1 00:00:07,060 --> 00:00:13,860 Hi, my name is Richard Male, 2 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:16,460 and I'm a graphic designer, a photographer, 3 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:17,280 a writer, 4 00:00:17,700 --> 00:00:18,300 and a teacher, 5 00:00:18,840 --> 00:00:20,080 and I've been an adjunct instructor 6 00:00:20,180 --> 00:00:22,080 at the School of Visual Arts for the last 20 years. 7 00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:24,200 I grew up in the Midwest 8 00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:25,980 in a small rural town in Minnesota. 9 00:00:26,460 --> 00:00:28,040 My parents were in the greenhouse business, 10 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:31,000 and that's largely where I got my first artistic training. 11 00:00:31,440 --> 00:00:32,620 I was like a lot of kids. 12 00:00:32,740 --> 00:00:33,600 I drew as a kid. 13 00:00:34,080 --> 00:00:35,180 I drew abstract pictures. 14 00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:38,100 I did well in school. 15 00:00:38,260 --> 00:00:39,820 I got all A's in art. 16 00:00:40,020 --> 00:00:41,620 Didn't do so well in other things. 17 00:00:42,120 --> 00:00:43,060 I got A's in geometry, 18 00:00:43,480 --> 00:00:44,520 and I flunked out of algebra. 19 00:00:45,200 --> 00:00:47,060 Maybe that's a common theme for a lot of artists. 20 00:00:47,500 --> 00:00:49,460 In high school, I mainly studied ceramics. 21 00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:50,840 I did a little bit of drawing, 22 00:00:51,140 --> 00:00:52,040 a little bit of photography, 23 00:00:52,100 --> 00:00:54,020 but my main teacher was a ceramics teacher. 24 00:00:54,020 --> 00:00:54,640 I 25 00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:57,860 decided to go to the art school that he attended, 26 00:00:58,360 --> 00:01:00,060 which was very nearby where I grew up. 27 00:01:00,620 --> 00:01:01,500 Once I got there, 28 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:05,900 it didn't take me very long to figure out I didn't want to be a potter or a ceramicist anymore. 29 00:01:06,700 --> 00:01:08,520 Working with all that dust really bothered me, 30 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:10,700 but I was lucky to find photography, 31 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:13,240 and that's ultimately what I ended up majoring in. 32 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,440 A lot of my influences at the time, 33 00:01:15,980 --> 00:01:17,320 people like Jerry Olsman, 34 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:18,380 Dwayne Michaels, 35 00:01:19,040 --> 00:01:24,720 Ralph Gibson, Minor White, have been almost lifelong influences now, 36 00:01:24,820 --> 00:01:26,160 just in terms of my photography. 37 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:29,700 I continue to be a photographer now, 38 00:01:30,100 --> 00:01:32,560 and it all goes back to those early days of being in art school 39 00:01:32,560 --> 00:01:34,460 and taking pictures mostly in black and white, 40 00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:36,140 spending a lot of time in the darkroom, 41 00:01:36,620 --> 00:01:39,080 doing a lot of interesting experiments with form. 42 00:01:39,700 --> 00:01:42,560 Along with doing photography when I was in art school, 43 00:01:42,780 --> 00:01:43,220 I did a couple of internships. 44 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:50,520 One of them was with the North Dakota State University Department of Publications, 45 00:01:51,380 --> 00:01:58,260 where I worked on a lot of interesting things that had to do with newspapers and campus publications and campus signage. 46 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:00,840 I ended up working on a signage system for the campus, 47 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,400 which was one of my first experiences with typography. 48 00:02:04,620 --> 00:02:06,780 Another experience I had with graphic design, 49 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:08,280 early graphic design, was working for the Prairie Community Design Center. 50 00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:10,600 This 51 00:02:11,380 --> 00:02:14,900 piece was actually the very first piece of graphic design I ever did, 52 00:02:15,620 --> 00:02:21,240 just a little capabilities brochure talking about what their offerings were through the Prairie Community Design Center, 53 00:02:21,440 --> 00:02:22,980 which was mainly concerned with architecture. 