AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Ships Ahoy

When I decided to go to CalArts, my mother said, “Well, once you’re eighteen, you’re on your own.” I’m not sure if my parents lack of interest or support was due to my choice of school, art school over Harvard, or because they were too busy arguing to notice. They seemed confused about my college until I graduated, telling friends I was at CalTech. The upside of this was absolutely no interference with any of my own decisions. The downside was the financial responsibility to pay for college on my own.

I hate that some of my students now have similar financial struggles. This is the time they should be free to focus on becoming the best possible designer and finding their own distinct voice. I do what I can personally with the scholarship fund but this can’t solve someone’s entire college expenses. When Moo.com asked me to design a set of business cards, I was interested. They are the best quality, printed on beautiful Mohawk Superfine paper. When they told me I could dedicate the Art Center Scholarship Fund as my charity, I was thrilled.

Now, this is one of those classic “do whatever you want” assignments. These sound great, but lead to sitting at my desk staring at a blank pad of paper. So, I thought about cards I want. First, I’d love a set of nautical themed cards, and a set of vibrant patterns and color, then, disturbingly, a set of really depressing places. The nautical and pattern cards are perfectly logical. Who doesn’t want nautical business cards, or bright and cheerful color and pattern.

I admit the depressing cards are odd. But I love the idea of shaking someone’s hand, smiling and handing out a business card with an image of a place of despair. These are the spaces where people gave up. They stopped trying. They are about lethargy and exhaustion, places where all else failed. What could be more fun?

To paraphrase Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest, “I don’t ask for much.” Now I’m asking that everyone spread the word, order some cards, look better when trading business cards, but most importantly, help a young designer as they struggle financially.

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Ships Ahoy

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Ships Ahoy

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Pattern and Colour

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Pattern and Colour

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Pattern and Colour

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Sad Places

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business cards, Sad Places

AdamsMorioka, Moo.com Luxe Business Cards, Sad Places

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1984 Olympics poster

You’ve been reading some old letters —

You smile and think how much you’ve changed.

All the money in the world

Couldn’t buy back those days.

These are some of the lyrics to This Is The Day by The The. I was thinking about this as I was cleaning out the flat files at home and came across some of my student work. Unfortunately, I found that I haven’t changed. I might be a little smarter and definitely have a bigger waist size, but damn if those colors and the whole attitude looks the same. This means either I have a strong and consistent vision, or I have one idea that I keep banging out repeatedly.

I made these projects in 1986, my last year at CalArts. Yes, they have little new wave in them, but that was what you did in 1986. I rather like the Olympics poster, but the Neo Youth project is scary. I remember it was a proposal for a monument to Los Angeles. This was the idea: L.A. is obsessed with youth. It needs a monument, rather than building a big statue, create an organization of young people who would travel around town and help people. The more good work they did, the more medals they would get. This would take the place of the latest Guess jeans as a status symbol since everyone between 14-18 would be in uniform.

Yes, you may be saying, this sounds quite a bit like Nazi Youth, Young Pioneers of China, or the USSR’s Communist Youth Organization (Komsomol). I may be rather dense at times, but this was part of the concept. If being young were a religion in Los Angeles, go all the way. Of course, now I realize that I was wrong; the uniforms were probably too trendy.

French Structuralism poster, Roland Barthes and leg

Gang of 4 record cover

Neo Youth book cover, 24"x36"

Neo Youth book poster design, 24"x36"

Neo Youth book headquarters across from Beverly Center, 24"x36"

Neo Youth book day uniforms, 24"x36"

Neo Youth evening uniforms, 24"x36"

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Noreen Morioka, Sean Adams, the Peoplemover, Tomorrowland

Many people ask how Noreen and I met. I like to tell them it was in prison, but that’s not true. We met in school, at CalArts. We went our separate ways after we graduated, Noreen to Tokyo, and I went to New York. At the end of 1993, we were sitting on the Peoplemover in Tomorrowland and decided that rather than complaining about design, we should step up and have our own firm. Much of that work was documented with transparencies and hasn’t been published for over a decade. So we decided to drag the pieces out of the archives and give them some air for awhile; even if they are a little dated.

Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities

Our first postcard, some were sent back with added drawings

SCI-Arc Building in Los Angeles, 1994

Wired magazine

SCI-Arc Spring Lecture Series

Poster, LA Louver Gallery

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Poster, Spring Dance Ensemble, 1985

I’m often asked to bring in my student work by my students at Art Center. I went to CalArts from 1982–1986, so the work tends toward the New Wave. I was fortunate to have some great instructors including Lou Danziger, Lorraine Wild, April Greiman, and Roland Young. Here are a few of my projects. Now, remember, this was when type was generated by an old Merganthaler VIP photo-type machine, or by letterpress, and you needed to make giant negatives and print posters either as a slikscreen or Diazo print (blueline). So they ain’t as purty and slick as the fancy pants digital printed student work today. And I walked ten miles in the snow to get to school after milking the cows.

Poster, 4 Australian Poets, 198

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