Digital Montage | Abaton Magazine

Above A digital montage by Roy R. Behrens (2011), titled Flight of Ideas (aka Attention to Detail) has been published in ABATON: Des Moines University Literary Review. Issue Seven (Fall 2013), p. 14.

Roy R. Behrens, Flight of Ideas (2011) ©, digital montage

Amazing Game Parodies

Copyright © Andy Snitker

Copyright © Aaron Van Fossen

Copyright © Mackenzie Pape

Copyright © Rhiannon Rasmussen

Copyright © Rob Bauer

Copyright © Travis Tjelmeland

A few days ago, in two sections of a course called Graphic Design I, at the University of Northern Iowa, we had an initial critique of the students' solutions to a game parody problem. The problem was essentially this: Using the rules and game components of the code-breaking game called MasterMind, design a new version of the game that has some kind of narrative theme.

Shown above are a few of the finest designs, solutions that I find amazing. Remember that this is only the second problem in the course, and in some cases the students have had very limited computer experience and even less in graphic design. 

About thirty students submitted their work, and a number of others were also very strong, but needed some further adjustment. Everyone now has an additional week to make those adjustments and/or to go back to the drawing board.

Student achievements at this level make teaching well-worth all its challenging days.

Guy Davenport | Lo Splendore

Short story illustrations (1981) © Roy R. Behrens

Above Roy R. Behrens, collage illustrations for Guy Davenport short story, "Lo Splendore della Luce a Bologna' (1981).

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Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon—

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of the movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

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William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style—

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

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Osbert Sitwell—

Freud Madox Fraud.

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Guy Davenport—

Max Ernst Ernst Mach.