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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.
I just received printed samples of the Barely Digital and Hungry Nation posters. I am very pleased with the results. Thank you Next New Networks!
Page design for the 1998 Parsons Illustration Department Yearbook. It includes a brief bio and creative advice from Jack Kerouac. It features the font I designed for Live Bait bar/restaurant.
Watercolor from the early '70s. Two of my favorite people ever.
Cover for Gerri Hirshey's book, We Gotta Get Out of This Place (2001).
There was some sort of legal "issue" and the awesome Courtney Love photo got nixed on the paperback edition (which I didn't design).
Ink on paper. Date unknown.
Watercolor from the early '70s. Painting created for an LP that never came out. I don't recall the circumstances. The musician's name was Rusty Cloud (for real).
"The future ain't what it used to be." -- Yogi Berra
After a short hiatus, more of my dog photos are appearing on the Dogs Waiting For Their Humans site. (Thank you Fred!)
Cover for A Friend of a Friend, the forthcoming Dave Rawlings Machine album. Available soon on Acony Records, the label owned by Dave and his partner Gillian Welch.
Basic logo design for Next New Networks' forthcoming Hungry Nation show. Final typography and colors to be determined.
The cover of Jay-Z's forthcoming album, The Blueprint 3 (right), may have "borrowed heavily" from my concept and design for the Secret Machine's 2004 album Now Here Is Nowhere (left). See and read more here. What do you think?
Just came across the "summer So" design (left) for So Percussion's summer institute. It is an adaptation by Kayrock Screenprinting of my original "Bell Guy" design (shown on t-shirt)
In honor of the 4oth anniversary of the first moon landing I am posting Moon Rocks (1986). It was one of several illustrations I created for my book with Talking Heads titled What The Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs. The artwork is 20 x 20 inches and was created with cut paper, ink, gouache, spray paint and collage. The original is in the collection of band members Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth.
Hot Club of Cowtown logo stickers. Their new album is titled Wishful Thinking. Thanks Elana.
While going through my flat files, I came across this little bio from the Fall 08 issue of Prattfolio, the Magazine of Pratt Institute. I had forgotten I was a sculpture major!
Click to enlarge/read.
I stopped by Perelandra Natural Foods here in Brooklyn this afternoon to pick up some of their brand new reusable/recycleable green shopping bags. These bags feature the logo I designed "very, very long ago" for owner and dear friend, Steve Hoose. The Perelandra logo was based on the small watercolor painting seen above. The bags are only 65 cents so pick up a bunch.
I was just interviewed for the Smashing Pumpkins website. Click here.
I dug up some of Billy Corgan's faxed sketches and other things which have never been seen before. I was really moved when I read the following comment from Billy himself:
"Looking back now over 10 years, what sticks out most in my mind about Frank is he is total class. I am really fortunate to have been able to work with someone so talented, kind-hearted, and really someone who puts everything he has into his work. He really is a true artist thru and thru" -- Billy Corgan
A recent "also ran" logo design for a band.
I just came across this photo I took in the early '70s somewhere around Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Had a good laugh when I saw it and thought about my Dogs Waiting for Their Humans blog. Talk about a dormant seed of an idea!
I just photographed my 100th dog waiting for its human. It will be a while before it appears on the DWFTH Tumblr site but I wanted to mark the occasion.
Kronons Quartet Floodplain has just been released by Nonesuch. The latest in a long line of album packages I have had the great honor to art direct and design for Kronos and Nonesuch. The globe cover art is by Ingo Gunther. On Floodplain, the Quartet explores work from the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe with original arrangements of traditional music and newly commissioned pieces. There's vintage pop from Egypt, folk from Azerbaijan, electronica from a Palestinian music collective, and an ambitious piece from Serbian composer Aleksandra Vrebalov that has the contemplative grace of a Górecki masterwork.
Poster/handbill design from 1995. The original art was created with cut paper.
Logo concept for Woodstock 1994. Don't recall who asked me to do this. Maybe nobody!
Latest poster for NextNewNetworks. Fifth in a series of 12. This one for Indy Mogul, the internet network for for DYI filmakers and moviegoers.
Another goodie created during a magical time. Made using old school analog technique and materials. Basic drawing was done in ink > photostat was made of the drawing > color was added using Pantone film.
I am posting this work by special request from my old friend Fred Seibert. I hesitate to post too much old work, but a request from Fred is almost impossible for me to deny. These sketches were made in June 1969 for a series of sculptures/constructions of rock musicians. They were done on unlined, 3-hole punched notebook paper. Represented are Eric Clapton, Jack Casady, Janis Joplin, Jeff Beck, Pete Townshend, Pig Pen and Taj Mahal. None of these remaining sketches ever became sculptures. Musicians who made it into the 3rd dimension were: John and Yoko, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix. I recall Jimi's hat was made from an upside down plastic cottage cheese container with a cardboard brim. His hair was made from steel wool spray painted matte black. Unfortunately these sculptures and their preliminary sketches got lost somewhere in time and space.
Don Farber asked me to art direct a book of his photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I have been working with the editors and designer at teNeues. The book is due out Fall 2009.
Self-portrait circa 1969. Obviously inspired by Klaus Voorman's incredible cover art for the Beatle's Revolver album. I gave my Raidopgraph a real workout on this thing. The eyes were cut out from a newspaper, and I cut out and spray-glued acetate lenses on the glasses frames. The areas of discoloration are the result of aging spray-glue.
Camel cigarette pack on acid? (Where did the camel go?)
Watercolor with markers from sometime in the 70s.
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.
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!
Dogs Waiting for Their Humans is currently adding one of my photos almost every weekday -- at least for a while.
An abecedary is an alphabet book. I created this one sometime around 1990 after attending workshops with Mayumi Oda and Peter London. Mayumi is one of my all time favorite artists. Peter is the author of No More Secondhand Art: Awakening The Artist Within. Shown above is the title page and the page for the letter "N". The caption reads: "N is for Now - There's no other Time." The artwork for this book was created with ink and xerox copies, and the lettering was created on an old typewriter. I made a few copies of the book and gave them to friends as a gift.
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.
Have begun work on package design for forthcoming Kronos Quartet album Floodplain. Cover features globe art by Ingo Gunther. More info as things progress.
Brooklyn boy designs new logo for Texas Crab Festival.
