Aoxomoxoa

Here is another of my favorite album covers. This is the cover from The Grateful Dead's 1969 album Aoxomoxoa. The cover was designed by Rick Griffin who was a graphic artist and a surfer. I have loved this cover since I was a child and I saw this in my parent's record collection. It was one of the first albums I got myself, although I didn't even bother to listen to it until much later. My interest in this cover certainly stems from the graphic style which influenced me, a style that also closely relates to graffiti. The symmetry is also great and it shows a hand drawn style that could be related and as good as what people produce on illustrator today. This pic certainly doesn't do it justice.

Sex Pistols Album Cover.

This is the cover of the 1977 album Never Mind the Bollock's here's the Sex Pistols. I like this cover because is was a breakout from traditional album art in its lack of imagery. This graphic shows the power of color and even more so text. I personally have a deeper affinity for graphics that stand regardless of text so it is great to have a reminder text's powerful properties and creative use. The colors are so vivid on the piece that in a pile of covers from many eras it still stands out at a huge level. I like this album to the point that this is a photo of my framed original copy that I keep on a living room wall, one that I keep there in a much higher degree for the visuals than actual fan-ship of the band.

IT152 Stairs.

One thing that I see badly designed time and time again are stairs. people taking liberty with the dimension of the steps until they are at the point of the most annoying they can possibly be, the steps too small for a single step (you would be traveling in slow motion) and too big for a double step. These particular stairs are in the IT152 auditorium and they piss me off every day. Make them taller (less steps/broader surface), put more (shorter/two at a time possible), just do something. Nothing can be done about them now, but whoever designed them needs to apply things to usable applications.

Barcelona Chair

I have always liked this classically modernist chair by the 1930's architect Mies van der Rhoe (1886-1969). Even to this day I will spot this chair often in office buildings and expensive condo lobbies in chicago. I think the clean lines are timeless, I liked it even as a child. The picture here may be hard to fully appreciate without a cleanly designed setting around it, the chair is meant to be a component to a room. The fact that nearly eighty years after it's inception the chair is still being manufactured and selling in the 4000-7000 dollar range is a testament to its long lasting design appeal.

Jim Lee X men

This fold out comic cover from 1991 is one of my favorites. Jim Lee was my favorite comic artist while growing up and this cover doesn't have a border and the image is colorful making it feel open and like it has a lot of movement. Jim Lee's forms and lines are always great, as well as completely hand drawn. The cover is one of the most dynamic ever, which is proven by this being the highest selling comic book ever even to this day.

Graffiti

Graffiti as a word should be broken off from vandalism into it's own term. Graffiti should remain as a word for an art form, not the crude script in bathrooms or marring public property. Although the word graffiti has its root from the italian word graffiato and it could be easily argued that the vandalism aspect should retain the name and the art form be re-branded I don't think this is the case as graffiti is already a widely excepted art form and the younger generations feel an easy connection with the word as art. The older members of society are the last vestiges that connote the word with destruction. The piece above is one that I saw at Bonnaroo summer 09 that was a beautiful piece of art that was covering a cheap plywood wall. The characters, colors, and clean lines were all great and made the environment even brighter. The second picture is a piece that I (on left) did at the same festival on a free art wall. Be forgiving of my work as unlike the other was not pre-designed, didn't use stencils or phat caps (for cleaner direction of paint flow) , and of course took much less time (about 20 minutes). The first piece I spoke about was definitely a reason I felt compelled to do one of my own, that motivation is a true hallmark of something that speaks as a art form. My friend from New York (right of the second picture) provided the paint and did the fill on the character.