NKU Graphic Design Championship Trophies!!!

While driving with the fam this weekend, I spotted a house that was throwing away an enormous box full of old trophies. I turned around, pulled over and stuck them in the trunk of my car. Once I got a chance to look at them and clean them up, I couldn’t believe how strange some of them were. There’s one that’s close to three feet tall that was given for eating hamburgers (second place); and another that’s a mix of faux silver, faux gold, marble, wood, aluminum, and red paint with eagles feathers and a champion’s cup all in the same trophy! There are 14 of them and most are from the 1960s school of tasteless trophy design and aside from a few baseball guys, are pretty nonspecific. As soon as I saw them I knew I would have to give them away in class as prizes. So I went right after them with the White-out and a Sharpie. And from now on in each final critique, the class will vote on who had the best piece and that person will receive a NKU Graphic Design Champion trophy.

If the winner doesn’t mind I’ll post pictures of him/her holding their NKU Graphic Design Champion trophy after each crit here on the site. Let the competition begin!

Latest Assignment…

What follows is word for word the latest assignment sheet I made and handed out in my Advanced Typography class:


Project 04
Typographic Portrairt/Coversation/Interview

In this assignment you will:

1. Go out into the world and speak with another human who is very different than you. The greater the difference, the stronger your assignment will probably turn out. This person can be a family member but there should be a dramatic difference in age between the two of you. If you pick a friend, pick someone who has had quite a different life/upbringing than you. This should be someone who doesn’t do the same sorts of things that you do (i.e. school, work, etc…).

2. While you’re talking to that person pay attention to everything about them. Take notes, pictures or make a recording if this will help you to remember. Notice everything.

3. Make a design that primarily uses type to address this experience. Perhaps you will create a visual or metaphorical portrait of that person by using typography. Maybe you put forth the content of your conversation in the form of a visually descriptive narrative design. Perhaps you’ll even make a flipbook that animates your experience—whatever! Just make a piece that primarily uses typography as your medium to describe your experience in encountering this person.

4. Just one catch—no computers. You cannot make any part of this on the computer. You can’t find your photos on the computer, you can’t use it to mock together your ideas, you can’t even use it to email the subject of your piece to ask them if you can meet with them. This rule is actually much less limiting than it appears. You can draw, right? You can paint. You can Xerox. You can punch the keys on a typewriter. Some of you even know how to use the letterpress or make a collage. And the last time I checked the newspaper and magazines are full of examples of tangible printed type.

I don’t want something that looks like a collage/ransom note. I still want a smart typographic design. You are at the level in your education where you can succeed at this sort of project. Use your noodle, take a risk and do something different than the rest of the class. Make something that all of us will remember and don’t give us the opportunity to dismiss your ideas.

You will arrive with FIVE well-developed sketch ideas at the next class.


(the image is from AntiText)

The List…

I have this great book in my office at work titled: Star Spangled Kitsch. It’s a collection of a bunch of fascinatingly tacky things that have been sold in America from the 1800s up until the 1970s. I found it in an old abandoned locker at my first teaching job at UC. I didn’t even report it as found, I just kept it because it was so friggin’ weird and cool at the same time.

The reason I mention it is that I spent some time flipping through it today and it made me start to think of the age-old question of taboo in design. Is there a list of subject matter that when presented in a design automatically provokes visual/conceptual dismissal from its viewers? I’ll give you an example:

Transformers. (The robot toy, not that thing at the top of your phone pole.) Enough already with the damn Transformers! If I see one more God-forsaken Transformer in a student crit I think I’ll go right to the “vomit-on-work” method of critiquing projects.

So I’m going to try it. What follows is a list of images I never want to see in a design crit again:

• Marilyn Monroe
• James Dean
• Michael Jackson
• Type that is frozen, on fire, comprised of lightning bolts or dripping like blood
• Transformers
• Unicorns (although one of my better design students has what is probably North America’s largest collection of unicorns and unicorn paraphernalia)
• Rainbows
• Tie-Dye
• NASCAR
• Gradients
• Star Wars
• Marijuana leaf silhouettes

What did I miss?


(I know some of my colleagues do actually hand out a list of taboo imagery at the beginning of the semester.) And if I were a student and my teacher said this, the very next class I would try and make a piece that had all of these things in it at once—just to see if I could pull it off.

