My name is James May and I have been doing Bettie Page drawings for about 10 years. I am a graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, having received a B.F.A. in 1980.
At MCAD I majored in photography and minored in graphic design, illustration and art history.
I have spent one fifth of my life doing travel photography while packpacking to weird and faraway places around the world.
I created this site in it's entirety from scratch, writing all the HTML but using Dreamweaver to automate much of the process.
Many of the design sensibilities were inspired by a lifelong love of such things as comic books, 1950's science fiction movie posters and 1960's Ace paperbacks.
In looking over the above selections from my personal collection, it is easy to see where my primary colors, 2 dimensional approach and garish design philosophy comes from.
These 2 posters from my collection are the American versions of the 1956 British film, "Yield To the Night". Wonderful examples of mid-1950's design sensibilities.
When backpacking around SE Asia in 1986, I bought many Chinese medicines for the colorful graphics of their packaging and directions on how to use the medicine. You won't see this anywhere else on the internet.
What you see below are images from my large collection of Valmor Products which sold mostly hair and skin products for black folks for many years. These labels are the result of a warehouse find in Chicago almost 20 years ago. Apparently the designer of these wonderful graphics was the owner of the company, a Chicago based black entreprenuer named Morton Neuman.
