This one is from the vaults. It was my last day of work at my first job out of school. My co-worker and I had always talked about throwing down together, so we had a little friendly battle. No worries, that’s one of my bosses there in the foreground. You really have to appreciate his holding it down on the beats.

Good times.

I had to shoot something for a project, the other day, so I took the opportunity to take a few shots of some of my old work. Here’s a card I did for game journalist, and my buddy, Mike Donahoe back in 2005. We were still at Pratt, and I think my idea tinker was nice and sharp, and brazenly naive. Back then, my work was far more concept-driven. Which is not to say, it still isn’t, but clients/employers needs often trump our best ideas.

Anyhow, on the last couple projects I’ve worked on, I think I’ve done work that’s a bit more conceptual than I have done in the last few years. I should be updating soon so look out for that.

This is the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series in which I take a work of design that I like and explain why I like it. Not too hard, right? We’ll see. The goal is to remember to not only notice things, but to continually exercise the ability to articulate why I notice things.

This is a cover for the Czech magazine Zijeme by the visionary and information design pioneer, Ladislav Sutnar.

There are so many things to love about this cover. The first thing to grab my attention was the use of photomontage. The interplay between photography, typography and simple graphic elements creates such a paired down aesthetic that is relatively stark yet immensely arresting. This is not a piece of art the eye can ignore. The simple palette, the angled type, and the perfectly balanced, yet asymmetric, composition all make this a work of design that, although representative of a specific style, still appears fresh and exciting today. Of course that has a lot to do with designers knowingly or unknowingly being influenced by his work. I know some of my early work was influenced by this style.

Here’s a poster I designed while at Pratt.

Obviously, I was influenced by Constructivist design, but there’s also a bit of the 90’s type aesthetic happening in there, which I’m sure we’ll get to eventually.

Anyhow, if you haven’t heard of Ladislav Sutnar, definitely look him up. Not only is his work amazing, he’s responsible for a lot of ideas that are now essential to modern life and design. Fact: He was the man responsible for putting the parentheses around American telephone area-code numbers when they were first introduced.

Links:
-AIGA on Sutnar
-A Czech site on Sutnar. Features a chronology of his life and work
-A Sutnar Flickr Set