When the Shit Hits the Fan, Are You Going to Be One of the First Ones to Die?

Think back to when you were a kid. I’m referring to the age when you were old enough to venture out of your own yard, but not so old that you had to hold down a job. Let’s say eleven years of age. Now imagine at that age, that it’s the middle of the summer. What did you do? How did you fill your days and have fun?

Did you ever:

Ride a bike,
Play in the woods,
Build a go-cart,
Build a fort,
Collect bottles for money,
Catch a wild animal,
Invent some thing or game,
Read books outdoors,
Explore new areas in your neighborhood,
Play video games on an Atari,
Get into fights,
Go to the library,
Pull relatively harmless neighborhood pranks,
Change or make your own clothes,
Stare at some thing (i.e. bug, flower, whatever…) in nature for more than 10 mins.?

Or did you:

Watch T.V.,
Play video games on a PlayStation,
Participate in some organized sport where everyone was a winner,
Get a trophy you didn’t earn,
Keep yourself relatively clean and germ free,
Talk on the phone,
Stay indoors often,
Do what your parents told you, religiously?


If you’re in the first group you’re probably going to be o.k. at that moment of contact when shit meets fan, but if you’re in that second group it’s probably time to starting making-out your last will right now. I’ve always thought these are the types of questions that determine whether or not you’ll find success in employing yourself as an artist or designer. Are you an active, risk-taking participant seizing life? Or instead are you doing what you’re supposed to do—as not to cause too much controversy or upset anyone.

Notice that these statements do not say anything about formal education. They don’t have to. They speak more on character and potential. If I were an Art Director right now conducting interviews for an open Graphic Designer’s position and I had my pick between a group one candidate with little or no experience in design and only a certificate or Associate’s degree; and a group two candidate with a couple of years experience and a Bachelor’s degree, I would without any hesitation pick the person from group one. No question. And I’m even in education and preach the significance of learning and teaching.

Group one includes survivors who make and discover things. Group two just wants to make sure that nobody gets too mad at them. You could give group one a dirty old rock and they could write an epic tale for you on the spot about all of the places and things that this rock has been and seen, while group two would be worried that by holding this rock their hand is getting a little dirty.

It won’t be too long before much more is expected from the soon to be commonplace profession of design. What next when 80% of the general public knows how to use Photoshop or can name more than five fonts? Maybe it’s time to stop sipping on your special portion of Kool-aid while eating your organized snack and instead go take something apart to see how it works.

A Rare Saturday Entry…

Well, in reality I still owe one anyway—since I missed Friday. Friday was a faculty meeting. It went pretty well overall. I am serving on Curriculum Committee at the department, college and university levels this year and it has turned out to be quite a bit of work. At the department level I am the chair of the committee and I proposed three new classes that were all voted on and accepted at Friday’s meeting. Next, it will go through the other two levels, however, I am optimistic because none of it is too controversial. The last day to submit anything to the upper committees for inclusion in the Fall 2006 catalog is on the 27th of this week—so Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be interesting.

Monday is our BFA Portfolio Review day. All art majors who wish to pursue a BFA as opposed to a BA prepare a portfolio of work for review by the entire art department faculty. When I peeked at the list I noticed that we have maybe five of six graphic design students applying for the BFA this semester. That number is a little low, but it will be good to not have to try and review 12 or 13 portfolios all after the lunch meeting. There are a number of really great design students who could also be passing the review right now. I think they are just waiting until next semester so they can see what some of their classmates will have to go through before they try it themselves. I know many of them are in my and Julie’s Intermediate Graphic Design courses and are waiting until they have some of the work finished in there as well to include in their portfolio.

Tuesday I’m going to try and have lunch with some old buddies (John and Bill) from the design firm I used to work for—Iacono Productions. Although we’re all separated by a few years in age from one another we have quite a bit in common. We all went to the same high school and had the same art teacher—Mr. Rhythm Man himself, Bob Beemon. John Wolfer was a designer/painter there with me for a couple of years and he also went back into academia to become a professor. In fact, he was the one that made it possible for me to get my first teaching job. He emailed me yesterday and I was excited to hear from him. Bill Stock, the Art Director at Iacono is also going. I haven’t seen Bill or John in a number of months, but over the last two days I’ve run into Bill twice in two different places. First I bumped into him at the Johnston Paper conference in downtown Cincy on Thursday for lunch and last night I ran into him at the Taft as we were both taking our children to see a Children’s Theatre production of Cinderella. He also just spoke with John and told him he wanted to go to lunch on Tuesday too. Pretty strange coincidence, huh? For some reason or another the three of us are really supposed to get together.

