Working at The Village Voice
[The publication of the last print edition of The Village Voice in September 2017 prompted this nostalgic look back at my experience working at the legendary weekly New York City newspaper. I served three stints at The Voice—as associate art director, 1986-88, art director, 1990, and design director, 1991-94. On August 31 the current Voice […]
Graphic Design by Jesse Marinoff Reyes
Here are four publication layouts featuring the magic design and artwork of Jesse Marinoff Reyes. The Rock & Roll Quarterly cover was created in the early 1990s when I was design director at The Village Voice. The issue’s main feature was about Mexican rock bands, and we came up with the idea to make the […]
The Village Voice’s Rock & Roll Quarterly
Rock & Roll Quarterly was a music supplement published by The Village Voice for six years in the late 80s and early 90s. The format was designed by Voice design director Michael Grossman, and issues were art directed by Robert Newman and Florian Bachleda. It featured outstanding illustrations and comix by folks like Gary Panter, […]
The Village Voice: Apocalypse ’92
The L.A. Rebellion/Riot Cover That Could Have Been: I was working as design director at The Village Voice during the time of the L.A. Rebellion (or riots, depending on your point of view) in 1992. The editors began working on an intense package of coverage and analysis before the weekend, and I was told to […]
The Burgo Calendar: 20 Years of Illustration Brilliance
[This essay was written as the introduction to Collezione Burgo 1997/2017, a 20-year retrospective of the artwork and illustrations created for the Burgo Group’s annual calendar. The Italian-based Burgo Group is a paper production company that has been commissioning illustrators for the past 20 years to create images for their calendar with the theme of […]
SPD Student Portfolio Review
On Thursday, June 15, I’ll be participating in the Society of Publication Designers Summer 2017 Student Portfolio Review. A group of magazine professionals will be offering advice and critiques to student work, both print and digital, at the Inc. magazine HQ in New York City.
George Pitts, 1951-2017
This was a memory that I shared at the memorial service for noted photography editor/photographer/poet/artist/teacher George Pitts, on April 2 at the Parsons New School in New York City. I was one of 17 people, plus George’s wife Jan, who gave powerful remembrances of this inspiring man. You can see the complete service—almost three hours of […]
¡Sí Se Puede! Cesar Chavez Graphics and Art
March 31 is the birthday of Cesar Chavez, and also Cesar Chavez Day, which is a state holiday in California, Texas, and Colorado. Chavez was most active as a labor leader and civil rights activist in the 1960s and 70s, when he co-founded what became the United Farm Workers union. He led the struggle for […]
Celebrate International Women’s Day with 10 Classic Ms. Magazine Covers
Ms. magazine was founded in 1972, with the preview issue appearing as a pull-out section inside New York magazine. That first preview issue was art directed by Rochelle Udell. Bea Feitler was the art director starting with the first real issue, July 1972. As art director of Ms. until 1974, Feitler created a series of powerful, […]
Black History Magazine: Opportunity
Opportunity, A Journal of Negro Life, was published by the National Urban League from 1923-49. The first editor was Charles Johnson. In addition to essays on social and political issues, Opportunity had a strong emphasis on photography, art, and poetry. Early covers included artwork by Aaron Douglas, Winold Reiss, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Richard Bruce Nugent, […]
