Graphic Design and Postmodernism—Edward Fella

Nu-Bodies / Mark Tucker / R. Tim Miller / Linda Kennedy / Susan Carman
Mailer / Poster, front and back, 1987, offset lithograph on warm gray 60# bond,
11"x17" / two-folds / two-sides / one-color
Designer: Edward Fella
Publisher: Detroit Focus Gallery
From the collection of David Versluis

Quoting Ed Fella:

“… I’ve been around since the late ’50s. I spent 30 years as a ‘hack’ in the Detroit commercial artist business. I was an advertising designer, illustrator, I did lettering, all sorts of things. But I also did a body of work outside the professional work in the studio system, which was the more experimental stuff, either self-published or published to promote artists and photographers; what’s now called ‘personal’ or ‘cultural’ graphics.”

“An Interview with Ed Fella.” Fella, Edward. Interview by Michael Dooley. Emigre 30 (1994). Print.

A statement from writer and editor Steven Heller:
“Fella began his career as a commercial artist, became a guest critic at Cranbrook and later enrolled as a graduate student, imbuing in other students an appreciation for the naif (or folk) traditions of commercial culture. He ‘convincingly deployed highly personal art based imagery and typography in his design for the public,’ explains Lorrine Wild in her essay Transgression and Delight: Graphic Design at Cranbrook (Cranbrook Design: the New Discourse, 1990).”

Heller, Steven. “The Cult of the Ugly.” Eye Magazine, No. 9, Vol. 3 1993. Print.

Vince Carducci in his 2007 AIGA medalist’s honoree article writes:
“… Just how innovative was his work? Even before Adobe had figured out how to kern digital fonts, Fella was deconstructing lines of copy, modifying typefaces (turning Bembo into Bimbo by hacking off the serifs, to cite one example) and jumbling them up. Not for another decade would desktop publishing achieve anywhere near the eye-bending effects Fella was getting with copy-camera Photostats and X-Acto knives.…”

Carducci, Vince. "Medalists: Ed Fella." AIGA. AIGA | the professional association for design, 2007. Web. 3 Sept. 2010.

Ellen Lupton and Abbott Miller wrote in 1996:

“The work of Ed Fella has broadly influenced recent developments in type design. Fella’s posters for the Detroit Focus Gallery, produced between 1987 and 1990, feature damaged and defective forms—from third-generation photocopies to broken pieces of transfer type. These imperfect elements are meticulously assembled by hand into free form compositions. Fella’s experiments inspired other designers to construct digital fonts with battered features and hybrid origins.”

Lupton, Ellen, and J. Abbott Miller. Design Writing Research: Writing on Graphic Design. London: Phaidon, 1996. Print.

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Dordt Alumni in Design: Kevin Zandberg

Zandberg Family

Kevin Zandberg
Project Manager
MJSA Architecture & Interior Design
Salt Lake City, Utah

My initial interest in architecture grew out of my childhood experiences visiting different construction sites with my father. I always enjoyed watching buildings grow before my eyes as they went through the various phases of construction. Through those experiences I developed a growing interest in construction, in particular the details of how a building is put together. I spent most of my summers during my high school and college years working in construction, learning the different aspects of building from concrete work to framing, drywall and finish carpentry.

While at Dordt my path to architecture really began to take shape. After my first semester I began to revisit my earlier experiences in the construction world and my interest in how buildings are put together. I spent the summer after my freshman year contacting different architecture schools and began to formulate a core set of courses that would help prepare me for graduate school in architecture. With the assistance of Professor Kevin Timmer we charted a road map for a major and in 1992 I graduated from Dordt College with a Bachelors Degree in Individual Studies: Pre-Architecture. It’s interesting to look back at the courses I took and my experiences while at Dordt. I think we did a good job molding my major and I have always been complemented on my course selection. I also find it interesting that I never really considered leaving Dordt to enroll in a Bachelor of Architecture program at another school. I am still very thankful for the education I received and the Christian worldview from which everything was taught. The idea that we are God’s kingdom workers seeking to be God’s servants redeeming His world has become an integral part of my life and is what I continue to explore within my profession.

After working another year in construction I enrolled in Iowa State University’s Master of Architecture program and graduated in 1996. My first job in architecture was as an Intern Architect with FFKR Architecture in Salt Lake City. While at FFKR I worked on a variety of projects from a college administration building, a new concert hall for the University of Utah and a large movie theater / restaurant / business complex. It was a great first firm experience as an intern.

