EVENTS Wanderlust Book Launch Party Friday, April 23, 2004, 7-9pm Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for the departure of Wanderlust, the newest addition to the Troy M. Litten series of books, journals and postcards published by Chronicle Books. Location: DEN, 849 Valencia (btwn 19/20), San Francisco Wanderlust Photography Exhibition April 23 - May 23, 2004 Location: DEN, 849 Valencia (btwn 19/20), San Francisco PRESS 7x7 San Francisco Magazine, May 2004 7 Things to Know Right Now International Agenda Harkening back to the days when style and travel were inextricably linked, the tastefully designed new Wanderlust Travel Journal (Chronicle Books, $17) is ample incentive for memorializing your global adventures. Sprinkled throughout with kaleidoscopic images from local photographer and graphic designer Troy M. Litten (inset), this retro diary makes an indelible traveling companion - the better to pair with that set of Flight 001 luggage. April 26, 2004 Books in Brief Wanderlust In this vibrant array of photos, photographer and graphic designer Litten cleverly depicts the most commonplace experiences of traveling: stumbling into a dark hotel room bathroom at night, gazing out a window on a high-speed train, trying to catch a few z's on an uncomfortable airport bench. Readers would be hard-pressed to nail any of the book's copious images down to a specific locale. Instead, the photographs emphasize travel's universal nature, portraying such ordinary sights as racks of postcards, cups of coffee, weathermen pointing to maps dotted with clouds and sunshine, itty-bitty airplane meals served on white trays with tiny packets of salt and pepper and plastic cups of orange juice. Litten elevates his subject through his amusing juxtapositions and his keen eye for colorful layouts - and the book's small size suggests that he doesn't expect readers to take it too seriously. Nonetheless, he may have created one of the most realistic accounts of the beauty, adventure, frustration, boredom and wonder of travel. Sunday, March 28, 2004 Real Deals, Sunday Source section Wanderful Troy M. Litten's "Wanderlust" is packed purely with images. In more than 400 shots, he documents trips to Japan, London, Bangkok and more - and finds beauty in anything from weird phones to cheap hotel decor. The companion travel journal has loads of space for ruminations and keepsakes. At Borders, Barnes & Noble and www.amazon.com. Sunday, February 29, 2004 Ode to Travel's Details: Airline Food, Arrival Screens, Cab Rides (excerpt) Travel photographer Troy M. Litten understands travel. I mean, he really understands travel - and where to point his camera. Not at the Eiffel Tower. Not at the Lincoln Memorial. Not at the Taj Mahal. No, those are images that are universal; almost anyone can conjure them up in the mind's eye without ever having actually been to the sites. Instead, Litten aims his camera at the details of travel - the little things that are instantly recognizable, or maybe simply vaguely familiar, to anyone who has ever strayed far from home. Now, the peripatetic San Franciscan has compiled over 400 of those color images in a thoroughly entertaining book, which will be in stores in April. But, don't look for it among the shelves full of oversize coffee-table tomes of photography. Wanderlust measures a scant 4-1/2 by 5-7/8 inches, certainly an unusual size for a photo book. But the book's size works. It's an intimate size, suited to the intimate nature of many of the photos and requiring the "reader" to cozy up to each page. There is wit and whimsy in some pictures, moments of frustration in others; joy, loneliness, pathos and poignancy are not left out. To repeat, Troy M. Litten really understands travel. December, 2002 Perpetual Motion: A Modern Nomad's Guide to Life Wanderlust: 30 Postcards for Insatiable Travelers Train stations, mailboxes, the cloud-dotted view from the plane - the intrigue, confusion, and accidental beauty of foreign travel is captured in this series of mailable vignettes from designer Troy M. Litten. November, 2002 The Art of Travel: Troy M. Litten San Francisco-based photographer and graphic designer Troy Litten lives for the details of travel. For years, Litten has collected the incidental shells of his journeys: cigarette packaging, receipts, product labels, postcards, tickets, hotel brochures, even currency. His airline bag collection is almost too big for his spacious apartment. Litten is the kind of traveler who could find a mundane space like a supermarket aisle interesting. When he claims that "half of the fun is just getting there", he's not joking. It's clear that the entire travel experience drives his enthusiasm. His love of journey isn't exactly touristic. "There's an interesting distinction between 'tourist' and 'traveler.' I feel that tourists travel to see a place while travelers travel to experience a place." Litten hasn't visited the typical package vacation haunts, the hermetically-sealed resort getaways that the tourism industry pushes. On top of his aversion to cookie-cutter tourism, Litten seems uninterested in the quasi-anthropological search for that last remnant of cultural authenticity. "I search out places that are overlooked and off the beaten track, places that can be seen as uninteresting. But when I do visit touristy places I see and notice different things." Litten recalls that on a visit to China, "everyone else was taking pictures of the Great Wall [while] I was taking pictures of stencils of the Great Wall spray-painted on trash bins." When Litten first began to travel in the late '80s, he was "immediately interested in taking photos of signage and things like that." These signs and objects have come to form the core of his aesthetic. "One of the things I really enjoy documenting are common objects that counter standardization, such as public phones and phone boxes. When I started looking closely at them I realized that they come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, color and functional forms, especially the older ones." Increasingly, Litten finds, variation in packaging, design, and other ephemeral details is being lost to standardization. Recently, he turned his documentations and collections into a component of his work life. This year he has published four books and one postcard set through the gift division of San Francisco's Chronicle Books. Their receptivity to innovative book projects and book design is a point not lost on Litten, who observes that Chronicle "is an ideal publisher for my work." Litten's productions are eye candy for other aficionados. Four of the books in the Chronicle series are journals, festooned with various associated images: airmail stamps and stickers; photographs of cars; photographs of telephone booths; and photographs of human figure street signs. The fifth publication in Litten's series is a boxed set of 30 postcards. The images that grace these books are, in Litten's words, representations of "culturally unique expressions of common cross-cultural signs and symbols." Many of these images were snapped in Eastern Europe. Fans of Litten's work will be happy to know that he is also working on an address book, forthcoming from Chronicle. What's next in Troy's world? A trip to South America is currently in the planning stages. Curious about what Litten might find on the perimeter of Buenos Aires, or on the road between Montevideo and Punte del Este? Stay tuned. For the time being, those interested in glimpsing Litten's aesthetic can visit his website at troyland.com ­ Alex Robertson Textor