A Design Contest, A U.S. Citizenship Test, Art Chantry, Xu Bing and The Worst Gas Prices Ever…

First, “A Student Gets High” Update:

The now imfamous student who got high in my Introduction to Typography Class returned to class today. I wasn’t sure if I would see him again. His health is fine and he is waiting to hear judgement from the Dean on the incident. Personally, I’m pulling for him to work his way out of these troubles. Being the eternal optimist that I am, to me, he seems like a good kid who has just made a number of egregious choices. If I hear anything further from the Dean I will keep you posted.

Step Inside Design Contest due date is October 3, 2005.

I teach two classes Mondays and Wednesdays, Intro to Typography at noon and Intermediate Graphic Design at 3:00.

In my Intro class today the students took their first exam which is 20% of their final grade. That’s right…four classes and an exam—that’s how I roll! I know it seems harsh, but, I do that so I can see who is serious about the class and their major. I’ll post some vague generalizations about the overall class curve once I grade the exams.

My Intermediate class has an in-progress critique today on their logo designs. I think it’s time to bring back “the hammer” in critiques. I’m feeling mean today, (like I haven’t been tough enough lately.) I think today’s crit is going to be a good one. A student reminded me today about how tough I used to be and I know I need to get back to that.

That same student also turned me on to the work of Xu Bing today. I just spent some time looking online but, Bing’s stuff seems amazing. Something of note: Bing has even won the MacArthur Genius Award!

I also spent some time today refamiliarizing myself with the work of Art Chantry (top picture above) today. I love his posters. And, some of his logo designs are super cool. I have a student in my Intro class who is going to use Chantry as his research topic.


Unless you drive a Segway to and from work; you, like me, have to be super pissed right now! They finally did it. Gas prices are JACKED way over THREE BUCKS!!! I drive a “charmingly” used 1992 Civic that holds about eight gallons of gasoline and it would cost me over $25.00 right now to fill up my tank! One of these days I’m going to start an ethel alcohol still in my back yard and try to drive around on that stuff.

In a side note: a very reliable source close to my Rambling headquarters told me that they overheard a graphic design major say how fun it was to be in graphic design. I will have to put a stop to this so called “fun” at once!

Ohh yea, I almost forgot about the citizenship test, here ya’ go:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

As you can see I am one hell of a citizen!


-I’ll yak at ya’ tomorrie.

Not Quite So Crazy Today.

Thankfully, nobody got high in class today.

Just a regular, “run of the mill” day at the old thinkin’ factory. Last weekend I spent some time trying to teach myself to read piano sheet music. It’s much more complicated than I thought. I can make reasonable sense of the treble staff, but the bass staff is rough. If I spend some time translating and practicing I can play the song, but I’m nowhere near real time in reading and playing. Maybe I should take actual lessons and stop letting my ego get the best of me. I learned how to read sheet music from somebody that calls himself the The Piano Nanny.

I also spent some time in Advanced Typography class today making sure all of my Advanced Typography students were up to snuff on the class blog. It’s starting to really turn into a nice site. In the next couple of weeks with deadlines looming it will fill up with exciting posts…I promise. One of the cool things to check out now is the posting about favorite design sites and the links associated within.

I also upgraded to the latest Mac operating system (Tiger) today for my powerbook and as you can imagine I went “dashboard” and “widget” crazy for a few hours. I’ve got about 15 now I think. Is that too many?

-T

Student Gets HIGH in My Class!!!!!!!!!!

That headline is actually true!

About ten minutes before my 12:00 PM class started, a couple of students came down to my office to warn me that another student was “huffing” in the classroom. That’s right—“huffing.” He had stuck his nose down into the collar of his t-shirt and was then spraying photographic dusting spray in the bottom of his shirt and inhaling! Evidently, he was hitting the stuff pretty hard because the students who came down to warn me said he was falling out of his chair and going into convulsions. I got up and went to the classroom and saw him sitting there, joking around with another classmate. I approached him and asked him to collect his things and take a walk with me; and as he stood up I took the spray can from him. (The can was almost too cold to hold—he must have sprayed quite a bit.) As he got up and we started to walk out of the classroom he was stumbling back and forth and his speech was badly slurred.

