Throaty chucklings, indignant hoots & snuffles

Rosamond Lehmann, The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968, p. 31—

The trains are much loved by me; their language is companionable, familiar, pregnant with interest and surprises: triumphant masculine crescendos, gently lamenting diminendos, hoarse throaty chucklings, indignant hoots, unbridled snorts and explosions, exhausted sighs and snuffles. Even the shunting goods trains are dear to me, especially in the dead of night, when their screech and cackle speak to me not of dementia but of hope and comfort…

Above Rosamond Lehmann, her brother John Lehmann, and British writer Lytton Strachey (c1920s). Cropped. Photographer unknown. Public domain.

Elena Diane Curris Design Exhibition | 2018

Opening on October 8, 2018, at the Gallery of Art at the University of Northern Iowa is the first of an on-going series of biennial design-themed exhibitions. Titled The Reach and Richness of Design: The Elena Diane Curris Biennial Design Exhibition, it consists of five components representing architectural design, editorial illustration, industrial design, information graphics, and wood type and typography. Included are works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Dennis Ichiyama, Ad Reinhardt and others, as well as historical artifacts from the collections of Jessica Helfand, and Paul D. Whitson. The exhibition is one part of The Elena Diane Curris Endowment, which also provides for the return to campus annually of past graduates of the UNI Graphic Design program, which is housed within the Department of Art. more>>>

Font Specimen Poster | Rachel Bartholomay

Font Specimen Poster © Rachel Bartholomay 2016

Above Font specimen poster by design student Rachel Bartholomay (©2016) at the University of Northern Iowa.

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Recently while reading Nicholas Fox Weber, The Bauhaus Group: Six Masters of Modernism (New Haven CT: Yale University Press), I ran across a passage about a class exercise that the painter Paul Klee witnessed in a course at the Bauhaus taught by Johannes Itten. It required his students to draw in the dark, and of course this reminded me of the later, related experiments by Hoyt Sherman at Ohio State University, which I wrote at length about in the early 1990s. Here is the passage from Weber's interesting book (p. 115)—

At 5 pm that same day, Itten gave another course in a large lecture hall constructed like an amphitheater, where people sat on the steps rather than on seats. This time the master projected on the wall a large image of Matisse's La Danse and had the students draw its essential compositional elements in the dark. Itten's wife sat at his feet, with everyone else huddled in close. The sole exception was Klee, who sat as far away as possible, at the very top of the amphitheater, in a proper chair. Looking on from this perch, he smoked his pipe.

George Carlin on Diminished Choices

Calendar page © Dana Potter (2013)

Above Layout for a calendar page (its theme determined by a quote) by Dana Potter, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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George Carlin, in an interview in David Jay Brown, Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse (NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 191—

We're given many choices to distract us from the fact that our real choices have been diminished in number. Two political parties. Maybe three or four large banks now. Credit card companies, just a couple, a handful. Newspapers, reduced. Ownership of media, reduced, down to five or six companies now. Big stock brokerage firms, reduced in number. In all of these important things we have less choice. Then we're distracted with these frivolous choices: 21 flavors of ice cream, 35 flavors of popcorn. You see specialty shops with 35 flavors of popcorn, like chocolate walnut popcorn. These are absurd distractions from what we are doing to ourselves…

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.

Luther College Writers Festival 2013

Intersections Between Word and Image

University of Northern Iowa graphic design professor Roy R. Behrens will be among the presenters at the 2013 Luther College Writers Festival in Decorah IA on Saturday, September 28. He will appear on a panel on New Writing, New Media (3:00-5:00 pm), and will talk about "Intersections Between Word and Image." Beginning in the 1970s, as a designer/illustrator, he collaborated with various American writers, including Jerzy Kosinski, Guy Davenport, Marvin Bell and others.

Portrait of George Eastman | Kellie Heath

Interpretive portrait of George Eastman (2013) © Kellie Heath

Above Digital montage by graphic designer Kellie Heath (2013) in response to an assignment to design an "interpretive portrait" of a prominent historical person. The subject she chose was George Eastman (1854-1932), founder of the Eastman Kodak Company.

