What if we told you that you could have a wardrobe full of really cool, really original, really cheap T-shirts without depleting your college savings? You'd totally jump on it, right? Well, here's the scoop: First, grab a bunch of plain tees - check stores like Target, or even craft stores like Michael's, which stock tons of cheap tees in lots of solid colors. Then run, don't walk, to the bookstore (or hit amazon.com) to buy "Iron Me On," by Mike Perry (Chronicle Books, $12.95), a book of dozens of cool fabric transfers that you can use to personalize your shirts (or totebags or shorts or almost anything else made of fabric). Perry's artwork is awesome - lots of cool colors and prints - so after a few minutes with an iron, your shirts will look have the look of designer duds. The process is simple, though it can take some practice to get it just right. (Tip: Make sure the iron is really, really hot for best results.) But once you've mastered it, you can spruce up your closet in an afternoon. Or set up a production line and get some friends together for a T-shirt party. What a fashionable (and thrifty) way to welcome warmer weather.

From Design*Sponge

…today i am thrilled and so proud to debut the first episode of design by the book- a collaboration between design*sponge and the new york public library. for the past few months i’ve been working with a fantastic team at the library to create a series that would highlight the amazing local design talent in nyc as well as the incredible creative resources the new york public library has to offer.

together we invited five brooklyn-based artists to come to the library, become inspired by its collections and have us film their entire creative process from the beginning to the final finished product, whatever that may be. in this episode we’re introducing the project and our designers: rebecca kutys of moontree press, john pomp of john pomp glass, julia rothman, mike perry and lorena barrezueta.

this has been an absolute joy to film so far and i can’t wait to see what the artists find in the library and end up creating throughout this process. please stay tuned for the next episode (date TBA) where we’ll follow the artists as they rummage through the library to find resources that inspire them. we’ll also meet with isaac mizrahi in the next episode and talk with him about inspiration and the creative process! thank you to all of the artists who are generously donating their time for this project and thank you to james murdock, amy azzarito, and jessica pigza at the nypl for making this series the highlight of my year. (and thanks to the clear tigers for the awesome music!)

[click here to check out the video on itunesU. click here to check it out on the nypl's site and here to check it out on youtube]

From Design*Sponge

…after some uploading drama yesterday the second episode of design by the book is up and ready to go! in this video the artists visit the nypl for the first time as they look through the collection to find inspiration. there’s also a short interview with isaac mizrahi in the beginning so click “play” above to watch the full episode. we’ll return before the holiday break with the third episode and wrap things up in the new year with our final videos!click here to watch the first episode of design by the book if you missed it.

ps: in this episode you’ll meet jessica pigza, our nypl reference librarian. jessica is also our guest blogger at d*s this week- click here to check out her posts! and, as always, the music in our vidoes (which i’m obsessed with) is by the clear tigers.

From Design*Sponge

…i’m so thrilled to post the third episode of design by the book today! after a holiday break the artists are back in their studios working and in this episode we check in on them to see what they’ve done so far and how they hope things will finish up. our final video with the artists’ final projects will be up in a few weeks, but we’ll be debuting it live at the new york public library at our design by the book party! stay tuned for all the details soon- it will be open to anyone who’d like to come and we’ll have some great resources there for everyone to take advantage of. in the meantime, i hope you’ll enjoy the 3rd installment of design by the book. also, if you missed the first two episodes, they’re below- just click ‘play’.

[ps: there were crazy gale-force winds blowing in the last shot, sorry for looking like a total dunce with hair in my eyes and mouth. duh grace, should have brought a hat]

DS: When you’re not using hand-drawn type, what’s your default font?

MP: My default is Locator by ProcessTypeFoundry.com

DS: As a freelance artist and business owner, how do you market yourself?

MP: The Internet is the most important thing, I’ve had a website for about seven years, so that really helps. That means I have seven years of people looking at it and book-marking pieces, and I think that has a huge impact on success. The books going out into the world have been huge. They’ve been really helpful, in a way I hadn’t really anticipated. And then just, emailing people, keeping in contact. The best thing you can do is constantly remind people you exist.

DS: Where do you see your work going in the future?

MP: Just more. I definitely want to do larger scale projects. I want to see what that’s all about. I also really want to do interiors. I like the challenge that would come from doing a whole space, it sounds really exciting. More books, I have a running joke that I want to make so many books in five years that I can sit on them like a chair. Just to keep making stuff, that’s the plan.

MP: Hand Job came out of the desire just to make a book, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I had a bunch of ideas floating around in my head and went to my bookshelves and checked out all the books I like. I emailed one of the editors at Princeton Architectural Press, introduced myself, sent some of my work, told her the ideas I had and she somehow wrote me back. I pitched four basic ideas and in those four ideas a book about hand drawn typography was in there and they just jumped on it. It was definitely an instance of right time right place.

DS: What are you working on now?

MP: I actually had a meeting with Princeton last week and proposed three new book ideas and they liked all of them. I’m working on an illustration for Computer Arts today which is a UK magazine, and the next two issues of my magazine. I’m also working with d*s for a projects for the New York Public Library.

DS: What advice do you have for young graphic designers who are looking to start their own business?

MP: Keep your overhead low, and hustle. It kind of helps, maybe to have a job first for a little while. There’s so much to learn from those environments, things you may not even know that you need to learn. Work on your telephone skills, and have a website. People need to see your work and know that you exist. You have to change the way you think about money. You need to know about contracts and, you know, all those things they don’t really teach you in school.

There’s this thing in Minneapolis called the Walker Internship and I applied for that. I was in the phone book calling everyone, looking for jobs. Then a group of friends and I who were all unemployed decided to pull our unemployment efforts together and started a design studio. Which obviously didn’t work because it was six of us hanging out without jobs instead of just one of us. And the whole time I’m applying to jobs and in my rejection letter for the Walker Internship this one guy told me to get in contact with one of the previous interns who worked at Urban Outfitters. I had this one teacher who had worked at Urban and she called them up and said that I was going to send my portfolio, sent it off, didn’t hear anything for four months. Then I got a phone call one day and I was in the door. It was a long treacherous process.

DS: What designers or websites do you look to for inspiration?

MP: Recently I’ve been thinking about how when I listen to music, I wish that my work looked like the way their music sounds. It’s a hard thing to visualize but there’s some things about their work that I really try to have come across in my own.

I’m also really interested in science and the abstract ideas that come from that. My brother is a Bio-medical engineer and I recently realized that we kind of do the same thing. We’re both on the search to discover things. There’s a WNYC show called Radio Lab and they are very good at visually describing the science world. The way they describe these things is really inspiring to me because the pictures they create in my head really inspire me.

