Staring at this Video.

animation by Kate Dawkins for a V&A installation, music by Focus Group.

Stevie Nicks' hair

(from a 1976 episode of Midnight Special)

or just Stevie in general.

serge gainsbourg et brigitte bardot

he lights his cigarette mid-performance. and has look-a-like male back up singers. amazing. also, check out "bonnie and clyde"

this necklace

i was in kate spade the other day, (at their newly re-designed wonderland on 5th ave), and probably tried this necklace (the tulum swirl necklace) on about 6 times in an hour. the chain is pretty long and light and the pendant hits right at the stomache/right above, so it really stands out. they have been on this ancient mexican culture through mid-century interpretation (for a while now), cue the Tijuana Brass.

Klute

The title sequence alone is amazing, unfortunately hard to find on youtube, but the use of audio from wiretapped-phone calls 

alongside creepy/atmospheric soundtrack with minimal visuals is fantastic. They also build the wide latin "Klute" in the title from triangles, 

which is pretty inventive. Also worth seeing is Bree's (Jane Fonda) wardrobe, which understandably defined a new style in the 70s, and continues to influence many today.  

Also, Donald Sutherland, I might be in love with you.

Old and Reliable Colgate Packaging

an all-purpose soap i found at the food store that goes for about $.80 and can be used on anything. in these uncertain times, this packaging is the real deal, as it hasn't changed in about 765 years and has seen every major american war without a re-design.

Pistilli Roman (Opti Pirogi, Galeere)

Fat-face typefaces have to be one of my most enduring obsessions, as they managed to be part traditional Didot spin-off as well as geometric modernist. The extreme contrast and balance between the thick and thins make for a dramatic display typeface that is a never-fail in attracting attention. Taken from the newspaper-friendly Didot, Pistilli Roman was created by Herb Lubalin and John Pistilli in the 60s, abandoned, and was partially digitized as Opti Pirogi Roman in the 90s.  Today the typeface is midly captured in the Galeere typeface, but not as well. 

One of my favorite fat-face typefaces, which is saying a lot because i love fat-faces so very much, Pistilli Roman, was so nicely used as a fat-face should be (large and clean), on the Valley of the Dolls re-design from 1997.  I would probably have passed by this book, but the cover drew me in, and the designer, Evan Gaffney, used the same template for other Jacqueline Susann novels in the Dolls series.

Book Cover Archive

Walker Arts article/post