Children’s Books Are a Source of Endless — and Relevant — Inspiration Kid-less designers: You are beating me hands-down on sleep, gym, social, reading and movie time. Your minds are likely wonderfully clear of logistical tangles like scrounging up non-terrible snacks from a 7-11 in a pinch, or wrangling your kid crosstown rapidly without a carseat handy. But you are missing out in a single, enormous way—and no, I don’t mean the joys of parenthood proper. (Parenthood should re

I like getting inside other creative people’s heads, particularly if their disciplines aren’t identical to my own. Consider this Print Q&A with fiction writer Alice Mattison or this interview with painter David Schutter, one of several “Process” Q&As I’ve written for The Believer. It’s gratifying to learn how and why other creatives make works, solve problems, and know when they’re done. So much creativity lies adjacent to making the work: preparing mentally; fixing a work wh

After a hiatus of almost 6 years, the original, book edition of The Comics Journal has returned to print. It turns out it was well worth the wait, and it could not be more timely. The cover story is a career-spanning in-depth interview with French author/cartoonist/illustrator Tomi Ungerer, who died last month at age 87. Also covered in this issue is the “new mainstream” in American comics and what the future portends, the role art and comics have in gentrification, a sketchb

Last fall, the renowned design team of Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh published their treatise “Beauty” from Phaidon Books. Their premise is that beauty as a concept has been replaced by practicality. According to the authors, Bauhaus, the modernist creed of the grid, functionality, and analytical theory celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, has replaced aesthetics. As noted within, the term today is rarely mentioned in contemporary books on architecture and desig

Last month marked the 90th birthday of Jules Feiffer. It reminded me of the impact he has had on me and my generation’s intellectual life and funny bone. A Voice in the Village (And Beyond) I discovered Jules Feiffer in the pages of the Village Voice, which my older sister brought home to the Bronx from her sojourns to Greenwich Village. (Later, I’d learn that Feiffer was born in the Bronx.) I would look forward each week to his dancer’s celebrations and political and social

Jim Steranko may be one of the greatest unsung influencers of the latter half of the twentieth century. Born in 1938, he burst into the comic book consciousness in 1968 with his surrealist, pop-art inspired Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for Marvel Comics. A former magician, he brought a mod 60s sensibility to the strip he inherited from Jack Kirby, writing and illustrating his own issues. Two years later, in 1970, he self-published the first of two volumes of seminal The H

Color-nerds, rejoice! ‘Tis the season when we learn Pantone’s it-color for the coming calendar year. In 2019 it’s Pantone 16-1546 Living Coral, a vivid, warmly saturated shade between pink and orange. Pantone 2019 Color of the Year Living Coral Why “Living” Coral? “It’s good that you picked up on that,” says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute when we talked by phone. Not only does this name designate one coral among several in PMS’ gigantic co

John Gall has been creating award winning designs for over 25 years, first as art director at Grove/Atlantic, followed by a 14 year stint at Vintage/Anchor, imprints of Random House, where he was also a Vice President. He has designed covers for such authors as Dave Eggers, Haruki Murakami, and Vladimir Nabokov and his freelance clients have included Farrar, Straus and Giroux, The Criterion Collection, and Nonesuch Records. Today he is the Creative Director at Abrams Books. 1

By: Jude Stewart | October 22, 2018 Reverse-Engineering Visual Literacy with NYRB Why aren’t graphic designers more gaga for picture books – particularly in this golden era of inventive kid-lit? What can picture books – the building blocks of actual literacy – teach us about visual storytelling across many media? I’ve been fixated on these questions for a while and interviewing picture book experts to learn more. (See my Q&A with Argentinian author-illustrator Isol, a review

In our era of #metoo, Black Lives Matter and trans rights, it’s exhilarating to see maligned or ignored historical figures step into a limelight, newly switched on. Whom we choose to remember depends on who’s doing the remembering, after all, and nowadays we recognize how constructed and contingent historical narratives always were. Even why a particular memory lingers is subject to intense revision based on current curiosities. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel, courtesy of the Litchfi