DS: What gave you the idea to create Hand Job and Over & Over and how did you go about having them published?

Interview with Mike Perry

Design*Sponge: What made you want to become a graphic designer?

Mike Perry: I didn’t really go into college thinking I wanted to be a graphic designer. I initially went in to study painting, got into the program and just wasn’t really excited about how I was pushing myself with the work. My school forced a design class on everybody, to sort of expose us to all the different subjects of design and the career opportunities. It was a really good course, and I was excited by the possibilities that design offered to me, which I looked at as the ability to make anything as opposed to the painting program where I felt like I could only make paintings. Once those two things came together I just kind of clicked in, it made sense, and I haven’t looked back since.

DS: How did you start out?

MP: I needed a job, and the thing about making sort of untraditional graphic design in college, and living in a town that didn’t really support people who are doing design/art crossbreeds; I mean there’s definitely places in Minneapolis that have those work environments, but they’re far and few between; and those were the coveted jobs. So when I graduated, I would go to interviews and people would be like “What are you showing me? We can’t hire you. I mean, it’s cool and all, but this isn’t a bank logo, we can’t show this stuff to our clients. We need traditional work.” And that was pretty had to hear after school, especially when you’re in school and you feel really supported and excited about what you’re doing. You get put out in the world and you’re devastated by that harsh reality.

“I am aware that I play a part in setting new trends, which are then copied dozens of times. But that is not what it is about, and I will continue working this way even when it is no longer ‘in’,” says Perry. The handmade movement is repeatedly said to be a logical countermovement to the digital aesthetics of 1990s freehand and vector graphics. In principle Perry agrees with this, but at the same time stresses that he has no intention of renouncing working with computers. “Even though I do as much as possible by hand I would still not like to be without the indispensable tool of a computer,” says Perry, who incidentally would really like to design a pair of sneakers, or more precisely a pair of sneakers for the cult-status Van brand. In fact in future he would like to be more involved in product design in general. And then we come to a rather bizarre-sounding dream which Mike Perry explains. It is about the American songwriter Bill Callahan, also known as Smog, and his album “A River ain’t too much to love”.  This is Perry’s favorite album as, with simple means, it tells a story which sets off an amazing number of images in his mind. “I have thought quite seriously about going to a graduate school and holding a seminar one day that deals solely with visualizing this album,” says Perry laughing. Sounds exciting, and when Mike Perry says something like this one can firmly believe that his dream is going to become reality.

Following “Hand Job,” his second book “Over & Over” has now been published by Princeton Architectural Press. Perry curated both books, meaning he chose all the projects presented in them. While “Hand Job” introduces hand drawn typography by various graphic designers, “Over & Over” has accumulated pattern designs by more than 50 designers, the large majority of whom Mike Perry knows personally. There is a reason why the books are devoted to designing by hand, and this is because Perry himself also draws, paints or prints logos, fonts and illustrations without resorting to digital tools wherever possible. “For me, things designed by hand always have something magic about them because you can recognize the person behind them,” says Perry. “When everyone draws the same object the results are completely different. The way someone draws a line or designs an image speaks volumes and also delivers, so to speak, an interpretation of the object which could never be created digitally.” The fact that he draws and paints 
by hand whenever he can, contributes considerably to the authentic look of his design. They are perfectly imperfect, in part appear childishly naive, are very detailed, playful and often extremely humorous, like Perry himself.

One of the reasons the graphic designer is so successful with his self-made aesthetics is certainly the fact that this particular style has been trendy for some time now. Back in 2003, for example, Perry drew various logos for Urban Outfitters, thereby lending the hip company his innovative signature for two years.

The Man with the Pen

Text: Katharina Altemeier Katharina.Altemeier@form.de

Designs by Mike Perry from Brooklyn, bear his signature in the true sense of the word. Whenever possible, the 27-year-old graphic designer does without a computer and draws logos and illustrations by pencil and paintbrush. Mike Perry believes in the charm of handmade design. His second book on the subject has just been published: In “Over & Over” Perry has brought together the like-minded who – like himself – design their works by hand. A portrait.

To say you are designer out of passion sounds inflated, clichéd, and pretty stereotype. But when Mike Perry explains why he became a graphic designer it sounds likable and convincing – not least of all because of his youthful freshness. “Some people do things because they can, not because they have to,” he says. “I definitely have a ‘have to’ thing going on”, says Perry about himself. The 27-year-old works primarily as an illustrator for various fashion, music and lifestyle magazines but is also a typographer and art director. After spending a few years in his early 20s in the creative department of the US fashion chain Urban Outfitters in Philadelphia, Perry has been self-employed with his own studio in Brooklyn, New York for two years now. Here, among other things, he designed logos for the architecture magazine “Dwell” and for The School at Columbia which is part of Columbia University. He also designs CD covers, typography for Brooklyn Industry T-shirts, illustrates fashion spreads for the Style section of the “New York Times” and publishes his own magazine “Untitled.”

I'm trying to pursue the fine art thing as well, trying to push things out into galleries and shows.

I really want to build a happy mixture of personal and professional work and keep making things all the time.

I'm also continuing to work on my new magazine "Untitled” that explores all different aspects of my current interests. The first issue came out last year and the second one is now out as well (the Swimsuit Edition!). I would point out that it’s NOT an online work. It’s a printed magazine and hopefully I'll be able to keep running with that.

Basically as I said, I'm just very excited about what comes next!

Mike is continuing to stay very busy, including curating new books. His first book was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2006 and continues to garner international acclaim. He has worked with clients ranging from New York Times Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Microsoft Zune, Urban Outfitters, eMusic and Zoo York. His work has been seen around the world from Los Angles and Chicago to London, Sydney and Berlin.

In 2004, he was chosen as one of Step Magazine’s "30 under 30"; in 2007 as a groundbreaking illustrator by Computer Arts Projects Magazine, and in 2008 he received Print Magazine’s New Visual Artist award.

Toiling away night and day, Mike creates new typefaces and sundry graphics that inevitably evolve into his new work, exercising the great belief that the generating of piles is the sincerest form of creative process …

If you could be doing anything else besides "design", what would you be doing and why?

I think maybe I would be a writer. I really enjoy the process of writing but I'm not the most confident with words. Every time I read something that “hits” me I feel a bit envious.

I'd also think it'd be awesome to be a musician. Music affects people in such a massive way. The visual creative world affects people, but when you play a song on repeat for hours and hours, that really gets into someone's soul. Looking at pictures … it only gets so far. At least, with my relationship with art, definitely music affects me more than the visual world.

What job would you absolutely hate doing?

Politician. I just feel like you end up having to lie all the time. Politicians are politicians. Even the good ones are shady.

