Indianapolis Museum of Art Blog

2008 is a defining year in political history with the culmination of months of campaigning, rhetoric and staging by the three final contenders for the next President of the United States: John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But which candidates truly mastered the art of portrayal? Their official campaign merchandise is a telling visual portrait of how they wish to be represented.

Beginning with McCain, he expresses his strong military background and personal heritage through his logo and with merchandise including a nautical lapel pin and Irish buttons. McCain also appeals to coalitions and branches of the armed forces through a variety of apparel. Perhaps the most noticeable difference from the other candidates is that McCain chooses to employ few images of himself. Clinton and Obama both have artists’ renderings of themselves for posters. McCain only uses unaltered photographs of himself on merchandise.

Next up is Clinton with her surprising portrait with “rising sun” found in the accessories section of her official campaign Web site’s online store. According to the site, this original Hillary Clinton print, designed by Hollywood screenwriter Tony Puryear (”Eraser”), is an exclusive to Hillarystore.com. The posters (there are two versions) are “Union printed in USA using 100% wind power and vegetable-based inks.”

“Senator Clinton is a beautiful, strong and inspiring woman, and I wanted to make a poster that reflected that. Rather than putting a slogan on the poster, I chose to put her name, because she is surely the only leader at this level with whom we are all on a first-name basis, and to me, that reflects her personal warmth and connection with ordinary Americans.” - Tony Puryear

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A few weeks back I read an interview from the weekly German newspaper Die Zeit with french designer Philippe Starck. I don’t normally make it a habit to read weekly German newspapers. I prefer the bi-weekly ones much better. You know, more objectivity, less fluff.

Starck is a superstar designer, if you will. A design celebrity. Kind of like a Britney Spears of the design world. Just with a beard and a little less crazy. He’s designed countless products and interiors…everything from toothbrushes to hotels and restaurants around the world. In the 1990’s he began championing product longevity as part of his design process. He’s said that a designer’s role is to create more happiness with less. A nice thought.

In this interview Starck said that in two years he’s retiring from design. He’s reached a point in his life where he looks back to the objects he has produced over the past 20 years and has come to the conclusion that he has done nothing but contribute to materialism. “Everything I have created is absolutely unnecessary”

He went on to say that “design is really a terrible way to express oneself.”

The design community took a collective gasp and everyone started lining up to take sides, Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine receiving a DNA collection kit in the mail with your name on it, swabbing the inside of your cheek, transferring the cells onto a piece of special paper, and mailing it back to the return address. In the lab, a technician extracts your DNA, runs it on a gel, and captures a raw digital image from that gel. Then, your DNA sample is destroyed. Convicted felon? Father of another child? Or just redecorating the condo with your unique DNA portrait?

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The IMA’s Previews member magazine goes into design next week. I thought it would be fun to give readers a behind the pages look at the process and another chance to weigh in.

Last October, a team of us who work on Previews sat down with stacks of magazines from all walks of life, including publications from other museums. We talked about appearance — the layout, design, fonts, colors, photos. We hashed out content — article type, member information, length, the calendar. We also considered the paper used to print the magazine on and asked ourselves ‘How green can we be?’ Read the rest of this entry »