Love Conquers All
Cupid does it again, and so did Anna and Rick / Thirst, with designing Jessica Lagrange Interiors’ annual valentine.
Blind debossed and engraved on Strathmore Impress by Artistry Engraving & Embossing
Happenings: Project
XOXO, JLI
In honor of Jessica Lagrange Interiors' 20th anniversary, Rick Valicenti and Anna Mort designed their annual valentine with twenty years of love in mind.
Debossed and foil stamped on Reich Savoy by Artistry Engraving & Embossing.
Forever Love!
Rick and his sister, Barb, designed the message for Jessica Lagrange Interiors' Valentine this year.
Here’s what Jessica had to say…
Full PostThe Final Scene
Thirst's John Pobojewski and Taek Kim designed the poster for Sonny Valicenti's latest short film, The Final Scene. As an Official Selection of the 2015 Austin Film Festival, The Final Scene investigates the breakup of legendary 50's comedy duo Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
It will be screening October 30 at the Rollins Theater and November 2 at Galaxy Highland 9 in Austin.
Gi Whiz!
Reality TV celebrity, Spencer Pratt, commissioned Rick Valicenti to design the identity for JITZ MOB, his new line of branded stuff including patches for a gi (pronounced gee), the martial arts uniform.
Here's a preview of the designs.
Eight O Five’s ABCs
In conjunction with the opening of Eight O Five, a new rental concept by Smithfield Properties at LaSalle and Chicago, patron Bill Smith commissioned Thirst to create a collection of 90 unique 36" x 48" art prints titled A → $. Three prints will be displayed in each of the elevator lobby bays on the 30 residential floors.
Using alphabetical order as a creative restraint, Magdalena Wistuba and Rick Valicenti devised a system for assigning characters and design techniques to each print. Taking guidance from a Google spreadsheet for the color palette, prints on floors 4–30 were assigned a letter of the alphabet; floors 31–33, the characters &, #, !; and the penthouse level appropriately showcases the $.
Plans are underway for an August rooftop party for designers. Each guest will receive a keepsake, limited-edition boxed set of letters printed by Classic Color.
You can see all 90 prints here.
Holly Hunt in London
Eight products
Eight photographs
Eight pages
Rick Valicenti, in collaboration with Holly Hunt, directed Chicago photographer Victor Skrebneski to introduce a new London showroom.
Printing by Classic Color.
Geometry Homework
Our friend Jonathan Nesci generated a series of mirrors for his latest exhibition with Patrick Parrish Gallery as part of New York Design Week 2015. The frames were concieved by using equal numbers of hexagons, trapezoids, rhombuses and triangles. Thirst designed the logotype for Jonathan's show, Present Perimeter. Take a look at the installation at Collective Design Fair below.
Jonathan developed a brilliant hanging device for the mirrors allowing for any of twelve different rotations.
About to Hatch
At 803 Franklin Street in Michigan City, Indiana, Ester G. Golden is opening The Nest, a unique space devoted to art, performance, gifts, food, and friends.
E.G.G.'s hand-cut and cracked letters turned into the graphic identity. Here's a glimpse of the billboards going up on the east side of Lake Michigan.
Photos courtesy of The Nest
The billboard suite.
The client's hand-cut letters and Thirst's rendering.
Announcing Curio
Today, we are announcing a new program at Thirst called Curio — our open cabinet of new things and thoughts.
Here we will be posting sketches, concepts, ideas, short essays, and studies, all based on our personal interests. Curio is evidence of our curiosities ripe for potential, often entertaining, and occassionally insightful.
New posts will be coming every week. Please stay tuned on our site or on Twitter or Facebook.
Love is in the Air!
Each year, Valentines Day is made a little sweeter for those who receive a Thirst-designed card from Jessica Lagrange Interiors. Beth Weaver/3st and Barb Valicenti produced today's precious keepsake.
While in Beijing this past December working on Deep Breath, the Moving Design fresh air initiative, Baozhen Li/3st and Rick Valicenti curated and designed The Yellow Book, a collection of the most risque images sourced on China's restricted internet. Last week our Chinese host from Beijing visited and brought copies of the 192-page yellow book. Sweet!
click here to view entire pdf.
New Work: The 35th Annual Interiors Awards
We are proud to share our recent film, animation, and sound work for the 35th Annual Interiors Awards, presented by Contract Magazine.
Over 30 minutes of work across 14 category animations and 2 profile films entertained an audience of nearly 800 professionals from the design industry at the event's annual breakfast in New York City.
An edited reel of our work for the event is above. View more on our project page.
3st in Beijing: Deep Breath Initiative
We are thrilled to announce that Rick Valicenti / 3st is beginning a semester-long teaching/collaboration engagement with the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology.
Already in their second week in the virtual Skype classroom, Rick and Professor Huang Li are leading thirty interdisciplinary design students to imagine new projects focused on the issues of clean air and air quality. Their initiative is called Deep Breath and will continue until January 2014.
Rick Valicenti and Baozhen Li / 3st will be in Beijing November 17 through December 17. Stay tuned as a public website will be online soon and updated weekly.
3st at NeoCon: Valcucine Showroom
We close out a busy week at NeoCon by announcing the installation of The Elizabeth Project (formally named E) at the Valcucine Showroom on the first floor of the Merchandise Mart. Ribbons of colored vinyl are cut by hand and infused in glass to create a cabinetry finish for the unique kitchen installations of the Italian kitchen manufacturer.
This collaboration with architect Gordon Gill and his (then) 9-year-old daughter Elizabeth was originally done in 2009, but only recently was installed at the Merchandise Mart in advance of NeoCon.
Thirst used motion capture technology and custom software written in Processing to sample Elizabeth’s energy as she danced in place. We then rendered studies of her movement before we working with Gordon to choose the right ‘still frame’ composition that would be transformed into the handmade final piece. The expression was of Elizabeth’s energy alone: preserving a moment in time that is kinetic and alive.
A short “making of” film documents the process from beginning to end.
An additional study in black was done for the New York showroom.
Opening Night!
Ohhh, Rick, and that Show Boat type… thrilling!
1000 greetings,
Stefan
Sagmeister Inc.
Americana nostalgia made modern!
October 1 is the night to get Show Boat, the commemorative poster for the 2011/2012 Lyric Opera season designed by Rick Valicenti/3st.
Classic Color’s 8-color printing plus a spot gloss UV coating brings that extra sparkle to the already flamboyant digital extrusion, wrapped in Rick’s pixelated bunting.
Rick’s layout to Susan Mathieson-Mayer, Lyric Opera’s director of communications, and to Chicago typographer, Jackson Cavanaugh, served as a conceptual layout and a flash card for design direction.
The contributing sponsors of Lyric’s annual poster: Rick/3st and Classic Color president, Ray Bell
Rick extends a special thank you to Classic Color’s Rogelio Guzman and Bill Cornman for their digital rendering wizardry