What's next for Mike Perry?

I have a new book that’s just come out called "Over and Over" (see also my website for more information), which is a follow-up to my last book. It’s about one of my passions: patterns. I'm pitching some other books as well. I won't say anything more but I have a good feeling about them.

Without sounding too rude, how do you differentiate some of your illustrations and what someone might consider "doodling"?

Well first off, I don't think I'm trying to sell myself as an illustrator. It just kind of happens that I do illustration even though I don't define myself that way at this time.

And in terms of some pictures, well maybe it is just a doodle or at least includes this as an element. That's to me a part of the process, just sitting down and drawing, working it into my projects, so there's - no doubt - still a bit of doodling quality to it. You may ask: why is there a need for that? All I can say is that I do have doodles that I make, for example when I'm on the phone, and they look way less sophisticated than what I call my designs.

Do you see any trends in the areas you're involved in for the coming years ahead?

Well I don't try to think like that. I just try to trust my instincts and just make what I feel is right at the moment.

I've heard that hand-drawn typography is on the way out and people should stop doing it; this coming, for example, from critics who have opinions about my work, or the book, or even my colleagues' work. And maybe that's true, but I'm going to keep doing what feels right until it doesn't feel right anymore.

How do you see your role as typographer?

I see my role as typographer as kind of exploratory and more illustrative than structured. I think about type but more often I'm more interested in the poetry of the word as opposed to developing something that's more universal and anyone can use.

Do you have any fear of being type-cast as a typographer (sorry for the pun)?

Of course, that's a kind of common fear of any artist. You always wonder: what if somebody that hires you really likes what you do and wants it to stay the same? You want to evolve, but maybe this "audience" doesn't want you to evolve your work. I don't want that, and I don't want to settle, as I am young and have so many things to think about. I'm looking forward to see what I will make, or what I'm going to make, as I really enjoy thinking: "what's going to happen next?"

You've talked about using different approaches and your work appears on different media. Is there a medium or application you prefer?

It’s really whatever the moment needs, or whatever the end results need to be. If it needs to be a tee-shirt, you should make a tee-shirt. Whatever is appropriate, whatever your customer needs.

So the project chooses the medium more than vice versa?

Kind of. In an ideal world, I would come up with whatever is appropriate. But often times there are budgets or set guidelines that exist and these help to push things to be what they are. Which is good, because those limitations are nice, because sometimes you get stuck because you can do anything. But knowing then that it can only be certain colors, or cost so much, is actually very good. So often times the initial brief will help push out the final product.

Sounds like a pretty lucky run there.

I feel very fortunate very often. I fully embrace the kind of "cosmic path" that I've been fortunate enough to be traveling on.

Since you are at a relatively early stage in your career, what advice would you give designers starting out, or especially coming out of college?

I really think it’s: just keep working and making stuff and keep exposing yourself. In this world you can't make stuff and hide it. You've got to get things out there. Whenever I talk to people I ask them: "what are you doing standing here, go now and get your work on the web". I think getting a website is a very important part of this world we live in. I owe a lot of my success to the Internet, where I've been running my web-site 7 or 8 years. If I had launched it last year, I honestly think I wouldn't be where I am.

And, of course, you've got to keep pushing yourself, constantly make stuff and really put in the man-hours. For me, it’s like exercise: the more you run, the better runner you are, the better shape you're in. For me, the more you make, the stronger a “maker” you are. I'm not a runner, but I am a maker.

As described, you seem to wear many hats in terms of your work. What should we call you, or, better said, how would you like to be described?

I've decided my title should be "maker". Yes, it’s a kind of funny, cheesy word but it’s easiest for me to sum up what I do.

How did this transition in college work for you?

My first year in the design program, I had a course where I literally pretended I couldn't draw. I used a lot of vector art and made a lot of really bad design work. For me it was like I literally began my education again. I threw out all I'd learned about painting and started from scratch. It was a great experience, as I made lots of mistakes up front but finally things clicked into place.

Slowly but surely I started figuring out what I wanted to do within design. Again, I also had a lot of great professors along the way. They allowed me the freedom to approach and define design as the ability to make anything, that is, whatever was necessary for the angle.

And after college?

After college I was very fortunate to get a job with a company called Urban Outfitters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company had a real rich visual language. I also had a great "mentor" boss who allowed me to push myself and do things in the creative directions I was interested in pursuing. I really looked at it as almost more educational than my college experience and I had a lot of time to figure out my "process". I worked there for about 3-4 years then moved to New York – well, to be honest I met a girl on a photo shoot and we dated long distance for a little while. Then I left Urban and moved to New York.

Once there I got a job at a little design studio and was planning on being there for a few years. I didn't really have much anticipation of starting or moving out on my own. When I moved to New York, I didn't really "advertise" myself and didn't let folks know I was there per se. But all of a sudden the phone started ringing and the work was pouring in. As it turned out, I found I had enough work to leave the job and go out on my own. That was then about 2½ years ago.

At about age 14, or 15, my grandfather gave me a tackle box full of oil paints and I really fell in love immediately. Again, I had always drawn and I always knew that I wanted to be making things, but when I was given that box of oil paints everything seemed to snap into place for me. I really became obsessed and that first year alone I think I did about 300 paintings. I just couldn't stop, as the interest in painting just kind of blew my mind. I had a picture of my future and it said to me: "this is it".

How about your formal training or education?

A few years later I enrolled in the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in Minnesota, which was very small and had only about 600 students in all. I was in the painting department and at first I was really into it, but suddenly I found that I had hit a wall. I had begun to realize that all we did was paint still lifes, or something similar, and that my art wasn't progressing per se. I was getting technically better but wasn't pushing my ideas as much as I wanted to or knew I needed to.

Interestingly though, the school made everyone take a kind of interactive design course. I was lucky because my teacher was really inspiring. The course approached the subject of interactivity and design and even worked with computers in a really rich way. This kind of hit me in a similar way like when I got the box of paints.

I said: "Wow, this is a new thing, I'm really excited! I'm going to progress what I'm thinking and my art and try to discover new things." So I decided to abandon pure painting only and try out designing.

By Ziggy Nixon

Mike Perry works in Brooklyn, New York as an illustrator, designer, and typographer. He stays very busy making books, magazines, newspapers, clothing, drawings, paintings, illustrations and teaching whenever possible.

We recently caught up with this bright and very hard-working young "multi-tasker" …

Let us know a bit about Mike Perry: his background, influences and, really, why you think we should be interviewing him, I mean, you?

I'm not totally sure that you should be (laughs).

In terms of my background, I was born in Missouri, grew up on both sides of Kansas City - which of course stretches across both Missouri and Kansas - and kind of moved around in that general area. At age 14, we officially moved to Kansas. Where we moved was suburban, but still very rural. We had cows across the street and horses in the back, and lived on 33 acres.

