t know many people or designer friends who collect his works or have heard of him, for that matter, but i’m happy i started collecting his book designs twenty years ago. maybe you’ll enjoy discovering his work.
seal the deal
i’m a sucker for seals especially when they have been collected in a single book. as i have said before, my official listing with the ephemera society of america is as a collector of “collections of collections.” i just love when things of all sorts are placed carefully in a book and form a collection. this particular book has page after page of wonderful city and business seals. this is a huge area of collecting with the postal label and stamp groups but what does it for me is the book itself. old and messy, which says someone spent the time to collect these, place and number them. the numbers have no obvious reasoning or meaning to me, but they surely did for the collector. i am always thrilled when i visit a book fair and start looking at the spines and shelves. there is always a shelf with books that have no reference to them. common labels are: new york; printing; philosophy; world war two, just to name a few. i take note when a shelf is not labeled and contains books that have no particular category. i start from right to left and start pulling each book out a few inches to determine if it’s worth opening. usually they are offbeat titles but once in awhile, as with this one, there is no title on the cover and I am intrigued enough to see what’s inside. when it has a collection of some sort, i am hard pressed to contain my excitement. then, of course, comes the price. i don’t remember how much this book was. that’s a good thing that usually indicates i didn’t pay too much.
the one and only massimo
yes, i interviewed with massimo but was not offered a job. actually, this card comes from the third time i met mr. vignelli. the first time i visited the office of vignelli associates, i interviewed with michael bierut. i remember it and still have his card, too, but that is another story. the other card is from simon johnston, from his 8vo days. again, another story for another post. i include it only for size comparison, since simon’s card is a standard 2″ x 3.5″. this card was presented to me while i was the art director at bergdorf goodman. it was decided that the seventh floor home section of the store needed a designer to overhaul the specialty food packaging, so a list was drawn up and massimo’s name was placed on it, along with a few other notable names. i was surprised to see his name. the date was early 1992. the seventh floor of bergdorf’s had a marvelous reputation for outstanding one- of-a-kind items. it was run by an amazing woman and i was thrilled when i heard they wanted to revamp the packaging. i learned one of the buyers had suggested massimo for the project. a day was set aside for the various designers to make presentations. as the in-house designer i was not asked about designing the program or even consulted, although two years before i had designed the identity and packaging for the new men’s store. i sat through the presentations—some good, others surprisingly embarrassing. thank goodness slide projectors are a thing of the past. mr. vignelli arrived, sat down and said, ‘what do you have for me?’ well, the store president sat there blank and unmoved. the buyers explained the problem and massimo spoke eloquently, not just about the need for unique packaging but about lighting, display and shelf presence. i knew he was expanding the problem beyond the immediate needs and losing the president. what made this meeting memorable was not massimo but one of the bergdorf’s buyers, who, after sitting through the previous presentations of slides and specific samples of the work, asked to see massimo’s work. she had no idea of the volume of his work nor his reputation. my colleague quickly snapped, ‘visit the moma!’ i’ll never forget it. i smiled, massimo smiled and the meeting ended. thank yous all around and business cards were exchanged. i’m pretty sure he doesn’t have my card but i am thrilled to have his.
“post damn it”
i wish to thank everyone who stopped by my booth at the pop up flea back in december. i had a terrific time and i especially want to thank one particular visitor. the reason being, he gave me a hard time about not writing. he was aware that my writing had almost stopped. he simply said, “post damn it” and walked away. well some time has passed and i have cleared my desk of a few projects and photography accomplished, i therefore i have no excuse. so i am determined to write more and tell you of some up coming events and sales.
in may i will be doing a pop up store in brooklyn where i will selling original and vintage items, as well as some art pieces related to my collections. i will keep you up dated as the details become formalized. should be a lots of fun. please keep checking in and i’ll try and keep my promise to “post damn it!”
“the printer did it”
how often have you heard “the printer did it”? when i first started out as a designer there would a stream of paper promotions arriving at the design studios i worked. usually followed up by a call from the paper company’s representative, “did you get our latest promotion?” when was the last time that happened? the promotions which were luxuriously printed would be passed around the studio and later in my own studio, the most deserving of these promotions were placed in a box labeled ‘beautiful items’. since I collected letterheads, whenever a promotion landed in the studio which had letterhead samples, usually to highlight a specific paper stock, i took special notice. if a desirable letterhead appeared i would put it aside. here is one such example. the law firm of shook, hardy & bacon. i don’t remember when i obtained this example, most likely in the 80s, but it has been a favorite from the school of ‘the printer did it’. this letterhead is beautifully engraved, listing over a hundred lawyers. certainly a letter received on this letterhead conveyed a formable message. a google search to their website reveals it is apparent that they have since hired a designer and now have a ‘logo’ and i expect the letterhead is ‘more’ considered but i would not expect it be have quite the same impact. each time i look at it and marvel at the simple and straightforwardness of it’s design. dare i say it’s ‘honest’ intentions. i recently designed a logotype for a boutique insurance broker firm but initially the client had the printer do it, engraver actually. i made a presentation with various degrees away from what the engraver had done to a rather expressive design using baskerville italics. the client narrowed it down to two designs; one which was just slightly but clearly more considered typestyle than what the engraver had done to one which was obviously ‘designed’. the client asked me which i preferred and i summed it up like this, ‘clearly one designed you paid a lot for and the other looks old school, more straightforward — honest.” guess which one he selected. honest it is!