I left FFKR in 2000 for an opportunity to work with MJSA Architecture & Interior Design. MJSA offered me an opportunity to work in residential design working on single family and multi-family projects primarily in the role of Project Manager. During my years at MJSA I have been very fortunate to work on a number of different types of projects from single family residences, mixed-use, multi-family (new and adaptive re-use), historic preservation and higher education. My involvement in projects has typically been to assist in the development of a design response, then lead the Design Team in the production of construction documents and finally assist the General Contractor through the construction process. My favorite aspects of being a Project Manager are working out design details during the drawing phase and spending time at the job site with the General Contractor during construction, ensuring that the design intent is met.

The field of architecture is incredibly diverse, requiring knowledge of site context, building codes, construction methods, building systems, as well as requiring an understanding of the social, psychological and environmental impacts of a building. Architecture is a complex field but this complexity is also what I find rewarding. No two buildings are the same and each project challenges you with a new set of building parameters. This keeps architecture interesting and engaging for me.

Over the years several projects stand out in my mind for various reasons whether it be the social component or the preservation and adaptive re-use of an existing building. The projects include:

Life Start Village (Midvale, Utah) is a collection of new single family houses, town houses and common housing providing safe housing environments for abused mothers and children.

Francis Peak Apartments (Kaysville, Utah) was a low-income multi-family remodel project for an entity called Mercy Housing. The project focused on improving the quality of existing low-income housing apartments as well as improving the residents’ quality of life.

Artspace City Center (Salt Lake City, Utah) (see the following photos) was an adaptive re-use project. We turned a turn-of-the century retail warehouse building into artist studios and apartments:


Photograph used with permission from MJSA.


Photograph used with permission from MJSA.


Photograph used with permission from MJSA.


John R. Park Building – University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah) was an exterior restoration and seismic stabilization project of a 1912 building. It is also the marquee building of the University of Utah housing the president and vice-president offices. Photograph used with permission from MJSA.


Artspace Commons (Salt Lake City, Utah) is a new mixed-use development containing artist studios and low to middle income apartments. Sustainability is a key component for this project and we are attempting to achieve LEED Gold certification. Rendering used with permission from MJSA.

I am thankful for the opportunities and projects that come my way and appreciate the challenge each new project brings.

Soli Deo Gloria

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Quotations on creativity [improvisation]—Roy R. Behrens

Photograph by Versluis, 05.19.2010

“As mere human beings, we do not have the option of ‘creating’ things: It is not within our capacity to produce anything out of thin air. Rather, the entire range of human innovation (whether works of art and literature, design solutions, scientific discoveries, or new technologies) has come from the recombination of pre-existing components, by a process that Einstein referred to (in a famous introspective note about his own creative process) as combinatory play.” [1]

—Roy Behrens

Behrens, Roy. False Colors: Art, Design, and Modern Camouflage. Dysert, Iowa, Bobolink Books, 2002. 194-195. Print.

Footnote:

1. Behrens references Einstein’s quote in: Jacques Hadamard, The Psychology Invention in the Mathematical Field. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1949.

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Quotations on creativity—Brewster Ghiselin

Brewster Ghiselin at a Picnic (center foreground)
Photograph credit: Brewster Ghiselin Photograph Collection
J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah, P0296

“Genuine creativity will always involve individual reflection…. From the point of view of consciousness, the creativity appears to arise ex nihilo [out of nothing].
… Creativity ministers to the benefit of society through the solutions of a wide variety of problems, …. But creativity also ministers to the good of the individual creative person as well, by filling that gap, that “nothing” within his own being.”
—Brewster Ghiselin

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Pure | Modern | New | 1916 | Sioux City, Iowa

An illustration of a preliminary watercolor sketch, c 1910s, depicting the west facade of the Woodbury County Court House in Sioux City, Iowa. This sketch, drawn and painted, by William Gray Purcell seems to indicate cubist crystalline forms. Minnesota Libraries, Manuscripts Division, Northwest Architectural Archives [William Gray Purcell Job Files]


Woodbury County Court House
William L. Steele, architect
Purcell and Elmslie, associated architects
Sioux City, Iowa 1915/1916
Photographs by Versluis, © 2010, all rights reserved
Some of Prairie School architecture’s greatest accomplishments are found in the state of Iowa. Places such as Mason City, Grinnell, Algona, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City all have very fine examples of the “Prairie Style” idiom. The largest Prairie School style public building ever built is the Woodbury County Court House in Sioux City, Iowa. The building is considered, by many, to be in the top one hundred buildings in the United States. Fundamentally, early twentieth century Prairie School design principles integrated art, craft, and technology into a relatively simple but noble geometric form.