54 00:02:24,580 --> 00:02:25,980 So after finishing art school, 55 00:02:26,220 --> 00:02:28,420 I knew I didn't want to work as a commercial photographer, 56 00:02:28,920 --> 00:02:30,300 and that just wasn't of interest to me. 57 00:02:30,420 --> 00:02:31,560 I had friends who were doing that, 58 00:02:31,660 --> 00:02:34,260 and they were mainly sweeping up the studios and handing people lenses and loading film backs. 59 00:02:34,260 --> 00:02:38,620 All of that's very interesting, 60 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:40,420 but it wasn't what I was interested in doing. 61 00:02:41,220 --> 00:02:45,220 I had had these experiences doing production and graphic design studios, 62 00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:47,940 a little bit of work with the Prairie Community Design Center. 63 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:50,660 So I knew that graphic design was an option for me. 64 00:02:50,800 --> 00:02:51,880 I just didn't have any training. 65 00:02:52,740 --> 00:02:54,880 And that's when I began to do a little bit of self-study. 66 00:02:55,300 --> 00:02:56,600 I found out about Piet Zwart, 67 00:02:56,780 --> 00:02:57,620 went to the library, 68 00:02:57,880 --> 00:02:59,240 started to work a little bit more specifically working with typography. 69 00:02:59,240 --> 00:03:03,620 And eventually I was very, 70 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:05,940 very lucky to get a job at Walker Arts Center, 71 00:03:06,300 --> 00:03:08,500 a small regional museum in Minneapolis. 72 00:03:09,080 --> 00:03:10,960 And they were focused on modern art. 73 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:13,860 So this was a great introduction to graphic design for me, 74 00:03:13,940 --> 00:03:15,720 because everything I did was about 75 00:03:16,240 --> 00:03:16,940 designers and artists. 76 00:03:21,580 --> 00:03:22,480 At Walker Arts Center, 77 00:03:22,600 --> 00:03:23,980 I was the assistant designer, 78 00:03:24,520 --> 00:03:26,220 and I basically did everything that needed to be done behind the scenes. 79 00:03:26,220 --> 00:03:31,180 But it included a lot of great work, 80 00:03:31,380 --> 00:03:32,600 great work as a designer, 81 00:03:32,820 --> 00:03:34,380 great work as a production person. 82 00:03:34,880 --> 00:03:39,380 And I kind of learned all the back end stuff of graphic design while I was working there. 83 00:03:40,260 --> 00:03:42,520 Got to work on some major exhibitions like this one, 84 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:43,620 Artist and Printer, 85 00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:46,700 and working with a cover design like this, 86 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:48,000 working with primary colors, 87 00:03:48,480 --> 00:03:49,520 working with type and image, 88 00:03:50,460 --> 00:03:51,340 working with photography. 89 00:03:51,700 --> 00:03:57,460 So I figured out that I was able to combine all of my interests very early on, in graphic design. 90 00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:12,100 My boss was a guy named Robert Jensen. 91 00:04:12,480 --> 00:04:14,040 He was actually an alum of Yale. 92 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,120 And so I got to know a little bit about graduate school then as well. 93 00:04:17,840 --> 00:04:21,020 But mainly I was concerned with just working as a designer day to day, 94 00:04:21,240 --> 00:04:23,440 having this wonderful experience working in a museum, 95 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:28,220 getting to look at art and design every single day and work with it right on my drafting table. 96 00:04:29,440 --> 00:04:30,120 In this case, 97 00:04:30,640 --> 00:04:31,660 here's an exhibition catalog, 98 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:33,740 very typical of the kind of work we did. 99 00:04:34,640 --> 00:04:35,340 Facing pages, 100 00:04:36,100 --> 00:04:36,960 image on this side, 101 00:04:37,160 --> 00:04:38,240 typography on this side, 102 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:40,700 and working with all the elements of graphic design. 103 00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:45,360 I love being able to combine photography with graphic design, 104 00:04:45,500 --> 00:04:48,320 really realizing those two skills in the same product. 