I’ve been reading The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes. I didn’t know Simple until I ran across this book. One of many holes in my education, one which it’s thrilled me to patch. Hughes wrote these short shorts first as weekly columns in the Chicago Defender, and they were subsequently published in three collections,…
Didn’t realize there was a difference between lettering and calligraphy? The way I understand it—and this online “battle” allows us to see it—the letterer draws, while the calligrapher writes. ‘Lettering vs Calligraphy’ is a project by Giuseppe Salerno and Martina Flor. It consists of a visual dialogue between a letterer and a calligrapher, where they…
His work is bold and colorful, at best whimsical and smashing, and here I present a few of my favorites. But leafing through much of his work, I simply scratch my head and wonder. What I mean is, much of the work is done in service to ideas that aren’t very compelling. Or, shall I…
I’m kicking off the poster series with an Oakland artist whose work I love. His posters conjure worlds in a lovely collision of object and meaning. The images are bold yet simple—and capacious, lending themselves perfectly to silkscreen. There’s a continuity to his work, most easily seen in repeating forms: birds, paint brushes, musical notes,…