Bill, John, Ann and I also went on a trip to NY together once that was super fun. It was the first time I saw a Matthew Barney show and it was at the Guggenheim. During that same trip I also saw the DaVinci drawing retrospective at the Met across the street. Talk about your visual contrasts! That was also the trip that allowed me to cross “ride the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan at 2:00 am” off of my list of things to do before I die.

Milton Glaser Interview…

I’m sure there are many who would argue that there is no living designer more significant to graphic design than Milton Glaser. Co-founder of the influential Pushpin Studios with Seymour Chwast, Milton is probably best known for his design of the I ♥ NY logo, however, his incredible lifelong catalog of work stretches far beyond that. A New York native, Glaser started his design education at the Cooper Union art school in New York and through a Fulbright scholarship, was able to study fine art in Bolonga, Italy under the painter, Giorgio Morandi. In 1974 (after Pushpin) he established Milton Glaser Inc., and in 1983 along with Walter Bernard he co-created WBMG.

A great breadth of his portfolio includes hundreds of extraordinary poster designs, which in some instances, are part of permanent museum collections. His work is concise, brilliant and appeals to a remarkably wide audience. And in 2004, (to no one’s surprise) Milton was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

I am honored that he took the time to respond to my inquiry. And thanks to his responses here I think I’ve finally found a definition for graphic design that I like.

TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?

MILTON:
Going from an existing condition to a preferred one through the use of visual material.

TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?

MILTON:
The word "good" needs definition to answer this question.

TOBIAS:
I think when I was referring to the word "good" I meant the kind of work that does more than simply express aesthetic beauty. Work that also functions successfully, or perhaps teaches or even changes the way in which people think about something; the kind of design work that "sticks" in your mind for years as innovative, and intelligent.

MILTON:
I hate being put in the positions of ousting some and ignoring others.

TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?

MILTON:
William Morris. Joseph Hoffman, Leonardo.

TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?

MILTON:
The Use and Abuse of Art by Jacques Barzan.

TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?

MILTON:
Keep an open mind. Stay curious.

TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?

MILTON:
No.

Thanks to Milton for responding.

More Making, Less Yacking…

“the part of the psyche that is completely unconscious and concerned with instinctual needs and drives”

We Were on a Break!

Since we operate on a semester calendar, yesterday and today have been Fall break for us here at NKU. And it is the reason for my recent laziness in blogging. Over the break I’ve been grading homework assignments, reading some materials associated with a search committee I am serving on, and doing some paperwork for curriculum committee. Breath-takingly exciting, right?

Bremen Update:

• Plane tickets purchased

• Hotel reservation made

• Conference registration confirmed

• Through unit 12 in Pimsleur’s German One

In a side note: It looks like David Carson is going to be the guest speaker at the conference I’m attending.

Firefox Forever, Safari & Explorer Never!

Go ahead and click on that image above and look at the differences for a while. Go on. I’ll wait right here.

There you see? That is the exact same webpage at the exact same size all on the exact same computer. If you are on a Mac and use Explorer, poke yourself in the eye right now! Do it! If you use Safari you can just sit there and see almost everything the web has to offer. My guess is you’re “semi–enlightened.” And, if you’re viewing this page on a Mac with Firefox make yourself a badge that reads: “SUPERHERO” and wear it all day long.

If you don’t already have Firefox go download it right now for free and start seeing ALL web content in the CORRECT format. Until now, you didn’t even know what you were missing—after this I’m holding you responsible.

