Steven Heller

Steven Heller|Reviews

Breakdowns: A Review

Cover of Art Spiegelman's new book BreakdownsArt Spiegelman’s Breakdowns, his first anthology of autobiographical and experimental comics was originally published in 1978. Hard to believe that thirty years later, a new edition, …

Steven Heller|Essays

Where Have You Gone R. Cobb?

Cartoon by Ron Cobb, 1966In 1968 the two most influential underground newspaper cartoonists in America were R. Crumb, who most everyone knows today, and R. Cobb, who sadly many do not. Crumb devastated establishment pieties while Cobb …

Steven Heller|Essays

Canned Laughter

Recently, I caught a whiff of a pungent odor emanating from a local construction site and noticed a thick green, anaconda-sized hose running from a tank on a truck emblazoned with the words “Call-A-Head” in bold gothic letters on the …

Steven Heller|Essays

Clipping Art, One Engraving At a Time

Clip Art: Old Engravings and Illustrations, edited by Dick Sutphen While thinning out my hayloft of a design library recently, I came across a dusty collection of books that had not been opened in many, many years. Yet, as I began turning …

Steven Heller|Essays

Vanity Fair Type: 1930 Style

Vanity Fair cover illustrated by Paolo Garetto, December 1931 In 1929, Vanity Fair magazine, the jewel in the crown of Condé Nast’s publishing empire, made typographic history. Influenced by Modern design trends throughout Europe, …

Steven Heller|Essays

Homage to Velvet Touch Lettering

"Letraset U.S.A Instant Lettering," Compacta Light 120pt, copyright 1968It was the wee hours of Monday morning some months back when my computer died while I was designing a brochure that had to be finished later that day. Without a …

Steven Heller|Essays

Branding Youth in the Totalitarian State

Hitler Youth wearing the Hitler Jugend uniform (Austrian version)This article is adapted from Steven Heller’s new book, Iron Fists: Branding the Totalitarian State (Phaidon Press). Youth may be wasted on the young, but under the …

Steven Heller|Essays

O.H.W. Hadank

Scharlachberg, wine label, 1933American modernist Paul Rand greatly admired German classicist O.H.W. Hadank, although the two appeared to have very little in common. Professor Hadank (1889-1965) began his career in 1907 and worked through …

Steven Heller|Essays

The Sky Is Falling

Atomic test at Bikini Atoll, 1955Remember the scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall in Dr. Flicker’s examining room where Alvy Singer’s angst-ridden mother tells the doctor her son is depressed? As the doctor furiously puffs on a …

Steven Heller|Essays

Underground Mainstream

"Psychedelic Dingbats," designed by Hendrike. Courtesy Wikimedia CommonsCommercial culture depends on the theft of intellectual property for its livelihood. Mass marketers steal ideas from visionaries, alter them slightly if at all, then …

Steven Heller|Essays

The Magic of the Peace Symbol

Antiwar rally in Heroes' Square, Budapest, Hungary, March 20, 2005. Photo by Zsolt Szigetvary.The symbol for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is 50 years old this year, and despite all the wars fought since its birth, none of them have …

Steven Heller|Essays

Swastika Humor?

Sam Gross, cartoon from We Have Ways of Making You Laugh: 120 Funny Swastika Cartoons, 2008The swastika is not intrinsically funny. Yet, for some, anything can be made into a joke, including this Nazi logo. Nonetheless, there is …