The Eames are everywhere. Design blogs spill over with images of their iconic furniture. They’re stars in LACMA’s Pacific Standard Time exhibition, California Design, 1930-1965: “Living in a Modern Way (as well as others).  Ice Cube professed his admiration for them. But as a new documentary shows, though they may have started with a chair, their real impact lies in the multi-faceted nature of their work and the unfettered creativity they brought to their four decade long career. Like Ice Cube said, “They were doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed.”

A few months ago, Richard McCoy – the IMA’s Conservator of Objects and Variable Art – and Tricia Gilson conducted a two part interview on Art21′s blog with Daniel Ostroff, a consultant for Herman Miller and producer/editor of EamesDesigns.com, a website rich with information about the Eames and their work. If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s a must-read (part one here, part two here).

The IMA will continue the celebration of this dynamic duo tomorrow with a screening of Eames: The Architect and the Painter in the Toby at 7pm. Come and see if it sparks any ideas of your own. As Charles Eames said, “Ideas are cheap. Always be passionate about ideas and communicating those ideas and discoveries to others in the things you make.”

Filed under: Design, Film, Public Programs, The Toby

Since The Toby opened in 2009, we have held a Winter Nights film festival in January and February. This winter the theme for our Winter Nights 2012 series is Technicolor.

Design is generally a pretty subjective endeavor, so when starting a new project I like to do a little research into the subject in order to guide the generation of formal elements. Fortunately Technicolor offers a wealth of visual elements to play with, but the methods and appearance of color film varies a lot depending on the time. The earliest versions of color motion pictures involved three separate rolls of film—black, cyan, and magenta—that were layered together in order to produce the color projection. It’s a very distinctive look, and is wholly different from the colors you see in The Godfather: Part II, the last American film made using Technicolor’s dye transfer process. The early three-strip technique provided inspiration for the initial Winter Nights designs, involving a large and somewhat abstract W made from shaded cubes to reference a frigid, icy winter.

While working on this abstract and wintry version, we also pursued a more literal direction using film as the starting point. Keeping the W, this solution retains the grainy texture that characterizes many of those older movies. While each had its merits, ultimately we decided to go with the film-centric version for this year’s series, and a final version was created that made very clear the series’ relationship with film, as well as including the Technicolor theme in the graphic.

Using film stills in a campaign for Technicolor movies is a no-brainer, but this was not as straightforward as one might think. In the 1940s, Technicolor threw out a large volume of color negatives after the studios didn’t reclaim them, and unless they’ve been re-mastered those movies are now only available in black and white. Fortunately, we were able to find some great color images from Charade and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The beauty of these movies speak for themselves when you see them, and in order to try imparting some of that drama and motion in print pieces, I relied on careful crops.

One particularly seductive image of Marilyn Monroe offers plenty of details to highlight—Marilyn’s face, her eyes lightly closed, could be mistaken for being asleep when viewed alone. The diamond bracelet and thick gray fur are a glimpse of luxury, sensuality, and elegant excess. The full image, my favorite among Marilyn’s publicity shots for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, shows the actress dressed in red, wrapped in fur, and draped in diamonds. Her open mouth, even more red than her dress, completes a frozen moment of ecstasy, and was the perfect image to use for our Winter Nights banner.

Filed under: Design, Marketing, Public Programs, Uncategorized

For our 2011 fashion and textile exhibition Material World, designer Matt Kelm developed a brand new typeface for the title treatment. Material World is all about the splendor and opulence of clothing from across the globe, and how different societies use materials to connote power and wealth. The intricate letters are a fitting counterpart to the richly textured and adorned objects and they act as a subtle reminder to look closely at the details in the show. Just like we did for his last special project, I sat down with Matt to ask him about his inspirations and process for making the letters.

You can see the results in use (and all of the fabulous clothes) in the Paul Textile Gallery and Fashion Arts Gallery until February 6, 2012.

What were your inspirations for the Material World typeface?

The grid-like mesh of natural elements like spider webs was an inspiration, as well as man-made things like chain-link fences. Both can feel either very clean and manufactured or organic depending on how they are viewed or manipulated.

How did you design this typeface? Did you make the whole alphabet?

Functioning typefaces are created with specialized software that allows them to be typed directly from the keyboard, and includes important  information about spacing, alternate weights, etc. Because we were only using these new letters to spell short phrases, and because of the time required to actually create a functioning font, I simply made the letters in Adobe Illustrator with the pen tool. Creating each letter isn’t difficult, but it can be time consuming, so I drew only the characters I needed for this exhibition.

Why did you design a typeface and not use one that already existed?

While thinking about what typography and imagery could be used to represent the intricate materials used in the exhibition, I did look at a number of pre-existing options. Ornate display type tends to be created to connote specific imagery—Victorianism, holidays, or the stereotypes of a foreign culture, for instance. I wanted something that felt contemporary and spoke to the physical construction of the garments, but also seemed organic as well. It didn’t take very long to realize that drawing my own letters was the most natural approach.

How does the design of Material World enhance a visit to the show?

The primary goal of any design is to enhance the content. The experience of shopping at a big-box grocery store is very different from visiting an expensive clothing retailer, and it’s not because of the objects for sale. By using dark colors and not using more light than necessary, we are trying to create a space that feels intimate and seductive when compared to other galleries. The typography, too—both in its design and its use in the show—is meant to accentuate the seductive nature of the work, as well as reference the intricate patterns and handwork evidenced in many of the pieces.

Filed under: Design, Textile & Fashion

Miller House conversation pit.

I am much more of a fan of Alexander Girard’s than necessarily a scholar, but while I was researching my talk for the Miller House Symposium last week, I came across so many interesting facts that puts Girard firmly in the most important crosshairs of 20th Century design history.  From his rarefied upbringing in Florence, Italy to somehow ending up in Detroit in the late 30s as a young man out of college, to his fortuitous meeting with Charles Eames (when both of them were designing modern bent plywood radio cabinets), his talent was always a leading beacon for the zeitgeist and trail-blazing he is now famous for.  Probably because his interiors were more ephemeral (most are now gone), his product output was relatively small, and his humble lack of self-promotion generated less press, but Girard has, to date, been a bit more under the radar.  However,  his position at the top of the Mt. Olympus of Design is well-deserved and secure.

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Filed under: Design, Miller House

As one of the presenters at IMA’s Miller House Symposium, I may sound rather biased. Nevertheless I would say it was one of more interesting symposiums in which I have participated. Craig Miller, the design arts curator at the museum ingeniously decided that rather than having a full roster of historians all present didactic disquisitions about the Miller House in Columbus, he would have two historians place the house in differing historical contexts, and then ask three practitioners to discuss their own perspectives on each of the major designers (Eero Saarinen, Alexander Girard and Dan Kiley) who were involved in creating this significant contribution to residential architecture in Columbus, Indiana in 1959.

The presentations offered a varied and substantive range of approaches to appreciating the Miller House’s creators: Brad Dunning included four animated videos relating to Alexander Girard’s work, all of which were smashing. Deborah Berke talked about her long admiration of Saarinen’s architecture with an emphasis on his small output of designs for residential design. It was illuminating, particularly from her own perspective as an architect. Laurie Olin discussed his affinity to the landscape design of Dan Kiley by showing Kiley’s architectural orientation in his work. (Like Olin, Kiley studied architecture before turning to landscape design.)

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Filed under: Design, Guest Bloggers, Miller House, The Collection