Learn how a digital artist prepares 3D character animations in Autodesk Maya Finally! There’s a smart, insightful book that critically examines the works one of America’s most important comics writer-artists of the past half-century. And deservedly enough, Brannon Costello’s Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin has been nominated for an Eisner Award at next month’s San Diego Comic-Con. It’s undeniable that, throughout his checkered career, Howard’s “brand approval” amon

Special early-bird pricing for HOW Design Live, one of the largest annual gatherings of creative professionals in the world, ends March 15. If it’s a nearly 300-page graphic novel about the history of crossword puzzles, and it’s titled Fun, then it better be pretty damn entertaining. And yes, Italian artist Paolo Bacilieri delivers the fun, both narratively and visually. Also horizontally and vertically: forget strict linear structure, which is just ho-hum. This Fun is vigoro

This is the third year we’ve run our New Visual Artists: 15 under 30 issue. What was once a highly edited list of 20 of the best and brightest young designers is now a deeper exploration of 15 of the most original talents working in visual communications today. This issue of Print comes at an interesting time. This new group of designers, while undeniably adroit, is part of a generation fully proficient in the art of self-promotion in a digital age. Getting the word out about

HOW Design Live 2018 is happening in Boston. Will you be there? Register by Feb. 1 for the best price. Boss Baby, Captain Underpants, and Guillermo del Toro’s Trollhunters have the most immediate name recognition among six original animated series that DreamWorks and Netflix are producing this year. But also lined up is a show that’ll star three girls from 1950s-era Harvey Comics: Little Audrey, Little Lotta, and Little Dot. And of those three, the one to watch with the most

Designer/illustrator Mirko Ilić is a man with a mission. Currently he has curated two touring poster shows on the subjects of political dissent and social tolerance, featuring work from the international design community. He has been traveling extensively in support of both. The first is “The Design of Dissent,” created with Milton Glaser. Originally displayed in 2005 at School of Visual Arts in NYC, it was accompanied by coffee table book published by Rockport Publishers. Ea

Frank Miller is most known as the bold, masterfully skilled and innovative artist on DC and Marvel titles such as Batman and Daredevil, honing his considerable skills within the tight restrictions of these corporate cash-cow characters. In the 1986 release of The Dark Knight Returns—the first and most revolutionary and accomplished of his famed trilogy—is a major milestone in the history of the medium. (My personal fave within Miller’s oeuvre is the 1987 Electra Assassin, exq

[Call for Entries: The International Design Awards] One big factor that sets apart Arlen Schumer’s presentations on comics from the others is his acute understanding of graphic design. His delivery—like the superhero stories he’s discussing—is a dynamic synergy of words and images, of form and function. Mix that together with a heaping helping of contemporary “more is more” postmodernism—more on that in a minute—and voila: “VisuaLectures.” The view from the audience as Arlen

August 28th is the centennial of Jack Kirby’s birth. He is arguably the most important comics creator of the 20th century. His creations and co-creations are household names, Captain America, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D., The New Gods, et al, thanks in no small part to today’s Hollywood blockbusters based on his creations. And he did it all: wrote and illustrated what has become our modern mythology. He was my earliest artistic influence, and for

Okay, so Wonder Woman’s CGI can probably beat up Doctor Strange’s. Still, Strange’s spirited, Academy Award-nominated effects easily outshone Benedict Cumberbatch’s less-than-magical performance, still memorable six months after its release. And we should also remember that ILM and Strange‘s other effects studios owe an inspirational debt to Marvel’s dazzling Steve Ditko. It was Ditko who first gave artistic form to the Sorcerer Supreme and his kaleidoscopic inter-dimensional

By: Steven Brower | May 16, 2017 Perhaps I am feeling nostalgic, but I occasionally look to the past for inspiration. Otherwise noted without comment. #designinspiration #posterdesign