M·A·C Cosmetics
Fashion Week, written by hand: backstage, trend books and Viva Glam.
Make M·A·C the voice of backstage at every Fashion Week, and carry that from the runway to the counter.
Three years. Every season, written by hand.
Design Director, Special Projects, for three years. Each Fashion Week season I art directed M·A·C’s global trend books, presentations, education pieces and windows, hand-lettering Milan, London, New York and Paris from backstage to the store. I also led creative for Viva Glam, M·A·C’s charity lipstick, including the Rihanna launch, one of the largest in M·A·C history.
Fashion Week
In which four cities are written by hand.
Each season M·A·C is backstage at hundreds of shows in New York, London, Milan and Paris. I art directed the global trend story that came out of it: the trend books, presentations, education pieces and windows, all in one hand-lettered voice.
AW12
Four trends, four names, each one written out by hand across the season.
The looks
In which the makeup happens.
The trend story starts backstage, with the M·A·C artists, the face charts and the looks as they are made, minutes before the show.
Nicolas Tavitian
In which a Paris illustrator draws the season.
I met Nicolas Tavitian, an illustrator in Paris, during Paris Fashion Week and fell for the way he draws a face: a fine pencil line first, then color laid in the way an artist lays in makeup. For Autumn/Winter 2013 I brought him in to draw M·A·C Fashion Week around the world. One face each for New York, London, Paris, Milan and Hong Kong, five more for every other city on the calendar, and a face chart for every one, so the look could go from the page to the chair. The brief asked for all ages, all races and all sexes.
Process
Hover or drag across a face to take it from his pencil to the finished color.
Four cities, every season
In which the cities keep changing color.
Every season the four cities came back in a new hand and a new palette: script over eyes and lips for Spring/Summer 2013, pop lips and eyes for Spring/Summer 2014, in print, in WWD and online.
The system
Spring/Summer 2013 was all mine: I lettered every city by hand, set every line of copy in typewriter type and built the system that carried it, from the M·A·C homepage to print, Style.com, WWD and Vogue.
S/S14
Spring/Summer 2014, the four city cards in motion.
AW13 trend book
In which a season is cut into color.
Built like a fashion magazine: designer pages, one strong red and portraits that set the season’s mood for M·A·C artists.
Credits
Art Director: Sylvia Yang.
M·A·C on 3
In which Selfridges gets the lettering.
For M·A·C on 3 at Selfridges London in May 2012, the hand-lettered cities went onto the walls, a London taxi and a printed invitation to Personalised Artistry: one-on-one lessons, workshops and consultations with M·A·C artists.
Artist Relations
In which M·A·C goes to the theatre.
M·A·C Pro artists do the makeup for film, television, theatre and music. In 2013 I art directed the Artist Relations work: ads, playbill pages and invitations for awards nights, Broadway, film festivals and screenings, each with its own lettering.
Viva Glam
In which a lipstick raises money.
Viva Glam is M·A·C’s charity lipstick, sold for the M·A·C AIDS Fund. I led creative for the line, including the Rihanna launch, then Nicki Minaj and Ricky Martin. The VG monogram became the hero, from the poster to the counter.
Ricky and Nicki, 2012
Then Ricky Martin and Nicki Minaj, together: a chopper, a giant lipstick and VIVA GLAM lettered by hand, from the billboard to the envelope in your mailbox.
Nicki, 2013
The next year, Nicki on her own, afloat in a pool of Viva Glam.
One hand
Cities, trends, causes and seasons, all in the same line. The lettering became the thread that tied three years of special projects together.