Pay Your Interns

Last week, in our Design and Intention class, we were asked to "design a poster addressed to fellow designers, urging them to practice ethically." This was the second time we've undertaken a poster trying to encourage someone to stop a particular mode of behavior.

It's hard.

You want to steer clear of any language which sounds like moralistic preaching or proselytizing. People shut down when a message is too critical or accusatory. I was quite pleased with my previous solution for this problem and received a good deal of positive feedback for it. But the audience was more focused this time around.

Rather than trying to tackle a massive, weighty issue that designers are, in part, responsible for (sustainability, the commercialization of culture, poor business practice), I opted for a more personal approach. When I first began the program, I knew that I would likely get a summer internship between the first and second year. I was, however, appalled to find that there was a pretty good chance, in keeping with tradition, I wouldn't be getting paid for my work. Bullshit, right?

After rejecting a few photographic set ups I had for my concept, I settled on the image of a disheveled, Dickensian graphic design intern, begging for change, armed only with his MacPro. Steve and Areej hit the streets with me, acting as photographers, art directors and bodyguards, ensuring the computer wouldn't get nabbed by passersby. Another of our classmates, Nick, wandered by during his cigarette break and leant the coffee cup for additional prop goodness. Steve took just short of 100 pictures, some of which I've included below. Click on the final poster for a larger res copy.







(By the by, kerning is the space between each character and word. Much emphasis in the design world is placed on hand-kerning text to ensure beauty and correct layout. Milton thought that "Will Kern For Food" should be the head and "Pay Your Interns" the subhead. I'm on the fence about it.)

The Tibor Kalman Library

The MFA Studio is hosting an open house this afternoon for prospective students interested in applying to the program. I volunteered to help out because the experience last year was invaluable in choosing a school. I obviously believe strongly in SVA's program, but the hospitality and reception they roll out for these events is unmatched by any of the other Top 10 or NY-area design programs.

Last week, (British) Steve and I got an e-mail from Esther, the department coordinator, asking us to create the signage for the event. The project required us to create several directional way-finding signs and title cards for past projects that are displayed on workstations around the studio. In addition to that, Esther mentioned a long-term installation that the co-chairs wanted for the new library. Over the summer, some studio space was cordoned off to construct the Tibor Kalman Library, a dedicated room for design and visual reference books. The new library space meant new walls, which also means there is a big old patch of boring, white plaster in the front of the studio, begging for someone to spruce it up. Esther asked us to create some temporary signage for the library wall in time for the open house, with the understanding that we'd do something more extensive over the next few weeks.



Minutes later, Steve (one of the dept. co-chairs) called (British) Steve and I into his office for a meeting. The three Steves! He wanted to talk about the wall project, which to him, was far more critical than the event signs. He wanted it done by the open House. Steve and I just smiled, nodded and quietly panicked.

The following Monday, Steve and I sat down to bang out some ideas for the installation. I have little to no experience with collaborative design, a fact I mentioned in my earlier magazine post, so there was some reluctance on my part from the beginning. Steve and I get on like a house on fire, but when you're in a program like this, with so many people asking you to come up with great ideas at every turn, you can feel a little hard-pressed in the beginning to devise a plan you actually want to execute.



After scribbling some "serious" ideas on a pad, we lost our way and began joking about what we'd actually like to see on the wall. We started to build on a particularly rich concept, just adding more and more onto the pile and laughing about how mad the whole thing would be if that's the direction we went in. It was as easy a bit of collaboration as I could have hoped for and I can honestly say that the finished concept was both of our ideas. I'm unsure of where Steve's ideas stop and mine begin. After spending so much time on sketches and ideas and falling in love with the concept (a real problem when you're designing anything), we decided to pitch the ridiculous one to (co-chair) Steve. He was in Spain, so sent him the following e-mail, titled Tibor Library Ideas (TRIPLE AWESOME TO THE EXTREME):

Hey Steve-

This is Steven and Steve and this e-mail already sounds like an Abbott and Costello routine. We've attached a couple of mock-ups for an idea that we're pretty excited about. It is a bit involved, but a portion of it can be installed in advance of the Open House.

We'd like to transform the blank wall space in order to evoke a stately library of the sort that you might find in an old British manor. The walls would be covered in a muted victorian wallpaper and hung with old, gilded picture frames. Inside the frames, we would hang 17th and 18th century oil paintings of Dukes and Earls and regal Ladies, with their hunting dogs and powdered wigs and corsets. In place of their heads, we would insert the covers of monographs and books in the library, photoshopped to resemble the oil painting so that the overall effect was seamless. In the gap between the bookshelves, we'd like to stick this old wing back chair I've got, maybe draping it with a velvet smoking jacket, to make the illusion of a library complete.

On the right side of the column we would hang a large frame with "The Tibor Kalman Library" inset, accompanied by a modest framed portrait of Tibor below. This material could all be installed this week. Like I said, we've attached some jpgs to give you a better idea of what we're talking about, as well as a template for the signage that we're supposed to design for the Open House.

As an alternative, we we're thinking about creating an idea map of the library's contents. This would be a pretty straightforward web of the content inside, in black and white with more bold primary colors used to accent. We would once again reserve the naming information for the right side of the column.

The next afternoon, (co-chair) Steve was back from Spain, but most of the day passed without (British) Steve or I hearing a peep from him about the concept. At a quarter to five, he screamed for the two Steves to get into his office. (British) Steve and I exchanged nervous giggles and made our way across the studio. Perched on (co-chair) Steve's couch, he told us that he loved the idea and that we were free to do as we pleased. There would even be a bit of money to cover our material expenses.




