Posts Tagged ‘graphic design’
my mum: on being a graphic designer in the 70′s
my mum, aged 23
tomorrow, march 10th was my mum’s birthday so i thought i’d celebrate her a bit and show you the lady who made me!my mum’s name was jill, she was a petite, redhead whose lack of height was made up for in personality. she had a quick wit and was a knockout at quiz nights and crosswords, and i have her to thank for the enormous amount of trivia i know as well as my creativity. of course i could talk forever about how fab she was, but i’m going to focus on her work, because i think about her and her work a lot now i’m in a similar position. further down i’ll tell you about my mum’s own thoughts on her work at the age i’m at now.
at 21, on her wedding day
mum left school early to go to art school, where she studied to become a graphic designer. she worked in a number of companies – ad agencies, a television station, a children’s footwear company and a technical college where she worked for 20 years! it was always so much fun to visit her work and admire all the tools she used before computers. my favorites were the letraset, the windsor and newton inks (which still have the same packaging!) and the pens and compressed air used for airbrushing. i liked the way ice formed on the air can, and i learned the hard way that if you’re gonna lick that ice, be prepared to be marched down to the water fountain to have your tongue defrosted from the frozen can: embarrassing!
snakes on a dame: on honeymoon in bangkok.
i used to visit mum’s office a lot, and spent lots of time there during school holidays. she worked for the government in a technical college, making their educational materials. the department she was in comprised of all kinds of fun stuff aside from the designer’s studio. there was the film studio (with prop and costume departments!), the editing suite, the audio studio and an excellent photography department, so holiday visits there for me were a wonderland of activities. i used to hang out with the audio guys and they’d make tapes of me singing nursery rhymes, or i’d play in the editing suite and go crazy using the chromakey (green screen), i made animations in the film studio and developed my blurry photos of my feet in the dark room.
photos of my mum, a lithograph by her, and her bamboo page art brush
mum’s work was just as diverse as my amusements. though she was principally a graphic artist, she was also called on to direct, edit and even write some of the educational videos. i used to love spending time in the editing suite with her, it was so dark and quiet. it was a good place to talk. i still have a fondness for studio egg crate style insulation foam, peg board and the smell of tape and electrical equipment, not to mention design tools! when my mum died i inherited her tools, so i really relish the opportunity to hand draw something knowing i’m working with her french curves, or her brush etc.
mum working at her desk, from the “register of women in non-traditional occupations”
she was even featured in a book produced by her work in 1978: “register of women in non-traditional occupations”. its quite funny to look through now, considering a lot of the jobs talked about are no longer particularly exotic: real estate agent, lecturer, politician etc.
the index listing the “non-traditional occupations”
the page featuring her says:
jill is a graphic artist in an educational organisation. she is 27 years old.
“my work involves visual work for television – any lettering, illustration or animation needed for a television program. i won a scholarship to art school while i was still at school and did five years at art school working freelance in advertising agencies and industrial design firms. the qualification gave me a wide range of training and gives me access to employment”
“my being female was a bit of a handicap in private industry, but not in this organisation. people didn’t take me quite a as seriously as they would a man. if i had wanted to make a career in advertising its doubtful if i would have been able to become an art director. the women tended to be given the quick paste up jobs, not the long term or demanding jobs that required liaison with the client. here i have more freedom to do that work.
i haven’t thought about being in an unusual situation, despite my previous experience of being the only women in the workplace in private industry. i would like to set up my own business eventually and see myself as someone committed to a career. people with whom i work still assume that i’ll leave soon and have children, but i’m a permanent worker. i assume i’ll continue to have a career, not just a hobby, and i’ll fit in all the other things i do in my life as well.”
way to go mum! she was a permanent worker, too. after i was born she returned to work and my dad was the one to stay at home with me, which in 1982 was not unheard of but quite out of the ordinary. its so interesting to have this record of what it was like for her at work, and what she expected from her job and life. its very easy to take being a female designer for granted these days. that book was published four years before i was born, when my mum was 27, the same age i am now. its interesting comparing our lives, in parallel.
so happy birthday ma, wherever you may be. i’ll be having a pimm’s and dry ginger in your honor.
vintage graphis: ’79 theatre posters
from graphis annual 1979
Posters sponsored by the Container Corp. of America for plays performed by the travel light Theatre in Chicago Designer: John Massey
7by7: February 19th 2010
i don’t know if its just coincidence but i think this 7×7 ‘week in pictures’ type feature holds magical powers. it makes weeks go very, very fast!
first off, lets talk about the new header! if you’re reading this via an rss reader come on over to the site and tell me what you think of the new scheme. its a little bit toy-town, a little bit mary blair, and a little bit alexander girard.
to people in cooler climates, this photo isn’t very inspiring but did we get some rain or what?! there was thunder and lightening and the concreted area in front of our porch turned into an impromptu wading pool! but its good news, because we’re in a constant state of drought here. we have serious water restrictions in place – the most difficult to live with is limiting shower time. how i long for an obscenely long shower!
i had a lovely valentines day! i got flowers, and breakfast and hugs. the ladies working at the florist where my flowers were bought gave my son his own valentines day rose. what a ladykiller!
