I ♥ My Book

Milton Glaser-esque bookplate now included with each book from or bookshop:

http://warymeyers.bigcartel.com/category/books

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Milton Glaser's Russian Tea Room matches and Maitre D' Gary Sullivan

We found these at the Elephant's Trunk flea market in Connecticut 9 years ago, attached to a big matchbook display.
Walking around with it, a man came over and said "I love your matchbook collection! I noticed the Russian Tea Room matches and wanted to tell you I used to be the Maitre D' there for years!" After a while of chit-chatting we asked him to sign our matches (it's on the inside).
Alas, he died last year, but by all accounts he was as friendly all the time as he was that one time.

more on Milton Glaser on the always fascinating Container List
more on his RTR graphics at the too-infrequently-updated blog of Tim Groen
more on Maitre D Gary Sullivan from the Fire Island News


related: our Mr. Chow matches

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Wary Meyers City Posters

The first four posters from a total of 12 cities which I drew earlier this year for a travel series. As alluded to in the last post, we're super excited about these, in particular all the logotypes. Typography is a big love of ours, and when we can incorporate it into a project we're all the happier. So here are the first four. Coming soon are SF, LA, DC, and Dallas.

The posters are 19" x 24", printed on 100lb. smooth Bristol paper, signed. $55 each, in our shop

The New York poster owes a lot to the work of Milton Glaser and Seymour Chwast, with a little Tadanori Yokoo thrown in at the bottom. It started out as Massimo Vignelli Subway lines coming worm-like out of the apple, forming the frame, but later I changed the bottom lines to lox coming out of the bagel. But then we changed the line colors, since , although kind of funny, all-salmony didn't look that great as a border. And a lot of food worked its way in, mostly after drawing the bagel, then we had to represent the hot dog and pretzel, and all the eggplants and ugly tomatoes.

Miami's logotype is based on Ettore Sottsass' Superbox wardrobes. No relation to Miami, but it was the shortest city name and I the boxes would be nice and bold. Plus I've always wanted to make my own Superbox, modified into a monogram. The view is an artistic-licensed South Beach, with a couple Stilt houses in Biscayne Bay, the Bacardi buildings, a little Mondrian, and the ubiquitous rooftop cranes. The two curved graphics at the corners of MIAMI represent the sun, while the two at the bottom are tanned boobs, in a blue cutaway-bikini-top.

Seattle is overall a little more sci-fi/Moebius influenced. We wanted the logotype to be sort of rock n roll, and I was listening to a lot of Paul McCartney and Wings at the time (and still) which may have influenced the design.  Coincidentally Wings' big US Rock Show kicked off at the Seattle SuperDome. On the right is a giant Peep looming behind two towering onions. Probably the most accurate rendering of anything in Seattle is the outline of Mt. Rainier in the background.

London is my favorite. I love the red telephone booth type, and yet another Beatles reference in the Yellow Submarine spreading its colour along the Thames.

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New Yorkers in Their Favorite T-Shirts, 1979

By Their Fruits of the Loom Ye Shall Know Them. But if you don't, there's Andy, Debbie, Grace, Patti, The Smothers Brothers, Meat Loaf, Glenn Close (loving mutts even back then!), Legs McNeil, Suzy Chaffee, and a bunch of Broadway people, Punks, Penthouse Pets, and New York Rangers. All wearing their favorite t-shirts and shot by Jean-Paul Goude for Penthouse Magazine, July 1979. Gotta love Karla de Vito's classic "If it ain't Stiff...", but I think my favorite is Debbie Harry's Glaser-esque, Chwastian "Telluride Film Festival".

related:

Published!

from a Salvation Army in Bay Ridge Brooklyn a few years ago.

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Here come the judges

Quite an impressive list of judges for this anti-war poster competition from a 1968 Avant Garde magazine. Could you imagine winning?
A couple issues later the winning posters were shown, but nothing was as impressive as Herb Lubalin's announcement. (above)

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