UK designer Pete Harrison's Magic

In time when Photoshop becomes more of the look than the artist, comes along someone like Pete Harrison. As a tool, Photoshop can be as useful as an Xacto knive or Rapidograph was to an earlier generation of creatives. But merely learning the filters and applying bevel and emboss to a font or image, rarely results in brilliant design. Usually, it's just a mess. Still, Photoshop and Illustrator along with many computer programs have become the primary cause for the recent demise of design and creative talent.

But in the right hands, this powerful tool can help artists create extraordinary designs that move, motivate and sell. Check out the work of the UK's Pete Harrison, known as Aeiko, and aeiko.net.

Live and Let Never Die

Now that I've moved back into the home I was born in ( yikes), and the house my 96 year old dad was born in ( yikes), I've been living in a sort-of time warp. Cleaning out attic's and cellar, sheds and barns, has been rather cathartic, and healing. As a designer, I am also finding the venture less of an exercise in nostalgia than I had expected. It's been a bit surprising to see how relevant many of the magazine covers, advertisements ( not the tech one or auto ads, but the food ad's!) have been. In a time when I am constantly pitching against "I hate circus type" and " That ad feels, so......1970's" or :" I love it but change the sixties feeling image", it's been just plain old fun, to see some of the pure, vintage type and styles. All fodder for helping others understand the differences, and the real reasons why we are currently revisiting the past. Surely, many of these images will be making their way into my presentations.

First, a bit of naughty. I admit that I am old enough to remember this sexy cover by Herb Alpert - for the famous and still rather edgy Whipped Cream cover, was the foundation of a "private club' I created in 1967 in a back cubby of our chicken coop, um..well, goat house actually, which makes the story better, if not creepier. our 'boy's club' was called the Bradford Boobies Club, after all, we we're 9 years old, and this is what 9 year old boys do in the 1960's, right? It was inspired by random clipping swiped from my Dad's Art In America circa 1967 magazines, which, well, had lots of black and white images of boobies and such, since hey, it was the 60's. Anyway, I found this album cover in our cellar last weekend, and three days later, I get this email from a design firm pal,( thanks Gabe!) who shares, out of frustration, the struggle and sometimes irony that surround the recent trend of using the past as inspiration for something modern, specifically - recycled type, mid-century images. For those of us who 'Get it', it's been a time of frustration and defense, and sometimes, the only way to sell through a vision is to defend it with proof-of-concept. People and business will 'get-it' soon enough, until then, check out this re-creation:




Reinvention is fab when executed perfectly. Which reminds me of this recent redesign of the Hilton identity for Hilton Honors, which pay's homage to the 1966 logo, but still, so elegant and daring. Isn't it amazing when such vision is confidently brought to fruition in a business world which is sensitive to change? One has to admire such feats. Go Hilton.




While on the subject of vintage inspired type, I can't help myself, and must share these cover designs for books created by artist Michael Gillette for Penguin UK. Michael's work continues to show up on my radar, and on others, as I've noticed on a recent binge researching for another project. Surely, this won't be the last we see of him.