Mike Perry portrait

In terms of art, I had always drawn. My grandfather – who's a bit eccentric – also played a big role in my development. I always thought of him as “the mad scientist”, albeit in a really good, loving kind of way. He built machines, collected all kinds of junk for his projects, and was always working on a 6-story house that's he's been building himself for what seemed like forever and ever. Importantly for me, he had painted his entire life.

JS: You seem like you’re one busy guy. How do you balance out, not burn out?

MP: Well… That is the eternal struggle. I moved my office out of my house last year and that has been very healthy for me. Not only am I forced to leave my house everyday but I have to commute and move my legs more then just from my bed to my desk. I think it is important to try and have a life, spend time with friends, travel, exercise. But the more I do this the more I realize that my work grows and evolves.

JS: I kind of need convincing about why the Midwest is best. Want to give it a go?

MP: Well the Midwest needs to stand up and be apart of the country. In these tumultuous times we need to support each other and think bigger than what we have been able to do in the past. The midwest has the roots that grows people who strive to be more. These roots are deep and those of us who have grown from those roots need to be more proactive to help support the idea that it is the best. Over the years I have been given shit for not living in the midwest any more, like I have abandoned those roots, but it’s the people who think like that are the problem. It is a big world and we all owe ourselves the opportunity to explore and wonder. It’s only through that exploration does the world really grow. And when I plant my roots I want to understand why I have made this decision and have done my part to be a member of the world.

MP: The function of this first issue was to celebrate great photographers, stylists, clothing, and the wonderful handheld physicality of printed matter. My goal for future issues is equally simple: A modestly curated selection of talented artists that are making work around me. Every issue will be a direct reflection of my inspiration and mood at the moment I’m assembling it. As a result, the form and content will change, allowing for the exploration of new ideas and new media. I hope that it will become a continuous forum for engaging the many creative people and possibilities that lie within my reach.

Issue 002 really came about because I thought it would be funny to do a swimsuit edition. From there I wanted to explore the collaboration of photographer and illustrator. At the same time I wanted to grow the magazine size. The size went up from 6 x 9in to 9 x 12 in. And issue 002 is three colors instead of two.

Because spontaneity will be an important part of concepting each book, I have not predetermined the themes and direction of upcoming issues. But there are so many avenues to take, and time will tell… All I can say is that issue 003 is going to explore science!

MP: I really just think that making things by hands shows the person who made it. I personally love that attribute. That said, I am a believer that although most project can use hand made elements, it is not always the best solution and it is important for contemporary makers to understand that technology is an important part of the creative world we live in.

JS: On that note, so you have personal qualms about digital design that make you lean away from it, or do you just prefer to work by hand?

MP: I don’t really have any qualms with digital design. But I think it is important to distinguish between digital design and design. Design is a solution to a problem; sometimes you use a computer and sometimes you don’t, and digital design is making things digitally in Photoshop or Illustrator. These programs should be used as tools, not the answer. This is something that a lot of educational institutions forget to teach. I get a lot of emails from students and they ask me what programs I use to do my work. The work is not made with Photoshop; Photoshop is just a tool that I use like a pen, marker or paper.

JS: Untitled sounds awesome. What’s the story/goal behind that magazine?

JS: Where did the concept for Over & Over come from?

MP: I found that I was making more and more patterns in my work. Once I noticed this I realized that so many of my friends and peers where doing the same. It seemed like a no brainer from there. There must have been a global feeling about patterns because there were a solid handful of pattern books published this year.

JS: Hand Job featured a ton of work from a big selection of artists. Does Over & Over do the same?

MP: Yeah. 50 different artists.

JS: In an interview you did with Print magazine, you mentioned something about how drawing something over and over “feels good.” I think a lot of people feel like that — it’s like meditation for creative types. How long do you normally spend on a pattern, and how organically does each one come into being?

MP: I am very organic. But I also have a pretty short attention span so I it really varies from piece to piece.

JS: Considering we have such an easy path to perfection through computer arts these days, it’s weird how refreshing hand drawn type/patterns/anythings are. You have some great philosophies on doing things by hand — tell us about them!

Joshspear.com: We first got to know you through Hand Job, your dirty-sounding yet porn-free hand-drawn typography book. What else is in your history that we should know about?

Mike Perry: I live and work in Brooklyn, NY. I make books, magazines, newspapers, clothing, drawings, paintings, illustrations and teach whenever possible.

My first book, Hand Job, was published by Princeton Architectural Press and came out in 2006. My second book, Over & Over, hit shelves early this fall. I am working on two new book ideas that I am really excited about.

In 2007 I started a magazine called Untitled. It explores my current interests. The first issue was a fashion magazine. Issue 002, which came out this summer, is the swimsuit edition. I have worked with clients from New York Times Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Microsoft Zune, to Urban Outfitters, eMusic, and Zoo York.

In 2004 I was chosen as one of Step magazine’s “30 Under 30″, in 2007 as a groundbreaking illustrator by Computer Arts Projects magazine, and 2008 I received Print magazine’s “New Visual Artist” award and the Art Directors Club — Young Guns 6. I recently had a solo show in London titled “The Landscape between Time and Space.” I feel very fortunate that all of these great things have happened in my short life.

Let’s start things off right by saying this: Wow, did we love that Hand Job. Not that that’s an atypical reaction for us (we’ll take hand-drawn ABC’s over Photoshop-perfected ones anytime), but regardless, that book just felt good in our hands.

Well Happy Friday to us, because the man behind Hand Job — the creatively inclined, Brooklyn-based Michael Perry — has just given us another. Over & Over, a book of people-drawn patterns, stays clear of the sexual innuendo that initially got our attention, but still manages to keep our attention in the same way that (your favorite punny porno title here) does. Or doesn’t, or used to, or…hey. Sometimes, we just prefer a book.

This is the first extensive collection of propaganda posters from this “people’s paradise,” and while these last vestiges of turgid Socialist Realism are just what one might expect from a repressive regime, it is still fascinating to see this imagery, which adheres to the Mao-era style. Ambiguity is, of course, nonexistent among the happy faces of North Korean farmers, workers and soldiers who “defend the Party, the Leader and the socialist fatherland!” The visual and textual language is fairly consistent, but there are two posters that stand out. One shows a smiling woman with a goat; the caption reads, “Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!” The other is of a male soldier and a female sailor proudly saluting, with the caption “Let’s be the General’s Army, imbued with the spirit of suicide and self-sacrifice!” Sadly, what this book lacks is an explanation of why there is such emphasis on suicide and goats. 

