Category Archives: Illustration Industry

Illustration students written up in Design Notes

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rej ahmed bellini chair

A Commentary on Laziness, Rejwan Ahmed

There’s a great account of the collaboration between Parsons Illustration’s Bellini chair project and Design Within Reach in the most recent issue of DWR’s newsletter, Design Notes, which reaches a whopping 400,000 readers. Bradford Shellhammer discusses the genesis of the project and how it all plays out. Here’s an excerpt:

The class took some time to warm up to the chairs. Skateboards are instantly recognizable by undergrads, but most had yet to even purchase a new chair. [Kenna] Kay, who works by day as a creative director for TV Land, instructed them to research the history of the chair and follow up with a design statement. Steps were mapped out: Move from statement to sketch to model to final design. During each stage we met for a classroom critique. We talked openly and honestly about each idea and encouraged students to refine and better articulate their designs.

The first round of sketches included such diverse ideas as covering the chair in cushions and peacock feathers or attaching a bent spine to the chair to illustrate the negative impact a seated position can have on the human back. Some ideas were political and thought provoking, others were purely decorative. Some students had impressive concepts from day one, while others grew stronger and stronger with each passing week. Some ideas stuck (the chair with the spine) and some fell by the wayside (sayonara, peacock feathers), but all have remained truly original. The designs are as diverse as the students who created them.

Read the entirety of Bradford’s account, as well as see more images of the students’ work, in Design Notes and don’t forget about the exhibition of the completed chairs, which opens with a reception on December 12th and continues through January 20th.

Illustration & Design Within Reach Collaborate!

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bellini chair specs

Students in Kenna Kay’s Beyond Editorial class have teamed up with Design Within Reach to produce their own renditions of a design icon–the Bellini Chair. Here’s the official announcement about Design Within Reach’s celebratory reception, which takes place next week:

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Parson’s design students deserve a sitting ovation!

Once again, Parsons’ students have raised the bar with their well-tapped imaginations and fearless style. Incorporating materials of their choosing, students from Parsons’ Illustration department will exhibit their own inspired interpretations of the simple yet virtuous Bellini Chair by Heller. Using the Bellini as a blank canvas, students started with an idea on paper and finished the project fabricating a full-scale prototype. The students will join us for a reception at the West 14th Studio to share with you the fruits of their labor.

The “re-imagined” chairs will be critiqued by an esteemed panel of judges, including Alan Heller of Heller and floor covering designer Sandy Chilewich. Chairs will be exhibited in Studio through the month of January. Refreshments will be served.

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Congratulations to all the students involved and thanks to Design Within Reach (and especially Bradford Shellhammer) for approaching the Illustration Department with the offer to participate in this fantastic project!

Re-Imagining the chair
Wednesday, December 12, 7-9pm
DWR West 14th Studio
408 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone: 212.242.9449
Directions

Chris Ware designs poster for upcoming movie

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chris ware savages

The Los Angeles Times recently interviewed Chris Ware (of Acme Novelty Library & Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth fame) who worked on the poster for the upcoming movie, The Savages. Here’s an excerpt:

Just from your poster, it seems you felt some affinity to the wet, wintry landscapes of the film. It also strikes me that “The Savages,” like your work, is an unlikely mix of funny and sad.

I’m not sure if funny and sad are really so terribly different things; I’ve been to violent films that I find patronizing, dishonest and depressing, yet the people around me are all laughing their heads off. As a half-writer myself, I try not to think of what’s funny and sad in a story but simply to think of what, to the best of my ability, seems truest; whether it’s funny or sad is simply how it settles with the reader. In the wake of any horrible natural disaster some well-known religious figure is inevitably asked, “How can a good God allow something as bad as this to happen?” Really, though, what difference does it make to God whether 10,000 people or 10,000 fish die? Good and bad, like funny and sad, are phenomena relative to the perspective of the organism that’s laughing or dying.

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Chris’s work is available through Fantagraphics and you can read other interesting articles/interviews with him here, here & here.

Daniel Clowes–In the New York Times and on the Simpsons

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mr wonderful title

mr. wonderful

For those of you who missed it, the New York Times magazines has been running a new installment of Mr. Wonderful, a comic created by Daniel Clowes (of Eightball fame), every week since mid-September. Luckily, you can access the first strip here and download the rest, as well! The strip runs through mid-January, 2008.

Also, I hope that some of you caught the episode of The Simpsons episode last night that featured not only Dan Clowes , but also Art Spiegelman (Pulitzer-prize winning creator of Maus) and Alan Moore (creator of Watchman–who discusses his appearance on the show here). Great stuff.

For a New York Times slideshow about the language of the graphic novel, go here.

Illustration in the Age of Anxiety Symposium

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symposium poster

Illustration in the Age of Anxiety
Saturday, November 10th
The New School
55 West 13 Street
3-7 p.m
Free and open to the public

Parsons The New School for Design Illustration Department presents a new mini-symposium focused on how the current cultural climate is affecting the field of illustration.

Illustration in the Age of Anxiety looks at how illustration handles times of unease and anxiety in our culture, from the atomic anxiety of the 1950s to today’s wars and upheaval. “Illustration in the Age of Anxiety” will feature three conversations lead by prominent and accomplished writers illustrators.

“Shaky Line, Shaky Times: Ed Koren and Ed Sorel in Conversation with Dan Nadel” will feature master satirical illustrators Ed Koren and Ed Sorel who will discuss their famously anxious drawing styles and nearly half century’ worth of drawings for hundreds of books and publications.

“Ben Katchor: Reading in Public” will feature MacArthur-award winning graphic novelist Ben Katchor, who joins Parsons as a full time faculty member this fall, as he discusses the difficulties of reading in an uncertain time.

Pop-gothic artist Tara McPherson and illustrator-tattoo artist Ruth Marten will talk to Guarnaccia about drawing on the dark side of life in the final session of the symposium, “A Light in the Dark: Ruth Marten and Tara McPherson in conversation with Steven Guarnaccia.”

Nora Krug, another new fulltime faculty member in the illustration department, will deliver the introductory remarks and introduce the panels.

The event will be held in the Theresa Lang Community and Student Center at The New School, 55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor, from 3-7 pm and is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.parsons.newschool.edu/events or 212-229-8919.

(Poster illustrated by Nora Krug.)