Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, 2009

I often tell others who are frustrated or angry with a co-worker or client, “People tell themselves stories to get through the day. Let them. Everyone wants to feel important.” Typically this works and helps alleviate an anger management issue. Now, this may seem typically optimistic and hopeful from me. Unfortunately, I worry about saying things like this lately. Last month Noreen and Nicole (Jacek) had dinner in New York with a good friend of mine (or so I thought). During the course of the evening someone suggested I emcee an AIGA conference (no I don’t want to). My “friend” said, “I love Sean, he’s always so happy and cheery, but he’s so simple.” This makes me seem like Forrest Gump. Granted the plaid shirts aren’t helping my image, but I’m not a doddering simpleton wandering the streets catching butterflies with a grin plastered on my face. Nicole came to my rescue and kindly stated, “You’re wrong. Sean could slice and dice you and you wouldn’t know you were bleeding.” I love her.

Last night I went to an AIGA/Art Center event, Nomads, Heretics, and Do-Gooders, with Nicole Jacek, Nik Hafermaas, and Matthew Manos. Nik Hafermaas reminded me, “If you want to be a designer, you have to know the world and be willing to leave your comfort zone,” Nicole Jacek gave me a publication I’ve often considered stealing, a beautiful catalog for artist, Sarah Staton. She also wisely stated, “Working in design is more than a job. As designers we get to be explorers or psychologists and it is amazing.” That one statement is so clear and remarkable, and reminded me that this is not about the endless emails about signage fabrication or cracking stock, it’s an adventure and can be whatever we want it to be.

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, 2009

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, 2009

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, detail, 2009

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, 2009

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton catalog, 2009

Nicole Jacek, Sarah Staton invitation, 2009

Share This Story

Sean Adams, AIGA LA, Second Story poster, 2013

I’m heading off to introduce my good friend, Julie Beeler for an AIGA lecture. Now Julie is one of the smartest people I know. She’s cracker-jack fast and makes me feel like a low grade somnambulist moron. So the idea of designing a poster that captured her skill, intellect and the amazing work at Second Story was scary. Of course, I ignored all that and started on my own wacky craft project. You know you’re in trouble when you find yourself asking the office, “Do we have any tiny felt flowers? Does anyone know how to make yarn look like a bow?” I expected Julie to recoil when she saw the poster and exclaim, “You moron!” But, she took the high road and said she liked it just fine.

Share This Story

Burton Kramer, Ontario Place, 1971

When Graphis did a story on us soon after we started the firm, we said, “We’re interested in making a good cake, not just nice icing.” Since we were both 29 years old and too cocky we thought this was incredibly clever. A few years later at a conference, a designer came up to me and said, “Yeah, I saw that article in Graphis. Everyone at my firm hates you. And you stole that quote from Burton Kramer.” Back then, I was still under the impression that I should remain polite and try to understand what was really driving this criticism. Now I would I simply say “Go to hell you mother@#$%ing mother@#$%er @#$%face.

Burton Kramer, 1972

In reality, Burton Kramer had said this in 1972. But, in my defense, I didn’t know this. I love Kramer’s work. Today, we get mired in post-modern analysis of irony, pastiche, and contradiction. Kramer’s solutions are so crystal clear and cutting. They are rational, perfect, simple, and elegant. But they are never cold, or without a sense of the human touch. The Canadian Broadcasting Company logo is complex and precise, but is optimistic and about infinite possibilities. Kramer’s identity programs are sublime. They are a testament to a time when designers had the time and skill to fine tune every tiny detail, as opposed to some of the slapdash icons created from a batch of Illustrator shapes. When I look through Kramer’s new book, I find the most difficult issues is to not inadvertently steal more of his wisdom.