105 00:04:54,620 --> 00:04:56,480 In addition to working on exhibition graphics, 106 00:04:56,780 --> 00:04:59,280 I designed the museum's newsletter. 107 00:04:59,860 --> 00:05:01,620 I designed a lot of pieces, 108 00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:04,540 promotional pieces, posters for performing arts, 109 00:05:05,240 --> 00:05:06,120 dance, music. 110 00:05:06,460 --> 00:05:07,600 It was a great experience. 111 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:13,380 Since my boss was an alum of Yale and I had expressed interest 112 00:05:13,380 --> 00:05:14,580 in studying graphic design, 113 00:05:15,380 --> 00:05:18,960 he recommended that I try going there and see what would happen. 114 00:05:19,420 --> 00:05:19,960 So I did. 115 00:05:19,960 --> 00:05:20,660 I applied, 116 00:05:21,080 --> 00:05:21,840 I didn't get in, 117 00:05:22,100 --> 00:05:22,860 I applied again. 118 00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:24,140 The second time I got in, 119 00:05:24,340 --> 00:05:25,020 it was pretty great. 120 00:05:25,700 --> 00:05:26,880 I was very excited about going. 121 00:05:27,460 --> 00:05:29,400 And this was the first time I had lived outside 122 00:05:29,400 --> 00:05:30,420 of Minnesota as well. 123 00:05:30,500 --> 00:05:32,220 So it was quite a cultural change for me 124 00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:34,600 to move from the Midwest to the East. 125 00:05:35,660 --> 00:05:37,900 The Yale graphic design program at that time 126 00:05:37,900 --> 00:05:39,300 was very different than it is now. 127 00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:41,300 First of all, we didn't have computers. 128 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:43,480 Well, we did, but it wasn't the kind of computers 129 00:05:43,480 --> 00:05:44,300 that we have now. 130 00:05:44,620 --> 00:05:46,460 It literally was a big floppy disk 131 00:05:46,580 --> 00:05:48,560 about the size of a small record. 132 00:05:48,560 --> 00:05:53,060 And you'd put it into a machine and you could actually hear it spinning up like a washing machine. 133 00:05:54,020 --> 00:05:56,980 Inside of that, there were a series of lenses mounted on a turret. 134 00:05:57,400 --> 00:05:58,280 It was very primitive, 135 00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:04,420 but it was enough to enable us to work with typography in a somewhat computerized setting. 136 00:06:04,580 --> 00:06:07,300 So it was the beginning for me of working with computers. 137 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:09,660 A lot of the work we did, 138 00:06:09,820 --> 00:06:13,680 though, even though it was somewhat based in a little bit of computer technology, 139 00:06:13,980 --> 00:06:14,540 was very hands-on. 140 00:06:14,640 --> 00:06:16,220 We drew letters. 141 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:18,240 We did handwriting. 142 00:06:18,700 --> 00:06:19,520 We did photography. 143 00:06:20,280 --> 00:06:22,520 Did a lot of work with typography of different kinds, 144 00:06:22,780 --> 00:06:25,400 from letterpress printing to working with cutouts. 145 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,300 Eventually, we started working with some really amazing teachers, 146 00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:31,660 and one of them was Bradbury Thompson. 147 00:06:33,360 --> 00:06:35,060 Professor Thompson is not that well-known. 148 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:37,240 He's got some books that are pretty amazing, 149 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:40,920 but he's not well-known like Paul Rand or Herbert Matter 150 00:06:40,920 --> 00:06:43,780 or Armand Hoffman, some of those other teachers from that era 151 00:06:44,220 --> 00:06:45,240 who are very well-known. 152 00:06:45,940 --> 00:06:47,400 Bradbury Thompson was an American, 153 00:06:48,540 --> 00:06:49,860 had a lot of work from New York, 154 00:06:51,100 --> 00:06:52,940 but I didn't know who he was until I met him. 155 00:06:53,780 --> 00:06:57,740 And then I realized that this guy was one of the kindest, 156 00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:01,720 most beautiful, most gentle person I ever knew, very humble. 157 00:07:02,820 --> 00:07:04,360 We would always say during critiques 158 00:07:04,440 --> 00:07:05,840 that he would kill you with kindness. 