Cecil Beaton, Truman Capote in Morocco, 1947

My first job was as a designer at The New York Public Library. Beside a major screw up when I handled a business card run for the executive team containing a misspelling, The New York Pubic Library, I had a wonderful time. In 1987, I designed the materials for an exhibition of Truman Capote artifacts. I asked the print and photograph division head for an image of Capote for the poster. He gave me a telephone number and suggested Dick might have a photo. Surprisingly, Richard Avedon answered the phone and asked me to come over to see a photo he took of Capote during the filming of In Cold Blood in Kansas.

I won’t go into Capote’s entire biography. In brief, Capote grew up in a chaotic environment, moving between relatives, an alcoholic mother, and stepfather. His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms was a critical success and bestseller in 1948. Over the next decade, he became one of America’s most celebrated authors.

Part of Capote’s success was his genius at self-promotion. He used his sexuality as a counterpoint to the accepted idea of macho masculinity in post-war America. His portraits are clearly gay, often seductive, and always flamboyant. He tackled subjects that challenged polite society. In his short story, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly Golightly is clearly a prostitute.

In 1966, Random House published Capote’s book In Cold Blood. The book is based on the 1959 murder of the Clutter family in rural Kansas. During the writing, Capote developed a close relationship with one of the killers, Perry Smith. After Smith’s execution, Capote changed. It was as though his childhood terrors caught up with him.

In the 1960s, Capote’s friends were New York society, upper class women who shopped and gossiped. His black and white ball in 1966 was the party of the decade. In 1975 Esquire magazine published excerpts from his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers. He based the short story, “La Côte Basque 1965,” on the secrets of his society friends. In turn, they rejected him. This led to years of alcoholism, drug use, and endless parties at Studio 54. Capote died in 1984 at 59.

What I find remarkable is the split between Capote’s life pre and post In Cold Blood. The ability to overcome a tragic childhood was lost. We are taught to expect stories of a hard childhood, incredible struggle, success, and a happy ending. In this instance, the narrative took a turn toward tragedy. It was as if his psyche was a sweater, and one thread began to unravel it.

For further reading: Capote: A Biography.

Sean Adams, Truman Capote poster, Richard Avedon photo, 1987

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Truman Capote, 1947

Carl Van Vechten, Truman Capote, 1948

Jerry Cooke, Truman Capote, 1947

Irving Penn, Truman Capote, 1948

Cecil Beaton, Jane Bowles and Truman Capote, 1947

Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, 1955

Neil Fujita, In Cold Blood, 1966

Richard Avedon, Perry Smith and Truman Capote

Irving Penn, Truman Capote, 1965

Robert Mapplethorpe, Truman Capote, 1981

Richard Avedon, Truman Capote, 1974

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Will Burtin, Scope magazine cover, 1952

These are the questions I’m typically asked at speaking engagements: “What is your inspiration, are you hiring designers, and what is your favorite part of being a designer?” The answers are: “How much time do you have, sometimes, and working deeply with different businesses.” I like working with a client and learning about their industry or discipline in depth. It’s impossible to work for a medical client on a diagram illustrating the process of clinical trials without understanding the subject. Or to design signage for a hospital and not understand patient and doctor behavior issues.

Will Burtin never worked on the surface. His work is clearly the result of an impressive and deep understanding of the subject. He was a master of re-framing complex scientific and medical issues with design. His elegant solutions provided simple and clear access for an audience without deep medical knowledge. This goes beyond nice information graphics. His work with Scope magazine for Upjohn is a masterpiece of scale, shape, typography, and pacing. But, it also adds a layer of deep information about complex and confusing subjects.

It is convenient to say, “I don’t have time to learn this,” and fall back to the old bag of design tricks. The result is a perfectly adequate layout. But this is not only a disservice to the client; it is a lost opportunity to do dig into a subject deeply. Good design takes time, not because designers like to move a 7 point line of Garamond back and forth 1 pica. It takes time to learn, digest, and re-articulate with intelligence and craft.

images from the Lou Danziger Collection

Will Burtin, Scope magazine cover, 1951

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1951

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1951

Will Burtin, Scope magazine cover, 1951

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1955

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1955

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1955

Will Burtin, Scope magazine cover, 1955

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1957

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1957

Will Burtin, Scope magazine cover, 1957

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1957

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1957

Will Burtin, Scope magazine spread, 1957

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1955 BMW Isetta

Noreen has a Smart Car. It’s surprisingly large on the inside, but terrifyingly small outside. I’ve heard that it is safe because it will behave like a ping-pong ball in an accident. That doesn’t sound safe to me. Noreen enjoys it, but I suspect she likes being morally superior to me.  I drive a giant car. Yes, I know, I’m bad. I’m evil. I’m going to hell. Got it.

