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.

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.

Dwadle & Gape, Yale’s 2008 Graphic Design MFA thesis book show opens at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing on October 24th. Future dates, both in Europe and the US, are scheduled to be announced later this year.

Taken from the exhibition’s gallery guide (pictured above):

“Books are important for many reasons. In a time of instant communication and instant gratification, books exhort us to slow down and consider things more carefully. Where everything that can be digitized will be digitized, books remind us of our physical, tactile relationship to the world. This is not to denounce the march of progress but rather, to realize that, as the book designer Irma Boom said, “books became much more interesting because of the internet.” New technologies do not replace old ones, they simply co-exist and refocus them.

This exhibition was collectively conceived by the Yale graduate graphic design class of 2008. At the end of our studies each of us produced a thesis book (a catalogue raisonné) which documents a cohesive body of work made over the course of two years, including a designer’s statement. These thesis books represent the cumulative sum of a methodology unique to the MFA graphic design program at Yale.

Josef Albers  established the graphic design department at Yale in 1950, the first degree program of its kind in the United States, and thesis books have been made and archived in the Sterling Memorial Library since 1967. The graphic design thesis at Yale is unique in that, where most programs focus on the elaboration of a single thesis project, at Yale the thesis is conceived of as a loose framework within which an individual develops a unique ‘visual method’, deployed across a large number of diverse projects over two years.

Thesis books are produced in small editions and vary greatly in their form, content, structure, size, and means of production, each calibrated to reflect its particular themes. While some explicate the work comprehensively, others use the work as source material to generate something entirely new. Some books emphasize craft and employ elaborate bookbinding techniques while others emphasize economy and standardization. The end result is a series of unique publications that sit somewhere between an artist’s book and a designer’s monograph.

The seemingly irreverent exhibition title Dawdle & Gape takes its inspiration from advice Sheila de Bretteville gave to our class –- in turn quoting Henry James –- when we began our MFA degrees in 2006. We were encouraged not only to work hard and harness our creative energies, but also to allow time to ‘dawdle and gape’ at anything and everything that sparked our interest in our newfound and incredibly rich surroundings. With this exhibition we hope to share some of the results of those efforts.”

Installation views of Dawdle & Gape at Zero-one Design Center, Kookmin University, Seoul, South Korea.

I recently stumbled upon this amazing Flick’r set of archival photography from the Library of Congress and felt compelled to share … it’s a nice change from the knee-deep waters of riff-raff I typically find myself wading through. Outside of the aesthetic beauty, images are also meticulously captioned and the collection frequently updated. You can read more about the motivations behind the project here.

What is Z/X? What is its history and mission?

Z/X is a visual arts publication established in 2004 at Manukau School of Visual Arts, a South Auckland art school in New Zealand, with the aim to serve as a vehicle for a wider engagement with art practice and writing. MSVA came into existence in the early 90s, and for a time held a collection of photocopied articles and critical texts used for teaching purposes. The ‘covert’ nature of this repository led to it being called the ‘ZX files’ (the art school was located in Z block of the institution). The adoption of Z/X as a title for the journal established a subtle relationship to the school, but also to one of the editors favorites, Roland Barthes’ S/Z.

What is your role in Z/X? How were you introduced to the project, and what are your motivations behind working on it?

The editors, Paul Cullen and Grant Thompson, invited me to design issues three and four of the publication. Having established a format and philosophy for the first two issues, they wanted to strengthen the distribution and identity of the journal by placing emphasis on its design. My brief was to develop an identity independent of the art school, one where design was exemplary alongside the content and where the design for each issue would change in response to content or themes. Obviously a big motivation for my wanting to work on the project was that I was given a lot of creative autonomy.

How does Z/X shift in content from issue to issue? And, how do you address this shift?

