NY Talk: 1980s Downtown Paper Art Directed by Mark Michaelson

NY Talk: 1980s Downtown Paper Art Directed by Mark Michaelson NY Talk was a downtown arts and culture paper published in the 1980s. Mark Michaelson was the art director from 1984-85 and created a remarkable-looking publication, stunning in its bold, modern, graphic simplicity. For cover imagery he drew on downtown New York artists and his own creative mind. Michaelson went on to art direct New York, Newsweek, Allure, and Radar, among others, and was instrumental in the launch of Entertainment Weekly and the late 90s redesign of Details. In 2006 he published a book of his collection of mugshots, Least Wanted. Here are five classic NY Talk covers.

(Above): NY Talk, December 1984.

NY Talk Gets the Dirt Out.jpg
April 1985.


NY Talk Fashionably Late.jpg
January/February 1985.


NY Talk Surreal Thing.jpg
July 1985.


NY Talk cover.jpg
November/December 1984.




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  • Wanyi Jiang

    This is gorgeous. I love the simplicity and movement of the third and last piece.

  • Erik Spooner

    This is effing awesome; I'd also love to see a retrospective on his time at Radar...they did some fab stuff, especially when the first relaunch (i think it was the first relaunch) took off, under Mark's direction.

  • Andrea Dunham

    huge. fan. of. this. man's. work.

  • francesca messina

    Great to see these. They are still bold and modern and inspiring. Let's do more 80's pubs-so many great mags to post-ID, the Rocket, NME, the FACE etc.

  • Emily Smith

    I spy a contributing editor to GRIDS...

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