Paul Bacon, Saint Jack by Paul Theroux, 1973

Last week I had lunch with one of my favorite designers, Michael Carabetta. Since Michael is the creative director at Chronicle Books, the subject turned to, yes shocking, books. Michael suggested I look at Paul Bacon’s work. The more I researched Bacon’s work, the clearer it became that this was a remarkable treasure of incredible work. The book and album covers are energetic, surprising, and spontaneous. They never feel forced or overworked. Yesterday, I briefly fell in love with a new cookbook’s design. Then, after looking at Bacon’s work, I quickly recognized how the cookbook was desperately overdesigned.

Bacon’s love for jazz is apparent in the work. It feels open and clear, never rigid or constipated. However, the spontaneity should not be misunderstood as easy. The ideas are big, smart, and beautifully crafted. We can look back and say, “Times were different. You could walk in a room, present a solution and everyone would cheer. The they’d head out for martinis, cigarettes and flirting.” But, like today, I’m sure everyone had an opinion and wanted something different. Bacon’s work is a testament to the ability to express an idea articulately and sell it. There is obvious passion here.

James Victore’s article on aiga.org captures Bacon’s essence beautifully. I love that he can, “tell a joke so dirty that it would singe off yer eyebrows.” This reminded me of my great friend Doyald Young, and that made my day.

Paul Bacon, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Paul Bacon, The Big Drink, The Story of Coca-Cola by E.J. Kahn, Jr., 1960

Paul Bacon, Freedom Suite by Sonny Rollins, 1958

Paul Bacon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, 1962

Paul Bacon, Roman Guitar by Tony Mottola and His Orchestra, 1960

Paul Bacon, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco by Thelonious Monk, 1959

Paul Bacon, 5 by 5, Thelonious Monk, 1959

Paul Bacon, We Bombed in New Haven by Joseph Heller, 1969

Paul Bacon, Chet Baker in Milan, 1960

Paul Bacon, The Other Side of Benny Golson, 1958

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Nothing says fun like Helvetica

Doyald Young inscribed one of his books to me with this phrase, “To Sean, a friend, classicist, and typophile.” I take this is a compliment. I hope Doyald didn’t mean classicist as a bad sense of class distinctions. Perhaps at his dinner, I shouldn’t have insisted his maid not look me in the eye. I appreciate this compliment, and consider myself fairly traditional typographically. I have friends who have taken their children to some of Paris, London, and Rome for cultural education. They visit the Louvre; take classes in pasta making, and tour private collections. I’d like to say I did the same, hence my refined sense of classical typography. But my cultural influences were born in a small cow town in northern Nevada, and a ranch with endless volumes of National Geographic and Nevada magazine.

As I grew older, I went through that bad phase, when I rejected all of that. I moved to New York, only used a handful of classic fonts, the finest papers, and sat at only the right dinner parties. Dumb. I know now that the best dinner parties are the wrong kind of dinner parties. What fun is it until someone is in tears, something breaks, or a fight starts? And I rediscovered my low-end cultural influences. Curly type, bad silhouettes, odd western typefaces, and terrible photography are much more fun.

Energy makes the world go around

a fine piece of information graphics, 1970

groovy Los Alamos logo, 1971

More curly type is never enough, 1971

Curly type detail

More curly type, whoo hoo

Wonderful typography, odd meaningless photo, 1970

Harvey's ad, much like Small World ad, 1969

It's a Small World record, 1964

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Doyald Young, photo by Louise Sandhaus

Goodbye to a friend and scholar. You will be missed, but your influence and guidance will last for the rest of my life.

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For the last couple of days, I’ve been putting together the gallery space at Art Center. But that’s another story. I stopped the insane measuring and rearranging to go down to the theater and see Lynda.com’s new documentary on Doyald Young. Yes, I put completion of the gallery before graduation at risk. But, there was no question. Doyald, Lynda Weinman, a great film: uh, yeah I’m going to that.

It’s a challenge to make what we do seem interesting to civilians. Hmm, I have a choice of watching car chases and steamy love scenes, or a documentary on someone who works with letterforms. Typically, the 3d explosions win. In this instance though, the letterform film is the right choice. I could carry on about Doyald for hours: he’s one of my great friends and mentors, has a salty sense of humor and the best jokes, is an inspiration to teach and truly help young designers, and, yes, talented as heck. But you can find all of that on the AIGA Medalist page, except the dirty joke part.

At Saturday’s commencement ceremony, he will receive Art Center’s Alumnus of the Year Award for his dedicated work as an educator and lifetime of legendary work in typography, logotypes and alphabets. At Saturday’s commencement, he’ll receive an honorary degree from Art Center, where he studied Advertising in the ’50s, and where he has taught lettering and logotype design in the Graphic Design Department for decades.

This is what made the evening so remarkable: the 2010 graduating class was in the theater also. While Doyald made a few closing remarks, they looked on with mixtures of awe, delight, gratitude, and excitement. In school, they learn how to make beautiful form and combine this with conceptual thinking. This short time in the theater is, perhaps, one of he most valuable hours of their education. This generation of designers is shown first-hand, what it means to be a “good” designer with dignity and magnanimity by one of the great masters. Fifty years from now, when they sit where Doyald is now, they will know that talent is nothing compared to kindness and generosity.

AIGA 2009 Medalist Gala video

Marian Bantjes, Sean Adams, Doyald's big "S" at his house

Doyald Young, The Art of Steel Die Engraving

Doyald Young, Young Gallant

Doyald

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logo steak restaurant, Texas, 1952

Some things have no historic value or fine designer pedigree, but are just wonderful. This logo for a steakhouse in Texas is one of these. It was designed before the advent of the 10 point rule, Helvetica, simple, simple, simple logo. It’s fluid and graceful and memorable. Although it looks oddly like an assignment from Doyald Young’s Dangerous Curves class.

frosted glass doors

brass elevator doors

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