“We are pattern-searching animals,” Jim Datz writes in his introduction. “Pattern is as much to be found as it is to be made, simultaneously organizing space and complicating it — order and disorder cohabiting.”

Datz’s introduction offers a bit of context to the new pattern fashion, albeit in a somewhat florid way, but the book is basically a collection of ornamental designs and short biographies of their makers that read like promotional material. Some images are engaging, like Maxwell Paternoster’s mélange of digital machinery and Lung’s doodle patterns, which look as if they were made with colored ballpoint pens while the artist was waiting for the caffeine to wear off. Others are delightfully silly, like Jeremyville’s pattern of buzzing bees suckling compliant flowers. The common denominator in all these designs is complexity, which Datz suggests may be a “response to a decade of restraint, when a strain of austere Swiss modernism rose up to dominate the design world” — although I could have sworn that was 20 years ago. 

Speaking of patterns, North Koreans are masters at making patterns out of human beings. Typically during festivals, thousands of participants are crammed into a huge stadium, given colored cards and choreographed in such a way as to make perfectly synchronized images of their country’s flag, their leaders’ visages and other national symbols. Perhaps now that the State Department plans to remove North Korea from the list of terrorist nations, more Americans will get a chance to see these mammoth spectacles in person. But for those who would rather spend their vacations on a nice quiet beach, David Heather and Koen De Ceuster’s NORTH KOREAN POSTERS: The David Heather Collection (Prestel, paper, $25) might be an easier introduction to Korean patriotism.

Gary Baseman, a painter and illustrator who created the animated series and feature film “Teacher’s Pet” and a successful line of collectible vinyl toys, is descended from the Wacky Pack generation. Like Panter’s work, his playfully dark renderings of libidinous skeletons, snarky devils, hunky snowmen and erotic bunnies, among other characters, have been hung in galleries and published in The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. His basic style is consistent with both “high” and “low” art worlds. But in DYING OF THIRST: New Paintings by Gary Baseman (Last Gasp, $24.95), his obsession for Kewpie-esque nymphs is displayed as never before, in living color and in a large format. The imagery includes a collection of nudist “art” photographs overpainted with troll-like creatures in Pepto Bismol pink and Hershey’s brown. But most of the book features his signature nymphs cavorting with bears, bugs and other disquietingly cute characters. “Cute plus Sex, you might say,” Holly Myers writes in her introduction, “equals Creepy.” And while for some this would be an accurate description, also present in Baseman’s work is a cultivated naïveté, a style that is designed to lull and shock, but not excessively. Unlike Panter’s art, which displays a virtually childlike fascination with similar material, Baseman’s work in this book feels calculated to cater to today’s art fashions — ones that he has helped to create.

Baseman’s work is not included in Michael Perry’s OVER & OVER: A Catalog of Hand-Drawn Patterns (Princeton Architectural Press, paper, $35), but he has had an influence on the current revival of graphic patterns. In fact, the endpaper for “Dying of Thirst” is a splendid example of the kinds of patterns now being devised by graphic and fashion designers and illustrators as both integral works of art and designs for T-shirts, textiles, wallpaper and even dinnerware. Perry, who last year came out with a book about hand-drawn typefaces, is interested in celebrating handicrafts in the computer era, but “Over & Over” is also a showcase for contemporary patternmakers.

Panter never illustrated Wacky Packages, but his work was inspired by this kind of goofy pop-culture parody, which his friend Art Spiegelman helped conceive 25 years before winning a Pulitzer Prize for “Maus.” Wacky Packages was a popular series of collectible stickers produced in 1967 by the Topps bubble gum company (famous for its baseball cards). They were spoofs, in the Mad magazine satirical tradition, of famous brand-name products, like “Tied” detergent (“Your clothes will be fit to be tied”), “Skimpy” peanut butter (“crummy beanut putter made from old peanut shells”) and “Land O’Quakes” (“butter churned by earthquakes”). While the humor was admittedly based on “dopey gags,” as Spiegelman refers to them in the introduction to the Topps Company’s WACKY PACKAGES (Abrams, $19.95), the stickers caught on so quickly as a teenage fad that the company revived them in 1973 (223 were ultimately produced). They were the perfect vehicle for many of the ’60s underground comix artists whom Spiegelman recruited, including Kim Deitch, Bill Griffith and Jay Lynch, who wrote the afterword for this book. “We never got royalties for our labor, of course, but at least Topps kept us in groceries,” Spiegelman says.

The idea for Wacky Packages was hatched after Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup can hit the Pop radar, and they were originally conceived to show real products as “culture icons.” Spiegelman recalls that he objected to the idea of selling advertisements to kids, so he and a colleague insisted that Topps do parodies. “It just seemed like a no-brainer.” Eventually Spiegelman developed a process of coming up with jokes. “I would stare at, say, a package of Chuckles — like Plato contemplating the bust of Homer — and search through the alphabet looking for a gag: ‘Buckles, Cuckles, Duckles, Knuckles — oh, Knuckles! Eureka — a perfect Wacky!’ ” This is a colorful collection of all the Wacky Packs from 1973 and 1974 — including a few that might be somewhat offensive today — and it also includes a pack of “new” (but not, from the standpoint of puns, improved) bonus stickers.

Panter was the first of the post-underground comix artists to mix together what Kelley describes as “mutants, robots, cyborgs, dinosaurs and the scum of the earth,” in a postindustrial conflation of Dallas and Tokyo in the series called “Dal Tokyo.” Panter’s primary character, Jimbo, is a bulldog-looking trickster who innocently and often cluelessly ventures in and out of improbable situations. In recent years he was the star of brilliant retellings of Dante, “Jimbo in Purgatory” and “Jimbo’s Inferno.” “He’s like Dick Tracy or Nancy. ... He is my alter ego,” says Panter, who straddles the line (ratty or otherwise) between commercial and fine art, appearing as frequently in galleries and museums as in the pages of The New Yorker and Rolling Stone.

His imagery resembles the neo-Pop Art machinations of Oyvind Fahlstrom and the Chicago collective the Hairy Who, but when discussing his work, Panter says without irony that it is more like “Picasso meets ‘Yellow Submarine’ meets English Pop Art in 1972.” However one describes Panter’s aesthetics and conceptual sensibility, this monograph reveals a fascination with kitsch of all kinds, rooted in an insatiable appetite for reinterpreting popular culture. Just compare his almost syrupy “Gulf Port” (an acrylic on canvas from 2003) with his parody of pulp and superhero styles in “You Can Develope a He-Man Voice” (an acrylic on paper from 1996) to see how his naïf sophistication operates. 