According to Paul Goldberger, the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, the early American architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe once said, “Simplicity is the highest achievement in art.” Latrobe also suggested that a graceful geometric style and simplicity resonates as democratic architecture because it is a form that’s more accessible to the public.





The “Sullivanesque” style bronze, tile and terra-cotta ornamentation on the Woodbury County Court House is mosaic and richly diverse. Writer Bill Menner mentions, in his book about Grinnell Iowa’s Merchants National Bank, that the magnificent terra-cotta ornament on the Court House was the work of Kristian Schneider who worked for the American Terra Cotta & Ceramic Company outside Chicago. Prairie School terracotta designs were usually intended for decoration and moved in the direction of abstraction and stylized floral patterns and rhythms. In addition, the architectonic tiles delineated linear geometries and were used to transition and harmonize corresponding masonry planes. However, the friezes and sculpture, designed by Alfonso Iannelli, are symbolic and publicly reinforce classic American icons with avant-garde geometric forms. The typographic inscription on the building reads: JUSTICE AND PEACE HAVE MET TOGETHER TRUTH HATH SPRUNG OUT OF THE EARTH.

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Quotations on creativity—Stanley Wiersma

Photograph credit: Calvin College

“Creativity is fruitful freedom, and freedom is the opportunity of choice…. The romantic theory of the creative process, by failing to recognize that creativity is choice, either absolves a student from ever trying to be creative, or makes him mistake the first idea that comes into his head as Inspiration.”

Dr. Stanley Wiersma was a former Calvin College English professor, poet, and author who often wrote under the pseudonym Sietze Buning. Perhaps his best writings are Purpaleanie and Style and Class, which are based on auto-biographical experiences growing up in Northwest Iowa.

Stan was a Fine Arts Guild faculty mentor when, as a student, I served as chair for the Visual Arts Guild at Calvin College. Professor Wiersma, was also known for his encouragement of young Christian authors, he died suddenly in 1986 while on leave in the Netherlands.

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Homage to Lou Dorfsman / “I’m Not There” — the movie

Frame from the film “I’m Not There.”


Picture of a CBS news program advertisement designed by Lou Dorfsman, which ran in the The New York Times, Tuesday July 2, 1968. The subheadline reads: First of a seven-part series, “Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed.” 

“I’m Not There” (2007) is a film made by writer/director Todd Haynes that speaks enigmatically of Bob Dylan’s life, poetry, performances, and music. Haynes discusses in the DVD introduction to the film that he wanted to give the audience a flavor of the 60s period through a collage of inventive and iconic juxtapositions of story and images that convey Dylan’s artistic content and convictions.

In a surreal chapter, the movie character William (Billy), played by Richard Gere, portrays one of the Dylan’s personas as outlaw/hero. The scene illustrated by the frame shown above is on screen for only two seconds and can be easily missed, but the portrait in the background has dramatic impact. An astute observer can recognize the profile as a re-creation of Lou Dorfsman’s 1968 newspaper advertisement for CBS Television news. Perhaps it’s Haynes’s gesture to Dorfsman’s skill as an important graphic designer and art director of that tumultuous 60s era.

Understanding the context of CBS’s ad is helpful as the series was broadcast in the summer of 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King, the race riots that followed, and the death of Robert Kennedy in early June.

The first paragraph in the ad highlights the hidden conversation: “America has camouflaged the black man. For three hundred years the attitudes of white Americans to black and black Americans to white have been subjected to misunderstandings, erasures and distortions damaging to both. The black American’s achievements have been misplaced, his contributions obscured. He has been told so often who he is not that he no longer knows who he is. And frustrations of his search for identity and recognition underlie much of today’s crisis of alienation in American society.”

Philip Meggs in A History of Graphic Design describes the 60s advertisements for CBS Television this way: “Dorfsman program ads were simple and direct, but executed with distinction” and he assembled image combinations that “carried tremendous shock value and gained viewers for important news programs.”

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