Hasta La Ideas

Bill Powers purchased his first work of art—a Terry Richardson photo of “ToeJam the Clown”—in 1998, shortly after taking the editorial helm of Blackbook. Since then, he’s built an art collection that includes works by Richard Prince, Elizabeth Peyton, Dana Schutz, and Irving Penn; opened New York’s Half Gallery with partners Andy Spade and James Frey; and co-founded Exhibition A, the online art hub that offers affordable editions by some of the big names on Powers’ own walls. Tonight he is back on Bravo to dispense more good-natured yet constructive criticism on the cable network’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. So which of the new contestants should we keep an eye out for? “We’ve got Michelle, who has worked for Marilyn Minter and had also been an assistant to Josephine Meckseper. It’s interesting to see someone with that background,” he says. “Or Kathryn, who went to Yale grad school for photography, versus a toymaker, The Sucklord. I think it really is a nice spectrum.” We chatted with Powers about the reaction to Work of Art, the judging process, and what’s in store for the new season (KAWS!).

1. How would you characterize the reaction—particularly that of the art world—to the first season of Work of Art?
I understand people’s skepticism. I mean, it is reality TV, right? Personally, I was really flattered at how many contemporary artists I admire watched the first season, whether it’s Cecily Brown or Rob Pruitt or Jeff Koons or Rachel Feinstein. That meant a lot to me that those people would watch and get into it. People said that the show reminded them a lot of grad school and that a lot of the personalities and the work that was produced was reminiscient of that. There’s always somebody getting naked. There’s always somebody tackling social issues. And there’s a photographer, who’s probably better suited to commercial photography, making fine art pictures.

2. Are there certain aspects of season two that you think will surprise people?
I was always surprised by the range of materials employed, and what somebody can make in four or five hours is pretty impressive. And I would ask viewers to remember that it’s a lot of pressure to say, “OK, here’s the theme of the show this week, now make something and we’re going to show it tomorrow as if we’re picking people for the next Venice Biennale.” I feel like people at home or on blogs sometimes can be looking at this work as if someone had a year in their studio to make it. They have five or six hours sometimes to make what you’re seeing. I know that’s part of being a part of a competition series, but to see something that you like and that someone made in a few hours? Most working artists today spend weeks if not months putting together a piece. I think that people are, if I can borrow a term from Jerry [Saltz], “demonstrating radical vulnerability” by their participation on the show.
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“Please put your shirt back on.” Rarely does an art director have cause to utter these words while on the job—and rarer still when the job in question is a Maxim photoshoot with starlet Olivia Wilde—but it’s all in a day’s work for Dirk Barnett. The editorial branding pro, who earned an undergraduate degree in journalism before finding his calling on the art and photo side of the masthead, moved from Maxim to Lucky last fall, but put in only a few days at Conde Nast HQ before Tina Brown wooed him to her newly formed “NewsBeast,” the Newsweek Daily Beast Company. Since then, Barnett and his team have rolled out a redesign (the eighth major newsstand title he’s overhauled), a new logo, and a special “Osama Is Dead” issue, all the while making images and photojournalism more prominent in the magazine. Now they’re working their magic on the Newsweek and Daily Beast websites. We caught up with Barnett after his presentation at Friday’s ABSTRACT Conference to ask him seven questions.

Barnett’s design work for Blender and Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine

1. What has been your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
When I was a young designer at Entertainment Weekly in ‘97, I was working on a story about Van Morrison, and we were using one of Anton Corbijn’s portraits from the 80’s. Photo editor Michelle Romero knew I was a huge Corbijn fan, and as I was designing the opener, she ninja’ed me and brought in Anton to take a look at the layout. My jaw dropped and he started telling stories about Van, etc. It was a fantastic early career moment that always sticks with me.

2. What is your greatest graphic design pet peeve?
Laziness

3. What do you consider your proudest design moment?
Pulling off Newsweek’s Osama bin Laden special issue in 36 hours.

4. You were among the design star-studded list of presenters at the ABSTRACT Conference. For those who couldn’t make it to Maine, what did you talk about?
At ABSTRACT, I talked the conference attendees through “a day in the life” of what it means—and takes—to art direct, conceptualize, and design a news weekly magazine in 2011. Looking through the lens of Newsweek’s recent redesign, I walked through how we dealt with the Japan earthquake and tsunami disasters and bin Laden’s death.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Oprah may have declared the iPad one of her Favorite Things and gifted hundreds of the sleek slabs to members of her studio audience, but another famous first name’s media and retail empire has really put the device through its paces: Martha. And the Good Things keep coming: yesterday saw the launch of two new Martha apps (Whole Living Smoothies and an updated version of Martha’s Everyday Food), and the Society of Publication Designers recently declared Martha Stewart Living‘s “Boundless Beauty” the winner of its inaugural Tablet App of the Year award. The special iPad-based issue of the magazine includes an 180-degree virtual tour of Stewart’s peony garden (how many of the 22 varieties can you spot?), tips for planning a bubble-themed party that really pops, and a design showdown between decorating editors Kevin Sharkey and Rebecca Robertson. Accepting on behalf of Team Martha was Gael Towey, Chief Creative and Editorial Director for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Having overseen the company’s design and creative teams since its inception 20 years ago, Towey has worked to develop six different magazine titles and also left her distinctive stamp of classically elegant cool on MSLO’s product design, marketing, and packaging launches (including five different lines of paint!). On Friday, she’ll lead a session at the ABSTRACT Conference entitled “Magazine Brand as Platform for Development,” which we thought was the perfect platform for a quick interview.

