Design

This is a longer version of the interviews with visual arts fellows Dan Byers and Andria Hickey, and design fellows Mylinh Trieu Nguyen and Noa Segal,
from a story in the July/August issue of Walker magazine.

For nearly three decades, the Walker has been recruiting recent graduates and junior professionals to work as fellows in its design and visual arts departments. As full-time, full-fledged staff, fellows experience the entire scope of graphic design and curatorial work in a museum, while bringing with them fresh energy and new ideas. A number of Walker fellows have also gone on to prominent positions at museums and design firms around the world. As their time here draws to a close, the 2008-2009 group talks about what brought them here, what they’ve experienced, and what’s in store as they move on.

= Noa Segal =

Before coming to the Walker… Graphic design seemed to me to be a practice that allows an intellectual engagement with content and form, and yet exists on a very visual and practical level. My educational path went through music and photography, but I felt that my interest in images and text was not coming to its full expression. The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where I completed my studies, was a great school that encouraged students to develop an ability to analyze the given or self-initiated content, and from that to bring into their design a full range of interests and sources of inspiration.

Coming here was . . . Almost like starting all over, thinking about and practicing design in ways that I hadn’t before. Working in this kind of a multidisciplinary place really had an affect on me—collaborating with people working in other disciplines made me reconsider and redefine, repeatedly, my profession and my position within it. I realized that it is fascinating looking back on the phases of the different projects i worked on (i.e proofs) at the walker and be able to see the change and the development of my ability to work with images and text, react to the people i collaborate with and design towards shaping each piece to the point where it delivered their content successfully and reflected my ideas about it.
(fig.1 – 7, different stages of work; fig.8.-9, the final piece: working on film flayer for Queer Takes: weekend of screening at the Walker June 23-26)

(1)  (2)  (3)

(4)  (5)   (6)

(7)   (8)  (9)

Some of my favorite moments were . . . Feeling stuck, tired, uninspired—but being able to leave my desk and go inside the galleries, down to our amazing library, or to the cinema or the theater. Realizing that all of this amazing art is as close to me as my bed is to my shower—and it’s available to me every second of the day! Also, participating in discussions with the design staff that are deeply engaged, hearing how and what this studio would like to do in the future—great inspiring and educational moments that for sure I will try to carry on in my practice.

A belief i’ve developed . . . Is that design means always challenging yourself and trying new things, and that you can’t design without keeping a close relationship to the world surrounding us—culture, politics, nature, and so on.

= Mylinh Trieu Nguyen =

Design first sparked my interest when … I was studying in my dorm at UCLA and heard a student next door animating a cartoon airplane to the words of a John Denver song. It wasn’t what she was making, but more the idea of realizing it that captivated me. She was taking this vague idea in her head and making it into a tangible thing in the world. I wanted that ability.

I wanted to become a walker fellow because … I was questioning the importance of what I was producing. I expanded my practice into the contemporary art world, collaborating with friend and artist David Horvitz as ASDF. This in turn made me more encouraged about my role as a graphic designer, and led me to apply for the fellowship.

My high points and low points here involved … Being assigned my first big project. This daunting feeling overwhelmed me; it was nothing less than that. But through all of the trial and error, working with Andrew Blauvelt and spending countless evenings in the studio (crying), the Walker’s annual report is one of the most gratifying pieces I’ve made. Moving to Minneapolis itself was a test of emotional endurance. The change in geography and social dynamics made it hard at first, and often lonely. But you really develop strong relationships with the other fellows and the people you work with.

Moving on from the walker, i will be … attending Yale’s MFA program in graphic design, developing and expanding my current interests, garnering new ones, and, I hope, cultivating a clear and cohesive methodology. I also want to continue producing work under ASDF, travel, and experience life outside the realm of “work.”

http://www.mylinhtrieu.com/index.php?/ongoing/minnesota-nice

Vance Wellenstein
What would you like to talk about?