If the Smart Car is like a ping-pong ball, the BMW Isetta was a death bubble. It’s cute as all get out, but that front door that opened forward is scary. You have a minor rear end collision with the car in front of you. The door won’t open out and the car blows up. You drive into a lake. It’s impossible to get leverage to open the front door. You drown. A Volkswagen beetle gently bumps into you. You slam into a wall. There are no airbags or seatbelts. Bad.

Nevertheless, the BMW Isetta looks wonderful. In 1955, BMW needed a profitable car. The BMW 502 was three times the standard wage in Germany, so not a big seller.

The Italian scooter manufacturer Iso was producing the Isetta (literally, “little Iso”). It looked like a tiny mobile egg. The entire front end of the car hinged outwards to open. Oddly, the driver and passenger were expected to escape through the canvas sunroof in the midst of an accident. It wasn’t too speedy. The Isetta took over 30 seconds to reach 30mph. BMW took over the manufacturing rights and launched the Isetta in 1955. The Isetta fit a tight post-war European economy. It got 60 mpg, and BMW increased the top speed to 50 mph. It was small and could fit on Europe’s smaller streets.

In 1964, BMW ceased production. Europe’s economy had recovered, and there was a need for larger cars. Now that everyone has a hankering for small electric cars, perhaps it’s time to bring it back. This time without the opening in front of the passenger, and a giant steering wheel death column.

Noreen's Smart Car

BMW Isetta, 1955

BMW Isetta, 1955

BMW Isetta, 1955

BMW Isetta, 1955

BMW Isetta, 1955

BME Isetta, advertisement

BMW Isetta, interior, 1955

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The woman and her pussy, really

I admit I’m a dingbat with some technology. But, I thought I could manage iTunes. Clearly I can’t. I thought I was purchasing a Jackie Gleason song, Serenade in Blue, and I somehow purchased the entire Jackie Gleason easy listening library. I now have 100 of your favorite quiet songs for sedation. Whooee, hot times at the old homestead are in store for you. I don’t understand why it’s called elevator music. They don’t play it on any elevator I’ve ever ridden. I would love to hear easy listening in the elevator.

On that note, I pulled out some of my favorite records. I hadn’t noticed the sexual overtones used, but then I was typically looking for a specific song. Now that I see it, I can’t get it out of my head. Who bought these albums? Did only men shop at record stores in 1955? It’s an odd marketing approach. Maybe women weren’t allowed to purchase records and were forced to listen to whatever the husband liked. “You will like this version of Wives and Lovers, dammit.” The woman with the pussy especially disturbs me. It’s oddly suggestive.

This is slightly suggestive, don't you think?

No description necessary

This dude is not relaxed

What happened to cause this injury?

There is nothing benign happening here

as Princess Leia

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Morris Lapidus, The Eden Roc Hotel, 1955: Miami, Florida

Everyone loves a story about the misunderstood artist, reviled in his time, and then lauded in his old age. Morris Lapidus is that story. When the Eden Roc and Fontainebleau Hotels were built, Lapidus was called vulgar, pretentious, artificial, and tasteless. Both hotels, however, were incredibly successful. The design challenge was to build a hotel where “the guy who can afford to pay fifty bucks a day will look around and think that a fortune had been spent to create the hotel.” The result did this. Lapidus used a cinematic approach to architecture. His buildings look the way America in the 1950s thought luxury looked like, via Hollywood. Granted, some of the design, such as the Lapidus Residence bathroom, escapes me. But, if you like fancy, it sure is “fancified”.

I find it endlessly fascinating that populist work is typically deemed, “unworthy,” while something created for a small minority of elite intellectuals is “worthy.” If a basic tenet of Modernism is to create good design for the masses, this is contradictory. Lapidus weathered the decades of criticism and kept working. In 1970, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy’s critique of Lapidus was typical: “Lapidus is a sleazy, self-promoting careerist, an architect on the prestige-make. Lapidus is a well-known phenomenon in the profession. He made his pile and excuses his aberrations with the nauseating clichés of ‘what people want’ (as if taste pollution did not go the other way from designer to public).”

We can dissect the virulent antagonism in multiple ways. Since the work was designed to appeal to the masses in Florida, and was not in New York or Chicago, there is a distinct sense of regional and class elitism. Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in the New York Times that his work was “uninspired superschlock.” This was a criticism of Lapidus’s ornate decor, but Huxtable’s use of Yiddish words subtly raises the question of the hotel’s Jewish architect and clientele, suggesting anti-Semitism.

Fortunately, by the time Lapidus had retired, and was 97, the architecture community began to acknowledge his work. The book, Morris Lapidus: The Architecture of Joy, is a wonderful collection of exuberant and interesting work that challenges our ideas of taste and modernism.

Images below are from this book

Morris Lapidus, The Fontainebleu Hotel, 1952: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Eden Roc Hotel, 1955: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Summit Hotel, 1959: New York, New York

Morris Lapidus, The Americana Hotel, 1960: San Juan, Puerto Rico

Morris Lapidus, Lapidus Residence, 1963: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, Lapidus Residence, 1963: Miami, Florida

Morris Lapidus, The Architecture of Joy

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