Christine's Design Blog

So as I mentioned before, on Wednesday I attended the First Annual SVA Designer as Author Thesis Forum at the SVA Theater on W 23rd Street. I attended the first session and headed back for the third and last session after my Electronic Page Design class.

My class arrived early, registered, and received our Moleskine gifts. When it was time to file into the auditorium, we took the first row, and I made my way down to the end of the row. I saw Milton Glaser sitting directly across the aisle from me, but quickly averted my eyes for fear that I would begin staring. Much to my chagrin and confusion, Nina and Stephanie were trying to take a photo of me, but I stupidly refused until I realized that we were not-so-discreetly taking photos ‘with’ the venerable Mr. Glaser. For my non-design friends, Mr. Glaser is the famed designer of the I Heart New York campaign, and is also the reputedly tough critic on whom the character of Ego is based in Pixar’s Ratatouille. He used to be a food critic/restaurant reviewer of some sort, so this makes perfect sense. He is, in fact, aware that the character is based on him, according to this interview.

So, courtesy of Nina’s iPhone, here are me and Steph, then me and Nina, who switched seats with Steph to partake in the paparazzi opportunity. I believe the president of the program was sitting behind us, laughing, though I can’t be 100% positive that he was laughing about us … It looks like Steven Heller is trying to peek into the photograph above Stephanie and my heads.

Milton Glaser moderated the first session, and Steve Haslip was the first student to present. The material presented at the forum is, I believe, confidential, so I won’t get too much into it. I was, however, blown away by some of the projects. I particularly enjoyed Kristina Critchlow’s Swap Hive and Steve Smith’s Tiny Hands.

Kristina’s idea was to take advantage of bartering, such as one’s graphic design skills for another’s web design skills. This is very handy, particularly for students, but some professionals in the audience also expressed approval, saying that bartering happens all the time, people are just unaware of it.

Steve Smith, considered ‘the department’s comedian’ (Nina reported that Lara told her that he used to be a stand-up comedian) presented during the third session. My particularly favorite part of his project was Compulsive Anecdotes, a hotline which you call during those moments when you HAVE to tell somebody something, but there’s no one around. He played clips of real anecdotes, and Lara, who snuck in from her coordinating duties during his presentation and coincidentally sat right next to me, exchanged a great laugh with me when the last recording (admittedly recorded by Steve himself) said, ‘And since then, I’ve learned that it’s called sharting…’ I enjoyed his banter with Steven Heller during the Q&A for his project, as well. Steven Heller is actually very amusing, too. Toward the end he said, ‘You know, Steve, I can say that after standing up here with you, I feel closer to you.’ And so Steve held his arms out for a hug and Steven Heller said, ‘No.’

It was pretty magical being there for the third session, because the faculty and audience were all getting eager for the celebrations afterward. The sense of community and encouragement was very thrilling, and I could taste the anticipation in the students after over a year of hard work.

Oh, and Allan Chochinov, co-creator of Core77 was there the entire day, and gave the closing remarks. He was pretty great and said lots of things of which I took note (will have to get back to that some other post), but he was also very insightful throughout the critiques.

Here is a photo also from Nina’s iPhone of him in the front row with the pen, and behind him are Steven Heller and Lita Talarico (and the person in red on the right would be me):

Another marvelous thing was getting to meet everybody. Aside from Stephanie, Nina and I accosting Milton Glaser after the first session, so that they could tell him that we are fans and that he is amazing while I just stared and smiled with my mouth open (he actually looked at me quizzically), I approached Steven Heller and very inarticulately told him that I am a fan and thanked him for the wonderful work he does. Then, after having a few of the finger sandwiches, I enjoyed talking to the students. It was particularly great talking to Gustavo Garcia, whose project was called Susu, a personalized art printing service. It was clear that there were so many ideas bursting out of him. It also felt nice that I could join in with my classmate Armaan in asking questions and offering suggestions, and we were able to carry a conversation with a fellow designer. While I know that I have a lot left to learn, it’s encouraging to feel like I’ve got something going on to make such a coversation possible. I do hope that one day I can get into this program, and I know it will be very competitive … but for now, it was enough to be inspired by the class of 2009. Congratulations to our beloved Lara and everyone else who made it all possible.

There will also be an exhibition of the thesis projects in May, which you should check out if you’re in the area.

Here are some parting photos of the event’s printed material. Grabbing the students’ beautifully designed business cards was another highlight.

ʇı ǝʌol ı ‘looɔ os sı sıɥʇ

Am watching this right now, and am enjoying myself … though, mind you, it’s 95 minutes long. The Office of Paul Sahre (O.O.P.S.) is located right by Pratt’s Manhattan campus, right above the Dunkin Donuts that we do not frequent. Instead, we go to the one past Seventh Avenue. Still, I’ve possibly walked by him many times! I love it around 38 minutes when he’s talking about his typo of A History of Western Philosophy.