Ryan Waller
Slogan t-shirts? Police? In Providence there is a restaurant that has a menu item called “Andre the Giant has an omelette”. The ‘net?

VW
This is the Ryan Waller Show, anything goes. What about that World Trade Center logo?

RW
That ain’t me. Also, in advance, I’ve never watched porn at studio BUT I did catch someone watching it last night. Our lips are sealed.

VW
YIKES.

I remember seeing New College Beat show up at the Walker studio while I was there … what were your motivations behind that project?

RW
It was mostly to pay for school. I had been making smaller ‘zines called The New College Beat Supplements with no real intention to make a non-supplement until I got into Yale. It was a tough decision to say yes, because I was pretty in debt from my undergrad, but the same day I accepted was the day I contacted all my friends to help me with it. They all said yes (except for one NOT SAYING WHO = KEEP IT COOL). So that was the reason it was going to take shape. But it took shape from different places. The Hebrew from Yale heraldry was a place. Speed was another.

VW
And did it pay off? Or, do we need to plug where it can be purchased from?

RW
Well, no, I have some left. The idea was to sell 1,000 of the packs which had a poster and a t-shirt (and assorted vibes) sandwiched in. But I have more Beats than the packs, so there are still opportunities. These are all at the New College Beat site.

VW
And now the Walker Art Center bookshop.

RW
WAH!

VW
How often is the New College Beat published? When’s the next issue due out?

RW
It is pretty irregularly regular. The supplements were coming out at a biannual rate, and then the Beat was made just the once. I have some things I might make with it, but nothing set in motion. I might want to make the New College Beat into a house of publishing, and less about a magazine at some point. Or it may take off. The New College Beat might become a really successful magazine, both intellectually and financially.

VW
Ok, so then in thinking about your time here at Yale as BOOKENDS, what’s on the other side of the shelf?

RW
What a clever title.

VW
Totally stole it.

RW
What part of the shelf? Outside of the bookends?

VW
How about this: if NCB sits somewhere at the beginning of your time here, what would be something that sits closer to you exiting?

And you can’t say thesis.

RW
There are quite a few things whose spines will be the only thing to see the fluorescent light of day — those are book proposals and zines and papers that sit squarely in the center, all made in low quantities as examples and experiments. Hot Gun, a journal I made with Josh Stanley, would be the closest thing to getting picked off. That just came to studio, and it’s the first thing made in quantity to be out there, which we are beginning to figure out where there is. Hot Gun is a poetry journal, mostly criticism, of a contemporary sort. It’s definitely not for the meek.

VW
Can you talk about William Wordsworth and the Hot Gun model?

RW (EDITED ANSWER BY EDITOR/ANSWERER JOSH STANLEY)
Both are the mediations of patriarchy ON whatever is good, and the layering and entwining dialectic creates a simultaneous fix of incomplete realism and momentary certainty in the devastation of patriarchy through antirealism. On the one hand we see-through for a moment, on the other hand mediation is clogged up and analyzed by new mediation, before it restores its hegemony. Obviously what is crucial is that in our capitalist society no good image is possible. This is of course not to claim that ‘the good image’ exists in every other society, or indeed in any society RIGHT NOW. No clothes and shit, so devastation too.

VW
Anything else?

RW
Nope.

As far as I can tell, Scott Thomas was here at the Walker as recently as last November when we screened the film Typeface, featuring his group The Post Family (verified, I think, by this interview with local letterpress firm Studio on Fire, who also presented their work at the same screening). Though come to think of it, that screening took place only a couple of days after Barack Obama’s election win, so maybe he was still hard at work in Chicago. Regardless, Scott will be speaking at the Walker on Tuesday night about his role as the Design Director of the historic Barack Obama campaign and its groundbreaking branding effort. Joining him will be Sol Sender, the man who spearheaded the development of the Obama logo, possibly the most hope-drenched and emotion-laden piece of vector art to ever enter the public consciousness. The blog posts (and conspiracy theories) about this identity are e n d l e s s, but there’s nothing like hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth. Moderating the discussion will be Paul Schmelzer, editor of the Minnesota Independent news site and author of the blog Eyeteeth. You’ll also be able to check out a special exhibition of posters from Threadless Loves Democracy, a challenge to design the most unique and conceptual call to vote.

