DOON PATTERN

Patterns for Surfaces

Archive for

June 2010

The curious life of a graphic artist and designer in New York. Follow the stream. It is never the same stream twice.
Contact Howard Stein at
hbs@howardstein.com
Call 347 202 7817

A RESUME: (or close to it)

For the past several years I have been making patterns for applications to surfaces. I see patterns in most things I observe. I raft in many visual rivers, and take a handful, or hundreds of photographs in a given day.

South African born and raised, my interest in art began when I started to go blind before I was ten. At thirteen I had less than ten percent percent vision in both eyes. I began drawing—large charcoal drawings lying on the floor, my nose pressed to paper. I had two corneal transplants in my teenage years, I graduated high school and entered Johannesburg School of Art. I studied industrial design and industrial ceramics for two years before switching majors to graphic design and textile design, which I studied for a further two years. All design endeavor interested me, and does to this day. I graduated first in my class with a Dip.A.D.

I moved to California, a long way from South Africa but for me it was like crossing the street. I entered Art Center College of Design where I studied illustration, graphic design and fine art, graduating BFA (Honors)

I packed my van and drove across the country to New York City. I was finally speeding along the battered roads of New York State, having decided many years earlier that New York was to be home. I rented a studio apartment, starting something I would never get a chance to start again. I also knew nobody. This beginning is shared by many but it is not for everybody. My career began, doing designs and illustrations for friends and clients that ranged from giant firms to tiny concerns.

I was hired by WNBC-TV News, to produce as many as five news graphics a day for the evening news. I loved every minute. We broke boundaries, my small group of fellow designers. Our work blew the other networks away. After four years I left NBC to do illustration for major magazines, advertising work for clients such as Bergdorf Goodman, Estee Lauder and Revlon, book illustration for the New York Times and graphic design for anyone who would give me a project.

I began an association with the New York Institute of Technology working on the Images II paint system, one of the first artist-dedicated computer graphics workstations. I spent a great deal of time at their facilities, as I and other artists advised programmers on what artists and designers might be looking for in a computer graphics system. At the time I also studied set design at NYIT, just because it was there.

In 1988 my eye condition had recurred and I could barely see. I had my second set of corneal transplants.

In 1990, I returned to South Africa with my wife, Gayle Dallas Blackston, and we spent the decade of the nineties there. My work concentrated on fine art. I produced large abstract paintings many of which now hang in corporate and private collections in eight countries. I had group shows and solo shows. I was aware that new technology had taken root, images were being made with the precision of computers by a community of people beyond my milieu. I wanted to work with them, be a participant. I wanted the marketplace.

I began to work on a Mac in 1997. I added design commissions to fine art painting. A cross pollination of disciplines was vibrating into something new.. In 2000 we returned to the United States, and I took a position as art director for a multi-media firm named Silverlight Productions, in Newport, Rhode Island. After eighteen months the company closed its doors, part of the end of the boom.

I began designing patterns with no specific market in mind. Before long the collection numbered in the thousands. I founded a company for this endeavor and named it DOON, after my splendid young boxer dog. Although these patterns seemed at first glance to be most suited to textile designs, or wall coverings, I had other ideas. New kinds of surfaces production methods made their way into my research. I began marketing the work to architects around the world. I expect patterns to become a deeper and wider area of study and design.

I work to brand DOON as a company with more than one direction. I have added DOONCARD, a fresh approach to an old technology that finds a sweet spot in today’s digital world. The business card as unique personal networking card. I also have begun illustrations, bold fresh graphic forms that perfectly capture their subject matter. It is called DOONFACE for now. The portfolio is currently portraits but the technique has wide applicability. My lifelong passion for photography has a ready platform within social sites.

I had my fifth corneal transplant late in 2007. I wait for texture. Texture signifies the level of visual acuity.

In social media and blogs, in talks, and videos, the brightest minds in business, science, the arts and entertainment are busily sharing their stuff. Much of my time is spent reading and listening in these rooms.

HOWARD STEIN
New York
Phone: 347 202 7817
Email: doon@studiodoon.com
http://www.studiodoon.com
http://doonbook.posterous.com/dooncard
http://doonface.posterous.com
BLOG: http://www.howardstein.com
FACEBOOK PROFILE: http://www.facebook.com/howard.stein
FACEBOOK PAGE: http://artist.to/doon