Steven Heller Interview…

Evidently Steven Heller lives in a world where there are somewhere closer to 30 or 40 hours in a day. Steven has written far more books about graphic design than there are states in the union. (No joke—90+!!!) And by the time you factor in all of the countless periodicals (such as Eye, Print, I.D. Magazine, etc…) that publish his essays and critiques, he’s smithed more words than Shakespeare. He does all of this while working full-time as the Senior Art Director for the New York Times Book Review and co-chairing a graduate program at the School of Visual Arts. (There’s even a ton more than this too: blogs, AIGA Journal of Graphic Design, forewards, afterwards—the list doesn’t end.)

To quote Paula Scher: “Steven Heller has been graphic design’s biggest fan…For any question asked of him, he responds with twenty ideas, and if those aren’t the right ones, he finds another twenty.”

Thankfully, the same can be said for his interview here.

TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?

STEVEN:
Hmmm. I figured some day I would have to answer this question. Graphic design is the strategic and aesthetic management of type and image on a page or screen for the purpose of conveying a story or message. Technically speaking it is a problem solving process that takes disparate elements and ideas and makes them unified. I guess in this day and age its also making electronic mechanicals, pity.

TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?

STEVEN:
There are really too many to name. So I won't. But I will say that the mundane level has risen to where you might call it "good" and the next highest level is extraordinary. So what is extraordinary? That which transcends the cliches that make everything else mundane. I wish I were in that camp.

TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?

STEVEN:
They vary. In a couple of my books I've written about W.A. Dwiggins - the guy was a renaissance man and über skilled craftsman - from calligraphy to puppetry. Its hard to name one "hero." In fact, it’s easier to name heroes outside one's own field. Bob Dylan was and is my hero. The problem with hero worship, especially in your own field, is meeting them. I don't mean to say they routinely fall from the pedestal, but most are human with faults that you don't see when all you know is their work. So let's just say, there are many designers who I admire, and of these quite a few who have inspired me. But I guess the person who inspires me the most is my wife, Louise Fili, who is a true master of her craft.

TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?

STEVEN:
Well, that's another tall order. But the book I recommend year after year to my students is Ben Shahn's "The Shape of Content," because it is the clearest explanation of what goes through an artist's mind I've ever read. I have underlined it up the wazoo, and I still draw inspiration from it. BUT its not an "inspirational" book in the bullshit/artifice sense of term.

There are lots of books on graphic design and popular culture, including my own, that I hope designers will read. But I like the broader stroke books. I'm currently reading Helmut Lehmann-Haupt's "Art Under a Dictatorship" and there is a lot in this over 50 year-old volume that relates to current U.S.A.

TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?

STEVEN:
Be design literate - not at the exclusion of other literacies, but certainly know everything you can about the art and craft you are practicing. By the way, every Friday I give a design/culture seminar and my favorite part is talking with and listening to the students; so my other bromide is to "stay open" to the younger crowd.

TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?

STEVEN:
Its all up to individuals not groups. Mike Mills just directed his first feature film. He started as a graphic designer but now he holds a different place in the culture. This doesn't mean all graphic designers will be filmmakers or ambassadors to Columbia (as was Thomas Nast). So, I don't know about the future, but I do know that no one has to be a graphic designer all their life if they want to do something else, but graphic design is a great language to apply to other things.

Thanks to Steven for responding.

School of Visual Arts
AIGA Voice

The Reason FedEx Continues to Kick the Poo Out of UPS…

“…the ideal logo is simple, elegant, economical, flexible, practical and unforgettable.”

- Paul Rand

Thanks to Jeremy for digging up the quote.

Here’s the list of latest “pros” I’ve pestered:

James Victore
Wolfgang Weingart
Stefan Sagmeister
Milton Glaser
and Steven Heller (who responds tomorrow)

Michael Bierut Interview…

What do you get when you mix together a designer, a writer, an information architect, a business partner and an advocate; who by the way hails from the greatest state in the union? The answer is Michael Bierut.

Michael Bierut is a partner at the renown design firm: Pentagram, in New York. He has won hundreds of design awards and even served as the national president of AIGA from 1998–2001. He still teaches at Yale and is co-founder of the design blog: DesignObserver.

More than that, Michael is known within the design community for his tireless volunteerism and for his great admiration of the profession of graphic design. When I sent out these questions, I had no doubt that he would respond. If you’re trying to think of a piece of Michael’s design work that you’ve seen, reach into your wallet for your Citi Bank card. See that little logo in the corner “citi”, that’s his. Paula Scher also claims to have had something to do with it (but since she wont respond to my email interview) I’m giving all of the credit to Michael.

TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?

MICHAEL:
Graphic design is the purposeful combination of words, pictures and other visual elements to support the communication of an explicit or implicit message.

TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?

MICHAEL:
Good graphic design is happening in so many places right now that the list would be endless.

TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?

MICHAEL:
Another nearly endless list, but one that deserves a start: my teachers, especially Gordon Salchow and Joe Bottoni; my bosses Dan Bittman, Chris Pullman, and Massimo Vignelli; my partners at Pentagram here in New York, Abbott Miller, Lisa Strausfeld, Jim Biber, Michael Gericke, Woody Pirtle and Paula Scher; and many more friends and colleagues I've made through the years.

TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?

MICHAEL:
Graphic designers should read, and read a lot, and read constantly and obsessively. It doesn't matter what. You can start by reading whatever it is you're designing.

TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?

MICHAEL:
Successful graphic designers know a lot about the world and use graphic design as a way to discover more every day. Design is a means, not an end.

TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?

MICHAEL:
As more and more people get their hands on more and more tools for design and communication, our profession will become increasingly democratized. A world where everyone is a graphic designer will marginalize some of us, but push others into new, exciting directions.

Thanks to Michael for responding.

Chip Kidd Interview…

Probably best known for his semi-fictional novel: The Cheese Monkeys, Chip Kidd, is often considered the single most sought after book jacket designer working today. Chip works as a writer in addition to being a graphic designer in New York for Knopf Publishers. Having designed over 1,500 book jackets, he has received numerous awards from both design and photography centers for his work on such classic book covers as Jurassic Park, American Rhapsody and The Border Trilogy.

Those of us in design who follow Chip’s work and writings know him to be an imaginative innovator who pushes designers and design students to spend time thinking and arriving at creative solutions first. He is also known for having quite a bit of personality, and freely speaking his mind, as you will see:

TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?

CHIP:
There are these three men, construction workers, building a skyscraper. One day they sit down to their lunch, side by side-on a girder, thirty stories above the city.

TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?

CHIP:
Before the first one opens his lunchbox, he says to the other two: “I am so SICK of liverwurst. If my wife packed another goddam liverwurst sandwhich in here, I swear I will leap to my death!” So he opens it up, and sure enough: Liverwurst. So he stands and dives head-first to the sidewalk. Ker-splap.

TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?

CHIP:
Then the second one says: “I am SO DAMN TIRED of ham and swiss! If my wife stuck me with one more ham and swiss sandwich I'm jumping too!” And wouldn't ya know: Ham and swiss. Geronimo, he lands with a messy, wet, explosion..

TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?

CHIP:
So the third guy says (to no one in particular at this point): “Hmmm. I have HAD IT with peanut butter and Jelly. If my wife gave me peanut butter and Jelly AGAIN I'm joining them!” And of course: pb & j. And so he jumps too. Not a pretty sight.

TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?

CHIP:
And so, at the joint triple-funeral, the wife of the first man says: “Oh, it's so sad. If only I'd known he hated liverwurst so much, I would have given him something different.” And the wife of the second man wipes away a tear and says: “Yes, I know how you feel. I never would have given my husband ham and swiss again if I'd known it would lead to this.” And then the wife of the third man pipes up, and says, quizzically:

TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?

CHIP:
“I just don't understand it. He always packed his own lunch.”.

Thanks very much to Chip for responding. He has just launched at new site that is in its early stages of displaying his work, you can see it at: chipkidd.com.

Michael Bierut tomorrow…

David Carson Interview…

David Carson who has been called: “Art Director of the Era” by London magazine: Creative Review, is probably most known for his innovative design work in magazines like Raygun and Beach Culture. His book, The End of Print, is now in it’s fifth printing and has sold over 275,000 copies worldwide. That being said, David is also known for making graphic design on his own terms and in his own unique way.

What’s great about this email interview format I’m using is that I’m getting answers that are quite frank from these different individuals. As I have continued to contact more professionals, I mentioned that Erik Spiekermann has already responded to these questions and they could read his responses if they chose to do so before responding themselves.