Good Eggs Living’s Egg Dyeing 101 App (Photos: Marci McGoldrick)

1. You’ll be presenting this Friday at the ABSTRACT Conference in Portland, Maine. Can you give us a sneak preview of your talk?
I will be talking about building the Martha Stewart brand, the special magazine issue I’m currently working on about our first 20 years of “really” living, our magazine identity, and how content informs everything we do from merchandising to building new apps and digital magazines.

2. What is your greatest graphic design/publication design pet peeve?
Gratuitous design with no real relationship to the meaning or purpose of the story.

3. What do you consider your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
Meeting my husband, Stephen Doyle, in my office 24 years ago. I was looking for a someone to design Martha’s wedding book. How ironic, wrong designer for weddings…right husband.

4. What is your proudest design moment?
Publishing our first issue of Martha Stewart Living 20 years ago this year, and creating our first digital issue for the iPad last year.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Among our first priorities on any Saturday is opening the door to UnBeige HQ and locating our freshly delivered copy of The New York Times, bloated with all manner of colorful weekend inserts. We shuffle furiously through the Best Buy circulars and Macy’s coupons to find The New York Times Magazine (and, if we’ve been especially good that week, T: The New York Times Style Magazine as well), and it’s distinctive cover has a way of setting the tone for the weekend, whether with exploding produce, a gilded manhole cover, a killer sugar cube, or most recently, conjoined twins that may share a mind. Meanwhile, the creative mind behind all of the New York Times magazines is award-winning design director Arem Duplessis, a veteran of Spin, GQ, and Blaze. He made time to answer our seven questions, and we detected a pleasing ocean/aquatic theme to his answers, which include mentions of drowning and sharks!

1. You’ll be presenting at next week’s ABSTRACT Conference in Portland, Maine. Can you give us a sneak preview of your talk?
I’ll be discussing our new content and our most recent redesign. How we approach design problems, and more importantly how we solve them.

2. What is your greatest graphic design or publication design pet peeve?
Magazines that are so clearly design derivatives of other magazines. A successful magazine/brand has an immediate identity that belongs to them. We all “borrow” from time to time but when it’s so bad that you cannot even tell which magazine you are in, there’s a real problem.

3. What is your best or most memorable design-related encounter?
A decade ago, I was on a shoot and was accused by an overbearing publicist of trying to “drown” her client. Literally. It wasn’t the best moment, but certainly the most memorable.

4. What is your proudest design moment?
I once designed a poster for my wife for an anniversary present. It had some personal writing in it, and it made her cry and laugh all at the same time. Sappy I know, but I’m keeping it real here. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

If your art and design library contains a sizable number of cello-wrapped, sticker-laden volumes whose pages are stamped with the names of their previous institutional owners (“Property of Wyoming Public Library” indeed!), then you have probably discovered the wonders of Better World Books. The online bookseller’s vast selection, low prices, commitment to social responsibility (from carbon-neutral free shipping to donating millions to literacy programs), and kooky brand image make it a must-click whether you’re stocking up on books by Steven Heller (collect them all!) or tracking down an out-of-print exhibition catalogue. The Mishawaka, Indiana-based company is about to kick off “Shop from Work Week” to encourage cubicle-dwellers to shop online when they should be working. “It’s not every day you have the green light to shop from work,” says Better World Books co-founder Xavier Helgesen (pictured), who scours the web for old bikes, bike parts, and interesting cookbooks when not busy with his duties as vice president of textbooks. “Although being in the e-commerce business, I get to call it ‘comparative market research.’” With the procrastination-themed sale afoot, we took some time away from our fashion week preparations to ask Helgesen seven questions about books, branding, and building a better world.

1. First—we can’t help it!—what’s your favorite book?
I love too many books to name for a whole bunch of reasons, but a classic that is really tough to beat is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I remember first reading it in eighth grade and literally falling out of my chair laughing when the Vogon is reading poetry.

2. And what are you reading these days?
On the fiction end, I devoured The Road by Cormac McCarthy in a few days. It was stark and harrowing, but completely addictive. On the non-fiction end, Jamie’s Italy by Jamie Oliver is making me a much better cook and making me love Italy all the more.

3. Now that we’ve got that settled. How did better Better World Books come about?
Better World Books started with a single college book drive on Notre Dame’s campus in 2002. Our idea was to collect books that the college bookstore didn’t want and sell them online as a fundraising for the local community center. That is still the basic model we use today, though on a much bigger scale.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.