“in celebration of ideas” — installment three

ACD 1993 Napkin Collection, brochure inside cover

Again, as a continuation of the previous two posts we’ve been featuring the American Center for Design Napkin Collection produced in 1993. At that time, Rick Valicenti asked designers to respond to “the word”. Thinking of the title, BLAH-TEAU, the idea of the Collection reminded us of the film “The Cool School” in which a scene discusses the work of Ed Ruscha. Here’s a quote from the movie:

Narrator: “Ed Ruscha picked-up on [Marcel] Duchamp’s concept that, primarily, art was in the mind rather than in the eye. Ruscha expanded this idea to suggest that in art—language could be a visual experience.”

Shirley Nielson Blum: “Ed Ruscha would paint the words, so that ‘Hollywood,’ or ‘Standard,’ or ‘Noise’ would become the image. So it put together the experience of the word ‘written’ and the experience of the word ‘heard’ within the picture itself. And it has that very—sort of—sudden brash quality, which was Pop Art.”

“The Cool School” is a film that documents the story of the Ferus Gallery between 1957 and 1966 in Los Angeles, highlighting the work of several cutting-edge West Coast artists. Film credits are: director/writer/producer, Morgan Neville and co-writer/co-producer, Kristine Mckenna. The film was produced in 2007.

Eric Baker ORDER

Niels Diffrient FORM

David Gresham FLAIR

Paula Scher RAGE

Maira Kalman ICON

Woody Pirtle HAPPINESS

Stephen Doyle TASTE