Its been a sad state of affairs
the government run by aged tycoons
from an era before the internet
Republican’s play a game of dominos with healthcare
and pin the economy on Obama
like a crack head caught by the cops
does his best friend over
Bush and Cheney muckle and yuckle like the Three Stooges,
building a house with overall’s and bibs

the citizens of the US just fight against each other
they buy into the system
like a shopper does Christmas
they fight about healthcare, taxes, debt, insurance,
welfare and a sense of entitlement

welfare is not an adjective
look it up in the dictionary

…and these politics make enemies
it stamps our souls, marks our beast
sets a date for our destruction

… we no longer care, to busy stuffing our faces with Stouffers, Butterball, McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Jenny Craig, Hot Pockets, Frido Lays, Pepsi, Coke, Nike, Reebok, Chevy, Toyota, Ford, the battle lingers on. Television turned on neutral channel, it calms us. Like a calf waiting for slaughter.

… and we buy our art at Kmart, Walmart and Target, pre framed, no longer caring about the human hand that makes things.

2012 may be more of the same,
my resolutions is for more humanity.

Copyright 
Mitchell Eismont 2011 

As usual I found myself at the graphic design and illustration area. I thought it might be a nice time too do some research for a Portfolio class that I was teaching. I found several books that went over self promotions. A few of my favorites, one by Lisa Cyr, whom I had a class with at Marywood University. An odd book stuck out on the shelves. It was odd in the fact that graphic design books are usually designed with care, considering the subject matter.

A book called “Success without college: Careers in Art and Graphic Design.”  Scared me. It is not the fact that I dont think someone can become a graphic designer without going to art school. It is the fact that this book was so poorly designed and gave bad information.

What a wonderful book filled with tons of knowledge.

On the cover of the book here are a few examples of the careers you can get, mind you without a college degree: “Book illustration, fashion illustration, package design, multimedia, sign graphics, web page design, toy design, professional photography and much more.”

These are the things you can become without going to college. I should have never went.

There are several things wrong with this entire scenery, I am sure you already figured out, but just let me spell them out for you.

(Even though this book may be dated to the year 2000)

The book looks like it was designed by someone that didn’t go to college or doesn’t know a thing about graphic design.

Notice the widow in the title.

I love how intense the graphic designer ( I use the word loosely), is looking at the computer screen in the right image.

These people look like they are finding directions on a compass. What kind of art do you think they are doing?

“You don’t need a college degree – just the desire to succeed,”
How many people honestly believe this?  Please write your comments below.

This is a really bad layout for many reasons. Too many to talk about in this blog post.

All of the spreads of this book resemble something like this. They open the chapter with a large photo of the person and on the left for every page of the chapter they repeat the persons image. I believe that my 9 year old nephew could have done a better job with a crayon and a sharpie. It may be hard to see from my photo but they use over 6 different typefaces on this spread alone.

What is a graphic designer?

Ok so what is “A Graphic Artist/Graphic designer.”

I am glad that they discovered that a graphic artist labors at typography. They did a really good job laboring at this article with all the hyphens on their rag. A graphic artist must also use tons of widows, look at the end of paragraph one.

To sum things up and start a debate: Do graphic artists need to go to college? Well if they learn all the skills that they need to: typography, concept, layout, color theory, etc… Then perhaps they can do it. What most people don’t understand that graphic design is not computer knowledge it is a lot more than that.

You may be able to get most of the skills a graphic designer needs, but without a piece of paper or a spot on your resume that says you have a diploma it is going to be rather difficult to find a job. Right now it is hard for anyone to find a job in this field. So sarcastically speaking: I should have never went to school for graphic design and I should give up my teaching career as a graphic design professor. Why? You can just learn everything you need outside of college and you don’t need a degree.

Borders is closing.

End of Print Part II

I guess the whole reason I got started on this end of print discussion or blog, is my local Borders is closing.  It also appears that many more are getting ready to close.

Here is a piece of an article I found on The New York Times:
“The bookstore chain Borders said on Thursday that it would close an additional 28 stores, on top of the 200 that it is liquidating.

Borders, the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain, filed for bankruptcy protection in February after years of declining sales and store traffic. It will be left with roughly 400 stores after all of the targeted stores are closed.” – By Julie Bosman.

Here are the questions that I ask myself:

1. Is it Amazon and other online sites killing these book stores?
This could be the same case of what happened with BlockBuster, Netflix and Redbox. Are we just changing the way we distribute reading materials? I notice when I walk into my local used book store that it is still booming, so maybe its not just the online sites that are killing the large bookstores. Which may bring me to my second question.

2. Are the new books too expensive?
The price of new books is so outrageous when you can get a used book from Amazon or even a pdf version for cheaper.

To be honest I always just went into my local Borders, ordered an Iced Coffee and just sat and read the books without buying them. Sometimes though I would purchase my favorite magazine: Print, Step Indesign or a random muscle car publication.