This book is a joyful celebration of Panter’s raucous paintings and a scholarly archive of his most frenzied graphics, including covers for Slash and Raw magazines, covers for books like “Invasion of the Elvis Zombies” and artifacts from his stint as Pee-wee Herman’s graphic designer. After all the anarchic publications Panter has produced or appeared in, it’s satisfying to see his work in such a formal and handsomely designed compilation. 

For the post-psychedelic (punk) era, Gary Panter (born in 1950) is as influential as Mauldin was for an earlier generation. And like Mauldin, Panter — an artist, illustrator, set designer (“Pee-wee’s Playhouse”), comic-book author and toymaker — deserves his new two-volume, boxed-set monograph. GARY PANTER (PictureBox/D.A.P., $95), edited by Dan Nadel and designed by Helene Silverman, is so rich in perversely witty imagery and raw lunatic expression that to savor it all requires spending considerable time thumbing through, then going back to focus on the details

I know Panter’s work well. (In fact, I’ve written about him and hired him as an illustrator in the past; I also know the editor of this volume, and to my surprise, my name is in the long list of acknowledgments.) But I was unfamiliar with many of these paintings and drawings, especially the pages found in Volume II that have been culled from various sketchbooks and faithfully reproduced at what appears to be their original size. While he has published numerous comics and sketchbooks, this is his first career retrospective.

Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, Panter was known as the “king of the ratty line” back in the ’70s, when he introduced what has become a quintessential punk emblem — the Screamers’ band logo, a brush drawing of a screaming head that may one day be as iconic as Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.” Panter is “not so much punk as he is cyberpunk,” Mike Kelley writes in one of the essays in Volume I; “in fact he is arguably the only practitioner (with the possible exception of H. R. Giger, who does not do narrative) of this literary form in the arena of graphics.” Kelley is referring to Panter’s playful obsession with sci-fi and noir images in a curious postnuclear setting, reminiscent of “Mad Max.”

Old Blood and Guts himself, Gen. George S. Patton Jr., was Mauldin’s staunchest critic; he “raged against ‘Up Front’ ’s insubordination and, even more, Willie and Joe’s dress code violations,” DePastino writes. Patton went so far as to threaten to cut off distribution of Stars and Stripes if “Up Front” was not removed from the paper. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower “stepped in to quell the tempest,” ordering a face-to-face meeting between “the three-star general and three-stripe cartoonist.” Mauldin, who had earned a Purple Heart for a minor wound received near the front, had to travel almost 200 miles to Patton’s Luxembourg headquarters. Ignoring Eisenhower’s order for civility, Patton “harangued Mauldin about how his cartoons undermined military discipline” and created “disrespect for officers.” Mauldin was not out to undermine anything; he just wanted to represent the privations G.I.’s experienced, along with the other hardships they endured. His drawings were a tonic for the men.

The first volume comprises early works, including Mauldin’s strip “Star Spangled Banter,” which ran in The 45th Division News starting in 1940; the second and decidedly more impressive volume features “Up Front” panels from 1943-45. It has been decades since I’ve seen these images, but I recall many of them. I’m sure people who lived through the war have favorites, too. One of mine is a drawing of a group of German P.O.W.’s parading through a German town while a mother says to her daughter: “Follow them, Ilse. Papa’s got our ration book.” Then there’s the one with Willie and Joe in a foxhole and the head of a German soldier peering out from across the line; Joe says to Willie: “Th’ hell with it. ... I ain’t standin’ up till he does.” But perhaps the most sardonic one, published in The New York World Telegram in July 1945, speaks to the aftermath of war back in the United States. It shows the surprisingly cleanshaven, well-coiffed and smartly dressed Willie and Joe in a hotel lobby; Willie says to the lowly bellhop who is carrying their bags: “Major Wilson! Back in uniform, I see!” I’d never seen that one before.

Visuals

The Artist at War

Reviews by STEVEN HELLER

Published: July 27, 200

Bill Mauldin (1921-2003) was my first artist hero, and a new two-volume collection of his wartime cartoons, WILLIE & JOE: The WWII Years (Fantagraphics, $65), edited by Todd DePastino, reminds me why. In 1957, when I was 7, I found my father’s worn copy of “Up Front,” the best-selling collection of Mauldin’s regular Stars and Stripes comic panel of the same name, about the travails of two dogfaced G.I.’s, Willie and Joe. At the time, I wanted to be a cartoonist and spent many uninterrupted hours almost every day copying and recopying the details in each picture — they were my plaster casts. I learned drawing by faithfully replicating Mauldin’s comic brush-and-ink vignettes, and I learned a lot about the war, too, but not always what my history teacher wanted me to know.

Although military censors prevented Sergeant Mauldin from showing explicit battle scenes or severely wounded soldiers in his cartoons, his characters’ wry wit and bedraggled personas countered the heroic John Wayne-like portrayals of G.I.’s in many Hollywood films. Of course, Mauldin was making cartoons for frontline dogfaces who already knew the facts of war, and his images, which were eventually syndicated in stateside newspapers, offered as realistic a picture of day-to-day Army life as possible — within bounds. This attempt at verisimilitude made his work popular among the troops, yet it annoyed some top brass who preferred more sanitized depictions.

Finally, what’s the one thing everybody should do today?

Have a little bump and grind.

If you want to see more of Mike’s work, then visit the Midwestisbest site. You can also buy the Hand Job book from there. Go for it, you know you want to!

A large amount of your own work is hand drawn as well. How do you decide what route to go down with each new project? Do you do a lot of sketchbook work?

Tons of sketch book work all the time and just making all the time. A lot of that process infuses into new projects as they come along. I try to not only do hand drawn type. I like to think of myself as multifaceted but I really like doing it that way so it often ends up in the work.

What would you say are the quintessential pieces of equipment for the designers and illustrators out there who want to dabble in more hands-on media?

I like office supplies a lot. Simple xerox paper and pens. But also water colors and other paints. I just work with what feels right. I also use my computer all the time as another part of my making process. So start as a sketch. Scan it. Print it. Scan it. Color it. Scan other elements. Until the piece is done.

What are you most looking forward to in 2008?

Just seeing what kind of new work I will make! I really enjoy looking at what I have made in my past and seeing how I have grown.

What music are you likely to find playing in the Midwestisbest studio?

So much. I listen to so much. Lately I have been listening to a lot of this radio show called Radio Lab. It is about science.

Your agency has been going for 2 and a half years now. What were some of the biggest challenges you encountered?

I think the biggest challenges were just changing my lifestyle. When I had a full time job it was easy for me to not think about money because I got a pay cheque every week which led me to live my life a bit cheque to cheque. But now I have to think about what will happen if the work doesn’t come. What if I don’t get a gig for 6 months. What will I do. In a lot of ways it has made me have to be a bit more of an adult. But so far things are great and I am booming right ahead.