I took him to a nearby conference room and asked him what the hell he was thinking. We had a conversation. Anyway, at this point I’m worried more about his health than anything else. From what I understand, you can die from doing that because your respiratory system shuts down. So, after a little discussion the two of us walked over to the nurse’s office and I left him in the care of the nurse. After that, I went back to teach my class. I later found out that the nurse called the police and they took him to the emergency room. There was also a police report filed that was sent to the Dean. Pretty crazy, huh?

I didn’t know there was really too much huffing in college. I figured I would have a drunk student before a high student in my classes—but I guess you never know. Ordinarily, I would cut some smart-ass joke in my blog, but this experience freaked me out more than anything. What was interesting about it was that he was very agreeable the whole time—kinda like a happy drunk. He knew what he did was wrong, assumed full responsibility, and seemed jovial in his slurred speech.

I guess I’ll have to add a line to all of my syllabi now about how it’s not o.k. to do drugs in class!

A Six Hour Faculty Meeting…No, Really!

Well, it was the first faculty meeting of the year and man oh man was it a doozie! You always know that first one is going to be rough, but after the fifth hour you really start to wiggle in your chair. Six hours…no joke. We did make some good progress and got in a few votes. They provided us with both breakfast and lunch we were there so long.

The other graphic design faculty and I put together our course construction for next semester as well today after the meeting. Next semester I'll be teaching: Intro to Computer Graphics, Illustration and Advanced Graphic Design II. That schedule is still tenative, but I’m pretty sure it will go through. I’ve taught all three of these classes before and have good strong materials prepared for all of them. I’m looking forward to having the opportunity next semester to spend more time on creative research. I know…everyone is searching for more time on creative research.

The picture is from one of my friends Chris Sickles he is an illustrator who runs his own studio called Red Nose Studio. His work is incredible. When I went to undergrad at the Art Academy, he was two years ahead of me. He was kickin’ my ass art-wise then and he’s still doing it now. He even had a write up in How Magazine not too long ago!

Until Monday…

A New Blog is Born!

Hey, Hey, Hey,

I feel terrible about missing my blog update for yesterday, but I was pretty busy. I just completed my work in starting up the blog for my Advanced Typography class and am sending out the student member invites today. That seems to be a great class. We had a crit today that was a bit dry but it was a sketch critique and 9:00 a.m., so I guess I can’t get too rough on them. I have a feeling that the advanced type blog will be loaded up will all kinds of great insight. That is a smart bunch of advanced level students who I'm sure have many opinions and who will probably have even more once the seminar component in that class kicks in.

Yesterday in my Intermediate graphic design class we we also had a sketch critique but I started the class with a lecture in hopes to stimulate more creative comments during the critique. For the most part it worked. I opened the class by showing that scene from American Psycho where they are all sitting around the conference table comparing business cards and Chrisitan Bale is freaking out. That’s probably the best scene in the movie, but it’s definitely worth a rental. I then showed them some examples of logo designs from brand new to the best of the best. I still believe there was no better logo designer than Saul Bass. I know, Paul Rand was close, but he was no Bass.

I have my first curriculum committee this afternoon at three. This is the first time I’m on a University wide committee. I’ve always had an interest in curriculum and hopefully I’ll find the work on this committee interesting enough to not get burned out on it. I’m serving both on the College of Arts and Sciences committee and on the University’s committee, so we’ll see how it goes.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Yesterday I gave a lecture in Introduction to Typography that lasted two hours and fifteen minutes and nobody fell asleep! That’s gotta be some kind of record.

Just Another Tuesday

Just another Tuesday today. 2nd day of school and things are really in motion. I taught my first Advanced Typography class today and when they were given the option of writing tradional essays or blogging they picked blogging—go figure! I think it’s great. Now I have two of my classes that will be blogging and I will have a million less pieces of paper to deal with. I am setting up their class blog today and will link to it here when it’s finished.

I wandered over to the University Center for lunch today b/c I was curious to see the new rennovation of the cafeteria. I think it’s going to be even better. I almost feel like I’m additced to that place at lunch time. With a busy family life it’s hard to always cook healthy meals at home and over there I can eat all veggie meals everyday. Anyway, the new revamp looks good, the major change is that they replaced Taco Bell with some sort of homemade burritos place called: Habeñaros. I had a veggie and a bean burrito. The bean was much better and cheaper too— $.99! I think this will be my new regular for a while.

