After doing a poster for one of my favourite bands, The National, last year, I was happy to be asked once again to do another one for them. This time they were playing in my home town of Vancouver at the Orpheum. The 3-light-condition design of the first poster was hard to beat, but I've always wanted to print on a mirrored surface, so I worked with Jake Sorensen at the silkscreen printers PrismTech Graphics to source the right material. Vancouver has become known recently as a city of glass, so this isn't as whimsical as it sounds.

This is not just "shiny," it is mirrored, it reflects everything. This is my best shot of the whole poster: that's me reflected in the bottom (this copy is signed to my friends Cindy & Rory).

I printed on it in white ink.

See how perfectly it reflects my hands and the ceiling above me?

It's a limited edition of 225. The National got 1–175, and I got 176–225.

The only difference between the first 175 and the last 50 is that 1–175 were laminated with a clear laminate to protect them, as they were sold at the concert. Mine are unlaminated because they are slightly more reflective than the laminated ones.

They sold for $50 at the show on November 28 & 29th. (Sadly, I was away and couldn't go!) I may sell some of mine in the future but not yet. It is currently impossible for me to get around to put anything in the mail. One day I hope to have a system, but until then it's not for sale.

This is my latest piece for my regular "column" with Varoom Magazine. The theme for this issue is "Next", which is one of my least favourite subjects these days, as it's been on my mind. So I created a piece that shows the direction that some of my work is taking, with bold, unusual layouts, and mixed media. Then I wrote a small diatribe about my fears of  the subject of "next" and printed them in tiny type in the design. 

With this issue, Varoom went to a tabloid size, and as this is on a double-page spread, it's quite large.

This detail shows my true feelings about "next" with "I DON'T KNOW", which i embellished onto a fan with nail polish.

Another detail which almost—almost!—shows the type.

It's that time of year again, and herewith are my 2011 Valentines. Because this Valentine thing has gotten a little out of control in a covetous way, I thought it would be nice if I was able to give people multiple valentines that were all similar but slightly different, so they could keep one or two for themselves and still have a few to give away. So I created a modular heart with which I could easily make 10 variations, and as well I made a heart that says "Remember when we were young, we used to give Valentines to all our friends." (My best friend's 7-yr-old did not get this at all, repeatedly saying "But we do give Valentines to our friends." Yeah, wait 'til you're older, kid.)

So here's the press sheet:

Each person got one of the following in either blue or pink:

And then they got 4 or 5 different Valentine hearts. As I said, they are supposed to give them away, but it seems people like to hoard them! These are Kim Berlin's at Sterling Brands:

Kirsten Skipp has added one to a shrine:

Mark Mushet might have given the rest away like a good boy ...

Nik Hafermass has added his to his growing collection:

Stanley Hainsworth has made an odd justaposition:

Darling Tan Le is ready to cash in:

But the amazing Stefan Bucher really knew what to do! ... crazy kid!!

The process for making these was documented by  Lynda.com. in this VIDEO! 

With big thanks to David White and Scott Erickson and all the folks at Lynda.com.

You might be wondering how you get on my Valentine list. The answer is it's tough. This is a monumental effort for me each year so I'm not anxious to expand the list. However, hiring me and paying me gobs of cash is a pretty sure bet. ;)

 Each year, for the Alliance Graphique International (AGI) congress, members are invited to contribute something to an exhibit. This year, for the Porto Congress, the theme was "Process" and we were asked to make a map of our process. So I documented each step of a project I was working on at the time, and compiled the whole thing into a step-by-step map of my process.

Wallpaper* Magazine asked me once again to be a part of their exhibit at the Salon del Mobile in Milan this year. They approached me to apply graphics to a Laser Sailboat.

It just so happens, I’ve always wanted a Laser.

I decided to avoid the obvious of working with organic forms to go with wind, water etc., and instead work deliberately against those forms. I wanted to make something that was incredibly distinctive in the water, and which would disguise its speed and versatility. To create an optical illusion of sorts, of something that looked like it didn’t belong in the water at all, much like the cubist patterns of WWI & WWII “dazzle” naval camouflage.