159 00:07:06,580 --> 00:07:07,280 It's kind of a funny 160 00:07:07,820 --> 00:07:08,520 way of critiquing. 161 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:10,120 His project, 162 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:12,900 now this is in the first year of my two-year program, 163 00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:18,960 his project was to create a book that was based on different eras of typography. 164 00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:21,780 So by doing that, 165 00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:25,120 we would study typography from the Renaissance all the way to the present. 166 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:29,280 And he allowed us to choose whatever subject matter we wanted to. 167 00:07:29,860 --> 00:07:33,400 At the time, I was dating a student from the drama school, 168 00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:37,580 and I had access to all the costumes and information 169 00:07:37,580 --> 00:07:38,700 in their drama department, 170 00:07:39,220 --> 00:07:40,680 in the costuming department. 171 00:07:41,540 --> 00:07:42,960 So that became my subject matter. 172 00:07:44,020 --> 00:07:45,640 Every week I would go to the library, 173 00:07:45,940 --> 00:07:47,440 I would check out amazing books, 174 00:07:47,840 --> 00:07:48,580 really old books. 175 00:07:48,860 --> 00:07:50,460 At that time, you could actually check them out. 176 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:52,260 I would take them back to the studio, 177 00:07:52,700 --> 00:07:53,400 photograph them, 178 00:07:54,080 --> 00:07:57,460 and end up using some of the content that I would find, including the text, 179 00:07:57,800 --> 00:07:58,420 in my own book 180 00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:00,480 for Bradbury Thompson's project. 181 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:00,720 And 182 00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:02,800 this is the book I made. 183 00:08:03,580 --> 00:08:04,360 It's very primitive. 184 00:08:05,080 --> 00:08:06,820 It's made with what are called photostats, 185 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:09,080 photostatic enlargements 186 00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:10,840 that are made on photo paper, 187 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:11,940 but not through a camera, 188 00:08:12,460 --> 00:08:13,580 through a process camera, 189 00:08:13,660 --> 00:08:14,560 a different kind of camera. 190 00:08:15,480 --> 00:08:16,540 But it was still photographic. 191 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:19,400 As I said, the subject matter was costumes. 192 00:08:20,640 --> 00:08:21,640 So we open this, 193 00:08:21,740 --> 00:08:23,200 we have a little bit of a window here, 194 00:08:23,280 --> 00:08:25,420 and you can barely see some eyes. 195 00:08:25,420 --> 00:08:28,220 So when we take off the cover, 196 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:29,820 we see actually a group of people, 197 00:08:30,260 --> 00:08:31,640 and they're all wearing slickers. 198 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:34,360 It's actually called the Macintosh Society. 199 00:08:34,900 --> 00:08:35,860 This is a real thing. 200 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:37,940 People who are rubber fetishists. 201 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:41,240 This is actually the end of the book, 202 00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:42,560 but I show it here on the cover just 203 00:08:42,600 --> 00:08:43,600 because I thought it was so interesting. 204 00:08:44,940 --> 00:08:46,240 And as we move to the inside, 205 00:08:47,940 --> 00:08:49,720 we have the title page. 206 00:08:51,340 --> 00:08:53,040 So we were learning about the design of books. 207 00:08:53,860 --> 00:08:54,960 What comprises a book? 208 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:56,180 How you enter a book, 209 00:08:56,300 --> 00:08:58,320 how you get in from the outside to the inside. 210 00:08:59,460 --> 00:09:03,240 Thompson would always talk about how entering a book is like entering a house. 