Post By admin ~ 26th January 2012
Left to Right: Erik Spiekermann, Roger Black & Matthew Carter at TDC Judges Panel Talk
Two Thursdays ago, Maxim Zhukov moderated a panel with Paul Shaw, Erik Spiekermann, Roger Black and Matthew Carter that touched on a range of topics from Open Type to how they judge non-Roman fonts to everyone’s favorite fonts. With such a range of personalities as well, Spiekermann’s German extrovert to Carter’s stoic Brit with charm, it felt like hanging out backstage in the VIP lounge of a festival with only headliners. Throughout the panel discussion, you got a sense that despite the frequent claims that a typeface emerges from a given client’s demands, typefaces emerge through each designers background and personality. Georgia could only come from Carter, FF Meta from Spiekermann.
While there will always be a sense of the designer behind a typeface, the part of the discussion I found most interesting centered around Roger Black’s recollection of print shops. (I’m probably really biased here since my family still runs a print company in California.) Black remembered a time when you could pick up a book or anything printed and know exactly who printed it by the tracking, leading, and word spacing alone. Each print shop had such exacting standards, a typographic dogma so to speak, that you instantly knew who it was. It was true typographic branding, more than just the idea of one typeface or type family representing a brand–and it made me wonder if there was an equivalent online. A site that by the way the copy is set you know instantly where it’s coming from. I’d wager that the New York Times comes close to this with their digital experience but I don’t know if it’s all the way down to the bones, to the line-height and letter-spacing. And with Carter’s ubiquitous Georgia everywhere I’m not sure if I could safely be able to blindly distinguish an article from the nytimes.com from a bostonglobe.com article or any other major publication if the other branding were hidden.
Black reminded me of this lack in the digital space and I wonder if anyone’s going to tackle that this year. Or if we’re so wrapped up in mobile first and responsive design that we’ve forgotten the basics of typesetting.
Post By jencotton ~ 5th January 2012
Last month, I bought Louis C. K.’s comedy special when it went on sale for $5 (!!!!) exclusively on his website. For the same price that I can rent a movie on iTunes, which I’ve only been conned into doing once, I bought my favorite comedian’s comedy special. The download has “no DRM, no regional restrictions, no crap.” And it’s a pretty hilarious comedy special, melding the brilliance of Chewed Up with a whole lot of Louie. The best example of his George-Carlin-cum-everyday-man style has got to be his bit about leaving a rental car at the airport curb. I died. Best of all, as he explains here, it was so wildly successful that he was able to give a good chunk of it away to charity. Because he made ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN TWELVE DAYS and set the Twitter-verse on fire. If that’s not a game-changer for how TV specials are produced, distributed and marketed, then I don’t know what is. Read More »
Post By jencotton ~ 16th August 2011
Cover image on the first issue of New York Magazine.
A few months ago I had the pleasure of going into the library here at New York Magazine to do some research on the how our Intelligencer logo has changed over the years. It’s kind of like being a kid in a candy store going through the library. It has every issue from 1968 till the present–all organized and sitting among sometimes multiple copies of each issue.
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Post By jencotton ~ 2nd August 2011
In the past few weeks, twice I’ve had to design the icons that go along with apps/bookmarks in the iOS world. These tiny little buggers come in seven different sizes and are used for different devices (iPad, iPhone, iPhone4) and different instances (home screen, settings, spotlight, iTunes store). It’s pretty confusing figuring out which corresponds to which…and this doesn’t even begin the challenge of designing at sizes as small as 29 pixels square.
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Post By admin ~ 25th July 2011
This week’s New York magazine is on the newsstands today and includes the my first designs to make it into the print version! Last week was pretty exciting, first hearing that it was going to be in the print version, getting hi-fives and congrats from my awesome co-workers and seeing the online proofs of the half-spread. It feels really special and seeing it in print today made it even more sublime.
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Post By admin ~ 19th July 2011
I’ve been using Photoshop since at least high school and when I was at the Corcoran, I had to take a Photoshop course where my professor was in love with keyboard shortcuts (a man after my own heart). So I thought I knew the interface and keyboard shortcuts but, like most things at NYMag, I’m learning how much there still is to learn. Yesterday I had my mind blown by the Arrange Documents tab on the top of the browser, which allows you to see your windows in a grid (mmmm, grid love). I’ve also added more keyboard shortcuts to my repertoire so I thought I’d put them all in one post and share the knowledge. Warning though, these are Mac only :-/
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Post By admin ~ 14th July 2011
There are a lot of really amazing things I get to design at NYMag. There are also a lot of ridiculous things I get to think up and make real. Like the True Blood Sex Index, which charts who’s had what kind of sex…and just how much. So there were brilliant parts of my day last week where my fellow designers sat around helping me brainstorm what would represent what (there’s a master Word doc that will one day unfortunately re-surface I’m sure).