This is the finished boat, and the photo as it ran in the August 2010 “Handmade” issue of Wallpaper*. The photo is by Benedict Redgrove.

I worked with Sarah Douglas at Wallpaper*, James Lund Lack at Laser Performance, Alastair Goodall at Inchmere Design in the UK, and John Brooks at Hyde Sail in the Philippines.

And here’s the transom:

The sail, being a one-off*, was hand painted:

And here is someone in the UK taking it for a spin on a sad little English day before it was shot for Wallpaper. (Thanks to James Lund Lack for the photos.)

But here’s the good news! YOU CAN BUY ONE! Wallpaper is making a limited edition of 12, each for the small sum of £10,000. How can you resist? Order yours from Wallpaper* now!

It’s been making some … er … waves in the sailing community, too.

here
here
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etc.

For this year’s Salon del Mobile in Milan, the highly inventive, active and innovative company droog decided to buy various lots of remaindered items from liquidation sales, and then offered the batches of unusual things to 14 designers to transform in some way. Things like glassware and safety vests and dog baskets and wooden spoons … none of it particularly nice, so it was a challenge.

From the lot I chose 2 items: a single wooden table, and 80 wooden folding chairs.

For the folding chairs, well, I had this wacky idea. I had just had my fingernails done in LA for the first time, and I was fascinated with how quickly and nicely the manicurist put designs on my nails. So I proposed to droog that we get 80 manicurists and get one each to decorate a chair. Incredibly, they went for it. In the end there were only 4 or 5 manicurists, but still.

This is the first time ever that I have done something that was only concept, in which I designed nothing, and touched nothing with my actual hands.

These were my instructions:

1) COLOURS
bright colours: pink, red, yellow, etc.
opaque colours: white or nail polishes with a lot of white in them: light blues, greens, etc.
neon colours (a whole chair in neon colours would be cool: it would glow in blacklight!!)
metallic colours: the more shiny-metallic they are, the more they will stand out on the dark surface. Silver, copper, glitter .. .I have found that even metallic dark greens and blues look quite good.
They can choose a colour “theme” or make it multi-coloured.

2) MOTIFS

I’m not looking for works of art. Keep the designs simple and easy to make.
Flowers are very easy to make: 3- , 4-, and 5-petaled flowers
or little grasses, stars, abstract things with shapes and dots (I like this a lot).

Maybe there is some design they have learned that they are good at: a little butterfly or ladybug or something. Whatever they are, they should be small and simple, as though they were done on a fingernail … but there will be lots of them. I would prefer that they pick one or two little designs and just do that over and over, over the surface of the chair. Something they get good at and can do quickly and easily. NO big design pictures, no scenes or designs that would not fit on a finger nail … it should look pretty and delicate.

The Centraal Museum Utrecht bought one of these chairs, but droog still has a lot. The plan is to ship them to the droog store in New York, I believe, where they will be for sale, and more will be made.

Photos by Stefanie Grätz, courtesy of droog.

Chip Kidd recommended me for this project to do a poster for the Academy of American Poets to promote April as National Poetry Month. I worked with Christina LaPrease and Tree Swenson on this (interestingly I used to do typesetting for Tree, a million years ago), and they gave me several poetry quotes to choose from. I chose, “We make a dwelling in the evening air / In which being there together is enough.” from the poem “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,” by Wallace Stevens.

Being a visual person I interpreted this as a romantic space which is both interior and exterior. But Tree knows more about poetry than I do, and in a very kind and complimentary letter to me she said, “You’ve created a most fitting visual pairing for the Stevens excerpt—giving a clear sense of of the ‘intensest rendezvous’ in the poem. The centripedal energy in the poster also gently urges one to go where ‘we collect ourselves,’ as Stevens advises.”

For me, I am happy that 200,000 of these are printed and being distributed to schools across the U.S. Promoting poetry is something I am more than happy to do.

Printed in CMYK + Gold.

For New York Magazine’s end of decade issue, Chris Dixon asked me to create a full page illustration of the words “The 00s” with the most emphasis on the 00 part. Other people were creating title pages as well, and they would be distributed throughout the magazine to separate the sections.

