Emdashes. Modern Times Between the Lines.
Best of Emdashes: Hit Parade
A Web Comic: The Wavy Rule
Before it moved to The New Yorker:
Ask the Librarians archive
About Emdashes | Email us
Features & Columns:
Headline Shooter
On the Spot
Looked Into
Sempé Fi: Cover Art
Tips of the Top Hat: New Yorker Eustace Tilley Contest Winners & Nerd Cakes
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: art, cakes, cartoons, comics, covers, design, Emily Gordon, Eustace Tilley, Francoise Mouly, Gary Amaro, illustration, magazines, nerd cakes, nerds, New Yorker, Rea Irvin
Emily Gordon writes:
Via our friends at UnBeige:My favorite of the examples UnBeige selected is by San Francisco illustrator and comic and storyboard artist Gary Amaro, whose other beautiful and emotionally charged work (including some remarkably fine nudes and figure drawings) you should look at here.With his moncole at the ready and a butterfly his constant companion, Eustace Tilley has been The New Yorker‘s dapper mascot since founding art director Rea Irvin sketched him into being in 1925. The magazine recently invited readers to put their own twist on the discerning dandy in its fourth Eustace Tilley design contest. And this year’s competition came with a bookish bonus: the grand-prize winner’s design printed on a Strand Bookstore tote bag (an icon for an icon!) and a $1,000 Strand shopping spree. After sifting through roughly 600 entries, New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly has selected a dozen winners, now featured in a slideshow on the magazine’s web site. The victorious Eustaces range from Seattle-based Dave Hoerlein‘s cartographic version (“A Dandy Map of New York”) to a Facebook-ready Tilley created by Nick McDowell of Mamaroneck, New York. Savannah-dwelling William Joca‘s “Cubist Tilley” was inspired by the work of Picasso (with a sprinkling of Ben-Day dots for good measure), while Pixo Hammer of Toronto channeled Joan Miro. As for the big winner, keep guessing (Grecian Eustace? Symbolic Eustace? Eustace through the years?). The champion and the tote bag will be revealed this spring.
In other, or you could even say similar, passionate-niche news, I really like these nerd cakes.
About us
Hello! We're a small band of culture writers, editors, and artists based in New York and Los Angeles. Emdashes, which spent its formative years as a New Yorker fan blog, is our collection of conversations—mostly civilized—about magazines, movies, design, punctuation, and other things that stir us.
Want to know more about the people who contribute to Emdashes, and the secret meanings behind our column titles? All about us.
We welcome tips, questions, comments, and corrections, and are always on the lookout for ardent, obsessive contributors. Click here to email us.
We host occasional book giveaways. Publishers, please email us for our postal address.
Our favorite things | Compliments and press
Looking for The New Yorker magazine? Kudos on your classy taste. Here's how to contact The New Yorker.
Tell me more
Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: 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)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
Blogroll highlights
- The Beautiful Sentence
- Box Office Boffo
- World of Pollux
- Jonathan Taylor
- Carolita Johnson
- Songs for blogroll lovers (more links)
- Follow us on Twitter
- Befriend us on Facebook
- Get a t-shirt at the Emdashes store
No fear
Everything you tell or send us is off the record unless we ask for your permission to use it.
Comments
I looked at the designs and they are outstanding. Even though I myself have not read the New Yorker, I have seen the cover many times. My personal favorite is the one that depicts New York in his shape. I liked the other ones too, even though I did not feel the stick figure was that great, but there is just something about the thought you would have had to put into creating that design and the artistic talent you must have to bring the idea to life. There were some others that stuck out, especially the last one you mentioned. I liked the idea of the mascot going through life and developing his intrest in butterflies. That is definately my second favorite. Thank you for putting them up and giving me the chance to see, and enjoy them.