Burton Kramer, Canadian Broadcasting Company, 1974

Burton Kramer, Canadian Broadcasting Company, 1974

Burton Kramer, Canadian Broadcasting Company, 1974

Burton Kramer, OECA, 1971

Burton Kramer, 10th Annual Sculpture Conference, 1978

Burton Kramer, Canadian Parliament Book, 1970

Burton Kramer, Northwestern Ontario, 1972

Burton Kramer, Design Canada, 1972

Burton Kramer, ROM, 1968

Burton Kramer, NOMA packaging, 1972

Share This Story

Chester Alan "Gavin" Arthur III, By Brett Weston, 1934

As it’s Election Day, and almost every man in my family line was a politician, I’m posting about someone who went down another path. Chester Alan “Gavin” Arthur III was President Chester Alan Arthur’s grandson. His grandmother, Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur is one of the family members who looks exactly like my mother. After President Arthur died, his son, Chester Alan Arthur II withdrew from Columbia Law School and sailed for Europe. He then spent his life mingling with the social elite of Europe and America. He was interested in horses, women, and fine cuisine. He owned a 250,000-acre ranch in Colorado, but never dirtied his hands with actual work. Oddly, I’ve found this to be a pattern with a large portion of family members.

Conversely, his son, Chester Alan Arthur III rejected the elegant living and embraced political and social issues. In his 20s, he joined the Irish Republican Movement. In 1930, he founded the magazine, Dune Forum, which promoted communication between the masses and intellectual elite. He was a member of the Utopian Society of America with John Updike. In the 1950s he taught at San Quentin State Prison.

By the late 1950s, Arthur moved to San Francisco and was part of the Beat Movement, devoting his time to astrology. In 1966, he wrote The Circle of Sex, a book about gay, bisexual, and gender issues in astrology. His life intersects mine in 1967. He used an astrological chart to determine the date for the Human-Be-In in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. I was there. At the end of his life, in 1972, he was a leader in the gay movement, and had been married to three women.

This seems to be the pattern in the family:

Generation 1: Someone works hard, does well, and is engaged politically.

Generation 2: Uses the money from the previous generation and enjoys the high life.

Generation 3: Goes counterculture

Generation 4: Works hard, does well, and is engaged politically.

And it starts again.

If I could do it again, I’d rather be in Generation 2, than 4. Its sounds like so much more fun to spend life worried about first class tickets on the Queen Mary, than going to meetings and meeting deadlines.

Ellen Lewis Herndon Arthur, and my mother

Chester Gavin Arthur III

Dune Forum magazine

Moy Mell dune commune, 1930s

The Circle of Sex, Gavin Arthur, 1966

Sean Adams, Human-Be-In, San Francisco

Chester Gavin Arthur's astrological chart

Share This Story

One of my favorite people from the old days at AIGA was Nathan Gluck. I never quite understood Nathan’s role. He seemed to be the archivist and keeper of the stories of AIGA’s history. When I met him, he must have been in his 70s. Nathan was like your friendly uncle who knew all the family gossip. When I’m older, I plan on writing a tell-all book. By then everyone Nathan gossiped about will be long gone, and I won’t care if everyone hates me.

We were all star-struck by the fact that Nathan worked with Andy Warhol on his shoe drawings. It was hard to imagine lovable and disheveled Nathan as part of the beautiful people Factory scene, but there you have it. Long before Warhol became a pop icon, he worked as an illustrator. He won awards from the Art Directors Club, and illustrated pieces for AIGA. In the mid-1950s, Warhol made most of his income with shoe illustrations for I. Miller. When he started, the shoes were represented faithfully. As the work evolved, they became increasingly fanciful. Nathan worked for Warhol as an assistant. He drew the shoes, and then Warhol made corrections and refined the illustrations.

In 1955, Warhol published a self-promotional portfolio, A la Recherché du Shoe Perdu. The portfolio capitalized on the increasing fame of the shoe illustrations and combined a shoe poem by Ralph Pomeroy. Warhol’s mother handwrote the poems in a careful and ornate script. When she became too ill to continue, Nathan took over, imitating the style perfectly. I spend a great deal of time explaining that reality is irrelevant, perception is everything. In other words, it doesn’t matter what a shoe actually looks like. That it is presented powerfully and dynamically is more important.

Share This Story