211 00:09:03,460 --> 00:09:04,700 You see the outside first, 212 00:09:05,440 --> 00:09:07,520 and if there's nothing to invite you to come in, 213 00:09:07,580 --> 00:09:08,180 you won't come in. 214 00:09:08,260 --> 00:09:08,940 You won't pick it up. 215 00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:11,620 So once you enter that front door, 216 00:09:11,780 --> 00:09:12,400 you're in the hallway, 217 00:09:12,540 --> 00:09:13,260 you're in the entryway, 218 00:09:13,300 --> 00:09:15,080 and that's kind of what the title page is all about. 219 00:09:15,940 --> 00:09:17,120 So we have a small image, 220 00:09:17,180 --> 00:09:18,780 a repeat of the cover image here, 221 00:09:19,820 --> 00:09:21,940 and then we have the title of my book over here, 222 00:09:21,940 --> 00:09:24,340 The Tip Hoik and The Androdyne. 223 00:09:25,460 --> 00:09:28,520 Really two forms of fashion very far apart. 224 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:33,680 We have the contents page over here, 225 00:09:34,140 --> 00:09:36,400 a little bit about the subject matter over here, 226 00:09:37,120 --> 00:09:42,100 and a beautiful engraved image of a man in costume from several hundred years ago. 227 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:44,240 Embellished 228 00:09:44,580 --> 00:09:46,760 with a little bit of what was then called Zippitone. 229 00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:49,120 It was a kind of imagery that was 230 00:09:49,120 --> 00:09:50,840 put on film that you could cut out, 231 00:09:51,240 --> 00:09:54,200 and it had an adhesive backing that you could apply. 232 00:09:55,740 --> 00:09:57,060 Here we have the table of contents, 233 00:09:57,740 --> 00:09:59,160 set up flush left, ragged right, 234 00:10:02,680 --> 00:10:03,860 and then we have the first spread. 235 00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:07,220 So this is all about costumes, 236 00:10:07,620 --> 00:10:09,360 what people wore during the Renaissance. 237 00:10:10,680 --> 00:10:14,660 The typography is based on the style of typography that was prevalent at that time. 238 00:10:14,660 --> 00:10:18,840 The imagery is based on images that were prevalent at that time. 239 00:10:19,560 --> 00:10:23,640 And all of these images came out of books that I was able to check out of Sterling Library. 240 00:10:26,940 --> 00:10:31,000 One of the things you might notice as you look through this book is there's a similarity to the layouts. 241 00:10:32,500 --> 00:10:37,880 This was the first time I realized that a spread in a book is very much like a landscape. 242 00:10:38,540 --> 00:10:40,460 You can see it as a foreground, 243 00:10:40,840 --> 00:10:41,940 a middle ground, and a background. 244 00:10:41,940 --> 00:10:42,560 And 245 00:10:43,340 --> 00:10:46,160 so these pages are all designed according to that principle, 246 00:10:46,600 --> 00:10:47,480 something really big, 247 00:10:47,940 --> 00:10:50,020 something really small, and something in between. 248 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:52,560 With the typography occupying a space, 249 00:10:52,660 --> 00:10:55,080 it was sort of in between the big and the small. 250 00:10:56,580 --> 00:10:58,680 I became very conscious of negative space, 251 00:10:59,340 --> 00:11:00,940 of the relationship of parts, 252 00:11:02,360 --> 00:11:04,340 thinking about different ways of using photography, 253 00:11:05,940 --> 00:11:08,020 all the way down to the Macintosh Society in the end. 254 00:11:08,020 --> 00:11:11,880 And then ending the book 255 00:11:13,980 --> 00:11:14,820 with a bibliography, 256 00:11:15,460 --> 00:11:17,860 and some people in formal wear jumping out of a building. 257 00:11:18,180 --> 00:11:19,180 I don't know what that's about. 258 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:21,860 This was a great experience for me, 259 00:11:22,220 --> 00:11:27,060 the first book I was able to actually design and conceive and kind of be the author of. 260 00:11:38,280 --> 00:11:40,980 I had many great teachers at Yale, including Armand Hoffman, 261 00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:43,100 Herbert Matter, Inger Druckerie, 262 00:11:43,940 --> 00:11:44,640 and Paul Rand. 263 00:11:45,260 --> 00:11:46,580 And this is the cover of the project 264 00:11:46,660 --> 00:11:49,000 that I created for him in his class. 265 00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:52,640 He gave us a text for an essay that he had written 266 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:53,940 called Design and the Play Instinct. 