Mike Hinge - Good Times - Hard Times

The Good Times - Mike Emigrated in 1958 from New Zealand and Arrived in Los Angeles USA to study at The Art Centre School of Design, Mike's artistic career was about to go from one strength to another with an intriguing variety of employment at some major US companies around about their peak of success. Starting with his first employment in the US in 1959 as a designer for the May Company department store, followed by another designer job at a newspaper The Los Angeles Herald Examiner. It seems that there were no shortage of opportunities for Mike in these early days some albeit brief as an example in 1962 a four-month employment at Reprise Records (the record company founded by Frank Sinatra). In 1966 Mike moved to New York and got employment as an art director at Young & Rubicam and afterwards at BBDO (in 1967 gaining a prize at the 13th Annual Type Director's Club Show TDC XIII). Then perhaps the most exciting years to follow as Mike also working in experimental fine art and exhibiting; in 1969 he did the front cover for Witzend issue 6 and in the same year came Mike's big break into SF from Ted White who commissioned  interior and front cover illustrations for Fantastic Stories and Amazing. The work from then on continued to flow steadily with more magazines and book illustrations up until around about 1985/1988 where the opportunities were becoming harder to find. 

The Hard Times - It is 1989 and Mike has no money he can't afford to eat let alone pay his rent and as Mike puts it in the letter he wrote (below) he's, "Running around like the proverbial Dutch boy stopping leaks in the dike". The letter tells of Mike's desperate situation and gratefulness to his friend that has just sent him some money. It is a wet and blustery day.

At the very bottom of the letter Mike is referring to two copies of the Mike Hinge Experience.

The S.F Encyclopedia U.K Publication that Mike mentions is The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Pan Books 1977 (page from the Encyclopedia with Face (1972) below)

Shorty Rogers & his Giants on Reprise Records and the record cover 

by Mike Hinge (below)

The front cover has a Mike Hinge Credit bottom left, this is the first Record cover I have found by Mike. If it had not been for Mike mentioning his trip to the second hand record store in this letter I am not sure how long it would have been until this one would have come to light, such an amazing find both letter and record cover.

In one of Mike's resume's he wrote, "Record cover design ideas and comps.. Pick and buy type, use old engravings, lay down coloured zip on photoprints for wraparounds with bleed. (Reprise Records)".

Mike Hinge - Resume 1

Todays post is of Mike Hinge's resume from the late 60's circa 1966/67, earliest entry from 1958. Thank you very much to Sanford Meschkow for keeping this resume safely all these years and to Matt Howarth for scanning and emailing them to me (there are also 5 more resumes from Sandford's files that I will share shortly). 


I have re-typed the resume and have also included the original scans. 


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RESUME

Name:       Mike Hinge

Address:   55 West 14^th Street, New York, New York (Apt. 14-M)

Telephone:  243-6939

EXPERIENCE

October 1966 – Present

  Experimental fine art –

       Light Sculptures

       16mm color movie

July 1966 – October 1966

YOUNG & RUBICAM, INC. – 285 Madison Avenue – New York, N.Y.

(Alan Thompson, Department Head)

Art Director (Freelance)

Eastern Airlines, Mexico Magnifico – conceptual designs

and presentations. Exhibit design, posters, displays,

corporate design, mailing pieces.

Gulf Oil California – 24-Sheet poster concepts, envelope stuffers, pamphlets

General Electric Co. – exhibit displays

Keebler – supermarket booth

General Foods – brochure

Plymouth – newspaper ads: full page, color, black & white, double truck. Showroom and institutional exhibit.

August 1965 – March 1966

THE FELDMAN COMPANY – 612 S. Wall Street – Los Angeles, Calif.

Designers and Manufacturers of Lighting Fixtures and Lamps

(Ed Fizdale, Chief Engineer)

Product Designer-Illustrator

  Catalog illustration: 3-point perspective (measuring)

Product design: Lighting fixtures, lamps, chandeliers

Drafting: Shop drawings, blueprint parts assembly

March 1964 – August 1965

FREELANCE–Mike Hinge–739 X. Hudson Ave.–Los Angeles, Calif.

Fashion layout, graphic design, P.O.P., type mark-up,

brochures, mailers, strip-in-separations

May 1963 – October 1963

BRAND-WORTH SIGNING & Graphics, STORE INTERIORS

16221 S. Maple – Gardenia, Calif.

(Gene Wild, Art Director)

Designer

  Dimensional design: supermarket and store graphics

  Store interiors: color and material selection

  Perspective, mural

November 1962 – February 1963

REPRISE RECORDS, INC.

(Merle Shore, Art Director)

  Record cover design and ideas

March 1961 – May 1961

CLIFFORD GILL ADVERTISING AGENCY

8701 Wilshire Blvd. – Beverly Hills, Calif.

(Cliford Gill, Pres.)

Art Director (Freelance)

  Space advertising brochures

January 1961 – March 1961

NIDES-CINI ADVERTISING AGENCY - 8201 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles Calif.

(Jack Nides, Pres./Zelda Cini, Vice Pres.)

Art Director

  Presentation design, type mark-up, separations

July 1960 – December 1960

HERALD EXPRESS (EXAMINER) – 1111 S. Broadway – Los Angeles, Calif.

Promotion Department

Designer

  Space advertising ideas

Septemer 1959 – May 1960

MAY COMPANY – 801 S. Broadway/Hill Street – Los Angeles, Calif.

Advertising Department

(Jean Rains/Peter Daddio, Art Directors)

  Layout – institutional

ART CENTER SCHOOL OF DESIGN – 5353 W. Third St. Los Angeles, Calif.

REFERENCES

Roger Hines (Art Director, Young & Rubicam, Inc.)

One Deerfield Road

Wilton, Connecticut

Len Moffatt (Writer, Container Corporation of America)

5804 E. Gage Avenue Apt. 5

Bell Gardens, California

Gene Wild

Rober Tierney Associates (Exhibition Design)

3600 Wilshire Boulevard Suite 1930

Los Angeles, California

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