The establishment of the pharmaceutical industry, especially in the mid-20th century, played a significant role in the evolution of graphic design and advertising. Herb Lubalin created some of his most influential work while working for Sudler & Hennessey, an advertising agency which specialized in pharmaceutical marketing. PHARMA features a diverse array of original ephemera, rarely seen publicly, by many pioneering graphic designers including Lester Beall, Will Burtin, Paul Rand, Franco Grignani, staff of Geigy and Herb Lubalin, as well as contributions by Carl Fischer and Andy Warhol.

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Bay Area designer and long time Grain Edit friend, Jason Munn, was recently commissioned by Alamo Drafthouse to design a series of posters for their cinematic Texas Monthly Rolling Roadshow. The series focuses on films that take place in Texas.

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We’re excited to announce that Invisible Creature will be showing a collection of work at Super7 in San Francisco, opening on April 23rd at 6PM. Included in the collection will be a number of illustrations from their late grandfather, Alfred Paulsen. In addition, they will debut the first colorway of Leroy C., the newest member of Super7’s Monster Family!

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Letters, numbers, ceramics and craftsmanship collide in a month-long House Industries exhibition at the Heath Los Angeles studio and store. House will transform the legendary tile and tableware maker’s airy Beverly Boulevard space into an unprecedented emulsion of clay, metal, ink, cotton, wood, lacquer, lithography and letterforms.

The exhibition will feature several new objects including custom-fired House-Heath tiles, reclaimed wood end-grain tiles, hand-printed folding plywood divider screens, tree ornaments, letterpressed greeting cards and much more. Heath also stocks hard-to-find House classics such as the Eames House blocks and the Alexander Girard Nativity.

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Prepare yourselves: Grain Edit pal Mike Perry is transforming his Brooklyn studio into a pop-up shop and open gallery from November 27 through December 1. This year’s sale will be overflowing with amazing prints, zines, books, tee shirts, original drawings, and so much more from good folks like Jim Datz, Josh Cochran, Jim Stoten, Hugo & Marie, and others.

If you happen to be in the New York area around this time, this is one event you cannot miss!

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Dwell magazine is turning 10! To commemorate the event, they’ve produced a series of limited-edition serigraphs in collaboration Arkitip and some of their favorite artists. These posters will be on display at the Curiosity Shoppe in San Francisco, starting this Friday the 15th, and running through the end of the month.

If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello! The Curiosity Shoppe is located at 855 Valencia Street in San Francisco’s beautiful Mission District.

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If you’re in San Francisco tomorrow night, I recommend stopping by The Exquisite Book Signing and & Live Drawing event. Artists in attendance will include Julia Rothman, Lisa Congdon, Caitlin Keegan, Susie Ghahremani, Kelly Lynn Jones, Tom Neely, Eunice Moyle and Lorena Siminovich.

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Kemistry Gallery is celebrating the work of legendary designer Lou Dorfsman, art director for the CBS network.

The exhibition centres on his most notable creation, the 11-metre wide handmade wooden typographic wall that he named Gastrotypographicalassemblage. Created during an era when designers were both artisans and well-trained communicators, the wall is the largest modern typographic artefact in existence, described by Michael Bierut as ‘an irreplaceable piece of design history.’ With custom type created by Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase, the wall contains almost 1500 individual characters.

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Crafty 2010 will explore the artistry and process behind disciplines from design to art, fashion to film and advertising to specialized print techniques. Held at the Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore, the project is produced by design think tank Anonymous and curated by art director Felix Ng.

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While I was in Maine I discovered this book put together after the 1974 Biennale of Graphic Design in Brno, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia). The book contains notes and essays from a symposium centered around corporate identity.

Wim Crouwel contributes an essay on the problems with house-style. In the essay he discusses the role of a designer in the creation of a corporate identity program and describes the difference between what he calls “information designers” and “advertising designers. He ends the essay off with a few thoughts on trademarks (abstract symbols vs type driven solutions).

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