I wrote and designed today’s cover illustration for NYT’s Sunday Review. It is hard to miss. It is a giant yellow disclaimer.
Thanks Aviva Michaelov for this assignment! It was a lot of fun to make. Anyone who has shared a studio with me knows I am borderline obsessed with contract-speak. Also, I haven’t had to kern this hard since college.
Click here for legible high res.
Since I left the Times six months ago my buddy Josh Cochran has swooped in and occasionally guest art directs the Op-Ed pages. In addition to Aviva (AD) and Alexandra’s (Asst. AD) big push to introduce new illustrators to the page Josh has also been giving new artists a chance. People that don’t appear in the editorial world very often… like, my mom and I.
I’ve worked with Josh a lot before but our roles in the past have always been reversed. He has a certain… how do I put it… pomo-illustrator-as-designer-style that works a little something like this (to protect our identities I have changed the names):
Juan Cochran: “It’s a story about late adopters to technology.”
Jennifer Kardashian: “Here is a rock-phone.”
Juan Cochran: “I like it. Let’s do it.”
Inspired by every brick phone I’ve trudged around with since high school, Encino man, and of course banana phone.
New York Times. Room for Debate Illustration
I love that when Aviva has a story about sex and the internet her instinct is to call me.
My favorite part of this story is the first sentence, “Experts on adult sexting were in demand all week…”
I’ve been drawing in ASCII so much lately I’m considering buying a typewriter to draw with. Also, I’ve always wanted to play “typewriter” in a band. I was born to live in Brooklyn.
I have an illustration in today’s New York Times Op-Ed Letters page about the lost art of cursive typography.
Art Director: Alexandra Zsigmonda
Also, today’s OP-ED includes a .GIF animation by Rumors. Josh Cochran has been guest art directing all week. WATCH OUT GEOCITIES!
The exciting conclusion of #LIVETWEETINGLASTDAYATNYT.
For awhile there it looked like my last week at the Times was going to be the fifth cover in a row about social unrest in the Middle East. Fortunately, the U.S. did not invade Libya so we went a different direction: PIRATES.
Battling pirates was the U.S.’s first act of foreign dipolmacy as a nation and 200 years later pirates are back in vogue with over 800 hostages and 51 boats including a liquid petroleum gas carrier.
Thanks to Ecoterra International’s meticulous records we were privy to a great set of numbers to create the above pictograph. A collaborative effort in just a day with Bill Marsh and Scott Garapolo.
Also included in this issue is a Q&A about why writers write about grief with a beautiful painting by Karen Barbour. Also, an oblogatory story on the Oscars with custom lettering by Friends of Type‘s Aaron Carambula.
Yesterday, around noon, art director Aviva Michaelov called on a few artists at The Pencil Factory to collaborate on six portraits of Muammar el-Qaddafi for the New York Times Op-Ed page. We had about six hours to work from start to finish.
At the Pencil Factory, collaboration means working separately, in separate rooms, on separate pieces of art in total silence then throwing it all together when we’re all done.
Clockwise from top:
Sam Weber - Young Revolutionary Qaddafi
Jillian Tamaki – Jim Morrison Qaddafi
Chris Silas Neal – Captain Qaddafi
Leif Parsons – Present Day Qaddafi
Jennifer Daniel – Imma Let you Finish Qaddafi
Josh Cochran – The many hats of Qaddafi
The military’s “sweet spot” between repression and accomodation of the people’s anger can be nearly paradoxical. To capture this fine line in an illustration would have to be both aggressive and delicate. I was very lucky that Sam Weber was available to create a powerful metaphor in a high pressure eight hour turn around.
Two other great artists are in Week In Review this week too: Gary Taxali on “Secret Receipes” and Julia Sonmi Heglund on playing Monopoly with Milton Friedman’s blessing.
It was too tempting not to violate copyright appropriate pop culture for today’s Op-Ed about the legitamacy of copyright. The long arm of Disney is strong and litigious. Reading about The Mickey Mouse Protection Act on wikipedia whileborrowing his ears is like reading WedMD when you have a headache- I thought I was dead until I talked to a professional.
Besides, I believe there is some contention if Shakespeare violated copyright himself.
Big love to Aviva Michaelov, art director of Op-Ed who pushed me away from my original sketch of Garfield and Mona Lisa.
This week’s Week in Review was bananas- as usual. Egypt kept us guessing up until Friday when Mubarak finally resigned after decades of rule and weeks of intense protests. With an overturned government in Cairo it seemed like the most obvious thing to do was to literally turn Mubarak upside down. Though, if I have to explain this concept I’ve probably already lost you.
Don’t miss the beautiful art on the inside by Melinda Beck and Jessica Walsh.
It brings me great pleasure to design the cover of Week In Review at the New York Times. It’s a unique section filled with a wide range of topics and is easily the first section I pick up on Sunday.
This week was all about the Arizona Shooting last Saturday. Cover illustration by Shannon Freshwater.
