In 1974, while working at a garment company in San Francisco, a native New Yorker named William “Picasso” Gaglione walked up to Darlene Domel, a Chicagoan working at the same company, and said, “Close your eyes and put out your hand.”? With her eyes closed and her heart in her throat, Darlene offered him her [...]

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Initially, the dawn of the Atomic Age came in the form of two mushrooms clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, ending the Second World War. But in the years immediately following the war, while The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists were raising red flags about the dangers of nuclear weapons and warning of the [...]

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For the last quarter century, Naomi Yang’s graphic design palette has evolved serendipitously. This is in large part, she says, due to the fact that she could pick and chose her projects based on creative merit. It was never her bread-winning gig. Still, Yang is primarily known as a musician?first as a founding member of [...]

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Detroit native Matthew Jacobson is a designer, art director, creative director, magician, mind-reader, escape artist, record-label-owner, and former notary public (though he only ever officially notarized one document). He currently lives with his wife and son in Chicago, but will soon be relocating to Nashville to work as the in-house designer at Third Man Records. [...]

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Alexis Madrigal’s first book, Powering the Dream: This History and Promise of Green Technology (DaCapo), is a quiet page-turner that anyone concerned with our future energy policy?or lack thereof?should read. A former editor at Wired.com (and current technology writer and Senior Editor at The Atlantic), Madrigal is a talented wordsmith and astute researcher with an [...]

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Chicago-based architect Jeanne Gang, known internationally as the creator of the Aqua Tower, wasn’t originally intent on re-envisioning the traditional monograph when her firm, Studio Gang Architects, decided to get into the publishing game five years ago. But after teaming up with designer, Elizabeth Azen, a California native who made the move to Brooklyn in [...]

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As a lighting and stage designer, Andi Watson is unrivaled. I first witnessed his work on the Radiohead tour for "Kid A" 10 years ago. Since then, every time I’ve seen Radiohead perform live, I’ve looked forward to the muted yet intoxicating stage show theatrics as much as the music itself. Watson’s sets seem to [...]

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This year marks the 20th anniversary of “grunge,” or as David Markey aptly named his documentary about Sonic Youth’s European tour, 1991: The Year Punk Broke. The film, which came out the following year, captured the post-punk subculture on the verge of mass appeal, a time when jocks and stoners alike rallied behind dissonant guitars, [...]

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While cataloging my home library over the holiday break, I found myself wondering who had designed some of my favorite book covers. I made notes to myself in series of notebooks. When I tallied up my final list, it turned out that at least half of them were designed by Megan Wilson. For the better [...]

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I usually deplore list stories, but then again, the Internet is ripe for them. Pitchfork, for instance, does a wonderful job contextualizing lists of reviews, interviews and articles about music. The following list doesn’t follow any semblance of order, but the headers in all CAPS say it all. A week and a half into the [...]

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