and these were my stunning flowers! a whole big pink mess of orchids! my boyfriend is so funny, he was telling me how he went to a bunch of florists, but he has a particular florist for each kind of flower he usually buys me: one is good for lillies, another does great roses etc. i’m a very lucky girl!
on thursday i got to take a day off: hip hip hooray! so my friend and i caught up for some coffee and lunch and i got presents and home made jam! and i got to eat this delicious toasted pide, filled with roasted pumpkin, chickpease, baby spinach, goats cheese and caramalised onions. yep, it was deeeeelicious!
after our deicious lunch we decided if this was going to be a lady date, then we really should go and do something silly like get a pedicure. so my toes are now ‘purple with a purpose’. i wish i had the job to think up color names!
tonight i made a big batch of chilli, and while i was chopping up the peppers i was struck by how awesomely colorful they are. maybe i can make a nailpolish color called ‘pepper with a purpose’? or maybe not haha
i hope you have a really great weekend. does anyone have anything exciting planned? our weekend looks a bit fragmented with work, and gigs, but i’m sure with the batch of chilli, and the perfect weather we’re having we will have some nice late summer fun. til monday, take care lovlies!
7by7: February 3rd 2010
welcome to 7×7, a new weekly feature on draw! pilgrim, its a ‘week in pictures’ type round up of snippets from my life designed to encourage me to share more of what i’m up to, and take more photos even when i’m not on holiday. as socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living, while that sounds a bit drastic, i’m terrible at taking photos generally and i’d like to have more to look back on.
i miss room service breakfast! i could eat that plate pictured everyday, forever. i’m normally terrible with breakfast, but having a proper breakfast makes so much difference to how i feel throughout the day. but has that motivated me to make a plate of fruit up like that now i’m home? no. no it hasn’t.
on our last day in LA we had breakfast at swingers diner on beverly blvd and then walked around to melrose ave to cruise shops. we passed by canter’s deli which was on my list of places to visit, but we seriously ran out of time. peeking in the window convinced me we need to visit with empty stomachs next time!
i don’t know what strange gasses they pump through airplanes, but i always seem to forget what’s in my suitcase between point A and point B. so unpacking is especially exciting for me, and as soon as i pull everything out of the case it all comes flooding back- “ah! remember that time we went to amoeba records and thought we’d died and gone to heaven?” “hey look! there’s that crooked street we went down!” etc etc for 3 hours. sigh…
homework is much more fun when you’re doing it in candy colors! it feels so fun to hand write stuff after being conjoined to the keyboard so much of the time! i’m into week 3 of the BYW course with the lovely holly becker, so this notebook is filling up with all kinds of treasures.
i’m not sure if our cat, pringle, is happy we’re home or not… what do you think?
this guys is nuts about stealing my foreign chocolate stash! lucky he’s so cute. how lucky am i to have a boyfriend who buys me jonathan adler for christmas? very.
here’s a little bit of a sneak peak of a work in progress. i hope you like it, the flowers sure are cheering me through the post holiday blues.
i know its been very holiday snap heavy lately, and i promise this ‘slide night’ won’t be lasting too much longer, so in future weeks, real live photos will be more ‘exotic’ posting material.
vintage graphis: ’71 fiat poppy field ad
hello lovlies! i am back! i’ve been knocked about by a bit of a virus this week, but never fear: i prevailed. normal programming has resumed.
peter max: strobelightedflashingkaleidoscopiclightshows
peter max. even if you don’t know the name you’ll likely recognize his far out psychedelic posters. i have a book of his posters which is everything you are after in seizure inducing design. its really very, very, groovy. here is a portion of the foreword, i’ve tried copy it exactly, but there is a point where you lose count of how many !!!!!! are being used… (and yes, i realize that i am guilty of over exclamating, but people, please!!! this is one of the few posts not about me)
ZAAAAAAAAP!!!!!!!!! it’s 1965! the year the earth turned… on. BANG! flower power. love, peace, strobelightedflashingkaleidoscopiclightshowsACIDDDDDDDDDDDD!!!!!! music. great music. the beatles, stones, airplane, joplin, and … this man is wild….. COUNTRY JOE McDonald and the FISH. Sgt. Pepper… GREAT THINGS FROM ROCK… ROCK IS RAISED TO A HIGH ART… ROCK… comes out of the cultural cave!!!!!! how to advertise this new rock… this new music. how do you advertise something new and different… the… POSTER! the fillmore and avalon use the poster… a new type of poster… a… psychedelic poster…… aposterwithwordsalljumbledtogetherlikethis. 1967. fantastic vibrations and cosmiclightandx-rays bombarding the earth. sound exploding on the west coast. and on the east coast, a young man in a room 15 by 15 in new york. SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR I TELL YOU, SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR, SHAAAAAAAAAAAAZAM! Zap! PETER MAX!- don pierce, 1970
the book doesn’t explain who don pierce is, and my googling turned up a variety of don pierces, so i’m going to assume it was written by the part cyborg X-men supervillan (though more likely he was a musician or something at least partially based in reality). but enough semantics. ladies and gentlemen, don your protective eyewear and enjoy the work of peter max.
where you can get your own peter max poster book
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!vintage graphis: ’71 heinz ketchup ad
heinz ketchup
photographer: alan boyde
art director: john crewe
agency: young and rubicam, london
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