Designing Obama
Tuesday, May 12, 2009   7:00 pm
Walker Cinema

It was announced this week that the Walker is the recipient of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Corporate Achievement for 2009. The award is given to institutions that “use design as a strategic tool of its mission and exhibits ingenuity and insight in helping to advance the relationship between design and quality of life in the United States.” Some previous winners were Apple, Google, Target, Aveda, and Nike.

The award recognizes the history of design at the Walker, which dates back to the 1940s, when “design” was referred to as “everyday art,” a concept used to bridge the gap between people’s daily lives and the heady world of modern art. Since then, the Walker has hosted numerous exhibitions displaying the best of product design, graphic design, interior design, and architecture; published the influential magazine Design Quarterly; commissioned world famous designers to create everything from our building expansion to our custom typeface; maintained an in-house design studio and fellowship program; and integrated design into the fabric of the institution.

Now here’s Andrew to tell you all about it:

Speaking of Andrew, Mr. Blauvelt is featured prominently in Gary Hustwit’s new movie Objectified, which played to sold out crowds last night here at the Walker (it was great—definitely a sister film to Helvetica). If Hustwit plans on making a third movie about design, I’m hoping that he chooses to expand upon Andrew’s story about the Bionic Hamster.

Lux et Veritas: 2009 Yale University Graphic Design MFA Thesis Show: May 9–15
Closing reception: Friday, May 15 from 7–10 pm.

“This unconventional show does not present the students’ graphic works as design objects but instead shows them as a single illuminated collage which constantly rearranges itself. Print, motion, interactive, and site-specific design will be shown through video projection. When the gallery’s lights are off, the videos provide a shared, immersive experience of designed pieces. When the lights come on, the show disappears. By flattening their pieces into a seamless surface and wrapping the entire gallery with it, the designers build a world from their work.”

For additional information visit here or call 203 432 2622.

WALKER ART CENTER // DESIGN FELLOWSHIP 2009–2010 // design.walkerart.org/fellowship // Deadline: June 8, 2009

(left to right, top to bottom) iMac G4; The James Diamond Collection of Home Movies WAC 9.5 16mm BW; Eric Luken 13 JonBenéts; Nov 10 1991 1/8”=1”– 0”; Cho—Fro; Canon AP200; Hanging Out; Elizabeth Peyton Michelle and Sasha Obama Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention August 2008 2008; Galleries 4, 5, 6; Pantone Cool Gray 10C; John Baldessari I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art; telluridefilmfestival.org; Hella Jongerius Polder Sofa 2005; x 7601; La Ex; TELEVISION ASSASSINATION Bruce Conner Estar Base Print: NEG.1; Silky Furry Fleece Pillows; Norman Vincent Peale Enthusiasm Makes the Difference; Press Department Files Jan 84—May 86; Roasted Vegetable Panini D’Amico’s.

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Click here to see a selection of work from the studio
For information on how to apply: 2009/2010 Walker Art Center Design Fellowship

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There is also an opening for the Senior Graphic Designer position.
For information on how to apply: http://info.walkerart.org/jobs/detail.wac?id=5006

Tuesday, March 31, 7 pm
Ellen Lupton, Baltimore

1. What music were you into before you became ELLEN LUPTON?

(1)  (2)  (3)

Aretha Franklin (1),  Donna Summer (2), and Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra (3)

2. Who were your heroes before you became ELLEN LUPTON?

Edward Hopper, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver.

3. What were your obsessions before becoming ELLEN LUPTON?

Vintage clothes, “gourmet” cooking, and worrying about my weight.

