Each year for the annual AGI Congress, members are asked to contribute to a special project. This year's theme was "Modular" and here is my submission.

I’m a big fan of the band The National, so when I got a call to do a gig poster for them, I was very excited. This wasn’t to be a poster that would hang on the streets, but would be more of a commemoration of the event, for sale at one concert only: at the Wiltern in LA. I’ve never been to The Wiltern, but I’ve admired the building from the street and I knew it by name. It’s a beautiful Art Deco building, and while I didn’t want to do a Deco poster, I did want to reference the geometry somehow.

But also, I was thinking about how it would be dark in there, and maybe hard to see. Thinking about concerts, etc., I decided to make a poster that was actually 3 posters in one. By using Black, Flourescent pink and Glow-in-the-dark inks, I made a poster that would look one way in daylight (above), another way in Black Light (or ultraviolet light):

and different again in the dark:

The poster was screen-printed by Delicious Design League; great poster designers in their own right.

I am having the first show of my work at the University Art Gallery (Dept. Art and Design) of California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, from Jan 9–Feb 20, 2009.

Oddly enough, this is the first time I’ve made a poster for myself. I originally planned to make the whole thing in fun fur, but it didn’t work out so well, so I used scraps of fun fur, including making my name … which turned an elegant hand-drawn script into something that looks a lot like a tarantula. I threw in some patterning, some vector art, some pencil drawings, including a sketch for the poster itself and a little drawing of me, and the result is kindof a mix of what I’ve done in the past plus what I’m interested in in the future. It’s precise, and a little odd, and a little funny … I hope.

The show itself has over 100 pieces, including some video, 25 or so original drawings, some paintings, posters, photos, etc.

Big, big thanks to Jeff VanKleeck, who invited me to have the show, and who is working his ass off to get it ready.

I’ll also be speaking at CalPoly on Jan 16th, 2009.

Oh, yeah … details typeface is H&FJ’s Acropolis. One of my faves.

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.

AED Social Change released the second version of the “Design Ignites Change” poster. This one is in silver foil on copper paper, and it is also sold out, alas!

Um. I was asked by Shigeo Fukuda, President of the Japan Graphic Designers Association, to submit a poster for display in conjunction with the Summit of G8 Nations in Toyako, Hokkaido, with the themes of “the Toyako Summit” and “the environment”.

Actually, my good friend, retired designer, and Canadian design legend Theo Dimson was asked, and he sent them to me.

Normally I am wary of the value of designers creating posters for things such as this, but on the other hand, I was pleased to be asked and I thought it couldn’t hurt.

The whole thing being international and all, and taking place in Japan, I decided to have no words on the poster at all, except for the required logo, at the bottom.

It’s … is it obvious? It seems obvious to me, in an interpretive kind of way. So I’m not going to explain it.

There were also fans involved, for fanning yourself during global warming (which seems like rather a good idea), and if I ever get mine, I will post pics.

William Drenttel & Jessica Helfand of Winterhouse hired me to create one of a series of posters for the paper company, Stora Enso. (The other two in the first three are by Paula Scher and Christoph Neimann; beauties both.)

This is quite complex. It contains two variable repeating patterns and a whole bunch of archival photos (mostly from the Library of Congress). It’s about time, families and preserving things for generations. It is, in my humble opinion, my best work to date.

The Fader magazine asked me to do a diagram of Jerry Garcia’s influences, contemporaries and influenced. Now I’m no Deadhead, and I’m not responsible for the content of this, only the look, so if you’ve got complaints (as I would imagine Garcia fans would), don’t come cryin’ to me.

This is in issue #46, and you can’t mistake it, it’s got a big photo of Jerry Garcia on the cover.

And

The folks at The Fader liked this well enough to decide to print a 7-colour silkscreened poster of it.

Debbie Millman asked me to design the poster for a four-part Live-in-Person version of her famous internet radio show “Design Matters.” On her weekly show, Debbie talks to people in and around design about topics relating to design, culture and branding. Adobe and AIGA San Francisco are sponsoring the four live interviews (one of which is with me) which will take place over the year in San Francisco.

I wanted to create a poster that had to be experienced live, in your hands, to be fully appreciated—like the 4-part series. This led me into the complicated world of translucent paper.

Instead of having the traditional “pretty side” and the “text side”, I wanted to have an interaction (or “conversation”) between the two sides. The poster was carefully designed so that text and imagery appears in reverse on the front (or back), although some areas are partly masked with white ink from one side to the other to avoid confusion and create a difference between the 2 sides.

The white ink also serves to create different effects depending on how you view it. If the poster is viewed against a dark background, the white ink is visible and there is a lot of complexity. But if it is viewed against a white background, the white ink disappears and the text becomes very clear.

In addition, the poster was designed as a self-mailer, and the layering of lines is both intriguing before it’s opened, and undergoing constant change as you open it. As I intended, the internet doesn’t do it justice.

The paper was donated by Curious Papers, and it was printed with great diligence by Steve Woods Printing in Phoenix, Arizona.

Graphex is Canada’s Biennial Design Awards, put on by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC). As 2006 is also the GDC’s 50th Anniversary, I decided to explore a Canadian theme, in pursuit of an elusive “Canadianism” in design.

Long story. I decided to focus on nature, and the things that we all have in common in this vast country: plants and insects.

It was at the point of an 86-layer Photoshop file, and the realization that I was close-cropping a mosquito that I decided I’d got in a bit deeper than I ever intended to.

However, I’m immensely proud of it. It’s very beautiful, and it sports a swarm of blackflies spelling “Looking for the Canadian in Design,” ladybugs make the words “Call for entries,” and ants trace the deadline dates.

I made the logotype from maple leaves, which I painstakingly “nibbled” with my fingernails to make them look like they’d been chewed by the various insects that adorned the type.

Plus all-Canadian fonts.

This was originally designed for a Speak Up poster competition … which, incredibly, I didn’t win.

The rules were to represent a quote written by someone who had posted to the site. I chose “Art and design are cousins. They should not go to bed together” as spake by DesignMaven.

But I fundamentally disagree with the statement, and I intended to render the poster in such a way as made it obvious that Art & Design always have, always should and always will go to bed together.

I love this poster, and some day … some day, I maybe just produce it.