The editors determine the theme for each issue, and there is an open call for contributions. Issues so far have included: ‘Local’, ‘Under Construction’, ‘Landscape’, and ‘Situations’. The theme provided a broad framework for my approach, but the design is ultimately driven by content and of course budgetary constraints (a very small budget!). The two issues I designed vary considerably in terms of content; #3 contains a preponderance of footnoted essays and photographs, and #4 is a lot more eclectic with a wide variety of artist contributions (both image and textual), academic essays with and without footnotes, photographs and drawings, as well as a DVD of sound works. Issue #3 ‘Landscape’ (illustrated below) is simple in terms of design, the majority of the book is black and white on uncoated stock (essays and illustrations), and is interspersed by two colour image sections on coated stock. A gatefold cover allows a panoramic landscape image to wrap from the inside front cover to the inside back cover. I actually designed this issue while working at the Walker Art Center, so basically it all happened in the very early hours of the morning due my heavy workload at WAC!

Issue #4 (illustrated below) is 96 pages (Z/X #3 was 64) and was designed in New Zealand, which was a lot easier than working with a local New Zealand printer while I was living in Minneapolis. In response to the theme ’situations’, my initial idea was that the signatures would be rotated during the binding process, resulting in a variety of versions of the publication. I initially liked the idea that individual contributions could potentially be displaced or split, so for example, the end of an essay might appear first, and the rest later on in the book, the contents page last, or the cover in the middle (to name the most obvious). This turned out to be too difficult to achieve, I couldn’t find a printer who would do it for a reasonable price, and because the content was so diverse it resulted in too much confusion. Instead, I used a gradient which worked in a similar way. Created on press using a split fountain technique, the green to blue gradient spread across the entire press sheet — when folded into the signature form there is a subtle movement of colour from page to page. One of the artist contributions works in a similar way with a series of drawings developed to fit the press sheet size — once folded to form the publication, the drawings become fragmented and split across a number of pages. In the end however, the gradient and shift in colour works more to create an atmosphere rather than a direct relationship with the theme ’situations’. The typeface Bryant used throughout the book works in similar way. Designed by Eric Olsen of Process Type Foundry, Bryant is modeled around the Wrico lettering kits used by draftsmen and amateur sign makers in the 1960s and 1970s. I chose the type more for its temporal relationship with situationism and conceptual art, where much of the work discussed in the issue has its origins. I also liked the connection with mapmaking or signage, the relationship or connection with the theme is therefore very loose.

The logotype you developed for issues #3 and #4 is quite striking … what typeface did you use, who made it, and what are its origins?

The typeface is Ta Tiki regular, designed in 1999 by the New Zealand type designer Joseph Churchward. David Bennewith, formerly a peer at the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, was working on a research project into Churchward type at the time I began working on issue #3. Ta Tiki developed out of Churchward’s Maori alphabets, and is inspired by hei tiki motifs.

Initially I had planed to use the typeface Churchward Maori, which draws on the koru motif commonly used in traditional Maori art forms. This association with place was appropriate to the landscape theme of issue #3, however owing to the typeface not being digitized and available for purchase, I used Ta Tiki instead. Ta Tiki similarly has a connection to the landscape since hei tiki are traditionally carved from New Zealand pounamu (jade). Ultimately, due to the distinctive and unusual nature of the typeface, I restricted its use to a logotype on the front cover. I tried to integrate Ta Tiki into the book, but found it extremely difficult to use and make legible (made more difficult by the fact it is only available as uppercase). In an attempt to strengthen the sense of identity and continuity between issues #3 and #4, I decided to use the logotype again in #4 on the back cover. I don’t think I would do this for a subsequent issue however, the nature of Z/X is that its form and identity should be fluid and open for discussion, so potentially the format could be completely different from issue to issue.

Where can issues of Z/X be found or purchased from?

Z/X is currently published by the Art School Press, which has limited distribution, so unfortunately it is only available for purchase from selected bookstores in New Zealand (copies can be ordered from Parsons Bookshop). It will be available during the Melbourne Art Fair as part of the South Project Reading Room, 30 July — 3 August, which will show a selection of independent art journals and artist-made publications from around the Southern Hemisphere.

And as for Z/X #5?

Recently the administrative structure at MSVA changed, so whether Z/X continues or not is currently an open question.