4. What were your dreams before you became ELLEN LUPTON?

To be an artist

5. What were you reading before you became ELLEN LUPTON?

(1)

(2)

(3)

Kurt Vonnegut (1),  Erica Jong (2), and and VIVA magazine (3)

6. What did you use to collect before you became ELLEN LUPTON?

Books, toy frogs, and old rayon dresses.

7. Who were you before ELLEN LUPTON?

Urban post-bohemian teenager.

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Ellen Lupton’s prolific career spans the realms of design practice, education, criticism, and curating, and is specifically aimed at bringing design awareness to a broader audience. She is director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, where she also serves as director of the Center for Design Thinking. As curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum since 1992, Lupton has organized numerous exhibitions, including the National Design Triennial (2000, 2003, 2006), Mechanical Brides: Women and Machines from Home to Office (1993), Mixing Messages: Graphic Design and Contemporary Culture (1996), Letters from the Avant-Garde (1996), Graphic Design in the Mechanical Age (1999), and Skin: Surface, Substance + Design (2002). In addition to the robust catalogues that accompany these shows, she has written and co-authored the best-selling books Thinking with Type (2004), D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself (2006), D.I.Y. Kids (2007), and most recently Graphic Design: The New Basics (2008). With J. Abbott Miller, Lupton’s essays on design and culture were published in Design Writing Research (1996). Her writing has been featured in magazines such as Print, Eye, I.D., and Metropolis. She has a regular column, “The El Word,” in Readymade magazine and her editorial illustrations have been published in the New York Times. Lupton is a 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, the profession’s highest honor.

www.elupton.com

Tuesday, March 24, 7 pm
Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam
Marieke Stolk and Danny van den Dungen

1. What music were you into before you became EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?

( 1) ( 2) ( 3)

( 4) ( 5) ( 6)

(7) ( 8) ( 9)

The Cramps(1) , Suicidal Tendencies(2),  The Zombies (3) , The Beatles (4),  The Specials(5),  Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (6), Prince (7),  Japan(8) , The Pixies (9).

2. Who were your heroes before you became EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?

(1) (2  ) (3) (4) (5)

Pushead (1), Savage Pencil (2),  Debbie Harry (3), Marlene Dietrich (4), Charlie Chaplin (5),  My friends .

3. What were your obsessions before becoming EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?
Drawing, reading, skateboarding, punk music; Horror; Drawing, reading, making mix-tapes.

4. What were your dreams before you became EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?
To become a comic artist; To open a bar; To become a tap-dancing architect.

5. What were you reading before you became EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?

(1) (2) (3)

(4) (5) (6)

Science fiction (mostly short stories by writers such as Ray Bradbury) (1),  Edgar Allen Poe (2) , Willem Elsschot (especially ‘Lijmen / Het Been’) (3),
Hanif Kureishi (4), Paul Auster (5), Harry Crews (6).

6. What did you use to collect before you became EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?
Comics, fanzines; Posters; Records.

7. Who were you before EXPERIMENTAL JETSET?

In no specific order:
Danny van den Dungen, Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers.

(1)

Danny van den Dungen, Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers with Wim Crowel

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Based in Amsterdam and founded in 1997 by Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers, and Danny van den Dungen, Experimental Jetset has been consistently reinterpreting the implications of modernism, often from the perspective of a youth-based counterculture. The studio is perhaps best known to U.S. audiences from their appearance in the documentary Helvetica (2007), and their dogmatic use of that typeface has become a defining aspect of their work and has influenced new generations of graphic designers. Experimental Jetset’s iconic print work explores ways in which we are both shaped by and help shape our material environment. Projects for cultural clients include collaborations with the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum, Purple Institute, Centre Pompidou, Colette, Dutch Post Group, Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Le Cent Quatre, De Theatercompagnie, and 2K/Gingham, which released their iconic John&Paul&Ringo&George T-shirt design. The studio’s work has been exhibited in galleries across the world, and in 2007 New York’s Museum of Modern Art acquired a large selection of their projects for inclusion in its permanent collection. Since 2000, members of Experimental Jetset have been teaching at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

www.experimentaljetset.nl

Tuesday, March 17, 7 pm
David Reinfurt, New York
O-R-G & Dexter Sinister

While at Printed Matter’s New York Art Book Fair last fall, I was fortunate enough to catch David Reinfurt at the Dexter Sinister booth for a brief chat about the conception of DS and about a project they produced for a conference on contemporary artists’ books commissioned by the Art Libraries Society of New York.

