All Access

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Job no:81378-5 Title : RP_All Access (New PB Verdions) Client : Pro-vision

Scn :

#

175 Size : 203.2(w)254(h)mm Co : M6 (mac J)

Dept : DTP D/O : 22.10.05 (Job no:000000 D/O : 00.00.04 Co: CM0)

5th Black

p51

51

V

ictore’s search began early. “I grew up on a military base during the final years of the

Vietnam War. My father flew missions in an air-refueling KC-135”—a military tanker based

on the same design as the Boeing 707. “He was away most of my childhood. My mom

worked. I was a latchkey kid. This period is the basis of everything for me. The solitude forced me

to create a world to live in. I still do that. I have always had a very active imagination. I also gained

a healthy dose of ‘Question Authority’ from this period. This motto was printed on buttons back

then—I think the large questions that I ask of my country in my posters come from being reared

in this time and in the military. I had Question Authority drawn on my jeans. I drew heavily all

the time—monsters, dinosaurs, cars, planes, superheroes, nekkid ladies, usual kid’s stuff.”

T

OMASZEWSKI “My mom worked at the university in the reference department of the

library. There I learned to love books and the value and skills of research.” In the library he

also found old design annuals. “I was influenced by the work of American and European

designers. Remember, I was eight. I saw my influences very early on. When I saw some of the

work of the Eastern Europeans, I realized they couldn’t really draw very well, either,” Victore jokes.

He was immediately drawn to their spirit and command of the craft. “I loved them. Henryk

Tomaszewski especially appealed to me. His work was so completely free from any self-criticism.

Or so it seemed.” Tomaszewski’s work would prove a lasting obsession, and his influence

is clearly visible in all stages of Victore’s work. “His stuff just didn’t seem to follow any rules.

I grew up with rules—How to stand. How to follow the norm. How to get a college degree, even

if you don’t want one. What I love about Tomaszewski’s work and some of his students’ work

is that it does the same job as regular design—gets people to buy, attend, and so on—but it has

a humanity to it. It looks like one person made it. When was the last time that happened here?

Fuck—we see work these days, bad work, with a list of seven creators, writers, AD, CD, PH,

but there is no opinion. Why is design always looking to the street for its message? Because

the street is the truth. The truth is always the best answer.”

Describing himself as “just a working stiff who gives a damn,”

James Victore seeks truth and strives for the artistic liberation

that comes with it. His work is politically charged, not because

of any partisan agenda but because it has a clear point of view—

Victore’s truth, shown his way. Sometimes brash, sometimes

seductive, but always immediate, his work makes it impossible

for you to close your mind.

VICTORE

1987 1989 NOW

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JAMES

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