You brought out your first book in 2007, Hand Job, which is a celebration of hand-drawn type. What made you decide to do a book?

I had always wanted to do a book. I used to do a lot of zines and when I was in college I made a bunch of books. So one day I woke up and made the decision to make it happen.

Organising any kind of project can be a bit complicated, but gathering work from 55 different contributors must have been a tall order. What were the most enjoyable, and the most frustrating aspects about getting the book made?

The most enjoyable part of the process was getting the submissions in and seeing the book come together. At the same time getting that work was so hard. You give people a deadline and they say they will meet it (and I truly think they mean that) but they don’t and I have to keep emailing them, nagging them.

Brooklyn-based designer Mike Perry is a master of the art of hand-drawn type, but whilst running his design studio Midwestisbest he makes use of a wide range of techniques and media to come up with some top stuff for a great collection of clients. On top of that, last year he brought out his first book, Hand Job, a collection of inspiring pencil-wielding typographers.

Hello and welcome to Thunder Chunky. How are you doing today?

Wonderful! I just signed a lease on a new studio space and am thrilled about 2008!

Tell us about yourself in 3 easy-to-follow steps.

1. I live in Brooklyn, NY
2. I am a Maker of things.
3. I love my JOB!

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly… why is Mid-west best?

Midwestisbest because of the spirit of the people that grow-up and end being creative. Whether they live in the midwest or live elsewhere like myself, I personally share a camaraderie with these people. In a similar way to if you are from Japan and you move to a new city you find people that you share a commonality with, from language to where you were raised. That and I really think that the way I was raised and the location made me who I am today.

Can you let us know what you’re working on currently? My first book titled Hand Job - A catalog of typography is about to land in stores. I am currently working on a few new books. A book about the use of patterns with Princeton Architectural Press. A book about the midwest that I am shopping around. I am designing a book for Chronicle Books. Planning the second issue of my magazine titled Untitled a… I have been art directing a new literary magazine called “The Crier” that I am really excited about; we are on our 3rd issue. Working on some records and illustrations. I am getting ready for a few art shows. Making tee shirts for myself and for clients. Giving a talk in Kentucky and in Minneapolis. I have an idea for a skate deck that I want to make. Art directing a fashion story for Brooklyn Industries. Just finished up something for Zune. A music video with some friends in LA. And some new typefaces that I will probably never finish.

What kind of messages do you infuse in your personal work beyond visual interest? I would say the messages are usually very simple and honest. I am a positive happy person and I wake up each day excited about the world and I try to infuse that into everything I make. I also try to have fun when I am making things and believe in laughter. If I can make myself or someone else smile I feel like I have succeeded. But in addition to that, process is very important. I have always believed in the generating of piles, and I look at the process of “making” like exercise. The more you exercise the stronger you become. Needless to say I do a lot of making for its own sake.I often times think about water and other natural elements but for the most part I try and just let things happen.

Would you share some artists, authors, movements, places, ideas that you’ve found influential? I think that a lot of my influences come from my peers that are doing exciting things. Talking about making and discussing process and ideas.I love all of the usual amazing things in the world: vintage illustration, american quilts, anything about typography, most outsider art, bodegas, accidents (for instance I was at this bar last night and it had the most beautiful tables and they were a complete accident), music, David Sedaris, diagrams on how the world works, kittens, flea markets and thrift stores. I don’t go to Kansas often enough but that place is amazing like the ocean.

Tell us a bit about your background, and the disciplines and media your work comprises. I was born in Missouri the son of Diane and Rick Perry in a typical suburban setting. My parents got divorced and then at the age of 14 we moved to Kansas where my back yard was miles of open land. I once went for a walk in my back yard and found a dead horse that had been killed by a wolf who ate its belly. No joke. We had apple trees and a pond. Horses in the back and cows across the street. Mowing the lawn took all day. I had very supportive parents and grandparents. My grandfather (who is a painter / claims to have made a flying car) when I was very young gave me a painting he made as a gift that I adored. As I got older and started looking at art history books, I came to realize that he had given me a Piccasso and called it his own. At the age of 14 he gave me a tackle box full of paints and that was it; from then on out I spent most of my time making paintings. I went to school at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design where I began my education as a painter but quickly realized that design was my path. I fell in love with design because it gave me the opportunity to do whatever was right for the idea I had. ie. if I wanted to use photography I used it. If something called for an illustration then that was the answer. Design seemed to be the medium that allowed me the most diversity. When I graduated I got a job as a designer at Urban Outfitters where I worked for the next 3 years. About a year ago I left Urban to start my own studio and that is where you find me today. I always try and incorporate a variety ideas and techniques into each and every project. I have a particular interest in typography, illustration and story telling. I think about color, texture and tactility.

MP: If feels kind of amazing. I talk about this a lot. I’m just going to keep going until the work stops. I don’t know that this is a forever thing, but I hope it will be. It’s interesting; Riley, who has been working with me for this month, is a milestone. “I have so much work, I need someone else. That’s a good sign.” I think being out of my house would be a good step. I want to do it, but I really like working from home. I thrive on it. I think having a physical space is going to be a good step. I talk about it constantly.

SF:  Can you expand on the pattern book you are working on? I’m so curious to hear about it.

MP:  It’s a different genre of patterns. You’ll have to see. It’s a surprise.

SF:  A question that I always think is kind of totally nerdy to ask a typographer is: If you could be any typeface that you have made yourself, what would it be? Or would you be one of the ones you have made? Sorry, I couldn’t not ask.

MP: I made this brick typeface that is made of cylinders. I might be that one. It’s all wonky, but still solid. 

Thanks Mike! Hand Job is set to come out in August 2007.

SF: There are fifty-five people featured in Hand Job. Was there a way you went about picking each person for the book?   

MP: Well, kind of instinctually. I definitely made some [hard] choices. A lot of people have asked me why Ed Fella is not in the book. I think he is so known for hand done typography. I tried to focus on people who are not as well known for typography as he is. There are a few people in there that are heavier hitters though. Geoff McFetridge  and Kevin Lines are two examples.

SF: Biggest thing you learned?

MP: Ask for more time. More time.

SF: I also wanted to ask you about starting your own studio. What made you want to start your own studio?   

MP:  Honestly, I think it’s one of those things most people think about. That’s living the dream. I even told myself when I left Urban; I’m going to wait five years.  Five years. I took a job here [New York], worked for a month. While I was at my job, I was getting projects where the client would either hire me, or the person I was working for. Basically, I was getting jobs as big as the people I worked for and I said, "I gotta go." So I left.  It was never intentional to start my own studio so soon, it just kind of happened.