What follows is word for word David’s response:

tho i havent read it,
i would assume my answers would all be the
exact opposite of erik speakermans.......
: )
david

If you find this entertaining, wait until Monday when I post the Chip Kidd interview.

Do You Speak American?

I’ve recently discovered that I speak “American.” I know that sounds funny, but hear me out and notice that I didn’t say that I speak “English” because I believe the differences are becoming greater and greater.

In preparing for my trip to Germany in December I’ve been scrambling like crazy to try and learn spoken German so I have at least some semblance of communicative normalcy while there and so that I’m not laughed out of the country. The more I learn about the euphemisms of another language, the more I learn about my own. As an overall spoken language, American seems to be much more succinct and caustic than German, or even UK English for that matter. When we as Americans say something we’re usually to the point and loud. It’s almost as if we’re orally writing with a black, wide tip Sharpie. This, no doubt, is a reflection of our culture/lifestyles/desires.

As I do with everything (because I’m so friggin’ neurotic) I started to consider how this relates to design. As American designers do we work in this same way? Of course there are always exceptions to stereotypes, but I think as a whole we do make work that functions as a direct reflection of our spoken language. After all, one of the primary functions of our work is to communicate. Why wouldn’t we do so in a way in which we are most familiar?

When I think of truly American designers creating work with an American voice, I think of designers who are concise and clear and acerbic in their design like James Victore (image above), Chip Kidd, Paula Scher and David Carson—who by the way, responds to my email request for an interview in tomorrow’s post. And no matter what your English-speaking friends tell you, there is absolutely nothing wrong with speaking American!

Keeping on the topic of linguistics: In my Advanced Typography course’s discussion today we invented a new word: “undertucky.” It refers to that instance when either accidentally or purposefully someone tucks their t-shirt into their underwear.

Here’s the latest list of pros I have pestered for an email interview.

Neville Brody
David Carson
Chip Kidd
April Greiman
Michael Bierut

A Rough Crit Today…

Today in my Intermediate Graphic Design course we had the final critique for the students’ second project. For their first assignment, they designed logos for a restaurant they invented and then on this assignment they designed identity packages (letterhead, business card and envelopes) that meshed with their previous logo design.

They were all very well intentioned. Every one of them made specific paper selections, thought about sensitivity toward typography, worked on an overall consistent design systems, took risks and experimented…there was just one problem—CRAFT. Poor cut lines and knife marks, warped and bubbled paper, glue marks, dirt spots, frayed edges, cheap matte board, the list goes on and on… They knew it too. I could tell that some of them were even more disappointed with what they had done than I was. There were a lot of long faces. After everything went down, I looked around the room and felt like the dad who had to take away the “king size” Halloween Hershey bar because the wrapper was a little torn on one corner.

I like the fact that they took risks and worked with new and unfamiliar materials; I even thanked them for doing so—I just think the overall presentations could’ve been stronger. I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone who is reading this, but the physical way that we present our work as designers is incredibly important. Our craft is a direct reflection of our talent. I guarantee I could tell you how long a designer has been working in industry and with what sorts of clients they are used to working, just by the craft of that designer’s presentation boards. It’s just like wearing inappropriate clothing and giving a limp and mushy handshake on a job interview. People notice. In fact, even the most oblivious of people notice these sorts of things and use them to form decisions and opinions.

Craft is just something we have to do well. I know it sucks and I know it’s hard but we are still responsible for it. Hey, things could be much worse. At least we’re not punching a time card at the city poop factory, separating the anomalies from the solid waste in some bacteria ridden cesspool. I’m just talking about re-cutting something with an x-acto here and there. I also reminded them that this was actually a great time for this to happen. School is the perfect place to take these sorts of risks, without the consequence of losing your career, clients or reputation.

The image is Trajan’s column. The only Roman Emperor in history to be adored by movie poster designers.

Yackity Yak…Part Deux.

Today was the second seminar session in my Advanced Typography Class . The students read essays by both Lazlo Moholy-Nagy on the “New Typography Style” (circa 1919) and an essay by Peter Fraterdeus written within the last few years on some of the new (and I believe currently fading away) “grunge” and “trashy” styles in typography. These students are really a great group of thinking design citizens. Initially, I was quite worried about filling four entire class periods with seminar style discussions at the undergraduate level, but this couldn’t be going better. For the most part these students are well read and actively concerned about the future of their profession. Some of our discussion topics today included:

• What makes a typeface bad or good, and why? (By the way, the worst typeface we could think of was Comic Sans.)
• What is the next trend/style in graphic design?
• What kind of work should designers be making to attract positive public attention to design?
• What kind of work will designers be making in the future?

