Where the Wild Things Are Pinstripe Tribute

Where the Wild Things Are Pinstriping Art Tribute

Ever since we saw the Spike Jonze / Dave Eggers film adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, my fiancée Alyssa and I have been a bit smitten. The exemplary, ultra-laid-back marketing campaign and the this-is-how-it-should-be-done film itself are a one-two punch of quality, so often lacking in mass-marketed entertainment. Right before we saw the film, we came across Terrible Yellow Eyes, a blog dedicated to Wild Things fan art, featuring loads of talented artists giving their visual perspective on the book / film. (You know the film has to be making huge waves if it’s generating this much inspiration.)

Alyssa's secondary variation

So over the past week or two we’ve been working on our own little contribution. Not sure whether or not it’ll get posted anywhere else, but we figure it should see the light of day one way or another. Besides the obvious reference (“Carol” from Where the Wild Things Are, we referenced hot rod pin striping art styles like those popularized by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth.

In terms of our method: we were originally experimenting with Scriptographer, an amazing Adobe Illustrator plugin platform that allows for all sorts of scripted tools and filters. One of its scripts, reflector, allows the user to draw on one half of the artboard while the drawing is automatically reflected, in real-time, over the X-axis, Y-axis, or both. (Yes, for those Kustom Kulture purists out there, this is definitely cheating.) But in the end, Alyssa sketched out the final geometry with pencil on paper, and I scanned it in and vectorized it with bézier curves in Illustrator. There we added color, exported to Photoshop for some texture and experimentation, et voilà, out popped the finished design.

Tags: Adobe Illustrator, Alyssa Zukas, art, Dave Eggers, illustration, Maurice Sendak, movies, pinstripe, pinstriping, Scriptographer, Spike Jonze, technique, Where the Wild Things Are

Another day, another Ed Rondthaler quote

The New York Times masthead Comparison from Ed Rondthaler's book

Avid readers of this blog will remember one of the first posts I made, over a year ago, about a redesign of the Star Waggons logo that I had completed at the time. There may have been some hubris, on my part, in comparing my work to that of the lettering genius Ed Benguiat, but while continuing to read Life With Letters …as they turned photogenic by Ed Rondthaler, I came across a rather familiar looking comparison between the old and new New York Times masthead. Looks like Mr. Rondthaler had made the very same visual comparison when he put this book together back in 1980 or so. Neat!

Plus, the illustration was accompanied by a very informative little blurb, which explains that the project was taken on while Ed Benguiat was an employee of Photo-Lettering, Inc.:

     I have been fortunate to witness several great moments in graphic history, but none more overdue than the day the New York Times finally dropped the period from its masthead.
     Newspaper mastheads traditionally placed a period after the name, but by 1900 most papers had given up the practice. Even The Enterprise, my father’s little amateur monthly of 1885, had no period. But The New York Times was not one to rush headlong into such change without due consideration. Meanwhile the period appeared day after day and week after week consuming ink, I estimate, at the rate of $84 a year.
     It was not until 1966 that the Times concluded there was little to be gained trom further procrastination, and decided to bring its masthead in line with popular usage. It was felt, that appropriate expertise should be sought for the execution of this change, and that it could be combined with minor alterations needed at the Same time. Photo-Lettering was honored in having Ed Benguiat selected to perform the amputation.
     The ailing masthead was brought into our quarters on the appointed day. When the operating table was duly set Ed Benguiat, after honing his trusted scalpel to a fine edge, administered four deft strokes of the blade, swiftly severing the period with a minimum of discomfort.
     It was an historic moment. One that will be long remembered in the annals of joumalism. I hope we returned the severed period to the Times as a valuable contribution to its archives.

Tags: Ed Benguiat, Ed Rondthaler, lettering, logo, masthead, Photo-Lettering, Star Waggons, type, typeface, typography, vintage