NOPA friend and Lifetime member, Tom Varisco, has a great new book: Looking Up/Looking Down. Tom donated his desgin work of NOPA’s logo and initial branding More of his work be seen here: tom varisco designs
Looking Up/Looking Down is actually two books in one. In it, Varisco and fellow photographer Erik Winkowski split their focus in half — Looking Up and Looking Down — to better capture the many moods of their ever-changing yet strangely dependable home town. The photographers, along with writer John Biguenet, who contributed two essays, offer an irreverent celebration of one of America’s most intriguing destinations.
The book may be purchased online of course from UL Press or Amazon and locally at Octavia Books, Ogden Museum Gift Shop and The Stacks in the CAC as well as other venues around the city.
Tom Varisco is sole proprietor and creative director of Tom Varisco Designs, an award-winning, full service design/branding studio in New Orleans. Tom and his assistants have always explored a variety of disciplines and have produced many short films on a wide range of topics. Tom was awarded the first “Fellow Award” by the local chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts for design leadership and excellence. Tom teaches graphic design to fourth year students at Loyola University. Two of his Hurricane Katrina photographs are in the permanent collection of New Orleans Museum of Art. His “zine” called Desire is in the permanent collections of both Tulane University Library and New Orleans Public Library. He is the creator of Spoiled, a photo book about Hurricane Katrina refrigerator art. His second self-published book, Signs of New Orleans, is a brief photographic record of the city’s “sign language.” Then came Jackson Squared, featuring irreverent observations and images reflecting the city’s most iconic landmark. His latest book is New Orleans Looking Up / New Orleans Looking Down, a continuation of Tom’s exploration in photographic form of the quirky, singular culture that is New Orleans.