These Posters Rock

My Capstone class recently created designs for an upcoming production by the Colorado Mountain College Theater Department. The play is Tom Stoppard's "Rock-N-Roll," which is set in Eastern Europe during the cold war and alludes the political and social force of rock music in the resistance movements during that period. The design on the far left (created by Nicole Lucas) was selected for the marketing materials for the show, although it was a difficult decision for the theater staff, as each of the submissions was strong and effective. I was very pleased with the efforts of my students, and look forward to the work they're doing now on the promotional poster campaign and website for the Graphic Design Department.

In other classes, my Typography & Layout students are learning about grid systems. My Adobe Illustrator® students are exploring the new artboard function, and advanced layer control.

I just received some new textbooks to consider for the Fall semester. Of particular interest is a recent edition of, "Conceptual Drawing" by Koncelik & Reeder, published my Delmar Cengage Learning.  It does a nice job of presenting the essential skill of rapid visualization, which is the manner by which practicing designers develop and present concepts. I'm also selecting texts for the Adobe CS4 courses, including Illustrator®, Photoshop®, and InDesign®. Selecting the most effective text is always a challenge, as the technology is constantly changing, and a particular publisher or author who did a great job of presenting an earlier version, might not hit a home run on the current one. A reviewer has to consider each edition from point zero. This is not an unimportant decision, as the demands of learning modern computer technology far exceeds the time available in the classroom, requiring students to expand their learning on their own. Providing them the best textbook resource available is a responsibility I don't take lightly.

Spreading the Word

The students in my Graphic Design Capstone class have taken on a exciting new challenge. We’re developing both a new website for the Graphic Design Program at Colorado Mountain College, and a series of teaching aid posters that we’ll be mailing out to high school art and design teachers this summer. Of course, the posters will serve as a recruiting tool for the program. The topic of the first poster is the history/development of typography and graphic design. We’ve got some modifications to do, but the basic design is shown above. The topic of the second poster in the series is a glossary of print production terms, and the topic of the third poster is the mathematics of design.

Earlier this week was campus Visitation Day, where prospective students explore the campus, sit in on classes, and have a chance to talk with current students, faculty, and staff. I had the opportunity to spend time with several students from the Denver and Colorado Springs area who are interested in studying high in the Rockies instead of staying on the plains.

I also met with a current student from Ohio, who is going to transfer into the Graphic Design program for the upcoming fall semester. He’s very excited about the new classes he’ll be taking: Introduction to Computer Graphics, Art History, Drawing I, and 2-D Design. In speaking with this student, I found out that Colorado Mountain College has a lot of students from other states. They choose CMC not just for the idyllic location, but because the tuition costs are very competitive compared to most other colleges and universities. CMC prides itself on offering the lowest tuition rates in the state.

Elsewhere in the program, my Typography & Layout class students are learning about typographic hierarchy, and my Adobe Illustrator® class students are exploring the gradient mesh tool. The students in the Drawing I and Drawing II classes had their first session with a nude life drawing model, who was very gracious about the ad hoc posing platform we arranged. The students in the Illustration I class are working on an illustration for a cookbook cover. The Graphic Design II students are working hard on projects that will likely end up in their portfolios. Students in the Design and Concepts class are learning the inner workings of Adobe InDesign® and designing a coffee table book, and the Digital Photography I students are developing still life lighting skills.

21st Century Digital Boy

It's 4:58 am. I've been up all night killing a virus on my wife's PC. You know the drill: safe mode start, download anti-virus updates, run scan, wait, wait,wait. You may know the drill, but I don't. As a long-time Mac user, I rarely encounter viruses. And "the drill" didn't go as diagrammed, either. Killing this virus (which was a tenacious system-spoiler masquerading as security software) required some tagental thinking and lots of gerrymandering, including home manufacture of an ethernet crossover cable (tedious),and of course, plenty of watching status bars creep along.

It had been quite some time since I'd wrestled with a computer problem.While this could be attributed to improved technology, I strongly suspect it was just a streak of good luck. And it gave me a bit more empathy for my students, who assert computer problems on an ongoing basis (especially the night before a project is due). While I still believe that good backup habits can eliminate the worst effects of nearly all computer "disasters", the unexpected, unavoidable, and unfortunate are going to happen sometimes. It's the price we pay for all our hi-tech conveniences.

I think it's fortuitous that I had to spend a sleepless night solving a computer problem. As a result, I'm likely to be a bit more careful and vigilant in the future. Mac users tend to become smug. Being humbled occasionally is probably a good thing.

First Class Report

Yesterday saw the first meeting of the Capstone and the Adobe Illustrator® classes I’m teaching this semester. This morning was the first meeting of Typography & Layout. I really like the small class sizes. It gives me a better opportunity to interact with the students than I would find with a larger class size.

Along with the usual first-day review of the course syllabus and class policies, we were able to get into the “meat” of the subject. The Typography & Layout students were hit with a heavy dose of the history of graphic design, while the Illustrator® students got an idea of the visual possibilities of vector graphics and a rudimentary introduction to the toolbox. The Illustrator® class was also introduced to the concept of learner-directed classes. This approach encourages each student to learn at their own pace. This is particularly important in technology classes, where everyone connects with the software at different level, and pulling a class along at the same pace is pretty much impossible. After graduation my students will have to constantly learn new software as professional practitioners. Having the students “learn to learn” prepares them for this challenge much better than spoon-feeding them technology instruction. The class seemed to understand the value of the learner-directed approach. I’m looking forward to a very productive semester.

