By Michael King on May 18, 2012
This is a picture of me taken around 1955 and posted on my Facebook wall by a brother who has yet to have the favor returned.
I can date the picture with some accuracy Because the tail fins in the bottom right of the picture are from my father’s 1955 Plymouth. The car behind me is, I believe, a Hudson Hornet. To the rear are the Manhattan Bar and “Grill” [tres chic!], to the left are the windows of The Olde Fort Restaurant [just the blinds visible], and the door between the two sets of windows is the entry to the McMahon Hotel, which at the time was a residence for an improbable cast of characters.
I suspect I was dressed in my Easter finery. Love the [clip-on] bow tie!
Posted in News |
By Michael King on May 17, 2012
Some things never change. Merchants give out promotional items. Here is one from 1893, an early example of “co-branding,” where the E. P. Best Manfacturing Company of New Haven, Connecticut supplied merchants, in this case the H. Frank Company of Ballston Spa and Mechanicville, New York, with small notebooks to hand out to its customers. The inside of the back cover featured a list of the nation’s 50 largest cities according to the 1890 census. The underlined city is Denver, its population up to 106,670 from the 1880 population of 35,629.
And we are still handing out notebooks. A quick check of my friend Dave Beaty’s website at Colorado Advertising Specialties shows 8 or more pages of notepads that you can decorate with your logo and company information.
Posted in Brands, Graphic Art, News, Promotional Items |
By Michael King on May 16, 2012
I found this flyer in a used book. How many anachronisms can you spot? I count at least four.
Posted in Graphic Art, News |
By Michael King on May 15, 2012
Nothing lurid will be disclosed here. I simply wanted to get your attention. Below is the cover Glaser designed for the Anglo-Irish novelist Joyce Cary’s The Horse’s Mouth, which is one of the great novels of the 20th century and now unjustly neglected. A minor incentive to read the novel is the film based on the book, which stars Alec Guinness, who also did the adaptation. Incidentally, Guinness also starred as retired spymaster George Smiley in the television adaptation of the John LeCarre novels Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People.
Glaser, a dean of American Design, is probably best known for his 
campaign as well as the Bob Dylan poster that featured the singer’s image with serpentine psychedelically colored hair.
Posted in Book Covers, Joyce Cary, Milton Glaser, News |
By Michael King on May 14, 2012
I am a fan of the British author Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks mysteries and have read some 17 of the 20 of them in print. Because I usually buy used paperbacks, I happened to notice a significant difference in the cover theme used in the UK publications and those in the US. In the image below, the cover on the right is the American version. Of the two, I much prefer the UK version with its quiet, muted tones and find the US version rather garish. Same author, same series, two radically different interpretations. Does this say something?
Posted in Book Covers, Literature, Peter Robinson |
By Michael King on May 11, 2012
New items are now available from my Periwinkle Suite studies. Because the items are captured in a vector art digital file, they may be printed at any size as long as that size multiplies the files’ basic dimensions. All files are printed on Hannemuhle Fine Art Digital paper. Hannemuhle describes the paper as “Natural white 100% acid free heavyweight fine art paper made from fibers from highly renewable bamboo. Its warm tone and matte smooth finish combines beautiful art prints with environmental sensitivity. Archival, museum quality. Light fastness rating of 100+ years.”
The numbers in or near the pieces of the suite are for identification only, they will not appear on the finished prints.
For more information, contact Michael at Black Swan Image Works, mgk@bsiw.us.
The Periwinkle Suite
Posted in Michael George King [MGKing or mgk] |
By Michael King on May 11, 2012
If you don’t know about foldfactoryactory.com, the business brain-child of Trish Witkowski, you should. Every week, Trish posts a “60-second” video explaining a unique graphic piece that uses a clever folding processs to draw attention to itself. And she does this wearing a tee-shirt that features a different fold-related saying! [Her industry puts me to shame, he who has difficulty getting out a monthly newsletter!]
I had the pleasure of meeting Trish and Sabine Lenz, the founder of PaperSpecs, here in Denver a few years ago and have to report that she is every bit as nice as she appears to be in her videos. Being an Upstate New Yorker, Trish can talk very fast and cram a mountain of information into her weekly videos. Sign up here to receive the foldfactory.com newsletter.
Here is a picture of me with Trish, Sabine and few others taken at Vintage Pressworks, a Denver letterpress printer [Trish is to the right of me and Sabine to the right of her in the photo]. I told Trish that although it was a delight to meet her, I felt cheated because she wasn’t wearing one of her famous tee-shirts!
Posted in Businesses, FoldFactory.com, News, PaperSpecs, Vintage Pressworks |
By Michael King on May 10, 2012
A follow-up: First, I am red-faced. Having pointed out someone’s grammatical error, I need to admit that the name of the studio is not “Focus,” it is “Manual.” The link was right, some small consolation I suppose, but what a goof! Second, I received a nice note from Manual, thanking me for pointing out the error, which I notice they have already corrected.
Today I noticed a grammatical error in a project description on the website of Focus, Manual, a San Francisco “ design and visual communication studio. I dithered while trying to decided whether or not to let them know about the blotch. I finally decided that I should tell them because I would want someone to tell me about an error on my website. Here is a link to the page that contains the error. Can you see it? Would you tell?
Posted in Copy Editing |
By Michael King on May 9, 2012
Today on KVOD, after a change of announcers, the new host said “Welcome to Colorado Public Radio.” As I drove along, I wondered why I was being welcomed when I had been there all along and the host [you know who you are and I'm not giving out any hints!] was the arrival. This shows what weighty issues were occupying my mind!
Posted in Whimsical |
By Michael King on May 9, 2012
Yesterday I pulled up alongside a Mini Cooper. In the bottom left hand corner of the hatch window was text. As I looked closer, I could see that the text said, “Actual Size.” LOL as the texters would say.
Posted in Signs, Whimsical |
