the good old days of corporate design

Altar Dresden Foil Scrap from Martin Meyer.comOkay. More Dresden Scrap for your eyes and fun. I discovered this cool site that will wholesale this stuff to me…and I am sorely tempted. Just need a project beyond the drooling and salivating I  have being around this paper ephemera. It’s Martin Meyer Imports. Love the stuff. Take a looksee when you have time. They have altars (like this), wings, and all sorts of other great stuff like suns, moons, stars, comets. Combined with a few wonderful retablos, and one could create your own mixed culture folk art.

Today is the Sausage Fest. The pink teeshirts are rolled in a pile. Sausage is cool in the fridge which decided to work today. I bought corn and a melon from Rick along with a request for salsa tomatoes which he happily sold me for less in abundance. So, the trip for the tomato jackpot was just up the hill and not 15 minutes away in the Amish Wonderland. So, the salsa has been cut and prepped for the gang. May the fest begin. There is talk about a holiday Sausage Fest for fun—perhaps with a santa pig?

I have been musing over what I like about Alexander Girard. I guess its the limited palette, simple color treatment, simple imagery more like icons and less like stories. His work almost seem like logos for life, or symbols for living versus a snapshot from a story. Those images can be grouped together to tell a story in pictograms—evoking traditional images from folk art, folk stories, and toys. His work is altogether very happy as I am sure Girard was a joyous man who let his light shine through his work. Upon a bit a of research on his work, I came across this wonderful site on Braniff Airlines and the work/effort+ thinking that went behind the first big change of image that transformed that airline. The Braniff Pages.com shows the predecessor to Jet Blue. Braniff went from a so so airline in Texas (I think) to a look out operation which was thrilling to ride. The airplanes were different colors (whoa!) with new type by Alexander Girard (now available through House Industires):

In 1965, noted New Mexico architect and graphic designer, Alexander Girard, was hired by Jack Tinker to redesign “every aspect” of Braniff. He created the idea to use bright color schemes and ethnic art for Braniff. This was officially called “The End Of The Plain Plane,” and was applied to aircraft, lounges, ticket counters, ground equipment and everything else the “flying public” would view. 

Girard originally wanted each Braniff aircraft painted all one color, with a tiny “BI” logo and name. Braniff advertising and engineering wanted a bigger logo and bigger type, so they modified the designs and colours (adding white wings and tail) based on the Vega scheme Paul R. Braniff had created in the 1930s.

Braniff Introduced Seven Colors: Powder Blue, Medium Blue,Orange, Ochre, Turquoise, Lemon Yellow and beige. (Lavender was also introduced as shown above, but dropped)The colors were proposed by herman miller designer, Alexander Girard, and modified by Braniff In-house departments.”\

The stewardesses were trained to be hospitable at a College developed for them. Combined with the training came a overhaul of food, service and luxury with an infusion (where my relationship with Jet Blue comes in) of fun from color and design, posters and then the actual floor show during the trip. My father would take Braniff during some of his travel during this time and would come back to talk about how the stewardesses would change their uniforms during the trip going from mini to maxi to raindomed bubbleheads in Pucci designer duds.. A real live trip into a Stanley Kubrick universe from his description to an imaginative under ten year old at home. I am still intrigued. This was the time that contract furnishings via Herman Miller and the whole corporate design machine at Corning/IBM/ Cummings Engine was in full swing and fully functional. It was wild, and crazy. It was the sixties when anything was possible. And thanks to Alexander Girard, it became realized.   I am inspired.

 

 

Remote me

Finnish Chicken, Q. Cassetti, 2010, digitalI am waiting for the Sears repairman to come chez Luckystone. We have been doing the cha cha with the local appliance guy re: our refrigerator, and with two fruitless and expensive visits, we decided to throw in the towel and call in the big guns— Sears. The compressor seems to conk out and allow the fridge to heat up after two days. We have been nursing it with ancillary ice chests at the ready.

I worked on the happy brand yesterday. I have a bit more to do, but will break today to work on holiday card illustration/ design. Hopefully, i can wrap some Girard inspiration and wit to this work. I am intrigued in the way Girard cut his work, his patterns into rectangular shapes that he either worked within or cut out of. He developed iconic forms of birds, flowers, leaves, seed pods, berries on branches that fit together like a joyous jigsaw puzzle, humming happily together in vibrant colorways. His work is very derivative of the sublime work of Matisse’s old age, and a body of work I have held dearly, his cut paper compositions. There is also a dose of Mary Blair in his figures when Girard creates them—

The Hangar Theatre’s posters for next summer awaits. I have been given a sneak peek at the offerings which is very broad and ranging from serious to silly. Need to put a pencil to these as I would love to get these done by the end of November so as to get them on a schedule that is not so last minute as it has been in the past.
I also raised my hand to volunteer for next year’s Ithaca Triathlon. Another waterfall coming up! I think Girard may take a hand in this one.

Alex is moving up the corporate ladder at the Rongovian Embassy, from dishwasher to expiditer to his pleasure. Kitty is busy at Silk Naturals, our Main Street makeup business in the Masonic building.

My phone battery is almost gone. Must wrap this up— William Walton’s coronation march is playing on the radio reminding me of my wedding— as Mr. Whitman played Walton for the processional and recessional— shaking the pipes and pulling out all the stops on the massive organ at Shadyside Presbyterian Church to my delight. A good way to start today.