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Leo Rosten (recalling his father's death), People I Have Known, Loved or Admired. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1970—

After he died I swam a lot, every day. You can weep in the water, and when you come out red-eyed, people attribute it to the swimming. The sea my father loved is a fine place for crying. 

Schedule Posted for UNI Design Conference

Click here for complete schedule

Available online is the complete schedule of events for ENVISIONING DESIGN: Education, Culture, Practice, a two-day series of presentations, panels, films and exhibits for design professionals, design educators, students and alumni. Events begin late Friday afternoon and evening, April 26, and continue throughout the day until 4:00 pm on Saturday, April 27, 2013.

Keynote speakers include designer Sang-Duck Seo, graphic design professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who will focus on various aspects of his experiences in design and design education (7:00 pm on Friday), and Claudia Covert, research scholar and librarian at the Fleet Library, Rhode Island School of Design, who will discuss that school's collection of 455 WWI dazzle camouflage plans, made by designers and artists (11:00 am on Saturday).

All events will be held in the Kamerick Art Building on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls. The conference is open to the public. Everyone is invited, and there is no charge for attendance. For complete information click here.

Envisioning Design | 2013 Conference

Designed by Kimberly Breuer, UNI graphic design student

Recently announced is ENVISIONING DESIGN: Education, Culture, Practice, a two-day series of events for design professionals, design educators, students and alumni. Events are scheduled to take place on late Friday afternoon and evening, April 26, and throughout the day until 4:00 pm on Saturday, April 27, 2013. Everything will be held in the Kamerick Art Building on the campus of the University of Northern Iowa, in Cedar Falls. This is open to the public. Everyone is invited, and there is no charge for attendance. For complete information click here.

Film Review | Linotype: The Film

Linotype type casting machine

Linotype: The Film
by Douglas Wilson, Director and Producer
Onpaperwings Productions
Springfield, MO, 2012
 DVD, 1 hours 17 mins.
Distributor's website:
http://www.linotypefilm.com

•••

I have had “printing” in my blood since I was ten or eleven. One summer at about that age, having read The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, I sped downtown on my 20-inch Hiawatha bicycle, strolled into the local “job printing” firm, and inquired of the aging (and greatly amused) owner if he might be willing to take me on as a “printer’s devil.” Kindly, he responded “no” (I was far too young) but he did talk to me for awhile and gave me a tour of the “tools of the trade.” This was about fifty-five years ago, yet, even now, I still remember the moment that day when I saw a linotype type casting machine for the first time. 

I myself don’t know a way to describe how it feels to stand next to a functioning linotype (much less to actually operate one, which can be hazardous at times because of the hot molten metal it spurts). In general, one could simply say that it is a huge complex mechanism for casting metal type that was invented in 1884 by Ottmar Mergenthaler (1854-1899), a U.S. German immigrant. Amazingly, it revolutionized printing to such an extent that its inventor is sometimes said to have been “the second Gutenberg.” But that is at best an inadequate way to convey the feeling of standing in the presence of this clackety, stinky, hot, intimidating, almost room-sized monster that casts lines of hot lead type—one line at a time, hence its quaint historic name “line-o’-type.” more>>>

Thomas Edison | Jessica Libberton

Portrait of Thomas Edison (2012) © Jessica Libberton

Above In a class about designing digital images, I asked my students to invent "interpretive portraits" of extraordinary men or women from the past, sung or unsung. This is a portrayal of genius and inventor Thomas Edison (1847-1931) by Jessica Libberton.

...

Thomas Edison—

Great music and art are earthly wonders, but I think cubist songs and paintings are hideous.

...

Richard Armour, It All Started with Columbus—

Since Edison suffered from insomnia, he invented the electric light, so he could read at night.

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Keith Ellis, Thomas Edison: Genius of Electricity—

Edison was a giant. He had gigantic successes and gigantic failures. He had a giant's zest, a giant's power of recuperation, and a giant's vision.