267 00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:57,480 And this text was more than just a design project. 268 00:11:58,020 --> 00:12:01,120 It was really about thinking about design, reading his words, 269 00:12:01,720 --> 00:12:02,380 doing research, 270 00:12:03,380 --> 00:12:05,900 and beginning to understand that notion 271 00:12:05,900 --> 00:12:09,200 that play equals experimentation. 272 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:11,460 So in art and design, 273 00:12:11,580 --> 00:12:12,880 this whole idea of play, 274 00:12:13,540 --> 00:12:16,600 it's not about just play is for the sake of play. 275 00:12:16,700 --> 00:12:17,820 It's really playing to learn. 276 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:24,060 This cover is a photographic manipulation 277 00:12:24,060 --> 00:12:26,180 of a photograph that Rand gave us. 278 00:12:27,700 --> 00:12:30,640 In addition to the text that he gave us for his essay, 279 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:33,440 he also gave us a stack of images to use 280 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:35,800 to do whatever we wanted with, 281 00:12:35,980 --> 00:12:37,040 as long as it was expressive. 282 00:12:38,040 --> 00:12:38,860 Rand loved this cover. 283 00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:39,820 When he saw this, 284 00:12:39,880 --> 00:12:41,040 he said, now that's play. 285 00:12:42,400 --> 00:12:48,460 So what you're seeing here is really the final result of this project. 286 00:12:48,660 --> 00:12:50,000 There were many sketches in between, 287 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:51,740 many meetings at Rand's house. 288 00:12:51,940 --> 00:12:53,120 He would have us to his house, 289 00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:54,920 where we would talk about the work. 290 00:12:56,520 --> 00:12:57,100 And in the end, 291 00:12:57,160 --> 00:12:58,540 I adopted his color palette, 292 00:12:59,100 --> 00:13:00,180 his style of typography, 293 00:13:00,540 --> 00:13:02,020 and most specifically, 294 00:13:02,380 --> 00:13:03,120 the use of the grid. 295 00:13:04,660 --> 00:13:09,380 This idea of grid design was something I had learned when I was working at Walker Arts Center, 296 00:13:09,740 --> 00:13:11,360 but I really began to understand it here. 297 00:13:12,860 --> 00:13:16,400 These are all examples of art and design that I was sort of familiar with. 298 00:13:17,040 --> 00:13:18,080 Picasso and Matisse, 299 00:13:19,500 --> 00:13:21,820 Duchamp, there's that famous abacus image, 300 00:13:22,780 --> 00:13:24,760 the Persimmons photograph that he talked about. 301 00:13:25,460 --> 00:13:27,180 So this project was a history lesson. 302 00:13:27,740 --> 00:13:29,420 It was a lesson on design philosophy. 303 00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:31,080 It was all about teaching. 304 00:13:31,260 --> 00:13:31,940 It 305 00:13:32,560 --> 00:13:33,380 was about imagery. 306 00:13:34,180 --> 00:13:35,040 It was about the grid. 307 00:13:36,260 --> 00:13:37,240 And there's that image 308 00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:39,280 that I manipulated for the cover. 309 00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:43,600 Rand's project was one of the essential things 310 00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:44,800 I did when I was at Yale. 311 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:46,900 I also did photography while I was there, 312 00:13:47,360 --> 00:13:49,360 and I worked on posters for the School of Art 313 00:13:49,860 --> 00:13:51,020 and the Yale Philharmonia. 314 00:13:51,800 --> 00:13:54,200 All of that experience together added up to quite a bit. 315 00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:55,900 It was a great learning experience. 316 00:13:56,660 --> 00:13:57,660 I remember when I graduated, 317 00:13:57,880 --> 00:13:59,580 I thought, I could spend a whole lifetime here 318 00:13:59,620 --> 00:14:00,760 and really never get it all. 319 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:01,960 It was quite a thing. 320 00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:06,960 I had always been interested in teaching, 321 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:09,980 but I made the decision to work for a few years 322 00:14:09,980 --> 00:14:11,000 before I got into it, 323 00:14:11,080 --> 00:14:12,700 just so I would have something to teach, 324 00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:14,020 I would have some background 325 00:14:14,340 --> 00:14:17,580 in professional practice before I went back into theory. 