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Post By admin ~ 26th May 2011
Fotonoticias/WireImage/Jen Cotton
A fun thing happened yesterday. Justin Bieber got almost the exact same tattoo that I Photoshopped onto him as a part of a slideshow for Vulture. It was a fun moment at the office when we realized we foreshadowed reality…orrrr that he totally took our tattoo advice!!
Post By admin ~ 25th May 2011
I think we all need to take a moment for what today is: Oprah’s final show. The church/cult of Oprah has guided me through many years and so about three years ago, I built a wonderful site that serves up Oprah quotes for when you just need a bit of her in your life. And it only seems fitting that I re-launch this bad boy on the day that she bids us adieu.
Visit the site: Oprah Says to Me
Post By admin ~ 18th April 2011
When I was in grad school at Parsons, there was a definite divide between the people who chose to study in the 10th floor lab and those who went…well anywhere else that was quieter. The lab was (and probably still is) more of a lively environment. People user tested in the lab, did group projects, ate meals, checked out equipment, had loud Skype calls, and just about anything you can imagine. Suffice it to say, there was a consistent buzz around the lab. If you needed to get serious work done, the adage was that you went somewhere other than the lab.
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Post By admin ~ 28th March 2011
The Museum of Art and Design is running a show on ceramic jewelry entitled A Bit of Clay on the Skin. Exploring “the manifold appeal of ceramics, especially porcelain, in jewelry,” I expected this to be an impactful exhibit that perhaps gave an overview of the medium. And there were some statement pieces in the mix including Marie Pendariès The Dowry (show below) and the bold handicraft of Peter Hoogeboom whose pieces look like what would happen if porcelain and Africa had children.
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Post By admin ~ 21st March 2011
I had a few moments during my job search where I would be showing my portfolio live in an interview and my site seemed…just sluggish. Images were loading slowly even though they were optimized for the web and sidebar widgets loaded sometimes 30 seconds after the rest of the page did. I assumed it was just the network that I was on, but after accidentally landing on a couple articles today, I realized that there are WordPress plug-ins that totally help with site loading and a surge in traffic.
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Post By admin ~ 8th February 2011
I got burned today by a non-profit who rejected my bid to redesign their site. It was my first time actually going through the hoops of reading and responding to an RFP because my normal stance is that it’s too much time for too little payback. I’ve agreed with those in the industry who have debated back and forth on spec work, and while this wasn’t technically spec work, it was.
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Post By admin ~ 1st December 2010
I’m rolling it out slowly but you can now buy a Jen Cotton Design!! I’m using Etsy for my store, but bookmark it now: http://jencotton.etsy.com. Or click on the Shop link if you’re on my website.
Currently, you’ll find some of my jewelry–including my unique logo as earrings–with ceramics to come!! Just in time for the holidays 
Post By admin ~ 29th November 2010
I’ve got a lot of show happenings going on until January. Right now my solo show “Two Thousand & End” is on view at Choplet Gallery & Ceramics Studio in Williamsburg. Had the opening a few weekends ago and was humbled and happy by the turnout! The work deals with this idea of the “future past” and capturing our lives on the cusp of the digital and analogue worlds. All of the works were in porcelain and plexiglass, with some of them having custom electronics inside. Full blown pics to come on this site once the show is over (can’t give away the milk for free!!).
Next up is a group show at the Lyons Wier Gallery in Chelsea that opens on December 12th. I’ll be showing more of my techno-ceramics there too. Stop by either of these two if you’re in town.
Post By admin ~ 28th November 2010
My show at Choplet Gallery is winding down (it’s still up through December 8th though) and since Thanksgiving is officially over, it’s time to celebrate the holidays…with ceramics!! I designed the card for the holiday ceramics show and thought I’d share. Stop by if you have the time. Every year there are some sort of shenanigans (last year there were naked clay people spelling out Peace) so buy a piece of pottery and have some fun doing it.
Post By admin ~ 22nd October 2010
The new movie Black Swan released its movie poster and it’s channeling a lot of Saul Bellows and the Russians. I just hope it translates into the film titles.
