Learning from my mistakes — When Sean Schumacher invited me to join his excellent podcast at dididothat.design, he asked me to bring in three mistakes to talk about. There have been so many, I have to say it was difficult to choose just three! We talk about a lot of early Plazm days predating the…

Portland memory in a new poster to Celebrate People’s History — I am a longtime fan of Josh MacPhee’s poster project Celebrate People’s History. Last year, after inviting him to participate in @benddesigncon and corresponding exhibit at the Scalehouse, I stood in the gallery surrounded by walls of these posters, soaking in the energy and the stories. We write history. I…

A few memories from 9/11 and the AIGA Voice Conference — I remember arriving at the office on the morning of September 11, 2001. I typically rode my bike to work and didn’t listen to the news in the mornings. Ryan, our office manager was wearing his I❤️NY t-shirt and had the TV on. The rest of the day, and for…

Remembering 1995, the 50th anniversary of the atomic age. — Plazm 10 was the first issue of editor Yariv Rabinovitch’s tenure at Plazm. It was also the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic age. We had recently met sculptor James Acord after a talk he gave at the Hoffman Gallery at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts (R.I.P.) and decided…

Well, it has finally arrived. A new age of the women’s movement. Fuck pastels, this story is about rock and roll. Hailing from L.A., city of junk, the four women that make up L7 are a virtual juggernaut of sociopolitical energy. The fact that they are women is not the point. The point is in the power that they possess to change not only the face of rock and roll, but the way a generation views and treats itself.

Shape shifting Plazm magazine — Plazm №5 was our first issue at the smaller size. 80-pages, full color cover, black only throughout except for one 4-page signature printed 2-color on kraft paper. As editor Neva Knott wrote on the opening page, “we have shape-shifted into a 33 percent more efficient format.” We had bumped into…

Photocopied & hand folded at the beginning of the digital era. In 1993 we published our first font catalog. There was a confluence of elements that led us to releasing digital typefaces into the world. First and foremost it came out of the design experimentation that was happening in the…

Plazm magazine, issue №4, circa 1993 The cover art is by Panacea Theriac. Plazm editor Neva Knott brought in the image. Appreciating his help calling issue no. 3 the “glamor issue” I invited Jerome Schiller to collaborate on concepts for the cover of issue no. 4. It’s fun to revisit…

Our third issue of Plazm, published in 1993, was the first time that we had cover art made specifically for us. The first two issues we featured existing art. The cover artist for issue №3 was Lyle Hehn. …