I will still be pondering this question about print as, I myself start to train even more into web design applications. I realize that if I dont change in some ways and stay up with the technology that I may not have a job. The design process doesnt change though, concept still reigns king, its just the tools that we deliver our message with that changes.

I have been pondering lately how print is dieing.

Is it the end of print?

I have been pondering for several years about the end of print.

I guess David Carson probably thought this all through, but I am going to give my prediction.

The younger generation every day is getting closer to the death of print and even the traditional English language in general. The text vernacular is now become part of our speech and language. LOL WTF LMAO Whatev Etc. (Please see this link for more). The talk in this abbreviated language. I can just imagine my 1st grade teacher (she was mean once smacked me with a ruler), taking this all in, in her old age. What I am trying to get at, that language is changing.

This is one side of the coin. The second side is the advent of the smart phone. At a certain point we no longer need to communicate with characters, typography, letter forms. Every phone has a camera. In a few years Americans will be to lazy to even type things. We can just as easily communicate with pictures. To some people this is not going to matter. Do we miss the typewriter? The payphone outside of the local 7-11? Are we going to miss going through the stacks of books at the library? Do you even still buy a newspaper or do you read it online?

Will the end of print be a bad thing? To me it most definitely will. I like things that are physical. The feeling of paper will not be matched by this or the next generation of Ipad. I like how it yellows from years of use. I love John Gall, Chip Kidd, and many of the great graphic designers book covers. Sometimes I buy the book just for the cover.

Even if I have to weed through the junk mail and take it to the recycling, I appreciate it. It is print and damn it I am going to continue to design with it. Until I become extinct like the dinosaurs.

Yes it does make life easier and faster. We can change color on the fly. We can look at how different typefaces look next to an image. But if you just start to design on the computer alone you are missing something. Your work will lack concept and sometimes even structure.

You have to start with a sketch. Or your work will look like everything else that is out there. When you use special filters, gradients, drop shadows, the work will feel dated. One goal of graphic design is to make a design that speaks to generations. What is cool today is not going to be cool tomorrow.
In a world of computer generated images, it is the hand done ones that will stick out.

But what to teach a modern day graphic designer about typography?
1. We could teach them what not to do.
2. Teach them conceptual thinking.
or
3. Teach them how to break the rules.

I try and do all of these things.
Paul Rand said “Art is about relationships.” This also hold true to typography. How does the type relate to the image? Do we even need an image to convey a concept or relationship?

Art is a hard thing to teach in general. You have to let the students make mistakes in order for them to learn.

Since starting my studies as a graphic designer over 10 years ago, I have been in the constant debate on, could I have made it as a writer? Well I guess I still could if I devoted my entire time to writing and not design. I have found a few things though that I like about design that carries over into writing. My masters thesis was on “The History of Visual Poetry.” I am curious on how much graphic design and creative writing have in common.

You have many things:
The metaphor
Typography
Line breaks
etc..

In poetry you are trying to convey an emotion, show what humans have in common, and enlighten. Aren’t these the very same things that make good design? By studying different artistic mediums and mixing them together, this is the only way we can progress as artist. To experiment in different fields.

2. That you should know the rules before you break them. Example typography.

3. You will not have total creative control over your projects. The client, your boss, and probably ten other people are going to have a say about your final art.

4. Deadlines are not guidelines. They are set in stone, if you miss one you might as well look for another job.

5. The computer is just a tool, the idea reigns king.

More to come soon.

Right now the Master of Fine Arts is the terminal degree in the graphic design field. In the coming years will the PHD be this degree? That is debatable.

Now that I am done writing my thesis, “A History of Visual Poetry”, I will have some free time on my hands. I will be writing more articles on graphic design criticism. I will also be writing a bit on the differences in similarities of graphic design and poetry. So stay tuned. I am excited and I hope you are too!

when they come with guns by norm milliken

Recently I was asked to design a cover for a book that was being put together for Norm Milliken. The title of the book is, “When They Come With Guns.” I do a few book covers, and I find that for the most part the designer or illustrator is given the most freedom in this media. Also there is a big added bonus, book cover designers in a way, get to sign the book, by putting their name on the book somewhere.

When I designed this book I wanted to step out of my comfort zone as a graphic designer. I decided that illustration was the best avenue to go down. To start a book design I needed a concept or an idea. I decided to make the title of the book the helicopters propeller. I then added the soldier coming out of the helicopter and onto the name of the author.

The editor of the book decided early on that she didn’t want there to be a delineation on who exactly was coming with guns. So I added an additional character on the back of the book waiting for the people to come out of the helicopter. This makes the book cover ambiguous on who is actually coming with the guns.

Here is a little bit about the book ,”Norman Milliken’s poems are careful and deliberate. Reverential, even. He keeps the reader at a safe distance as he struggles to share his experience while protecting us from it at the same time. “When They Come with Guns,” is stunning in its restraint and heartbreaking in its sincerity–a haunting collection.” If you would like to purchase a copy of the book please go here.