I’ll be working on a presentation for my Intro to Typography course this afternoon which I will give in Tomorrow’s class. Nothing else too interesting to report.

In a funny side story: Yesterday I pretended to be interested in a frat in order to get a free pizza lunch. I wonder for how many more years I’ll be able to get away with that little move.

It’s The First Day of School!!!!!!!!

I always like the first day of school. Until it’s here I dread it and complain and bitch and moan, but then on that first day, I love it. I don’t know what it is, but there is something really great about that first day of school. Since this my third year at NKU I feel as though I’m finally starting to hit a good rhythm. My class sizes are pretty good, and the students seem eager. As to be expected, when I mentioned the graphic design admittance review in my Intro to Type class there was some moaning and worried looks, but I think they’re all going to take the review. We’ll have to wait and see. Tomorrow is my first Advanced Type class.

I had a great idea today on the way into work. Usually, my Intro to Type students have to keep a typography journal through the whole semester that they base on their readings from Spiekermann’s book: Stop Stealing Sheep. This year intsead of having them all create these clunky 3-ring notebooks, I’m making them all do blogs right here on blogspot. This will solve so many problems for them and me. No more paper, plastic and metal, no more lugging around 15 notebooks, no more terrible handwriting or sloppy cutting and pasting—it’s gonna be great. I just have to get them to start usuing the darn things.

I'll be back tomorrow (in terrible Schwartzeneggar accent)

Convocation Today

I just got back into my office after going to convocation. As you can imagine it was a wild and crazy time. I think you can see how all of the ladies in the audience went “bananas” over the cool statistical data charts that are sure to help us help the students “envision their success.”

It wasn't the worst one I’ve sat through, and in case the president is reading this—it was Terriffic! And even if the president is reading this, the lunch left something to be desired. It was hamburgers and hotdogs buffet style, which may have been o.k. if they were remotely fresh. The patties were only about half-cooked and cold to the touch. They were also wet, not juicy, but wet. It was as if someone had washed all flavor off of them just before they were brought out to the table. The hot dogs looked like the kind that roll around on one of those sausage carousels at the local Quickie-Mart.

The breakfast this morning wasn't all that much better either. This is the third time I've gone to one of these things here at NKU and I still haven’t learned my lesson. I’m always worried that perhaps I come off to my co-workers as a bit aloof, because I’m always doing stuff with the fam. So I decide to attend—bad decision. Please allow me to paint this morning’s picture for you: It’s 8:00 a.m., and in the prision like lobby of the University Center there’s a 100 person-long line of 99 custodians and me and we’re all waiting to plunge our mitts into this gigantic pile of danishes. I guess the other professors are way too cool or busy to show-up at this thing, and since I only know a few people on the custodial staff I don't have anyone to talk to. Perhaps next year I’ll learn my lesson. But I doubt it, I’m just too damn cheap to turn down free donuts and coffee.

Well there’s plenty to do on my Advanced Typography syllabus, so adios!

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, MAD WORLD!

Today is busy. Let me restate that: Today is a big ol’ friggin mess o’ busy!!! I can't seem to get everything done, but I did make some incredible progress.

Two of the three classes I'm teaching are finished. I really like my lineup of classes this semester. I'm teaching: Introduction to Typography (done), Intermediate Graphic Design (done), and Advanced Typography (plenty left to do). Tomorrow is going to be all sucked up because of the beginning of the year connvocation, where we all come together and get super excited about being back at school, which means…you guessed it, I’m working this weekend. YAAAAAAHHH! Oh well, it could be worse. At least I'm not a horse fertilizer, or a civil engineer at the city poop factory.

I’m gonna spend the weekend pouring over my typography library looking for ideas and making materials and presentations. I know I want the class to have a strong seminar component in addition to the studio work and I’ve done some research in that area, but other than that there’s plenty left to do. However it ends up it’s gotta be good. Typography is supposed to be the one thing that we do as designers better than anyone else.

It’s going to get really interesting in four days when classes start. The picture to the right is the cover of a book every designer should read if not own. Good ol’ Fortunato, he was the shizit back in the day. Do people say “shizit” anymore? Oh well, I’m gonna try and resurrect it forthwidth.