SF: How does it feel to have the one-year anniversary behind you?

SF: So did you learn a lot about the contract end of things?   

MP: More than I thought I would, yeah. I am actually doing another book with Princeton Architectural Press right now [a pattern book] and I have learned even more since Hand Job. Learning about the contract end of things definitely made things safer for me in the process, which is good.

The hardest part of the process was actually getting people to give me stuff. I set a two-month deadline, and it took four months. Everyone would say, “Aw, I will send it tomorrow.” They would end up sending it three weeks later. I’d call them again, or they’d send me low-resolution jpgs. Some people didn’t understand why low-resolution jpgs wouldn’t work.  The designing part was banged out. I had the material there and I had been thinking about it for a year at this point. It kind of just fluidly happened. It took six months to print (which is crazy). It’s still not even out yet. It will be two years from start to finish when the book actually comes out.

SF: Did anyone mentor you in this process?   

MP: No, I actually mostly did it on my own. I called every single person I knew through the process at some point and nobody I talked to had a clue what I was doing.  One person knew somebody who designs books full time, and that person had the most information. I didn’t even know that person. My questions were really about negotiating and contracts. I would show somebody a contract, and they would say “No idea.” 

Mike Perry is living the designer dream. At twenty-five he has his own studio and just finished his first book, Hand Job: A Catalog of Type. The book is a collection of fifty-five typographers who are not only good at what they do, but believe in hand done type. 

I can see how you might look at the design world and think that these people do not know how to draw. But there is a large segment in that world full of very skilled artisans. This book features 55 of them. These typographers are creating letterforms using traditional materials like watercolors, or chalk and paint, or more experimental materials like leaves fallen from a tree. The craft is an important aspect of typography, but so is process and concept just as it would be for any other “artist.”

Is there any particular font you think would be improved were it hand drawn? Any particular magazine cover?

I think a watercolor version of Adobe Garamond would be beautiful. I would love to see a handful of newspaper logos hand-drawn. Black letters always look great done by hand.

What happens when you put 50 typographers in a room?

Well, my girlfriend is not a designer and I have put her in that position multiple times. She just sits back and laughs at how everyone instantly turns into mega nerds. The first time that happened she couldn’t believe that people could talk about type for such a long time. Thankfully she loves that I am so into it! 

For those in the audience who aren’t too familiar with graphic design, never mind typography, can you give us an idea what’s going through the designer’s mind when she is trying to draw an entirely new alphabet? 

I must say that I cannot speak for classical typographers with this answer. For me, I think about the word as much as I do the individual letter. But when it comes to an entire face I really just like the challenge of articulating each character. What it takes to draw the letter “L” is different than the “Q.”

Once I started thinking about typography I started looking at every letterform and analyzing it. There is a huge tradition of dissecting a form and trying to rebuild it; every person with literacy on their side does this everyday. It is an art that everyone practices each and every time they write their name.

Typography is a utilitarian trade. How much of a jump is it to call some hand-drawn examples art?

I would argue that a lot of it is art. Everything featured in this book is art in my eyes. I think the art can be in the letterform, the idea, or the message.

There seems to have been an elevation of graphic design’s prestige in recent times, yet I find that, as with artists, designers nowadays tend to be less crafty, are less likely to be able to draw well (outside of Adobe software products). Does the same hold true for typographers?

Hand Job

Interview by Rosecrans Baldwin

The composition of everyday things is up for review. Each week we find out new things about genes, about molecular structures—so why not the letters we read on signs, in magazines, on the flipside of our hovering skateboards? Michael Perry’s new book, Hand Job pulls together 50 examples of contemporary hand-drawn typography for a glance at how designers are using pen and ink to create new written forms.

Michael Perry is a graphic designer and typographer who has created hand-drawn type for such clients as Urban Outfitters, MTV, Rome Snowboards, Brooklyn Industries, and Polyvinyl Records. All images courtesy Michael Perry and Princeton Architectural Press; all images copyright © Michael Perry, all rights reserved.

* * *

Upcoming issues of Untitled could stray from the realms of fashion and design. Perry wants to collaborate on an issue with his brother, who is studying biomedical engineering. His sibling would supply science-related content, and Perry would do all the creative content and organization, a task he relishes: “It feels good to do that rather than [being] a money-making machine for someone else.” Even if it involves biomedical engineering? “It’s hard to say no,” he admits. “I want to do everything.” JAMES GADDY

James Gaddy is associate editor of PRINT.

Growing up in Missouri, Perry wanted to be a painter and cultivated a love of drawing. He enrolled in the painting program at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, but switched to design because he liked the freedom it gave him. In 2003, he moved to Philadelphia to work for Urban Outfitters, and his hand-drawn aesthetic helped define the company’s overall graphic style for the following two years. He worked in direct marketing, hiring freelancers and assembling packets of type and other visual material to present to the art directors working on the catalogs. Eventually, he realized he wanted to be in that art director position himself. He moved to New York, worked briefly at the design firm Helicopter, then went freelance.

Since that time, he’s designed books for Mark Batty Publisher and Chronicle Books and created illustrations for Zoo York, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Jane magazine. “Some people do things because they can, not because they have to,” he says. “I definitely have a ‘have to’ thing going on.” He calls it “generating piles.”

Perry’s most ambitious pile yet is his own project, a magazine called Untitled. The first issue had a fashion focus, and included photographs, styling, clothes, and designs by friends and collaborators. The second issue, due out this spring, will feature swimsuits layered with drawings on top of the photographs, a postproduction effect.

Michael Perry likes being busy, and it shows. In the past year, he’s participated in an art show, edited and art directed his own magazine, and released a book of hand-drawn type published by Princeton Architectural Press. He’s now working on a second book, Over and Over, a catalog of hand-drawn patterns, due out this fall. “I worry about spreading myself too thin,” says Perry in his apartment-studio, stacked to the ceiling with bookcases full of magazines and design tools. “Luckily, I’m young and I’m figuring things out.”

For Perry, self-exploration happens while he’s working. “You have to make things to figure out what you’re doing,” he says. Perhaps this explains his love of lettering and patterns, two visual forms that require a serious level of attention. Or maybe his love of patterning has a simpler explanation. “When things repeat, it feels good,” he says.

This positive momentum is the driving force behind all the work he does, whether it’s the playful type illustrations spelling out “Versace” and “Givenchy” in a New York Times Magazine spread or the patterns he contributed as one of 18 artists commissioned to create an engraved design on the back of Microsoft’s Zune MP3 player. Perry says he repeats certain shapes until they become a pattern, adding more complex patterns-within-patterns until the finished product becomes something else: a color or a texture in its own right.