The list goes on and on. I wish my undergraduate professors had offered me this kind of format back when I was chasing a BFA. Of course, who knows if I would’ve been ready for it.

One of my latest blogging pals, Daniel Schutzsmith was kind enough to feature “Ramblings of a Graphic Design Professor” on his site today: GraphicDefine. His site is a great source for graphic design professionals chocked full of useful content. Daniel is a New York designer and his site was just awarded a top ten ranking for October by How Magazine. And congrats to student T.J. Ball who received a mention in the post!

Here’s the latest list of Graphic Design Pros I’ve pestered for an email interview:

• Paula Scher
• Nigel Holmes
• Kyle Cooper
• Zuzana Licko
• Art Chantry

Erik Spiekermann Interview…

So here I am, now 34 posts into this blog, and although I usually have no trouble ranting and raving about the current events surrounding design and design education, I find that I am looking for some more meaningful content to post on this site. This past weekend it came to me. Why not come up with a short list of questions and email interview some of the bigger names working in graphic design today? Well, that’s what I did and it has actually started to work. (For those of you who are wondering, the Internet has finally kicked the “poo” out of sliced bread on the “all-time greatest things” list.)

The first person to respond to my list of questions was Erik Spiekermann (by the way, he responded from Berlin in less than an hour—take that sliced bread!). Erik is probably best known for his book: “Stop Stealing Sheep & find out how type works”, but his fastidious work ethic has also allowed him to achieve a level of success in design that most others have not. Originally from Hanover, Germany, Spiekermann founded the companies MetaDesign and FontShop International. Some of his more famous typeface designs include FF Meta, ITC Officina, and FF Info. He has a list of many other contributions to the field of graphic design far too long to post but more than that he is a citizen and steward of design as evidenced by his responses below:

TOBIAS:
What is graphic design? How would you define it?

ERIK:
visual communication

TOBIAS:
Who in your opinion is making good design work right now?

ERIK:
anybody who thinks before they start working; anybody who considers design an intellectual activity; I wouldn't like to name individuals: that list would be very long and still incomplete.

These people do not do good work:
Designers who don't challenge themselves and their clients; designers who cannot work in teams; designers who have no idea about their place in society.

TOBIAS:
Who are your design heroes?

ERIK:
Heroes are dangerous. They obscure our critical faculties, they replace our critical faculties with admiration, they take our eyes off the ball. I admire a lot of colleagues, mainly the ones I have worked with who are better than me. Graphic design is too mundane a field to achieve hero status. I leave that to people who save lives by giving their own.

TOBIAS:
What (book/magazine/blog/whatever…) should every graphic designer read?

ERIK:
Design Writing Research by Ellen Lupton; Technische Grundlagen der Satzherstellung and Mathematische Grundlagen der Satzherstellung by Rudolf Bosshard (German only); Tschichold's essays on typography; Mark Twain's works; as many old type specimens as possible; FontBook (new one coming out before the end of 2005); The New York Times (every day), The Economist (i redesigned it in 2001), EYE; typophile.com; designobserver.com, (I won't mention any sites in languages other than English that I frequent)

TOBIAS:
What advice do you have for design students and design educators?

ERIK:
Read.
Travel.
Read.
Ask.
Read.
Learn.
Read.
Connect.
Read.

TOBIAS:
Do you think designers will hold a different place in our culture in the future? If yes; in what ways?

ERIK:
yes. Design as a way of visualizing problems and answers will become very important in all businesses, not just in Graphic Design. Design as a process of problem-solving is already being taken up by people in other fields. Graphic Designers will have to become more active intellectually to play a role. We need to know enough about culture, society, industry and business to take part in conversations beyond layouts and pantone swatches.

Thanks very much to Erik for responding.

I am going to keep pursuing others in this same format. If you have someone in particular you would like to hear from, or any other questions you would like to see asked please leave a comment and I will try to address them.