Paul Sahre: A Designer And His Problems from AIGA/NY on Vimeo.

Our general drawing class yesterday got a last-minute e-mail from our instructor, Dean Dalfonzo, informing us that class would be a field trip to the opening at a gallery for Ugallery.com. Ugallery is a place for students and other emerging artists to be able to sell their work, and conversely for people to be able to buy art at a reasonable price.

We saw some cool things, drank some weak drinks, and were given a nice break from drawing still life. My favorite part of going to the opening, though, held at Openhouse Gallery, a cool space on Mulberry Street, was stumbling upon the original St. Patrick’s Cathedral on the way, as well as McNally Jackson, the independent bookstore I’ve been meaning to check out. We also saw very cute golden retrievers on the sidewalk, who were so soft and sweet.

I arrived home to discover that AIGA had tweeted about their new article, about dress code, a studio consisting of two guys in their twenties who have just released a book about transitioning from school to the professional world of design. The book’s title, Never Sleep, is somewhat troubling to me, since I already never sleep, and figured I’d get a tad bit more when I am a professional. Alas. Anyway, these two also teach at Pratt, but I am assuming they teach undergraduates at the Brooklyn campus, because we certainly have not heard of nor seen them at the Manhattan campus. It’s always interesting to hear about designers who are so young, because it certainly gives you something to strive for, or at least think about.

Today my Communication Design II class is going to Potential Energy, the School of Visual Arts MFA Designer as Author students’ graduate thesis forum. With an opening keynote by legendary Milton Glaser, each student is given 20 minutes to present his or her masters thesis. The presentations will run all day, from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Our friend Steve Haslip, at 10 a.m., will be presenting his Dirty Weekend workshops, which Nina, Stephanie, Jessica and I were lucky to participate in for its kick-off workshop in March. Steve has guest taught at our Communication Design I class, as he knows our instructor, Lara McCormick, from the MFA program. Lara is also one of the coordinators of the Potential Energy event, which is actually being held at the Visual Arts Theater on West 23rd Street that SVA purchased for the school’s use. This is the first such MFA thesis forum, so it should be interesting.

Howdy.

To start things off, I shall ramble on about my most recent museum visits, which were like satisfying a four-month thirst. Having not been to either the Met or the Moma since December, going to both only a week apart from each other was just the ticket.

Our figure drawing class went to the Met to make up for this semester’s snow day. On Friday and Saturday evenings, a small group of strings and a pianist play at the balcony cafe above the lobby, so it’s always nice to go then. Class was meeting at 6:30, so I arrived around 5:20 to take a look around. I only had time to look at ‘Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna,’ which is on the second floor until this Sunday, April 26.

Some of my favorites were:

Park of an Italian Villa, Jean-Honoré Fragonard

They sing for the one who made it up, Francisco de Goya y Lucientes

Houses in the Countryside in the Snow, Vincent van Gogh

Houses in the Landscape, Vincent van Gogh

At the Moma, two of the biggest exhibitions I saw were Mira Schendel and Leòn Ferrari’s ‘Tangled Alphabets’ and the Martin Kippenberger retrospective, ‘The Problem Perspective.’

Examples of ‘Tangled Alphabets’:

Lara, who I ran into as I was leaving the Moma, and I discussed in class yesterday how the exhibition was somewhat repetitive, but I suppose that is the nature of a whole exhibition based on an artist’s explorations in a single style or idea. This exhibition is on view until June 15.

My new favorite artist is Martin Kippenberger, who was sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek, and extremely prolific in his art. It seems he literally partied himself to death with his craziness, for he died at 44 of liver cancer after a short but dizzying career. The only way to truly experience the essence of Kippenberger, you’ll have to head over to the Moma before May 11 (I think I might go again).

Oh! And before I forget, another very interesting exhibition was ‘Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh,’ which showed posters, photographs, and cage (yes, cage) from Hsieh’s first year-long performance from 1978-79. The Taiwanese-American locked himself into a jail cell he had built in his apartment. For a year he did not read, write, listen to the radio, or anything other than eat the food his friend brought him once a day, have his photo taken by his friend (whom he did not speak to), scratch tick marks into the wall counting the days, and relieve himself (into a jug which his friend emptied). It was quite a powerful exhibition, walking along the wall of 355 photos showing the growth of his hair and beard (10 photos were missing due to film damage). I also had a very eeri, creeping feeling when I walked into the little room holding the cage, inside of which were a cot, sink, mirror and bucket. This one’s on view until May 18.