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May 2008 • Metropolis Observed

Poster Children

Metropolis’s art department helps raise money for California wildfire victims.

By Criswell Lappin

Posted May 22, 2008

Every once in a while you have to get up and stretch out your legs. After eight years of pushing page and cover layouts in many directions, I had been looking for an excuse for the art department to collaborate on a project outside—but related to—the content of Metropolis as a way to help fuel our “making” ability. We talked internally about different ideas, but nothing really clicked until associate art director Dungjai Pungauthaikan found a project based in her home state of California.

The So-Cal Fire Poster Project, initiated by Josh Higgins and modeled after the Hurricane Poster Project, in New Orleans, sells posters donated by designers to raise funds for the victims of the wildfires that seared the region in 2007. Thus began the art department Make-out sessions—weekly lunch meetings to research, plan, and design a batch of four posters. After six weeks we had secured all of the components necessary to realize our designs: funding from editor in chief Susan Szenasy, paper donated by Neenah Paper, and screen-printing equipment at nonprofit ABC No Rio, on New York’s Lower East Side. The posters are available for purchase at www.socal.reliefposters.com. As for future projects, who knows: maybe one day we’ll invite other designers to come make out with us.

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I designed a straightforward concept whereby the shape of California is composed of matches and cigarette lighters in reference to how combustible the issue is. Even though the fires are always framed as affecting Southern California—noted by the red over the flame on the matchbox—they impact the entire state.
—Criswell Lappin, creative director
Courtesy Make-out
Out of the devastating fire emerges new life. The California poppy symbolizes hope and regrowth.
—Dungjai Pungauthaikan, associate art director
Courtesy Make-out
“Long Live So-Cal” is about the people who make up the population of Southern California, and how these many voices come together to create a distinct vitality and energy that can overcome any obstacle.
—Lisa Maione, assistant art director
Courtesy Make-out
I was inspired by the idea of a color-blind test. I want the audience to look carefully to find the California state symbols that are in danger in the midst of the fires. I hope it reminds them of how people and nature suffer from wildfire damage every year.
—Taro Yumiba, art department intern
Courtesy Make-out
Earn your MFA degree in Transdisciplinary Design at Parsons in New York City
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