To Chicago Design Archive aficionados:
This is a photo of Susan Jackson Keig talking with reference librarian, Janis Versluis at the Society of Typographic Arts 85th Anniversary Celebration held at Wright in Chicago on 26 October 2012. This was the event that also featured: “Carl Regher: The Lost Journals.”
Keig is a Fellow and past-president of the STA. R. Roger Remington’s Graphic Design History Resource lists Susan Jackson Keig as a woman pioneer in design and a key individual in the development of American design.
Showing posts with label STA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STA. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Chicago Design Archive aficionados: Susan Jackson Keig
Friday, June 20, 2014
the facination of the uplifting authority word / message
David M. Versluis, ©2014
Redemption
3-color Monoprint
12" x 18"
2014 Society of Typographic Arts Letterpress Workshop:
Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum, Two Rivers, Wisconsin
New work by versluis:
Orchestrating and printing large archaic woodtype letterforms or letter-units by spelling out a word or message. Dividing the word according to syllables suggests a more kinetic effect and message.
Monday, February 3, 2014
The “Holly Hunt on Opus” brochure designed by Thirst/3st: Learning how to see by asking what do you see?
Holly Hunt on Opus Image Book
Height: 13 inches / 33.2 cm. x Width: 9.5 inches / 24.13 cm.
2013
Design Firm: Thirst/3st
Art Director/Design Director/Designer: Rick Valicenti
Photographer: Tom Vack
Client: Holly Hunt Inc.
Illustrator: John Pobojewski
Designer: Robyn Paprocki
Printer: Classic Color
Photographs courtesy of Thirst/3st © 2013
Collaborative work by graphic designer Rick Valicenti of Thirst and photographer Tom Vack for the “Holly Hunt on Opus” (Sappi) publication was truly a graphic design crème de la crème event of 2013. Featured in this publication are the newest pieces from the Holly Hunt furniture collection that goes beyond what words can express. In noble fashion Holly Hunt says these new furniture artifacts “make things new again.” The “Holly Hunt on Opus” brochure is a highly aesthetic effort, a visual narrative that reveals the sophisticated and subliminal visual journey of Holly Hunt product design. Glossy, heavy Sappi paper makes the Holly Hunt product brochure unusually weighty, and allows for exceptionally high-quality images of photos and art, to a point seldom found in product brochures. The publication (64-pages with end sheets and cover) also emphasizes the performance of extraordinary printing techniques of Classic Color on high quality Sappi’s Opus paper.
In reviewing this publication here are a few observations:
- It is very apparent that Rick Valicenti and Tom Vack convey that the visual medium can be a valid mode of narrative without words (or using very few words).
- In graphic design classes at Dordt the Holly Hunt publication becomes a new instrument in art and design educational methods as a case history. In this piece graphic design director Valicenti teaches students/viewers how to see by asking, “what do you see?”
- “Holly Hunt on Opus” is a commitment to a high level of visual excellence and encouraging example of a superbly produced brochure. To lavish attention on aesthetics achieves an artifact of preciousness that becomes a keepsake.
“I encourage all of you to avoid formulaic methodologies and look—inside to see if indeed the communications we foster and we bring to the humankind are full of real human presence—let’s bring life to form….” (1)
A Holly Hunt display case in the Merchandise Mart, Chicago. Graphic identity by Thirst/3st photograph by versluis, 2013.
- Valicenti, Rick. “Human Presence.” TEDxMillCity. Minneapolis. 16 June 2010. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.
Friday, February 1, 2013
“Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals”—Journal entry, January 12 1983
Image from the STA Design Archives
We’ve featured the work of Carl Regehr before in this blog. So we thought it would be fitting to end this month with this piece from a recently published book titled Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals. Regehr was a pioneer in Chicago design history, an honorary member of the Society of Typographic Arts, and professor and design educator at the University of Illinois/Champaign at the time of his passing in 1983.
Thirty years ago this month, Carl Regehr (1919-1983) entered the following passage into his journal, dated January 12 1983:
Review, David Smith Show at Nat’l Gallery, Wash. D.C., 1/2–4/24–’83
Among the pleasures that retrospectives offer is the comforting discovery that artists are not born great. To see a career all in development is to begin to understand what it takes to make raw talent into genius. Many factors influence the process, but one trait keeps reappearing throughout the history of art:
In the alchemy that transforms promise into achievement, a key ingredient is the ability to handle contradictions and transcend limitations, the artist’s own and those of his time and place. His friend Robert Motherwell, said, “Oh, David, you are so delicate as Vivaldi, and so strong as a Mack truck.” Mary Ann Tighe (1)
- Best, Marjie, Jana Regehr, and Jack Weiss, eds. Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals. Chicago: The Society of Typographic Arts, 2012. N. pg. Print.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
The Society of Typographic Arts (STA–Chicago) 2013 Winter Retreat: “The Architecture of Letterforms”
STA Promotion Materials
L–R credits starting at the top:
Aaron Siskind, 1951; Norman Ives, 1967; Walker Evans, 1973; Dennis Ichiyama, 1991; Candice Martello, 2010; Renata Graw, 2011; Jack Weiss, 2011; Peter Fraterdeus, 2011
Recently, January 19–20, 2013, the Society of Typographic Arts Winter Retreat was held at the Eaglewood Resort, Itasca, Illinois. The STA was founded in Chicago in 1927. The theme of the retreat was, “The Architecture of Letterforms” and the list of enthusiastic conference attendees ranged from Chicago design luminaries to distinguished design practitioners and acclaimed design educators.
