Pen & Pixel: Who Is Milton Glaser?
If you didn’t know it already, Milton Glaser invented I (heart) NY, along with an excessive amount of other things you’ve seen if you’ve been paying attention to United States pop culture for the past 50 or so years. Pen & Pixel, on the other hand, is decidedly different–they’re most often cited as “terrible” “trash” and a bevy of other belittlements. However, I’d be interested to see the influence of these 2 design titans measured side by side.
I came across this interview with Pen & Pixel founder Shaun Brauch (#EssentialHeadzKnowTheTransaction), and thought I should share it with the Bloglin. Their stuff really transcends taste. In spite of the fact that this stuff operates without the slightest nod to the history of graphic design it blew the fuck up, it resonates with humans, and it pisses off a lot of people that take their craft seriously. I love it.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:46 am
GREAT FIND! That Doin’ Thangs image has been floating around forums and stuff for years but I don’t think most people ever thought it was the work of a design studio, or that there was a plethora more art out there in this vein. I definitely had no idea.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Real happy “Doin Thangs” was the choice for the quintessential P&P cover.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:59 am
And thank God the interview details the making of that cover. Great find.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I love how he keeps using “high special effects” as if that’s graphic designer terminology for “shitty Photoshop filters applied in shitty ways.”
Nonetheless, a pretty enlightening interview. Gotta hand it to the guys…
November 11th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Me & Jones contacted Pen & Pixel a little less than a year ago to do a design for Мишка. They wouldn’t even give us the courtesy of “I’m sorry but we’re not interested” email response.
So my new plan is to let Ease become a shitty rapper and then contact them to do his cover art. But it will all be a ruse and once I have them snagged i’ll get the Мишка graphic I’ve always wanted from them!
November 11th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I want Pen & Pixel to design me some custom bed sheets.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Crook – The interview explains why you probably haven’t heard from them —->
A: Do rappers still come at you for covers?
S: I haven’t had that many because I think I sort of disappeared, you know. People don’t know how to get in touch with me and, of course, they go to the another company, quote-unquote, “Penandpixel.com” which is not Pen & Pixel. I talk to that guy, he seems to be a OK guy, but it’s not Pen & Pixel.
A: Did he steal the name and ran with it? What happened?
S: Well, that was weird because, when Pen & Pixel shut its doors, we sold the remnants to a studio called AKA Studios. We sold everything, for pennies on the dollars. We just wanted out, “it’s time to leave, it’s time to go”. We sold them the domain name as well, but it seems like they let the domain name sleep and laps, the second company came in and bought it.
A: I sent them an e-mail for this interview, thinking they were the real Pen & Pixel…
S: Yeah, what did they say ?
A: They didn’t reply.
S: [laughs] You know they’re not the real ones! It’s too bad, because if they really worked hard at it, they might be able to pull that up, but, you know… it’s a different company. Very very small. I think it’s one guy out of a basement.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:49 am
And I bet if you hollered at this dude Shawn Brauch (founder of P&P, intvw subject) he’d do a design. I hope you do and I hope he does – shit’d be worth it.
November 11th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Well this will teach me not to comment before reading the entire content of the post
November 11th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
here’s a sorta-humorous video intreview + tour of Pen & Ink studios by a british dude. The guy gets an album cover made and meets a rapper doing a photo shoot.
choice quote: “My major concern for my clients is to make sure it sells.” Shaun Branch, salesman of the year.
November 11th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
This is a pretty interesting read! Milton Glaser was one of the most influential and thought provoking designers of our century. Responsible for large scale branding and design principles that many professors teach in colleges and universities.
I certainly studied the man when I was attending Parsons in LA. As for Pen and Pixel Artwork being Chessy and badly designed, I think that is is relative to the clients wants that we were addressing, in addition to what the demographics demanded.
Our job was to sell album Cd and Cassettes and most of all get our clients signed with major record labels! We did that very well as history has shown. As for the cover artwork being poorly executed…that is untrue! Period!
If you have a chance to look at one of these pieces up close….like poster size and spend about 5 minutes inspecting it…you will understand the level of detail. Most of the designers at Pen and Pixel were college educated illustrators and graphics people.
It was a great team, a total production factory, but with the benefit of wild imaginations and unlimited budgets…what more could you want!
November 12th, 2009 at 9:10 am
This brings me back to high school. To make fun of a kid named Ricky Pierre who was talking shit my friend and I made a pen & pixel inspired album cover for him. Almost brings a tear to my eye.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2804/4097569189_e5fa03d3dc_o.gif
GREAT POST.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Hey Shaun, I hope you didn’t think that I was knocking your craft at all. I have a keen appreciation for Pen & Pixel.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
No Problem Zachg, often people get caught in the message of the CD cover artwork and not in the execution. It was a very different client base and one that most design houses would turn and run from, but having lived over eas most of my life, I know all to well what it’s like to have people turn and run from you. My brother and I developed great relationships with Cash money records, No limit, Suave house, Big Boy records and of course Rap-a-lot records. I still enjoy doing this type of work more than any other, of course now with more computing power the effects are even more staggering. I do suggest if you get the chance to dig deeper into the artwork you will find that the type effects (Bling ,Bling) were not created from “Filters”…they were hand done…Hours sometime days of work to get them to look that good! Well worth it!
Peace
Shawn