Wherever you’ve been…

I stumbled across this lovely little collection today, an “image stream and information resource devoted to the art of luggage labels and related travel ephemera. Luggage labels are fascinating bits of hotel history from the golden age of travel, roughly the 1900s to 1960s. During this time these labels were used by hotels as advertising and eagerly applied to steamer trunks, suitcases and all sorts of luggage by hotel staff, mainly bellhops.”

When I was a kid our family used to vacation in Lugano (and the nearby beach village of Agno in the Ticino)—takes me back… See the collection of luggage labels here.

Winnipeg, Canada

Adrian Shum, a designer colleague at Circle, recently discovered a great online reference resource for illustrators—this from his blog at MUHSASHUM… “Andrew Loomis (1892-1959) was a highly talented American illustrator. His series of influential, instructional books are out of print and yet still highly sought after and nearly impossible to find. Luckily there is the Internet, with sites such as this where you can view scans of the books. I highly recommend you take a look at Mr. Loomis’ work… he’s likely influenced more of today’s artists than you know…”

Thanks, Adrian. Keep on drawing…

Winnipeg, Canada

Yesterday evening I gave a presentation entitled Pushing the Envelope to the Winnipeg Philatelic Society—founded in 1900, it is the oldest stamp club in Western Canada. I showed developmental sketches, shared the process of designing stamps, and answered questions of the many enthusiastic participants (I’ve had the honored privilege of being involved in the design of over 20 Canadian stamps to date).

Some of the commemorative stamps we’ve designed at Circle: 1999 Pan American Games, 125th Anniversary of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Fishing Flies, Canadian Recording Artists.

Winnipeg, Canada

Geez magazine Issue #9 arrived today (theme: “Art,” with guest art directors Diana Thorneycroft and Michael Boss)—it includes a piece I wrote on art appreciation that grew out of a bar table talk with publisher Aiden Enns some weeks back. My take on art criticism: “…what you ‘see’ is what you ‘get’ and depends largely on where you stand.”

Geez is an award-winning, non-profit, ad-free, quarterly Christian activist magazine that aims to “untangle the narrative of faith from the fundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers.” Find out more about Geez here.

Cover illustration: ‘Self (Bandage)’ by Dominika Dratwa. Napkin sketch: yours truly.

Montreal, Quebec

The online subculture magazine Netdiver has posted its Best of the Year 2007 selections… 100 dazzling projects or sites “taking us to uncharted territories where imagination, skill, talent abide….” The selection includes friends Marian Bantjes, Kenya Hara, Paprika… to name a few. Check out the links here.

Image credit: one of Marian Bantjes’ remarkable illustrations from the mini-portfolio of her work produced for Fox River Paper’s Sundance (instigated and curated by Rick Valicenti of Thirst). Oh, and by the way, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Marian!” and thanks for mailing me one of your creative Valentines once again….

Menlo Park, California

Communication Arts magazine (CA) has launched new websites in the past weeks—in the process, links to legacy feature articles previously accessible online have been lost. PDF versions of some of the international design features that I’ve written for CA since 1995 are now available here (click on the country name, average length 14-18 pages, PDF size 4.8 MB): Russia (1995), Japan (2001), Brazil (2003), China (2004).

PDFs for more recent features can be accessed here: Cuba (2006), Australia (2007). Enjoy…

Images: Playing cards by Jelena Kitajeva, Moscow; Picture book of original fonts created at Inter Medium Institute Graduate School, Akio Okumura, art director/designer, Hiroko Matsubara, designer; Brasilero typeface by Crystian Cruz, São Paulo; Panda/Mickey-morph poster by Ma Degang, Shanghai.

Winnipeg, Canada

Today is Robbie Burns Day (my namesake) as several Scottish clients and co-workers have pointed out to me… and coincidentally (it seems) Adrian kindly gifted me with two old unopened bottles of Scotch (the beverage) with the explanation, “No one in our family drinks Scotch, and it’s been in the back of the liquor cabinet for decades…” Sweet—we lads just sampled a wee dram or two (the fine “Special Old Reserve 12-Year-Old Single Malt” is now in its mid 30s), and all we can say is Slainte Mhath! (Good Health) and the responding Slainte Mhor! (Great Health). Read Rabbie’s complete works here.

Born January 25th, 1759 in Alloway, Scotland’s most famous poet and favorite native son produced a massive body of work in his short life of 37 years. “Rabbie” Burns’ carousing and his stick-it-to-the-man attitude endeared him to both his contemporaries and to ensuing generations. (Detail of painting by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787).

Winnipeg, Canada

We had a wide-ranging discussion re: art criticism appreciation at Circle this afternoon… somewhere in the space between factious and affable I think we came across some interesting perspectives. Time will tell…

Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889—Gabriel Cornelius von Max (1840-1915)

São Paulo, Brazil

Designer Rico Lins has put together an impressive exhibition of “the best Brazilian posters produced since the 1950s” as an international show that debuted in the show Brésil à l‘Affiche in Chaumont, France in 2006—it’s considered to be the most important exhibit of Brazilian graphic design to date. I met Rico recently in Havana and he asked whether I would help promote this exhibition, which is now available to tour worldwide (interest has already been expressed in Canada, India, and Cuba). The show would be of particular interest to graphic design associations (the 80 posters are easy to ship and to mount, and a resource-rich DVD is available to help promote the exhibition) and could act as the focus for a member event.

You can view much of the work at the dedicated exhibition website (in French/Portuguese) and obtain additional information here: www.brasilemcartaz.com.br If you’re interested in Brazil and Brazilian graphic design, read the feature article that I wrote for Communication Arts magazine (online) here. 

London, UK

I’ve grown increasingly skeptical over the past years regarding the efforts of large multinational corporations to tailor and polish their images by means of questionable re-branding (e.g. BP > beyond petroleum), deceptive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting, and “green relations” campaigns—and we’ll be seeing more rather than less of this in the days to come (the CSR industry is already worth an estimated $31.7 billion per year, and growing).

Graffiti from CAM BUENOS AIRES