Where It's At, poster, 1969

At times I feel like a traitor. I hate design. I drive to work and see a cool and hip poster and think, “Oh, yeah, seen that a thousand times.” I’ll work on an identity and create an incredibly clever solution such as when a “P” is also cat, or a comma, or a flying nun. I want to throw up.

This is when I realize its time to forget logic, clever solutions, puns, and the “correct” approach. And I do something really wrong. Now, what is wrong? Of course, hurting others emotionally is wrong (or so I’ve been told). In design, it seems that the wrong thing to do is to forget the rules and do something wonderful that makes no sense. Some of you are already getting angry and thinking, “Damn, damn, damn, well that’s just art.” See, it’s wrong.

One of my favorite examples is the campaign for the movie Where It’s At from 1969. I haven’t seen this movie and I have no desire to see it. But the posters are really, really, really bizarre. The designer took the psychedelic approach and teamed it with PushPin, children’s board game graphics, and European “Art” film (code for topless) imagery. These posters have everything one could want in a poster. Forget the poster solution of a clever one color solid shape of a comb that is also a crucifix; this is the joyous ecstasy of wrong.

Where It's At poster, 1969

Where It's At one sheets, 1969

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Hitchhiking sign, Berkeley Barb, San Francisco, May 1975

I’m pretty sure people are who they are when they are born. My parents were firmly entrenched in the counter-culture movement. I refused to wear jeans when I was 4 because they were what those “dirty people” wore. It sounds kind of prissy to me now. I liked grey flannel trousers like my grandfather’s. When I was 8, my mother started giving rides to hitchhiking hippies. “Mom,” I would plead, “This is illegal. They might be ax murderers.”

In particular, there was a hippie lesbian couple with three kids who were always hitchhiking on their way to Lake Tahoe or Truckee. Once a week, we’d see them standing near the entrance ramp and pick them up. I was sure they had kidnapped the kids, had dope in their bags, and probably committed countless other crimes. My mother insisted they weren’t ax murderers and I should be polite to everyone.

So I sat in the back of the station wagon with a peace sticker on the window, wearing my trousers and button down shirt, shocked by the free spirit of the hitchhiking family. I’m sure they thought my parents must have kidnapped me from an uptight square family.

East Village Other, New York, January 1971

Other Scenes, New York, September 1969

The East Village Other, July 1969

me and my sister Heather, 1971

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WDW Preview booklet, 1969, cover

In recent years, I’ve been concerned I was out of touch. Well, that goes without saying. A common house-cat has more hip-ness than me. But I thought the new generation only cared about working collaboratively, denying the artifact, and deriding more seasoned designers. When I was in my twenties I loved going to a conference and meeting a hero like Milton Glaser. I was thrilled when I received a letter informing me that a book was selected for the AIGA 50 Book show. Over the last two years I’ve come to realize that young designers still care about these things. They want community, recognition, individual vision, and love the beauty of artifacts. I cannot express how happy this makes me. All the hogwash research that painted the next generation as mindless automatons blindly walking down a road of Borg assimilation is wrong.

Which segues, as usual for this blog, into a crazed left turn. This preview book for Walt Disney World is one of my cherished artifacts. I don’t love it because it is about the design of meetings or strategy or collaborative teamwork. I love it because it is wonderful. When can you combine teal, ochre, and baby blue? When people discuss the great American experiment, this is it. The freedom to design a booklet with completely wrong colors and make them work. For me, the WDW preview book is design in a nutshell. It serves a purpose, it creates excitement and joy, it promotes an idea and product, it does this is unexpected ways. It talks to me personally.

So this is my call to action. When you are told that individual vision is irrelevant, or recognition of individual is wrong, or the world no longer needs beauty or heroes, just say no. These are not true. Design can create wonder and joy. Individuals do this, not committees of fifty people.

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, cover

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, Liberty Square

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, Asia Hotel

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, Contemporary Resort

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, Space Mountain

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, spread

WDW Preview booklet, 1969, spread

WDW Preview booklet, 1969

WDW Preview booklet, 1969

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Look Magazine Cover, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Every year, someone pipes up about traditional publication design being dead. We are told that today’s reader views information differently and printed publications must change. If I listened to the current theory, every page should have multiple layers of information, presented in multiple typefaces, icons, and colors. A good page design should emulate a CNN screen. If I wanted to find joy in the barrage of information on a CNN or Bloomberg screen, I could take screen grabs, print them out, bind them, and put them on the coffee table.

The problem with this is pacing. Good publications are paced like film. There should be quiet moments, big explosions, close-ups, long shots, and points for contemplation. 500 pages of dense faux-information does not do this. Allen Hurlburt served as the creative director at Look Magazine from 1953 until 1971. His issues of Look are treasures. They follow a clear grid, are graceful, calm, and powerful at the same time. We’re currently designing an annual report for one of our clients. When I explained the thinking behind our direction, I simply said, “Look magazine.” I didn’t need to say anything else. Everyone said, “Yes. Exactly. Perfect.”

from the Lou Danziger collection

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

Look Magazine, The Sixties, Allen Hurlburt, 1969

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Mary Blair, detail, Thunder Mesa study, 1970

When you are a designer of any kind, interior, graphic, industrial, whatever, you receive really awful gifts. This sounds horrible and ungrateful. It’s the gifts your parents, grandparents, and cousins give you. We’ve all been in the situation when you’re given a lovely gift wrapped in the “cool” wrapping paper from the Container Store. When you discover it’s a remarkably over-designed swoopy lady-shaped wine corkscrew in lime green, you must express surprise and incredible happiness. It’s assumed that, as a designer, you must like the groovy designed things. I bypass this problem by telling my family to focus on gifts of cactus and American flags.

I did, however, receive one of my best gifts for my birthday this year. The Disney Gallery at Disneyland is holding an exhibition of Mary Blair. The studies for the lost attraction, Thunder Mesa, are truly genius. And the renderings for the Grand Canyon Concourse tiles are possibly the best color palette ever conceived. These two birthday gifts are now in my kitchen. I considered putting them downstairs in the rumpus room so they wouldn’t fade. That would be no fun. And that’s a bad path. Soon I will be closing all the blinds, draping furniture, and storing art in a dark space, like my grandparents.

Mary Blair, Thunder Mesa study, 1969

Mary Blair, detail, Grand Canyon Concourse study, 1969

Mary Blair, detail, Grand Canyon Concourse study, 1969

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