No Work For Me Today…

I stayed home and watched the kids today because Ann had to work. Nothing too exciting to report today on graphic design. I did spend a little time reading online between chores. I started out reading some more about Stu Unger. I knew he was a great card player but I had no idea he also had an eidetic memory. The story about his counting cards into a six deck blackjack shoe is amazing. As I was reading about Stuey, I stubled across some information about Kim Peek, who was the real life inspiration for the movie character Raymond Babbit “The Rainman”. This guy Peek is absolutely amazing. I think even Einstein would’ve bowed down to him intellectually. If you read some of the links I’ve posted here you’ll see what I mean. He’s memorized nearly 10,000 books word for word, can read two different pages of a book at the same time with each different eye, and if you name any date in history he’ll tell you what day of the week it was. And trust me this is just the very tip of his mental iceberg. Many experts have referred to him as a “mega-savant.”

Back to work tomorrow, lots to do and not so much time.

Still Truckin’

Work continues in preparing for school.

Nothing too exciting to report today in the world of graphic design. I did however want to mention a great book that I read this summer. One of the projects I am working on in the background of my daily life is writing a textbook for graphic designers to learn to animate. As with most textbooks the progress is slow. But over the summer I had some extra time to read and came across a book by Richard Williams called: The Animator’s Survival Kit. This is by far the best book I've seen on how to make things really appear to be moving in animations. It’s all the kind of stuff we think we understand as animators, but Williams really makes sense of it. What I like about the book is the respect he has for the craft of animation. We've all seen demonstrations on how to animate a walk, but this guy really has it figured out. He has also worked with some of the best in the biz like Chuck Jones and Ken Harris. If you don’t have a huge book budget and can only afford a few here and there—I don't see how you can make it without this one. You will not regret buying it.

-Peace and Chicken Grease

Well, It’s Monday...

Man oh man, was it tough to get up this morning! Well, this is it. The final week of freedom before school starts back up.

I spent some time this weekend working on an illustration curriculum I am proposing to our chair. Last year, around the end of April, a good friend of mine, Woody (who adjuncts as an illustration instructor here) convinced his friend C. F. Payne (maybe you've heard of him!) to come in and give a guest lecture in Woody's evening class. First of all I have to say, that I was super impressed with Chris Payne. This guy is one of the, if not the premiere contemporary illustrators in the country today and he took time out of his busy schedule to not only lecture during this class period but to also give a working demonstration! And I'm not sure he would want me to announce this, but he did it all for free!!! Talk about stewardship of a profession, Chris is a real hero who deserves all of the accolades he receives.

After that lecture was over for the evening, Woody and I hung around afterwards and talked to Chris for probably three hours! Everything from his take on the Illustration biz today, his take on stock photography and illustration, how much he charges, who his illustration heroes are, etc… The guy could not have been more nice! After the meeting I was inspired! I went out and bought some acrylics, some illustration board and got back to drawing and painting again. I also decided that it time to finally dust off my plans to work on that illustration curriculum. I can see so many students who are majoring in Graphic Design at our university because it is the closest thing to what they are truly interested in—Illustration. I took it upon myself to try and help them out. We'll see what happens. I dropped off the materials to the chair today.

talk at ya' soon!

My First Posting...

Hello All,

Over the summer break I was finally introduced to the significance of blogs ( I know, I'm a couple of years late). Thinking back to the numerous anecdotes and occurrences I've experienced while teaching graphic design, I thought my daily experiences would make for an interesting blog. Perhaps, I will be the only one who thinks that's so, but we shall see. If nothing else I will at least have a record of what the hell I do with my days.

Today is one of my first days back in my office before school starts. This year will start my third year teaching on a tenure track. My retention materials are due in about a month and I'm already stressing. By the way, classes start in about one week and I'm teaching a class that I've never taught before—Advanced Typography.

I wish I could say I spent the summer being extraordinarily productive in my research but we both know that is not the case. My wife took on a job this summer and I spent a tremendous amount of time being Mr. Mom. Although it was definitely my turn to take on some of the child rearing burden, it was not exactly as pleasurable as I had hoped. (I have 3 kids all 5 yrs. old and under). In some ways I am looking forward to the school year beginning, and in others not so much.

I did start a number of cool projects but they are still hanging in the wind. I had a cool idea for a typeface design, and am working on some propaganda based posters referencing the history of graphic design. I will keep you posted as things progress.Copyright Tobias Brauer 2005