Cable Guy

Came across this CableVision cover from 1982. Yep, that's me at my desk at good ol' Manhattan Design.

8.1.81

August 1 marks the 30th anniversary of MTV. You can read my story about the creation of the original MTV logo here.

Beastie Byte

Someone e-mailed me this from The Daily Beast Media Gallery: 13 Worst Logo Makeovers. See my post from February 9, 2010.

Skin Trade

Check out the article on the creation of Duran Duran's Notorious album. It includes bits from an interview I did about the design of the album package and related materials. Above is a package for the "Skin Trade" cassette single which was banned in most places because the plastic case and photo of a woman’s naked backside made it look like a miniature adult video. Read more. Click here.

Monkey Business

Promotional postcard for my good ol' studio Manhattan Design (1981). Yep, that's me in the gorilla suit.

I Want My... AIGA

AIGA NY is organizing an evening celebrating the creative history of MTV. I will be one of the speakers talking about the birth and early days of the MTV logo. Details here.

Amazon Dot Calm

Watching the news just now I saw a story about last night's Rainforest Foundation benefit at Carnegie Hall. At one point the organization's funky, tribal-looking "R" logo appeared on screen. At that moment I remembered that I had drawn it. That was back in 1989 when Sting and Trudie Styler founded the organizaion. I don't remember how we came to do the logo, but my old studio Manhattan Design was working on a logo and some album package designs for Sting's Panagea Records at that time. Probably we just threw it in.

Back In The USSR

I was interviewed for a Russian web publication called f5.ru by its "newsmaker" Roman Samokha. It is in Russian so I have no idea what it says but it looks pretty good. You can go there by clicking here. Thank you Roman.

I Want My . . . Daily News

I found out yesterday via email from Christina Kinon at the Daily News about the revised MTV logo. We spoke briefly and her article about the new logo scheme appeared in today's paper. A small excerpt:

Frank Olinsky and his team at Manhattan Design created the MTV logo when the network launched. When the change was announced yesterday, Olinsky wasn't feeling much nostalgia. "I had no idea" the change was coming, said Olinsky. "MTV now is a whole other reality than MTV was back in the day. Things change. The fact that it doesn't say 'music television' anymore, that's appropriate."

Rock Collection

I received an email asking if I had any large poster proofs or original artwork from the Power Station project. Unfortunately I don't have anything saved from that project other than a few samples of the album and singles packages, the tour book and a platinum album. That was about 25 years ago and time has a way of consuming things. The email did remind me of something vaguely related -- and extremely obscure! In 1985, my studio Manhattan Design, art directed and designed a series of about 50 greeting cards called "Rock Collection" for a small card company in Virginia. These cards featured excerpts from lyrics mainly by musicians popular at the time, including: Sting, The B-52's, The Cars, Dire Straits, David Bowie, Madonna, Tears For Fears, Eurythmics, and Hall & Oates. The artwork was done by a range of illustrators and photographers hired or licensed by Manhattan Design. One of these cards featured lyrics from the Power Station song "Communication." I created a full-color illustration of the Power Station figure specifically to go with the lyric. Alas, as visually cool and timely as the cards were, they were unsuccessful and I doubt they were seen by more than a small number of people attending 1985 stationery trade shows -- and the artists involved.

Recent Discovery

I was recently contacted about a small number of posters discovered in a basement somewhere in Queens. I had all but forgotten about this Manhattan Design-ed poster until I received an e-mail with the above photo attached. The image was based on one of my line drawings from a comic. The brightly-colored and technically amazing poster was printed by Ambassador Arts in 1987. It was the seventh in a series of quarterly calendars. Fortunately the printing specifications were included in the lower left corner: Silkscreen printed on 10 pt. Chromolux in 13 match colors, including transparent, fluorescent, matte, glaze, frosted and opaque inks. There are only about 30 mint condition copies of these posters. I just signed them and they will be for sale online hopefully in the near future. Once the details are worked out they will be posted.

That 80s Show

I'm mostly awful at promoting myself. Here's an exception from the vault. A large promotional print piece (measuring 24 x 17 inches when folded open) for my good old studio Manhattan Design. Shown above is the fashionista cover photo of my partner Pat Gorman and myself taken by Caroline Greyshock and the inside spread, which required my extreme x-acto blade typography work. Can you believe the copy?!: "Billy Idol sums up their work as 'fuckin' brilliant" and "The whole world looks to Manhattan Design". Whoa!

Blues Brother

My author photo from What The Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs, a book I created with the band (mostly David Byrne) in 1987. Shot on film. No retouching. Just bright lights and face paint. Taken back at the good ol' Manhattan Design studio by my gifted friend Deborah Feingold.

Velocity, Deborah Feingold, etc.

It was 1984 and one of the first album packages I got to work on with my studio Manhattan Design was Velocity by the Philadelphia band, The Vels. I still have a warm spot in my heart for this one. It was also the first time I got to work with one of my favorite photographers, Deborah Feingold. Her photos of the band appeared on the back of the LP (yes kids, vinyl). I illustrated the cover based on a portrait Deborah took of the band with odd bits drawn on fomecore and pasted on their faces. (The source photo appears very small on the lower left corner of the back cover.) Drawings of these facial bits also appear full size on the back cover. I also scratched out an inky black and white version of the portrait for a 12 inch single. The silhoutte portrait of Deborah in action is a recent digital recreation of the missing original art which was created with cut paper. The square shape was selected because Deborah shot in square format in those days. She also stood on a blue equipment box when she worked. I’ve been in touch with Deborah just recently. She’s working on a book of her photographs. It will be amazing.

WTF?

I was alerted to a post on Gawker related to layoffs at MTV. The posting was accompanied by this takeoff of the original MTV logo.

Time Is Running Out

A promotional calendar for my old studio Manhattan Design and our favorite printer Enterprise Press. I came up with the idea for this calendar after not finding any good ones on the market for 1982. Manhattan Design provided the artwork and design and Enterprise Press donated the printing. Calendars were given out to clients and a small amount were sold in a few stores in Greenwich Village. It featured monthly illustrations based on the "time is running out" theme. Artists included: Mark Marek, Jean Tuttle, Jim Cherry, Futzie Nutzle, Richard Stine, Vivienne Fleischer, Keith Haring, Candy Jernigan, Guy Billout, Gary Panter, Steven Guarnaccia, and yours truly (shown above along with cover and grid for November). I recall there was also a painting by Sue Coe that was rejected by the printer because it was too intense for his taste.

Takin' care . . .

. . . of some serious '80s business.

Walking on Sunshine

Katrina and the Waves? How '80s is that? Entrance to my old studio, Manhattan Design, circa 1985. Portfolios on the floor were dropped off by photographers and illustrators to be reviewed by myself and my partners Patti Rogoff and Pat Gorman.