why not associates

Back in the early 1990's when I just started my career in graphic design, one of the design firms that was influential in developing my own style was why not associates from the UK. The firm was started in 1987 by Andy Altmann, David Ellis, and Howard Greenhalgh, all met each other as students and studied at the Royal College of Art. These are pages from their 1997 book.



Book cover (left) and poster for Vote Labour (right). I can't imagine how insane this was to do before photoshop had layers! There was a time when Photoshop only had one layer and you can only undo once. Those were the days.



Taken from sketchbooks while still at the Royal College of Art. You can see the influence of their professor, Dutch designer Gert Dumbar, on their work. The de Stijl movement, which originated from Holland, had a major impact on modern day graphic design.



Intro spread. Walks you through their history. Interesting to see how their design styles evolved as computers became accessible to designers.



Next Directory Seven brochure dividers.



Hull 1992 Arts Festival posters. Still looks fresh today, 15 years later.

Scion x Racing Code Collab Tee

When Steve Hatanaka (a very cool guy) over at Scion asked me if Racing Code would like to design a limited edition shirt for their upcoming NADA tradeshow, I said sure no problem. Then he told us he needed it in a week, I said hmm, long pause...calculating the amount of time it would take to design, prep, and silkscreen, and said it's PROBABLY doable. Luckily, the design we proposed was approved and our silk screen production had some down time to squeeze this in.


The big idea behind this shirt is really to promote "Optomize," which is a brand under Scion that distributes 3rd party accessories and apparel (Racing Code included!) at Scion dealerships. We came up with a catchy lead-in "Maximize, Personalize, Realize" to further emphasize their brand name. For the design we wanted to go simple. Let the Optomize brand be the hero. Everything was done just in time to ship these off to Vegas.

1993 Mazda RX7 (FD3S)

What can I say about the FD...beautiful styling inside and out plus it's got a twin-turbo rotary. If you've never driven a rotary engined car before, it feels very different...very smooth and very quiet until you are starting to redline...even then the sound is unlike a piston engine.


I bought it in 1999 (about the same time as my 1971 P1800, talk about digging a money pit for myself and these were my daily drivers!). I remember when I was in the market for my first car (after college) in 1992, this car just came out. I thought it was the most beautiful Japanese car ever. Of course, I didn't have the finances to get this, but I did get another Mazda, an MX3 with the "world's smallest production" V6.


I kept this for about one year due to a lot of mechanical problems with the car (I replaced the transmission and radiator - ultra expensive) and the turbos would have needed to be replaced soon after. I sold this to a guy who actually flew down from S.F. to buy this car. A few years later, I saw this same car back in L.A. Weird huh.

1971 Volvo P1800

I found these photos while I was cleaning up my house last month. My 1971 P1800, I was only one year old when this car was manufactured! I bought this around 1999 and kept it for about one year. Why did I buy this? Like most car guys, I just wanted to get a vintage car, sort of a rite of passage for gearheads I guess. Plus, this thing is a beauty (check out the fins), Swedish car styled by an Italian designer.


Trivia: this was actually the model used by Roger Moore in the TV series "The Saint" in the UK. You've probably never seen the show unless you lived in Europe. I put a lot of money to fix this car: new original grill surround, new brakes, new tires, new original wheel rings, new original exhaust, new original steel trim pieces, new interior leather/carpet. I remember going to the only mechanic in town that knew about this car almost every week to fix something.


I remember going to work in this thing and going 80mph on the freeway and everything was vibrating/buzzing in the car (and the rearview mirror fell off - everytime). Total insanity! Towards the end, with most foreign vintage cars, the parts were extremely hard to find and it was very difficult to bring this car to the standards I wanted. A buyer came with his whole family to check out the car and bought it on the spot.

Jaguar C-XF

I was browsing photos of concept cars at the 2007 Detroit Autoshow on Autoweek.com. The concept that strikes me the most intriguing is the Jaguar C-XF concept. Jaguar vehicles up to now (and I'm including the new XK) are not really that desirable, way too conservative and retro. But if they can make the upcoming S-Type look very close to the C-XF, they will get a lot of buyers who would typically not even consider a Jaguar. Ian Callum definitely is back in fine form with this design. I have always been a huge fan of his work, his Aston Martin DB7 is still brilliant. The headlights of the C-XF concept is a modern interpretration of the traditional Jaguar quad-headlights. The rear lights is very Aston Martin, which is a good thing. The muscular proportions and high waistline conveys substance and it looks the part for a luxury class vehicle. Things are definitely going to change around for Jaguar if the execution is done right.