The events began on Friday evening the 19th with Rick Valicenti leading off with an enjoyable, keen and jam-packed keynote presentation titled Talking Type. Rick is a master at observing and understanding correlations of a particular topic. Valicenti is the founder and design director of Thirst, a communication design firm based in Chicago.
Valicenti’s presentation highlighted the necessity of having conversations about type (“We need to talk”) and the aspect that “We’re all in this together.” It presaged the eleven or twelve presentations that were given the next day at the conference. Using the metaphor of “rhizome” as community and continuum, Valicenti summarized the history of communication design starting with the Texturalis (1190–1407), to Gutenberg’s Bible (1455), to Bradbury Thompson (Rock and Roll), to Paul Sych (Toronto) and the present.
Valicenti’s Talking Type presentation initiated a dialogue and was a wonderful celebration of the art and function of typography. Conference presentations on Saturday continued with thoughtful conversation.
Thought-provoking conversation can bring out the paradoxical. For instance, while not incongruous to Rick’s message and other presenters was Joseph Michael Essex (SX2) who expressed in his presentation, “What separates art from design is typography… a highly manipulative process… and an element of communication—not art… typography is the language of [visual communication] designers….”
Discussing the differences and similarities of the art of typography in communication design is fascinatingly and relevant for today’s designers. We need to talk about type.
At the conference, Jack Weiss, who was proud of his students efforts and accomplishments, presented student portfolios of typographic work in which his students were asked to cut-down letters to the esence of form and yet still retain the identity of the letter. In addition to his design practice Jack teaches in the graphic design program at Columbia College Chicago and organized the 2013 STA Winter Retreat.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Envelope art by Carl Regehr, 1983
Above is an example of one of Carl Regehr’s delightful envelopes and Polaroids (Jazz is shown) that were on display at the STA 85th anniversary celebration in Chicago last month. The show celebrated and featured numerous pieces of imaginative envelope art and Polaroids by Regehr. A remarkable thing about Carl was that he could pre-visualize and sketch out his design concepts with great coherency.
The envelopes and Polaroids were from correspondence between Regehr and Victor Margolin in 1983. Margolin was instrumental in developing the discipline of design history at University of Illinois Chicago and Regehr was a beloved design professor at the University in Campaign-Urbana. The envelope illustrated above is postmarked 12 Jan 1983. Regehr died in 1983 after a decade-long battle with cancer.
Also shown above is the accompanying written note and documentation for the Carl Regehr/Victor Margolin project and the exhibit.
True to Carl's idea for the envelope display, event organizer Jack Wiess installed the show with envelopes and corresponding Polaroid typographic collages in plastic bags that hung on a “clothes-line”.
In his hand-writing Regehr suggests to Margolin:
For example I could see that at the end of the year there might be 100's of envelopes that could be exhibited in plastic baggies … etc. The project also is valuable because it attempts to share interests and continue the dialogue we established last year.
signed Carlos. (Carl’s Latino persona)Read More......
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Chicago design luminaries
The newest STA (Society of Typographic Arts) publication, “Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals” (1968–1983) was recently introduced at the STA 85th anniversary celebration. I had the opportunity to attend the recent STA 85th anniversary celebration in Chicago on Friday, October 26 and was thrilled to have several Chicago design luminaries autograph my copy of the book. Above is photograph of the title page spread with the signatures of Jack Weiss, Susan Jackson Keig, Robert Vogele, and Norman Perman.
Interestingly, Susan Jackson Keig, who had been one of Moholy-Nagy’s first students at the New Bauhaus in Chicago during the late 30s and early 40s, said that Moholy also taught business courses because money was so tight for the design school.
In this blog I’ve published a couple of pieces about Carl Regehr (1919-1983) who was one of Chicago’s best designers and educators, an Honorary Member of The STA, recepient of its Design Educator Award in 1983 the excellent designer and design educator. The STA organization of mainly graphic design professionals was brought back about a decade ago. From its inception the STA has had a robust series of events, hosted visiting designers and produced several noteworthy publications.
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