Got Morning Breath?

The exciting duo of Doug Cunningham and Jason Noto began in a skateboard design shop in San Francisco and evolved into a business located in Brooklyn, NY called Morning Breath Inc.. This team has worked beyond skateboard designs into posters, books, and records. In December they opened a show of 20 medium and large paintings and 49 smaller works, mostly silkscreen on wood panel. Photos of the show can be found on their blog.

I really love their work. I'm intrigued by the simplicity and character of American kitsch, ads and design from the 1940's-1950's era in the U.S. There's something innocent and nostalgic about it. Morning Breath is inspired by work from the past decades, but they make it their own and put a new spin on it so it functions as a contemporary work. The functionality of 50's ad references in the work makes the overall paintings seem juicy in a grungy or slightly obscene way, as provocative as gossip feeding curiosity. They remind me of the great Art Chantry, another favorite of mine.

"In their own words, the Morning Breath signature style is 'a dismantling of classic American typography and illustration,' constructed in a way that preserves the retro look and feel, only 'broken down in a way that would never have taken place 40 years ago.'” (Diana Salier interview) See more about them on their site.

On the process:

We just start building, layering and layering. Jason primarily does the typography and design, and I’ll do the illustration part. Sometimes we’ll block in areas with acrylic paint and silkscreen on top of that, bring in some hand-drawn elements, working with inks to create more overlap in the imagery. Whereas in the past we’d do things that were very random, more of an accidental coming-together, now we’re pushing it deliberately, but still in a way that the aesthetic stays and looks very accidental. (Doug Cunningham)

On the concept:

A lot of old advertisements promised things to people that were false; they had a very strange way of going about it. So we change the lettering and juxtapose different words — strange, bizarre words — that when pushed into the middle of an ad almost become religious. It’s flipping the context of the ad, so all of a sudden the viewer is looking at it and almost feeling kind of grossed out...Even in the scheme of our whole jumbling of words and imagery, it starts to make a visual sense that is wrong in its own right way. (Jason Noto)

Oh yeah- and their portfolio is pretty boss. I tried to find a link to one of my favorite pieces, but honestly, I had too much trouble choosing. I like them all.