This piece is officially dedicated to Henrik Kubel, for giving me the idea of working in foil. This assignment conveniently came up shortly thereafter and I was overjoyed with the results. Depending on how I shot it, it reflected colours, had different hues, and was just generally all-round pretty.

This is the one I chose in the end for the mag, because they wanted it to be “punchy.”

However … as it turns out, editorial ran over and many of the title pages didn’t run. Well … it did, as a 1×1.5-inch thumbnail on the contents page.

Sigh.

John Gall at Random House invited me to take part in a project whereby 21 designers are invited to create a cover for reissues of Nabokov’s books … but within the prescribed format of creating a specimen box (Nabokov collected butterflies) with pins and “paper”, to create the cover.

Ten of these new designs are just being issued now, with wonderful covers by Carin Goldberg, Sam Potts, Michael Bierut, Stephen Doyle and the ever-amazing Martin Venezky, among others.

My book was “Transparent Things” so I used the pins to suspend 4 layers of acetate, with dots of transparent ink on each later.

And below is the picture I took of it, in sunlight.

You can view all (or almost all) of the covers here, at Design Observer. (Including a more eloquent description of the project, by John Gall.)

David Huyck asked me to contribute something to Vol 1. Edition 3 of his Cloudy Collection, on the theme of “Scarlet Lettering”. Printed letterpress in red plus blind deboss, this is perhaps the most difficult-to-read piece I’ve made yet.

This, along with 6 others by various artists, are for sale at the Cloudy Collection website for $40US (for all 6 incl. free shipping to the US and Canada), with part of the proceeds going to the Nature conservatory.

The original, in pen and ink, is a little easier to read. Sort of. It’s two poems, or odes regarding my complex feelings for a certain individual … though, to make matters worse, there is a typo in one of the lines. Oops.

Todd Falkowsky of Motherbrand in Toronto approached me to design a … a … well, see, there’s this machine that squishes pennies, just like we used to do on the railroad tracks when we were kids (only it’s safer) and it has the ability to impress a new image into the penny, turning the penny into an oval copper thing. So Todd wanted to get 4 designers to make designs for this machine, and then set the machine out somewhere and give the proceeds (I think it costs $2, plus the penny) to an art studio for street youth.

I just liked the idea of squishing pennies … though, isn’t there a law against this? Doesn’t it come under “defacing the queen” or something?

Anyway, So I thought about what one might conceivably want to have on a copper thing that might mingle with your change in your pocket. Ultimately I decided on “Empathy”, because really that’s all the world needs is a whole lotta empathy, and I imagined that you might look at that Empathy penny from time to time and it might actually influence how you viewed a situation.

Then, for the design, I was interested in putting the “round” back in the distorted penny. Or maybe I’m just into circles right now (yes.)

Where can you get this? Only one location: at the Design Exchange in Toronto.

The three other designers were Douglas Coupland, Burton Kramer and Paul Butler, so if you want my design, make sure you turn the dial to the right position!

Michael Bierut at Pentagram hired me to draw some thistles for a new mark for Strathmore Papers. I did various versions, all designed to work as repeating patterns as well, and this was the one they chose.

Katie Barcelona, at Pentagram, worked on these ream wraps with Michael … I think there’s more stuff to come.

This one of my favourite pieces so far.
R-Wines, from Australia, wanted a poster with the names of all of their suppliers, to give to them as a present.

I drew 30 grapes, of different varieties (who knew they were so colourful?) each hiding a letter of the alphabet. But then I had to place them … a total of approximately 2,130 grapes!

Here’s a detail:

When I was asked to speak at Pop!Tech this year, I was also asked to create a poster for the attendees. I knew that Pop!Tech is an eclectic conference and there would be many kinds of speakers presenting on different topics. So I didn’t want to include specific words that might mean something to some but nothing to others. The theme of the conference, however, was “Scarcity and Abundance” so I decided to visually work with that at a concept. The result is sortof “Mondrian goes to Tehran”.

This poster is narrow so that it could easily roll up into a small tube and fit in anyone’s suitcase.

Many people at the conference told me they really love it.