(Photo by Jessica Williams)

On Dexter Sinister:

“It originally started out as a project for the Manifesta Six Biennial, which was supposed to be staged in Nicosia on the island of Cyprus. They took the money that would originally pay for a biennial and restaged it as a six month long art school. For that they asked Stuart Bailey and I to come up with a proposal for the graphic design of the book. We decided to do something a lot like the way they organized the exhibition itself, which was to take the money and resources of what would usually go into printing and distributing a catalogue and set up something that had a more direct relationship to what actually was needed at the time. If it’s a six month art school you don’t need to make a 296 page catalog and send it all over the world. Things were needed in much smaller numbers so we proposed to set up a printing workshop in the city of Nicosia and make all of the materials there in this kind of vitrine where we’d be working with borrowed printers or people from the school who are artists to make the publications just in the numbers that are needed. It was just our direct response to what was actually needed rather than printing 1,000 because that’s what an off-set printer could do.

We worked on that project for a year and a half in a store-front downtown in the old city. Everything was set up, but the project was canceled. Around the same time, we had found a space on the lower east side that we decided would be a good place to have a bookstore to sell some of the things we made. It was like a joke “Wouldn’t it be nice to have some presence for this project in New York…” but then when it was canceled, we just took a lot of the ideas and brought them to New York and just re-staged them in our space there. It sounds like everything was premeditated, but it wasn’t at all. It was just one kind of thing to the next. As soon as we had the underground storefront in New York, it didn’t make sense to do any printing there because it was so tiny. But a bookstore made sense, so we started running the space as a bookstore one day a week and the rest of the time as a studio.”

EVERY DAY THE URGE GROWS STRONGER TO GET A HOLD OF AN OBJECT AT VERY CLOSE RANGE BY WAY OF ITS LIKENESS, ITS REPRODUCTION:

“This project was done for the Arts Libraries conference at the MOMA which we spoke at also. They asked us to make a book for the conference which was on contemporary artists’ books. So we decided to make this, which is a collection of Portable Document Formats (PDFs) that are on our online library. We fit each of the PDFs onto 8-page signatures and produced them on a stencil printing machine.

Each of the Arts Librarians takes one of these sets, binds them, and puts it into their libraries. When we set up the online library we had this model in mind; that it would distribute and just push things out into the world and not necessarily circulate, lend or do something else. This was a nice project to do because it hits a few things we’re interested in, like the tension between the free thing online and the thing you hold in your hand, sealing it up and putting it into a library versus the ‘always, everywhere’ quality of a PDF.”

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A vanguard among a recent wave of young designers whose practices blur the lines between the worlds of client-driven projects and critical investigation, David Reinfurt melds highly conceptual ideas with technological experimentation. After receiving his MFA in Graphic Design from Yale University in 1999 and working as an interaction designer at IDEO in San Francisco, he founded the studio O-R-G in New York, where his clients included the New York Times, AIGA NY, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Brill’s Content, and Dean Sakamoto Architects, among others. In 2006, with graphic designer Stuart Bailey, Reinfurt established Dexter Sinister, a small workshop/bookstore on the Lower East Side. Counter to the assembly line realities of today’s large-scale publishing, the studio’s process involves working on-demand, using inexpensive local machinery, considering alternate distribution strategies, and collapsing distinctions of editing, design, production, and distribution into one efficient activity. Dexter Sinister was featured at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève in Switzerland and the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Reinfurt has written for magazines such as the New York Times Magazine, Dot Dot Dot, Social Text, Visual Communications (UK), Modern Painter, Metropolis M, Idea Magazine (Japan), and Nozone Empire. He previously held a yearlong research affiliate position at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT and currently teaches at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, and the Rhode Island School of Design

David Reinfurt will be speaking at the Walker Art Center on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 as part of Avant la lettre: Insights 2009 Design Lecture Series.