326 00:14:18,580 --> 00:14:20,940 My first teaching job was at Kent State 327 00:14:21,540 --> 00:14:22,160 in Ohio, 328 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:24,480 and from there I went to Purdue in Indiana, 329 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:27,340 and finally, I settled at Portland School of Art, 330 00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:29,880 which is now called Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine. 331 00:14:30,940 --> 00:14:31,860 And while I was there, 332 00:14:32,020 --> 00:14:33,520 I did a lot of work for the school, 333 00:14:33,820 --> 00:14:36,900 and I also started working for one of the 334 00:14:36,900 --> 00:14:38,980 colleagues, one of my colleagues, 335 00:14:39,060 --> 00:14:40,020 who is a metalsmith, 336 00:14:40,340 --> 00:14:41,520 a guy named Tim McCrae. 337 00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:44,220 He got me involved with this magazine, 338 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:45,020 Metalsmith. 339 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:47,860 At the time, they were looking for a new designer. 340 00:14:48,620 --> 00:14:50,220 I decided to throw my hand in the ring, 341 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:52,840 ended up designing this magazine for eight years. 342 00:14:53,900 --> 00:14:54,940 This is a beautiful cover. 343 00:14:55,660 --> 00:14:56,920 This is the work of Ted Muehling, 344 00:14:57,100 --> 00:14:59,340 a very prominent New York designer of jewelry. 345 00:15:00,140 --> 00:15:01,180 This is his own photograph. 346 00:15:02,100 --> 00:15:04,540 The covers of these magazines were all integrations 347 00:15:04,540 --> 00:15:06,260 of the typography with the image. 348 00:15:06,880 --> 00:15:07,960 It was a beautiful experience. 349 00:15:09,100 --> 00:15:10,160 The inside of this magazine 350 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:14,520 was full of images of the jewelry that these designers were producing, 351 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:16,720 but it was displayed as wearable art. 352 00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:22,800 So I started working at the School of Visual Arts as an adjunct instructor, 353 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:24,280 initially with just two courses. 354 00:15:24,920 --> 00:15:28,020 One, the Principles of Visual Language course that I still teach, 355 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:31,140 and a basic typography course that I still teach. 356 00:15:31,640 --> 00:15:34,420 Since then, I've diversified into many, many different courses 357 00:15:35,060 --> 00:15:35,860 over these 20 years. 358 00:15:37,740 --> 00:15:39,420 After teaching for 10 years, 359 00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:42,680 I got the great opportunity to create a book 360 00:15:43,500 --> 00:15:44,560 for Rockport publishers 361 00:15:45,180 --> 00:15:45,780 called Playing with Color, 362 00:15:45,780 --> 00:15:49,840 all about my teaching experiences working specifically with color. 363 00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:51,540 Why they chose me, 364 00:15:51,700 --> 00:15:52,480 I still don't know, 365 00:15:52,900 --> 00:15:53,460 but I was lucky. 366 00:15:54,440 --> 00:15:56,740 It also coincided with a sabbatical, 367 00:15:57,040 --> 00:15:59,520 so I was away from teaching for almost a year, 368 00:16:00,180 --> 00:16:02,800 and just gave me an opportunity to think about color, 369 00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:04,460 think about design, 370 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:07,020 and to put together a book about my experiences. 371 00:16:08,060 --> 00:16:08,680 This is the cover. 372 00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:13,100 And here we see these images that are punched out of color. 373 00:16:13,320 --> 00:16:14,600 We see the primary colors being used. 374 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:17,680 They're very fundamental, very foundational. 