Nelson Mandela 1913-2013

More: HMK Archive Collage Art

Sad Day.

RIP Chuck Ramirez

Way back when in the late 1990's, I was honored when my friend and colleague Chuck Ramirez called me one morning and asked if I wanted to do the invite for the Blue Star Arts & Eats - my answer - Totally! The only thing was.... it was due to the printer the next day.

I remember drawing this little dude, my caricature of Chuck, while I was on the phone with him going over the details of the invite. I finished the illustration, bought some props: vino, daisy and a pear at HEB (save the receipts!) brought everything downtown to Robert Lopez's photography studio and shot it. This is one of the polaroids I saved from the shoot.

Thanks to Chuck this was my first of 3 invites for Arts & Eats and I can still hear him sincerely digging the final piece and thanking me profusely for making it happen with such short notice. That next week there was a nice bottle of wine from Chuck at my office along with a thank you note. Thank you Chuck. Thank you for your inspiration and generosity over the years - I miss you already man!

That's Right,

HMK

RIP Bob Noorda

“Don’t bore the public with mysterious designs,” Mr. Noorda once said, and he put that dictum into practice. He was a master of spare, elegant and logical designs that caught the eye, from minimalist corporate logos for the Italian publishing house Feltrinelli and the ENI Group of Milan to impressionistic posters for Pirelli, the Italian tire maker.

Mr. Noorda’s best-known work in the United States was for the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which in 1966 commissioned his firm, Unimark International, to modernize and unify the look of the subway system’s signs. The firm had been recommended by Mildred Constantine, an influential design curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Bob Noorda, an internationally known graphic designer who helped introduce a Modernist look to advertising posters, corporate logos and, in the 1960s, the entire New York City subway system, died on Jan. 11 in Milan, his adopted city. He was 82.

Read the entire piece over at: NYT Art & Design.

That's Right,

HMK

RIP William Safire

Sad news. Mr. William Safire died at a hospice in Rockville, Md. this morning. He was 79.

My first real introduction to the New York Times was William Safire's On Language column during my senior year at Madison High School in San Antonio. Our teacher, Mr. Bob Richmond, sent me to the office one morning with a progress report stating that I was the master of the double entandre.

Huh?

After looking the meaning up in the dictionary I talked to Mr. Richmond about how I'd always been facinated by lyrics with double meanings, slang and word origins. That's when he pointed me to the New York Times and Mr. Safire's column.

After reading today's NYT article I was suprised to learn that even though William Safire was a speechwriter for President Richard M. Nixon and a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who also wrote novels, books on politics and articles on language, he was also a college dropout.

Read the entire article over here: William Safire NYT.

Happy Trails and rest in peace Mr. Safire and thanks again Mr. Richmond!

That's Right,

HMK

RIP Dan Cook