Valicenti's Book of Thirst

Fellow creative director and longest-time friend, Bo Maupin, sends us word of Emotion as Promotion: A book of Thirst, edited by Rick Valicenti, self-described as "a contemporary commentary on the state of contemporary communication design as evidenced in the professional practice from both Rick's public and personal realms."

From John "Bruno" Maupin:

Here’s a PDF [Suburban Maul] from a project Rick Valicenti, a designer who lives outside of Chicago – Barrington none-the-less, did a couple of years ago. I saw him speak at a design group function here in Columbus this spring. He’s a very good designer with a mind for how design affects our culture, and how our culture influences design. For better or worse.

This PDF is from a project he did with two of his interns (see the story that is in the article) about the large “Mac” mansions that were built near his studio in the 90’s “dot com” boom. He had his students take pictures of the houses and then find retail signage that seemed to fit the design of each house.

Kind of funny, a much deeper social commentary in reality. His article at the end of the PDF is nice with some good links to other information about the evolution (or de-evolution of architectural design) in suburban America.

Since I have drunk quite a few Leininkugels in a quaint cape cod in Barrington that was built long before Levittown was realized, and long before Leininkugel was considered a micro-brew (I think we paid $4.95 for a case of longneck, plus bottle deposit), and most of all, since one of my best friends grew up in Barrington – I really enjoyed this piece.

Peter – you should be able to use this on your site if you want. I included the links, there is no longer a site just for Thirst Type. Rick has a site that has most of his book “Emotion as Promotion” at rickvalicenti.com.

I hope every one is doing well. I must get back to my mindless job of turning PDFs into EPS files. Maybe a I shall go in search of a Leininkugels NA at lunch, for old times sake.

Bo