375 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:22,580 The title, Playing with Color, really summarizes the content of the book, 376 00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:27,500 really based on that idea that playing equals experimentation. 377 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:32,200 And there's a quote here. 378 00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,140 At the time, I thought it was Albert Einstein's quote, 379 00:16:35,260 --> 00:16:37,080 but since then, I've realized it's not him. 380 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:38,000 But it's paraphrased. 381 00:16:38,780 --> 00:16:40,320 Play is the highest form of research. 382 00:16:41,740 --> 00:16:42,580 Think about that. 383 00:16:42,580 --> 00:16:44,880 It really is, right? If you're playing, 384 00:16:45,260 --> 00:16:46,080 you're really researching. 385 00:16:46,420 --> 00:16:47,400 You're figuring out things. 386 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:48,400 You're trying things out. 387 00:16:48,980 --> 00:16:50,720 You don't know what the outcome's going to be, 388 00:16:50,860 --> 00:16:53,020 but you basically know sort of what you're doing. 389 00:16:53,860 --> 00:16:55,320 You're very much like doing art, 390 00:16:55,800 --> 00:16:55,980 right? 391 00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:57,100 When you're art, 392 00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:58,300 when you're making art, 393 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:01,560 you're making design, you're experimenting, you're playing with form and color. 394 00:17:03,280 --> 00:17:07,160 It's a great image of what the classroom looked like 395 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:08,780 at that time with work on the wall, 396 00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:11,120 lots and lots of work being simultaneously critiqued 397 00:17:11,120 --> 00:17:12,480 by students, teachers, and students, and students being simultaneously critiqued, 398 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:17,220 teaching the Witten and Elbers, 399 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:20,140 and the experiments. 400 00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:23,380 And the whole book is based on that, 401 00:17:23,820 --> 00:17:26,140 just many, many, many different kinds of experiments 402 00:17:26,780 --> 00:17:27,920 having to do with typography, 403 00:17:29,420 --> 00:17:30,120 collage, 404 00:17:30,900 --> 00:17:31,480 lettering, 405 00:17:33,660 --> 00:17:36,160 working with leaf collages like Elbers, 406 00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:40,740 patterns, 407 00:17:41,100 --> 00:17:45,180 patterns, and patterns. Stripe compositions, 408 00:17:46,840 --> 00:17:48,280 tangrams, 409 00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:50,520 color illusion, 410 00:17:56,340 --> 00:17:57,580 making three colors look like two. 411 00:17:58,660 --> 00:18:01,660 All ideas that have been so much a part of my life since then, 412 00:18:03,060 --> 00:18:05,700 one thing I'll say for sure is that writing this book 413 00:18:05,980 --> 00:18:08,260 taught me so much about color that I didn't already know. 414 00:18:08,740 --> 00:18:09,640 And since writing this, 415 00:18:09,760 --> 00:18:10,920 which was now 10 years ago, 416 00:18:11,360 --> 00:18:11,680 almost, 417 00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:16,040 I feel like I've become a much better teacher and a much better colorist. 418 00:18:16,500 --> 00:18:18,240 Since writing this book, Playing with Color, 419 00:18:18,840 --> 00:18:19,900 I continue to teach. 420 00:18:20,520 --> 00:18:23,380 I've had one more sabbatical in which I studied guitar design. 421 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:25,980 I've also done a lot of work for myself, 422 00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:30,040 personal work, including a set of projects called Color Chords, 423 00:18:30,460 --> 00:18:32,840 where I combine my love of color with my love of music. 424 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,980 In this lesson, I talked a little bit about me, 425 00:18:36,400 --> 00:18:38,560 where I've been, what I've done, how I've gotten here. 426 00:18:39,040 --> 00:18:39,920 In the next lesson, 427 00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:41,480 I'll talk about my main influences. 428 00:18:42,340 --> 00:18:45,640 In the next lesson, I'll talk about my main influences.