Lectures:
March 24 Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam
March 31 Ellen Lupton, Baltimore

Series tickets: $70 ($48 AIGA/Walker members)
Individual event tickets: $20 ($15; $10 students)

For tickets: 612.375.7600 walkerart.org/tickets

Lectures will be webcast on channel.walkerart.org

Tuesday, March 10, 7 pm
Process Type Foundry, Minneapolis
Eric Olson and Nicole Dotin

1. What music were you into before you became PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?

Eric Olson: Coalesce, MC5, Converge, Fabric, The Faces and John Adams.
Nicole Dotin: I think I’m still listening to it.

2. Who were your heroes before you became PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?
Eric: I don’t have any heroes.
Nicole: I am inspired by the exceptional actions of others, but I don’t have any heroines.

3. What were your obsessions before becoming PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?
Eric: Fear I suppose. Mostly of speaking in public and driving through intersections.
Nicole: If I was obsessed with anything, it would have been perfection … and I still haven’t learned any better.

4. What were your dreams before you became PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?

Eric: To become a type designer.
Nicole: To find what fit.

5. What were you reading before you became PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?

Eric: Robin Kinross and Jonathan Franzen come to mind.

Nicole: A lot of American history at the time of the Revolution.

6. What did you use to collect before you became PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?
Eric: I don’t collect.
Nicole: I’ve never had a collector’s mentality for objects, but I’ve always collected skills because I’ve always loved to learn.

7. What were you before PROCESS TYPE FOUNDRY?
Eric: A teacher, freelance graphic designer, office temp and construction laborer.
Nicole: A typography teacher, graphic designer, web designer and seamstress/tailor.

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Process Type Foundry has quickly become one of the most sought-after type foundries in the United States. Founded in 2002 by Eric Olson, the company is known for its unique contemporary typefaces, extensive extended character sets, and custom commissioned work. Its early font releases included the rounded sans serif Bryant, the quirky modular FIG Script, and Locator & Locator Display, a type family designed to represent the Twin Cities. Klavika, released in 2004, has become the foundry’s most popular typeface to date, appearing in everything from the Facebook logo to NBC’s on-air graphics and magazines such as Blender and Architecture MN. Process Type Foundry has worked with clients such as the New York Times Magazine, Thomson-Reuters, and Chevrolet to strengthen their identities with custom type work, and in 2005 Olson engineered the Walker Art Center’s new graphic identity. The studio’s work has been featured in the book Metro Letters and in numerous magazines, including Eye, Nylon, PRINT, étapes, HOW, STEP, Metropolis, Task Newsletter, and CAP&Design. Prior to forming Process, Olson taught at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and was a design fellow at the University of Minnesota Design Institute and a graphic designer at the Walker. A principal in the company, Nicole Dotin received her MA in Typeface Design from the University of Reading, England, and previously taught at MCAD. In 2006 she joined Olson as the foundry’s second designer.

www.processtypefoundry.com

The Walker Art Center and AIGA Minnesota present Insights, which brings graphic designers from around the country and the world to the Twin Cities.

Series tickets: $70 ($48 AIGA/Walker members)
Individual event tickets: $20 ($15; $10 students)

Lectures:
March 10 Process Type Foundry, Minneapolis
March 17 David Reinfurt, New York
March 24 Experimental Jetset, Amsterdam
March 31 Ellen Lupton, Baltimore

Tickets: 612.375.7600 walkerart.org/tickets