Christmas mail bag
Steven Heller collected more than 250 Christmas cards from artists for a 1980s book project. Many of the cards are hand-drawn or painted, but even the reproductions are playful and highly personal.

Steven Heller collected more than 250 Christmas cards from artists for a 1980s book project. Many of the cards are hand-drawn or painted, but even the reproductions are playful and highly personal.
Eileen Boxer created sublime conceptual mail art to promote exhibitions at Ubu Gallery.
Noel Martin was a renown self-taught typographer and designer who studied drawing, painting, and printmaking at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He later became an instructor there and was the long-time designer for the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as a prolific free-lance designer. Martin was celebrated for modernizing museum graphics and industrial trade catalogs. In 1953, he was featured in MoMA’s landmark design exhibition, Four American Designers, along with Herbert Bayer, Leo Lionni, and Ben Shahn. His spiral-bound self-promotional piece, Identity Programs, presents some of his iconic minimalist logos.
Some contemporary work from the Troxlers and Do-hyung Kim.
While going through the books myself, I was particularly taken with the three covers done by an illustrator I’d never heard of, Jerome Martin.
Letterhead from early in Steve Heller’s career as an art director.
Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko’s Emigre defined the look of new media that emerged with the proliferation of the personal computer.
Some more examples of The Composing Room’s elegant type specimens series Typography and Paper after the jump.
From the Steven Heller Collection come these lovely covers for Interiors, the influential magazine for interior designers, architects, and industrial designers. The magazine was art directed by notable architect Romaldo Giurgola and Roberto Mango; George Nelson was an editorial contributor.
The best translation I can come up with is “Only so!” which could be completely wrong. In any case, surely the image in this poster from the World Health Organization speaks for itself.
The P22 Type Foundry, based in Buffalo, New York, packaged a typeface called Toy Box (originally named Child’s Play) with a set of extra glyphs including a collection of animal line-drawings based on children’s drawings. Commissioned by the London Transport Museum for a children’s exhibition in 1996, it was digitized by P22 founder Richard Kegler, with Michael Want, Mariah Kegler, Kevin Kegler, and Jennifer Kirwin-Want. Steven Heller included it in his book as an example of vernacular type.
Here’s a 1981 print from highly influential graphic artist (and longtime SVA instructor) Gary Panter advertising Paul Reubens’ Pee-Wee stage show in Los Angeles. The show was the springboard for Reubens’ feature film, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and later his acclaimed series, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Panter was the head set designer for the TV show and this early poster displays his trademark jagged lines and surreal sensibility. Now scream real loud when you hear the secret word…