Thank yous

Explain why you need them. Main issue is to include something that says you heard something that was said.

Amount of work should reflect the value of what you received.

  • 6" x 4" postcards (not sure what these are)

  • My thank you to Craig Cutler for lighting equipment

  • Thank you for the Garamond, Roland Hoover

  • Happy birthday Roland Hoover

Thank yous from others

  • Jim Culley's books for Werkman experience for his grandchildren

  • Ann Lemon's "100 things Ray taught me"

Link to a good artlcle in MentalFloss about 7 Smart Tips for Writing a Proper—and Professional—Thank You Note.

Sandcasting at the Type Museum / London

While on a study abroad program in 2004 with 2 dozen students from the Visual Communications Group at the University of Delaware, Ray visited the Type Museum. The museum had been interested in getting someone in to demonstrate sandcasting large metal type, a process that hadn't been used for 150 years.

Ray said he would pay for it if the group got to watch. We had an early model Nikon camera with digital video capabilities allowing us to shoot in 3 minute segments, after which it would store the video, allowing you to shoot another segment.

Ray finally got around to editing the pieces togethe,r and as it turns out works quite well, documenting the process that probably hasn't been seen since.

8' Year-End Show invitation from 1982

Back in 1982 Visual Communications was starting to ramp up for its annual year-end show. Back then we referred to it as "The Breakfast," a holdover from when we had invited a Wilmington-area chef who came down and cooked omelets for a morning.

I give credit to Michael Dodson (VC'82) for the idea that the "whole world is talking." The idea evolved from a cityscape with voice bubbles coming out of windows to this idea.

It is a complicated story, but it will be nice to lay it all out and provide some credit to people I haven't thought about for a while.

 

Read more

Year-End Show posters from Visual Communications

I stumble across printed samples and photos of some work that was part of my life back in my Visual Communications days. One of the perks that came from being a designer working for clients and doing a lot of printing work (and I tended to work with only 1 or 2 printers) was that I could leverage those printers into printing VC stuff for free.

vc-posters-yes-1979.jpg

Year-End Show poster / 1979

If there was a creative moment that I personally started to think that the design program could have national recognition it was with this piece. It was the copy more than the design of the piece. The text which I wrote on the bus coming back from a New York field trip. This is where the idea of the review process to get into the program originated. The text reads...

In the beginning there are 60 sophomores.
They come as designers, illustrators
            typographers and design consultants.
It was more difficult than they imagined.
These sophomores are still with us.

The 60 become 30.
Those that leave, leave for a number
            of reasons: the work, the field,
            the pressure, just to do something else.
Those that stay, stay for the same reasons.
These juniors are still with us.

The 30 become 15.
The reasons are still the same
            but the reward becomes greater.
The excitement of the field becomes
            a part of their work.
Finally they become the designers, illustrators,
            typographers and design consultants they
            thought they started as.
These are the seniors that have stayed.