While Googling myself — What? You don’t? Liar — the other day I came across an intriguing link that I still can’t fully figure out. Digging myself out from under six feet of directories, I at least came to the following conclusions: It’s on the intranet of York College, under Media, Performance and Music and from there somehow you end in this very 1995-like web site, where the page in question is deeply buried and titled My page about a designer. The page is about Push Pin Studios. A celebrated group I was proudly part of, along with Paula Scher, Steve Heller, and, of course, the founders, Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, and Edward Sorel. Not.
I am also world famous — arguably correct to a certain extent — and have written Chronicles the Blistering Process, a book that returns absolutely no Google or Amazon searches, nor is it something I recall writing. Accurately, the page attributes the logo I did with Michael Bierut for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, but it also gives me credit for designing Spencer Fruhling’s “High Priority” winning entry in our contest from last year. Steven Heller, also listed as one of Push Pin’s “main graphic designers” is pictured as Steven Heller the three time Grammy award winning producer-composer, who could potentially pass as a younger version of our own Steven Heller.
The entry was written by 17-year-old James Inman, whose hobbies include shooting, motorbikes, and facts. Recalling my research efforts as a 17-year-old, I admit that my papers weren’t any better than James’ and should serve as a way of pointing out that I’m not bent on ridiculing his research, as I can deeply sympathize. I can also see where James went wrong: 1) Steve Heller, Paula Scher and I were some of the speakers at a 2004 AIGA New York chapter event celebrating the work of Push Pin, so I’m surprised that Noreen Morioka and Sean Adams were excluded 2) an image search on Google for Steven Heller does return two of the faux Heller in the first page, and 3) it shows James’ inventiveness: I think I will name my next design book Design: Chronicles of a Blistering Process. So, I simply thought that this was an intriguing page to point out on the perils of Google, and to establish once and for all and until Google’s cache fills up that I was indeed a proud member of Push Pin Studios. Even if I wasn’t born yet when they were active as a collective of designers and illustrators.
Perhaps this is FutureGoogle, and you are destined to A) write that book about blisters and B) resurrect Push Pin with an 80-year-old Steven Heller.
On Jan.18.2008 at 09:46 AM