Over the next week, (British) Steven, myself and two of our mates that we inducted into the cause, Areej and Nigel, made trip after trip to neighborhood thrift shops for ratty old picture frames with an ornate flourish. Steve and I went wallpaper shopping uptown and also picked up a few wall sconces at a nearby Home Depot, as well as some paint to give the frames an antique look. During one group shopping trip to an art supply store for our book class, I found a big bastard of a frame on a pile of discarded garbage. It was the perfect style and shape for the project, so back to the studio it went with us.

After class on Thursday night, (British) Steve, Areej, Nigel and myself waited for those folks sitting adjacent to the wall to clear out of the studio and began hanging the wallpaper. We started at a snail's pace since we had zero cumulative wallpaper experience, but after a few strips, we fell into a routine and were able to lock the whole thing down by two or three in the morning. In a short time, the pictures were framed and hung and we were done, barring a few bits of touch up work the following morning.





The following day, we got to the studio and filled in some wallpaper gaps that appeared once the lot dried on the wall. (Co-chair) Steven and Lita (the other co-chair) were already at school and seemed really pleased with the results. It definitely adds a strong visual element to an otherwise dull corner of the studio. Steve and I are still on the lookout for a couple more frames to house the portraits that we photoshopped but didn't get to use. Also, we need to find a chair that matches the wallpaper and work on the actual text sign for the right wall. When all of this is done, we plan on having each guest lecturer pose in the chair (with monocle and smoking jacket) and create a collection of bizarre portraits in front of our creation.

(British) Steve and I have already set our sights on another corner of the studio. There aren't many places in work, school or life where someone encourages you to do something really weird and gives you a bit of money to make the whole thing happen. I need to continually remind myself that I'm lucky to be in an environment where anything can happen as long as the idea behind it is golden.

OPTIC and the World of Magazine Design

For the last two weeks in our Design and Intentions class with Milton Glaser, we've been immersed in the world of magazine design. The first week, we were asked to come up with the concept for a magazine, with a great deal of emphasis placed on a marketable concept that would be able to find both advertisers and subscribers. I spent a great deal of the week leading up to the due date unsure of what I would pitch. I had a few ideas of my own in addition to those I solicited from the folks at a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner I went to at the weekend.

Despite the large volume of feedback, I wasn't happy with any of the prospects. I couldn't see myself wanting to work on the magazines if the entire exercise went into another week of development. At three in the morning, the day of the presentation, I had a flash of inspiration and set to work on "OPTIC: A DVD Magazine of Visual Culture".



I pitched "OPTIC" as a bimonthly DVD and companion booklet for subscribers of all ages that were interested in visual culture like fine art, film, fashion, design and more. Each issue would have a governing theme that categorized the content inside. In place of traditional articles and print advertising, the DVD would contain interviews, short films, video art projects and humorous goofs, in addition to 10-20 second commercials. I was and still am pretty enamored with the idea and was happy to present it to the class, feeling that I had landed on a concept that I was happy to both work on and stand behind.



Unfortunately, during the critique, I was told that it was next to impossible for a DVD magazine to turn a profit. "OPTIC," it would seem, was dead in the water. Six of the magazine ideas that were more audience-friendly or fiscally viable were selected by Milton and the rest of us volunteered to work on the projects. One of my colleagues pitched a magazine of artful erotica and me, the consummate sex culture fiend that I am, joined that group.

I've never designed by committee before so I was concerned, nay perplexed, about how a group of people manage to achieve an overall aesthetic cohesion on a project. How would three designers with three completely different perspectives complete a workable finished product?



It turned out to be easier than I initially believed. Theresa and David, the other folks in my group, are really easy to get along with. We brainstormed ideas for interviews, feature articles and smaller bits of interest for the front and back of the magazine. We all have pretty different sexual/cultural interests which made for a really diverse content. We were supposed to have 16 pages (8 spreads) for the following week, so we divided up the workload and got to work.

Early on, our layouts weren't meshing very well. We ultimately decided that OPTU, the Greek word for "gaze," was less of a commercial monster and more of a large format art magazine. The variety of sexual peccadilloes on display practically demanded a looser grid layout than, say, Newsweek. That gave us the editorial freedom to design a layout about the difference between "kink" and "fetish" differently than you would a photo spread of erotic photographs printed with an antique look.



Our group took a field trip to the Museum of Sex to help generate additional ideas and observe the attendees who, we figured, were our likely readership. In the end, we printed out the spreads, glued a comp together just before class began and pitched the whole thing to the class. Milton thought it was a great treatment of the material, said the visual layout and our intentions behind it really served the material and, when some people in the class said they wouldn't subscribe, assured us they would, that they were "just embarrassed". My group was pleased as punch.

It was a pretty great experience on the whole. I still enjoy the complete control that comes with the solo thing, but the professional design environment rarely works that way. It was nice to know that, when the time comes, I'll be able to put obsession and ego aside and turn out a great product with a group. And as for "OPTIC: A DVD Magazine of Visual Culture," well, I vow to make the model work somehow. I really want to produce an issue of it this summer. And the idea acted as a kernel for an idea I'm currently considering pursuing for my thesis. Not too bad for two weeks of work.



(These are the three spreads I designed for the erotica mag. They're all mocked up with lorem ipsum dummy text, but the pullquotes are real. Click on the spreads for a larger, correctly oriented image. And for those of you paying attention, the spreads are split in the middle by the fold of the magazine which means, yes, the crease falls on the crack of the rubber-clad ass.)