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Post By admin ~ 19th October 2010
Two weeks ago, the American Folk Art Museum kicked off it’s “Year of Quilts” exhibit. I stopped by today (after forgetting that the MOMA is closed on Tuesdays :-/ ) and was excited to hear that this show was going on. There’s something to me though that doesn’t sit right with quilts being considered “folk art” when it seems more appropriate in a craft and design setting. I might be mincing hairs here, but the show really reminded me of the power that quilts have to easily translate into our current world. True, the textile-based nature of this art does leave it a bit behind in the technological world we are becoming more and more accustomed to. But there was something strikingly modern about some of the works in the show–especially in the patchwork and album quilts where iconography and geometry reigned supreme. There were quilts that seemed to be the predecessors of pixelated art; some that showed the rhythm and patterning of contemporary design; some that highlighted color and texture in ways that modern sculpture achieves. It made me get riled up that this type of art/design, one based in crafts and predominantly female, is relegated to the side while “serious” art is shown at the Met or MOMA.
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Post By admin ~ 30th September 2010
While the New Museum is mainly closed right now (the 3, 4 & 5th floors are closed for exhibition set-up), the Brion Gysin exhibit is still up for a few more days. His work is pretty impressive in that it spans poetry, prose, painting, new media collaborations, collage, video and I’m sure I’m still leaving out a few genres. His paintings and ink works were striking for their use of a new hybrid calligraphy that blends Japanese and Arabic styles in a strikingly graphic way. In fact, the major visual trope throughout his work, and strength for that matter, was his graphic design sensibilities. He was obsessed with the grid, used colors with ease, was obsessed with symbols and did early explorations into computer art. I’m not sure why in the litany of descriptions used in the introductory wall text that no one thought to use the word designer.
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Post By admin ~ 22nd September 2010
I’m trying to do more design lately while I wait for the dust to settle. This thought came about me last night. I think I like this meme of designed thoughts meets quick poetry.
Post By admin ~ 20th September 2010
I’m currently in the midst of a design renaissance after having one of those late night/early morning epiphanies about life. There”s a lot going on right now and it struck me all of a sudden just how jaded I had gotten about design. I don’t want to point fingers, but I think grad school did it for me. Something about learning all that code, physical computing, computer vision, made my brain start to trend against design.
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Post By admin ~ 30th June 2010
Today I went to go see the Haunted exhibit at the Guggenheim, based around works from their collection that “examines myriad ways photographic imagery is incorporated into recent practice and in the process underscores the unique power of reproductive media while documenting a widespread contemporary obsession, both collective and individual, with accessing the past.” Some of the more eloquent pieces were ones like Tacita Dean’s STILLNESS, where the viewer watches Merce Cunningham’s slight movements from six different vantage points. There’s a certain fragility of the sitting, immobile subject who is in stark contrast to the much younger, standing filmmaker–also in the shot. Adding another layer to this piece are the shadows cast onto the film by other museum visitors walking past the piece. In fact, the visitor haunts a lot of the pieces throughout this exhibit from reflections off of framed photographs, shadows interrupting projectors and chatter that emanates from the gallery-in-the-round setup.
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Post By admin ~ 24th June 2010
I posted some teaser pics here a few months back of a sculpture I was working on lasercutting out of acrylic plexiglass. Now that I’ve had time to set up a mini-photography studio in my apartment, I can share the awesome new pics. I am really excited about the possibility of going forward with this type of modular sculpture. I sat for just 10 minutes and came up with the few designs I’m showing here and on my website. I think the fun of this is going to be to live with it for a while and feel the life that the endless possibilities will bring.
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Post By admin ~ 14th June 2010
Patience is something I’m constantly working on in just about every aspect of my life. I think the quote most used to mock me as a kid was Veruca from Willy Wonka saying, “I want the golden goose now, Daddy.” And it’s true, I want(ed) everything now. And why not? Doing stuff now rather than later has led me to accomplish a lot of things on my to-do list: travel to India, white-water raft the Grand Canyon, finish grad school. Now is great for checking shorter-term things off lists.
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Post By admin ~ 31st May 2010
I had a lot of amazing love happen around my graduation. Family came out, friends celebrated me. I am truly thankful for everyone who shared in my happiness. To thank everyone who decided to give me gifts, I thought I would handmake them all thank you cards. It turned into a fun (post-grad-unemployment) side project. Here are some of my faves:
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