Elizabeth Van Itallie

Elizabeth Van Itallie is a graphic designer who has collaborated with They Might Be Giants on visual materials, especially early on in their career.

In 1989, Van Itallie's first collaboration with the band came with the They'll Need A Crane EP, for which she contributed the back cover photograph of John Linnell and John Flansburgh. On 1990's Flood, she is credited alongside Flansburgh as a designer. Upon finding the photograph by Margaret Bourke-White that is used on the cover of Flood, Flansbrugh intended to use the photo alone with no textual accompaniment on the front cover. Van Itallie, however, suggested that a textual emblem could in fact improve the artwork, and thus collaborated with Flansburgh on the Flood icon, which takes cues from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees seal. The icon was then inked by another friend of Flansburgh and frequent design collaborator, Barbara Lipp. It became a recurring motif in the promotional materials for the album.

In 1992, Van Itallie directed the design for the Guitar EP, in collaboration with photographers Rolf Conant (a pseudonym for John Flansburgh) and Tami Blevins. In 1997, she was an art director for Then: The Earlier Years.

In addition to her work with They Might Be Giants, Van Itallie collaborated with Steve Boyd on design for Otis Ball's Bar/None debut, I'm Gonna Love You 'Til I Don't, which also features Linnell, Flansburgh, and TMBG collaborators Bill Krauss and Alan Bezozi. She has done design work for many other musical artists, such as Miles Davis, Lou Reed, and several Bar/None artists, including Hello Recording Club alum Freedy Johnston and TMBG-opener Oppenheimer.

External links

• Official website
• Design credits on Discogs