Paula Scher’s identity for New York’s Public Theater has become the ne plus ultra of graphic design. When it was created in 1994, no one had ever seen anything quite like it. With its bold red and black typography, the logo combined letters of different sizes, weights, and spacing, running vertically down the side of...
In the hot weeks of June 2008, patrons of New York restaurant Florent stuffed their pockets with matches, postcards and other ephemera emblematic of the 24-hour diner soon to close, “beloved in equal measure by celebrities on the A list and hedonists on the edge.” [1] The matches that were struck by both Calvin Klein...
A major proponent of “New Typography” in the United States, Dan Friedman received his formal education in Basel, Switzerland under Armin Hofmann, an influential educator and designer whose students disseminated the Swiss Style of graphic design in the late 1960s. Though Friedman’s portfolio had earned him teaching positions at Yale University and SUNY Purchase upon...
Ryan Maloney, Directory of Education and Programming at the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, connects the themes found in The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s with the musical culture in Harlem at the time.
LIFE magazine deemed him as a “dressmaker in silver” in 1939, but Tommi Parzinger was an incredibly versatile designer, celebrated for his furniture, wallpaper, packaging and textiles.[1] Parzinger designed furnishings for socialites, decorators, and celebrities like Marilyn Monroe and the Rockefellers and he established himself as a man about town in the glamorous circles of...
Essay by Julie Sangborn about the changing vision for some of New York City's public libraries.
Santiago Calatrava’s work explores the significance of place and its human context by considering both topographical and cultural landscapes. In this sense, Calatrava believes that it is fundamental to form a relationship – a feeling and sense of spirituality – with a physical site. In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on...
The Citibank logo is a familiar sight to every New Yorker. On the average ten minute walk through midtown Manhattan you might encounter the iconic red umbrella logotype half a dozen times, the friendly san serif letters decorating bank buildings, ATMs, and rentable bikes. The current Citi logo was designed in 1998 by Paula Scher,...
New York City Art Deco forerunner Ely Jacques Kahn (1884-1972) would have been nothing if it weren’t for the few formative years spent at Paris’ hallowed École nationale supérieure des Beaux Arts (National Superior School of Fine Arts); from 1908-1911. Contributing to Midtown Manhattan’s 1910 to 1930 building boom, the architect conceived more than a...
