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Rea Irvin's Birthday Today
Filed under: Looked Into Tagged: birthdays, celebrations, Eustace Tilley, Pollux, Rea Irvin, Thomas Edison, Wikipedia
Pollux writes:
On this day, a hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Rea Irvin was born in a Californian town named San Francisco. A hundred and three years ago, Irvin traveled to the East Coast to assist in a birth that occurred eighty-four years ago--the founding of The New Yorker.
Thomas Edison invented the Kinetoscope as well as the lightbulb, and Rea Irvin did more than simply create the Eustace Tilley cover portrait.
Irvin lent his good taste and good sense towards the creation of The New Yorker's page design, headings, spot illustrations, as well as the archetype of the typical New Yorker single-panel cartoon.
As Emily writes in her important and much-needed article on him, "it was Irvin's own intimacy with classic form and craft, and his genial willingness to share that expertise, that allowed him to create a complete device: a design, a typeface, a style, and a mood that would be instantly recognizable, and eminently effective, almost a century later."
Emily and I have worked to pull Rea Irvin out of the shadows that seem to enshroud his life and his work. I wrote the initial Wikipedia article on him, and, in the true spirit of Wikipedia, others have contributed to it, the latest contribution being a series of Irvin drawings.
Rea Irvin is one of our heroes, and one of the patron saints of this publication that we love so much.
In his honor, we declare August 26 to be Rea Irvin Day. Celebrate accordingly.
About us
Hello! We are media enthusiasts and culture addicts—not to mention classically trained (as we like to say) professional journalists. This is our collection of generally civilized conversations about magazines, movies, politics, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
You'd like to read more about us individually? That's so nice! Here you can learn a lot more about the Emdashes team, the mysterious-sounding names of our daily and non-daily columns, and our guest contributors.
We welcome tips, questions, and comments, and are always looking for ardent new contributors who care about letters (postal, typographical, admiring, literary, and tough-love). Here's how to contact us.
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Tell me more
They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is currently written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. (Unsigned posts through October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.)
The site is designed and maintained by House of Pretty and illustrated by Jesse Ewing for Inkleaf Studio. Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (who also draws our daily comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The kissable Emdashes logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World; PDF, p. 20)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, man about town, and New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Report: Learning to read with comic books--that are edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
- Interview: Designer Eleanor Grosch (for Print)
- Proposal: a better-designed Metrocard (for A Brief Message)
- Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Review: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Report: Eustace Tilley spruces up for The New Yorker's website redesign (for Print)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Micro-essay: on saving time through inspiration (for A Brief Message)
- Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
- Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
- Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
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Comments
Long live the Rea Irvin Institute for Research!