My latest cover review for Folio: The October 17, 2014 issue of Entertainment Weekly, featuring a graphically intense, black and white photograph of Michael Keaton in a preview of the Birdman movie, is one of the coolest and most iconic magazine covers of the past year. Photographer Art Streiber, design director Tim Leong, photography director […]
The Society of Publication Designers hosted an historic gathering of Entertainment Weekly design directors on September 30 at the SVA Theatre in New York City. All seven of the magazine’s design directors from its 25-year history were present and discussed the visual history of the groundbreaking weekly (I was design director of EW from 1994-96). […]
I was the design director for Entertainment Weekly from 1994-96. During that time we created almost 100 covers for the weekly magazine and some stand-alone special issues. The covers were made with a talented photo team headed by Mary Dunn and Doris Brautigan. And a number of these covers were designed by Florian Bachleda, George […]
Illustrator/art director Josh Gosfield created this series of street sign banners for Brooklyn’s big Atlantic Antic festival, which was held ton September 28. The banners are 8-feet long, and were designed as part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Brooklyn’s largest street fair. The executive director of the local business improvement district gushed to the […]
This is the text of a talk I gave on September 16, 2014 at a memorial service for Mitch Shostak. The memorial was a gathering of Mitch’s many friends and colleagues, at the School of Visual Arts Chelsea Gallery in Manhattan. Many thanks to Arthur Hochstein and Fred Woodward for advice and inspiration in putting […]
A version of this interview appears in issue #11 of Gym Class magazine, edited by Steven Gregor. Illustration by Alexander Wells. I first met Wyatt Mitchell in 1997, when I was the design director at Details. He was hired to be the magazine’s production manager. He’d previously worked with our production director, Marc Einsele, who […]
One of the most exciting series of magazine covers at the moment has come courtesy of Time Out New York. TONY has always had energetic covers, but its latest batch, created by new-ish art director Chris Deacon, are exceptional and rank among my favorite of 2014. In a way, it reminds me of the work […]
I’ve got a vested interest in the design of Entertainment Weekly magazine. I was the second design director there, from 1994-96, and have stayed in touch with many subsequent design directors and designers at the magazine in the years since. Needless to say, as the years go by (and this coming February marks the 25th […]
So many indie magazine covers look sleepy and dull, like the tabletop art books they emulate. Fortunately, there’s Wax Poetics, whose covers are brilliant splashes of imagery, that resemble old-fashioned LPs filled with engaging brightness and poster-like impact. Case in point: the latest cover, issue #59. It features a photo by Jonathan Mannion of Aaliyah, […]
The best two-dimensional fun for kids we’ve seen in quite some time is the third volume of Anorak‘s Happy Activity Book for Kids. Created by Cathy Olmedillas and Lewis Smith, this is a light version of the popular (in my household) UK-based Anorak magazine. It’s smaller in size (roughly 7 x 8 inches) and pages […]