Fig. 1: Insights 2008, designed by Ryan Nelson and Vance Wellenstein; Fig. 2: Insights 2007, designed by Jayme Yen; Fig. 3: Insights 2006, designed by Scott Ponik Fig. 4: Insights 2005, designed by Chad Kloepfer; Fig. 5: Insights 2005, designed by Emmet Byrne and Silas Munro; Fig. 6: Insights 2003, designed by Kyle Blue, photography by Chad Kloepfer; Fig. 7: Summer Design Series 2004, designed by Alex DeArmond Fig. 8: Summer Design Series 2002, designed by Linda Byrne and Alex DeArmond

WE ARE: HARDLAND/HEARTLAND

This is a loose facade, a fictional reality. The guise of our creative freedom — a p***a********** vision from the Midwest. The work created is biographical fantasy. We look through this lens, and it makes sense. To us. We’re Live! Broadcasting to you the end of the beginning in Hi-Quad-Defined-Large-Antiquated-Definiton. It should already be just inside your brain. Don’t you see? These are short bursts of information. British Television Advertisements — You love them.

Tired & True. Blech.

WE CAME FROM:

The map between the mountains — mostly coastless. Graveled roads and gangster rap cassette tapes in suede skate shoes. Trials, tribulations and trouble. They made numerous movies about where we came from. Pre-Internettal Youth. Mickey Mouse was huge.

WE DO:

We make things. Total creationists. This all started with drawings, lines were made to be finished by another. We have called it facilitated collaboration from time to time, but we try to not be boring. We try to have fun. Your resulting experience should be most pleasurable and at times quite confusing: We have tried our best to embellish and imbue these narrative explosions with meaning. Sometimes we do not.

WE WANT:

The (B)est (T)imes (O)f (O)ur (L)ives (E)ver. SRSLY. The Organ House forever ending.

There is a “we” — did you know this?

We are trying to take you there.

Self-interview commissioned by the Walker Art Center Design Blog.

The event is in conjunction with an artist lecture by Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson at the Walker on Thursday May 1st, and with their exhibition Conclusions on Boundaries at the ART OF THIS GALLERY opening May 3rd. This nostalgic, yet contemporary film celebrates a cultural movement rooted in a DIY aesthetic that documents a bi-coastal group of like-minded artists who found common ground in New York City during the early 1990’s. Featuring interviews with Ed Templeton, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Stephen Powers and the always inspiring Harmony Korine among many others, I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of amazing footage from the late Margaret Kilgallen.

Also, there is a Q&A with director Aaron Rose following the first screening.

Further details and ticket information can be found on the Walker Calendar.

Since 1980, the Walker Art Center Design department has maintained a graphic design fellowship program that provides recent graduates (both undergrad and grad) the opportunity to work in a professional design studio environment. Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, fellows represent a diverse range of graphic design programs, such as Art Center College of Design, California College of Art, California Institute of the Arts, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Eastern Michigan University, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, NC State University, Rhode Island School of Design, Royal College of Art, Werkplaats Typografie, and Yale University, among many others.

Fellows are employed full-time for one year and are assigned a wide range of graphic design projects from developing graphic identities for specific programs and exhibitions, including the design of all related collateral materials, to assisting the design director and other designers with long-term projects such as exhibition catalogues and promotional campaigns. Fellows are involved in all aspects of the design process, including client meetings and presentations through production and supervision of printing (a small sampling of projects executed by Walker Design Fellows between the years 1999 and 2008 are pictured above).

How to apply

Please submit a letter of interest, a résumé with the names and contact information of three references, a portfolio containing 8–10 examples of graphic design work, and a self-addressed, stamped envelope for the return of your portfolio (if desired) to:

Design Department

Walker Art Center

1750 Hennepin Avenue

Minneapolis, MN 55403

2008/2009 Fellowship deadline: June 9, 2008

All candidates will be notified of their application status by July 31. No phone calls please.

For more information please visit the Design Fellowship page on the Walker Art Center Design website here.