I’ve got my office stuff unpacked, and I’m starting to put things away. I taught myself the phone system today. Actually, a tutorial I found on a website for an Oklahoma school district taught me the phone system. The internet can be a very handy thing.

Tomorrow I plan to venture on a brave new path: I’m going to have lunch in the campus cafeteria. When I was an undergrad, the acronym for our food-service provider was interpreted by the students to mean, “Soviet Attempt to Gag America”. I’m hoping the the Colorado Mountain College dining hall doesn’t evoke a similar sentiment. This upcoming culinary experience will likely be the subject of my next post.

I Don't Recommend the Bronchitis

Well we made it. There were times I had my doubts. The allergy sniffles I'd had for a couple weeks evolved into a nasty case of bronchitis they day before we were supposed to depart Las Vegas. While I know now that it's possible to load a truck, drive it 700 miles through a blizzard, and unload it, all while breathing at a greatly reduced capacity and hacking disgusting stuff out of one's lungs, I can hardly recommend it as a regular practice. It did make for an interesting Christmas Eve. The antibiotics eventually did their job, and I'm busily unpacking and setting things up.

As much as the wife and I love it here, the dogs aren't the least bit pleased. I'm guessing they miss the warmth of Las Vegas, and having a yard that isn't under several inches of snow. They've elevated misbehavior to a high art, so we're locked in a battle of wills. I'm hoping that several thousand years of animal domestication by humans means the odds are in my favor.

Amidst all the unpacking, we've made several forays into the community to set up utilities, change our driver's licenses and whatnot. We thought Las Vegas was a pretty hospital place, but the folks of Glenwood Springs are almost freakishly friendly. Better yet, they're efficient, an attribute we've not experienced for some time, and certainly weren't expecting in a resort community.

Classes start in just over a week, so I've got a lot to do. I'm trusting that things will continue to go smoothly. I feel almost guilty for the opportunity to live in such a beautiful place and do what I love doing.

We're oh-so-close to being done with the packing. I even had some success with downsizing my collection of useless belongings. During our recent house-hunting trip we found a place in town: mid-century modern sans the modern. From the orange carpet to the knotty pine paneling, it's a time-warp back to my childhood. Perhaps we're weird, but my wife an I prefer retro-kitsch to the soullessness of sleeker contemporary aesthete. Bonus: lots of space in the basement. I'll have a room just for painting and drawing, another for my library and other resources, and a third for technology. I hope I don't get lost wandering around the palatial surroundings. It's a block from the grocery store; a block from the Ride Glenwood stop; and best of all, a block from our new fave dining spot, The 19th Street Diner, where they know how to cook the fries long enough to be properly crispy.

I have to say goodbye to my DVR tomorrow and wait almost an entire week before the new one from the cable company in Glenwood Springs arrive. We've had a passionate, if obsessive relationship for the past several years. The real tragedy is the entire current season of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" that I have recorded, but not yet watched. I guess I'll have to wait until the DVD comes out indulge that particular guilty pleasure. My wife doesn't share my appreciation of people behaving horribly on TV, and assures me that I'll survive. She might be right. Besides, I managed to burn through all the episodes of Tosh.0 at one sitting last week, so I've ingested an adequate helping of non-PC snark for December.

I've been thinking about the 9.5 hour drive back to Las Vegas that I made Tuesday evening. We had dry roads and no traffic the entire way, so it wasn't at all bad. This coming week, I'll be repeating the trip going the other direction in a U-Haul truck. I anticipate an entirely different (and much more unpleasant) experience. Speed governors and mountainous terrain aren't comfortable companions. Based on my last U-Haul/Rocky Mountain journey, where a jogger in Vail passed the truck I was laboring up a slope, I'm betting on at least 15 hours driving time. Oh well -- I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Physician, Heal Thyself

We’re sorting through our stuff as we pack for our move to Colorado. As you can see, the house is completely trashed as we go through this process. As I’m up to my elbows in this mess, it occurs to me that I’m a complete hypocrite. I often admonish my students with the “keep it simple” and “less is more” mantras. Yet, I’m obviously not practicing what I’m preaching. While I’ve sold, gifted, or tossed out countless boxes of stuff in the past few weeks, I’m still going schlep a shameful volume of questionable belongings to our new home.

I rationalize to myself that the original French Speckletone paper promo brochure designed by Charles Spencer Anderson in the mid-80’s is a piece of history worth saving. But can I also make the same case for an N64 game cartridge that reminds me of having my butt spanked by at Mario Kart gradeschool-age sons many years ago? Or a pair of acid-washed jeans that I convince myself will someday return to style — and that I’ll someday be able to fit into them again?

I’m self-aware enough to recognize that I possess a pack rat gene of impressive proportions, but self-delusional enough to convince myself that I’ll have another chance to throw stuff out as we unpack. I’m going to wallow in that fantasy for another couple weeks before facing the harsh reality that I’m likely to place that broken elbow lamp on a shelf in my new Colorado garage with the same intent to repair it that I’ve had every year for the past 5 years since it broke. I have met the enemy, and he is me.