Below is an infographic about sex that I designed for Men’s Health magazine. View the original on their site here.

Categorized in: By Magnetic State, Graphic Design
1 Comment

One exciting new client I’ve been happy to be working with during the last few months is Women’s Health magazine. Below is a screenshot of a new Valentine’s Day webpage that I made for them. I’m pleased with the functionality – visit the live version and help yourself to a chocolate! This design uses only lightweight HTML and CSS; the disappearing chocolates are achieved with image sprites in the CSS. You can see another page I designed and coded here.

Categorized in: Uncategorized
Leave a Comment

My new podcast, The Magnetic Eye, is a series of interviews with artists and designers. The first episode is a chat with graphic artist and pornographic filmmaker Steak Mtn. Listen to the episode online at themagneticeye.com or on iTunes here. I hope you enjoy!

Categorized in: By Magnetic State, Interviews
Leave a Comment

I designed a new brand identity for We Act Radio, a progressive AM radio station in Washington, D.C. The identity includes an acronymn (above) and a full logo (below). The lightning in the full logo is intended to appear differently every time you see it; here I have included three different lightning strikes in a short animation.

The staff at We Act Radio sought a bold identity that expressed action and motion; their goal is to motivate audiences to make change. After throwing obvious, cliched solutions out the window (the raised fist being the most predictable), I decided to use lightning as an elemental representation of action. Its other associations include electricity, power, and ideas. The effect is very bold and dramatic, just like We Act Radio’s personality.

Categorized in: Branding, By Magnetic State, Logo Design
Leave a Comment

I was amused by this dopey customer service interface that I encountered while setting up a customized PayPal account for a client. Sarah is more faux-bot than robot (she’s a mere jpeg slapped over a FAQ algorithm) but at least she has hopes and dreams. Nonetheless, she’s easily stumped. Just ask her “Why do doves cry?” and she will connect you with a bona fide human.

Categorized in: Pop Culture, Web Design
Leave a Comment

During my art class yesterday, we listened to RUN DMC’s classic song ‘My Adidas’ and then discussed it. Last night, following the class, I literally dreamt about shopping for Adidas sneakers (the sneakers in my dream were elaborate, colorful Adidas sneaker-boots; I realize now that this was influenced by a scene about Lemmy‘s boots in the documentary I watched about him this week). This struck me as profoundly successful promotion, and got me wondering what kind of endorsement deal they signed. According to one source, “The hip-hop group’s song ‘My Adidas’ garnered a $1.5 million endorsement deal in 1986, and 19 years later, the partnership is still going strong.” Considering that this is the first time I can recall a promotional message leading directly to a dream about purchasing a product, I don’t think any sponsorship price tag could be high enough.

Categorized in: Pop Culture
2 Comments

That’s a first: today I rode a Swatch subway car. Of course the interior of a New York City MTA car is usually plastered with ads (this one was all Swatch – inside and out – an immersive brand experience), but this is the first time I’ve seen ads on the exterior of the car.

Over the weekend, I went to a baseball game at the Mets’ new stadium, Citi Field. Paula Scher’s Citibank logo (famously sketched on a napkin during a client meeting) is in gargantuan scale on the facade of the stadium. The tentacles of advertising have greatly extended their reach since the last time I was at a ballgame – it seems that even the sponsorships are sponsored these days. The stadium walls are a busy collage of ads – some of them animated digital billboards. The announcers on the Budweiser Jumbotron announced the winner of the PNC bank baseball quiz (an audience member held up her prize – a PNC bank travel mug – and forced a half-smile). On the stadium’s television screens, one logo swept over another – “This! Brought to you by that!” Now that all stadiums seem to have brand names instead of name names, we joked that the next logical step would be to rename the players themselves: Carlos Gatorade at first base, Ryan Delta Airlines at shortstop, and so on.

The subway ad seems like a no-brainer now that I think about it – ad execs must’ve been clamoring for a shot at that enormous, moving billboard for years. But who let them have it? The cash-strapped MTA? Being forced to endure ads taller than I am when the G train (finally) pulls up is invasive, abrasive, and obnoxious. I hope that the public does not become too complacent about the ever-expanding role of advertising in our lives. We have voices when it comes to this kind of thing, and social media has proven to be especially powerful in expressing our backlash against it.

Categorized in: Branding, Pop Culture
1 Comment