SAINT THOMAS CHOIR SCHOOL in New York, my favorite alma mater, is coming to an end. After 105 years, the church, agonizing about its finances, announced a plan turn the education side over to another school, the Professional Children’s Scho…
DESIGNERS often talk about getting started. You hear some say they found “inspiration” from a poster from the Bauhaus, or a magazine cover from the 60s. But the good designers work from their own experience—in life, with people, and with na…
IT NEVER OCCURRED to me that Nixon would win the election in 1968. It seemed impossible after all the ferment of the year, the combination of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement, and the collision of the counterculture—hippi…
MY FATHER Joseph Jefferson Black was born 122 years ago today. Dec. 12, 1900. He liked to say, “On the 12th day of the 12th month of the 12th year, I was 12 years old.” He was an architect, and he never quite understood why I was a graphic
WHEN you’re young, it’s easier to dismiss setbacks and move on. LA, the weekly newspaper that gave me my first job as a publication art director, folded after 24 issues. It failed. But everyone there quickly found other things to do, and I
THE SPRINT through 24 weekly issues of LA tested everything I knew about type. Which was not that much, since I had only a little experience, and I had never taken a design course. I ended up with a theory, or a style, that I am still explo…