Wednesday Sep 28, 2011 by mike
Behind the scenes: The National poster
I really enjoyed designing my recent poster for The National's two-night run at Philadelphia's Academy of Music. From the moment I started looking at that 150+ year old building and thinking about all that history in Philadelphia, I got down to sketching out some ideas.
The first thing I looked at was the building. Built in 1857 right in the heart of downtown Philadelphia, the Academy of Music houses the city's ballet and operas among other high profile music and arts events. Read More
Wednesday Jul 13, 2011 by mike
Much More Manoogian
Thanks to everyone who helped make my interview with Michael Manoogian the all-time most popular post on this blog. To show our appreciation, here's an extra dose of sketch images sent over by the lettering legend. Enjoy and spread the word!
Thursday Jun 30, 2011 by mike
A Conversation with Michael Manoogian
Whether we know it or not, we all grew up with Michael Manoogian's design work in our lives. Since the late 1960s, Manoogian has been hand-crafting stunning and time-tested typographic logos for clients in the music and entertainment industries. In May 2011, his name appeared in my email inbox. Out of the clear blue, this legendary letterer had written to express his appreciation for my So Much Pileup blog. I humbly asked Mike for an interview for the site and, not only did he oblige, but he was also generous enough to send over a large number of his original sketches from some of his projects. And now, with no further ado, I present this exclusive interview with the great Michael Manoogian.
Please introduce yourself and explain what you do.
I fell in love with graphic design while studying at Rhode Island School of Design. I’ve been involved with it ever since. I dabbled in everything there, design-wise – posters, book covers, ads, photography. But it was lettering that caught my interest the most. On a scale of 0-10, interest is at the top.
