Soon to come: about our visit to pentagram, our meeting with Graphic Havoc and about the work experience I am doing for the MTV music awards. Plus my parents touch down in NYC which I am very excited about.

Pentagram

Steven Heller

We were lucky enough to speak with Steven Heller for our research project. Steven was an Art director for the New York Times. He is now an educator at SVA New York and writes and edits numerous books about design, illustration and everything in between. We got some great responses from him about design education, he has probably written our project in one of his many books, already.

Brighton eat your heart out

Chris Rose

A belated big THANK YOU to Chris Rose for putting up Millie and I, showing us around RISD and for his incredible contribution to our project. He gave us a whole new perspective on our research project by making us look at the bigger picture. He talked about how politics, geography, globalisation and responsible design are all interlinked and effecting design education. He questioned us on the project and made us analyse our objectives and our original intentions. A lot has changed in two weeks and our project has evolved into a very exsiting exploration and seems to be getting a great response. I am enjoying the oppertunities that emerge from the project and meeting with Chris Rose and touring RISD was one of them.

RISD library, occupies an old bank.

RISD have a fantastically curated gallery/ museum with such a vast diversity of artifacts, artworks and crafts. I could have spent the whole day there. I spent my whole time at the University with my mouth open aghast at the marvel of the place.

Millie and I visited Rhode Island where Chris Rose ( from RISD and University of Brighton) was our tour guide. We were blown away with the facilities at the university. RISD has an amazing reputation and it was easy to see why. The Nature Lab was a museum of stuffed animals, live animals, skulls and a whole host of other natural forms. Students are able to come into the nature lab and create work from this wonderful primary resource.

We met and interviewed the American Illustrator Marshall Arisman. He was a font of knowledge and we could quote everything that he said. We left laden with books, admiration and advise on how to navigate our own design education: Communicate what you know because our knowledge is individual. Quotes from our interview with Marshall Arisman will shortly follow on: www.transatlantic-design.blogpot.com.

Michael Jackson Tribute

Tuesday the 6th of July
As part of my internship for Andrea, I worked on a talking heads show for the Michael Jackson memorial for BET networks. It was a chatshow/ news programme based on all things Michael Jackson all live and shown with the full footage of the memorial service in LA. I was mainly a spectator of the event but it was a great event to be a part of and I met lots of great people from the camera man to the special guests. It was a good behind the scenes insight into television productions.

Monday 6th
We have started interviewing for our research project that looks at: 'The Transatlantic Divide in Design Education.' ( See www.transatlanticdesign.com for details) Our first visit was to see Ian Wright and Ritta Ikonen. They were wonderfully friendly people and gave us a great insight into their opinions/ experiences of design education. All details will shortly be posted on our blog: www.transatlantic-design.blogspot.com

You know when you're in New York when...

I collaborated with Millie a graphic designer to create a book that focused on detail in the way that Science does. The intention was to discover something about design in the same way that a scientific experiment would. Our inspiration was Darwin. This project is just the start of a way of working and thinking. We set the project up like an experiment with a hypothesis, equipment list, collecting of evidence, etc. we then bound and branded the book with a gold foiled logo symbolizing Millie, Chloe and Darwin. Perhaps this is a pretentious embelishment?

A letterpress poster about Sacrifice

A piece of creative writing based on the word 'Sacrifice', completely set and printed in letterpress. The concept is that the type written in Modern is sacrificed for the biblical Blackletter typeface as the letters run out. This reflects the idea that we only sacrifice something with the premise of gaining something better. The missing words and the rest of the text is in 8pt small print bellow. I have always liked the idea of making a viewer look closer and work at a concept. By introducing them to a text in a clearly legible size I am enticing them to make that extra effort to read on with the small print.