Author: Design Incubation

Publishing Confidential

Aaris Sherin
Associate Professor of Graphic Design
St. John’s University

The author of a number of books and articles, Sherin dives into the mysterious world of design research and publishing. She will give examples of what works and what doesn’t, while highlighting ways of making the writing process productive and enjoyable.

List of Selected Books by Aaris Sherin:

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Design for Dystopia

Amelia Marzec
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Queens College
Hunter College

Imagine a future where the American dollar is worthless. To re-build the economy, citizens must use the only resource available: decades of postconsumer waste. With no way to afford expensive international electronics, but with a deep human desire to connect, they sift through products that have been subject to planned obsolescence for the possibility of working parts. The goal is to build a new communications infrastructure that is community-controlled and far from the prying eyes of any government.

In the global economy, we have enjoyed more connectedness than ever before; but have paid a price in privacy and autonomy. Governments can and will suppress communication, as we have seen during Arab Spring and the Hong Kong protests. Centralized internet and phone systems are not able to survive natural disasters, as we’ve seen during the Tohoku Earthquake and Hurricane Sandy. If roads are closed, gas is rationed and the internet is down, it is impossible to order any supplies. It is time to remove the mystique surrounding the production of telecommunications systems. We must learn to use what is at hand to be prepared for disruptions.

Design for Dystopia traces several projects from concept to outcome: a project that allows people to send messages offline using their mobile phones, bypassing their cell phone provider; a project that re-envisions the structure of electronics manufacturing in America; and thoughts on furthering the design of a more democratic communications infrastructure, using native materials. We need to consider that the devices and methods with which we are dependent on to communicate and receive our content are also political, and we need to address what is actually necessary for basic communication.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

My Korea Studies: Gender, Race and Language in South Korea

Yoon Soo Lee, Professor
Department of Design
College of Visual & Performing Arts
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Founding Faculty
Vermont College of Fine Arts

In October of 2012, I started my research into South Korea: the long lost memories, the Korean sentiment, how I am Korean, and how I am not Korean. I started a journal where I wrote exclusively in Korean. New connections were made, and what I thought was going to happen did not happen. Deep seeded experiences of gender and race floated to the top. And the content was negotiated through the study of the Korean language and Korean typography. I would like to share the process of my research and how I ended up on the idea of creating picture books for biracial children of South Korea and the United States.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.5: Rhode Island School of Design on Saturday, March 7, 2015.

Colloquium 1.5: Call for Submissions

Deadline: March 1, 2015

The  2015 Spring Colloquium will be held at the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI. We invite all Communication Design researchers to submit abstracts for consideration by our panel of peers.

For more details, see the Submission Process description.
Event Date: Saturday, March 7, 2015

RISD Design Center, 20 N. Main Street, Room 212.
Providence, RI 02903

Agenda
11:00-1:00pm Presentation
1:00-2:00pm Break for Lunch
2:00-3:30 Discussion: Design Research and Publishing

Please RSVP if you plan on attending. Space is limited.

Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St. John’s University Manhattan Campus

Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St John’s University

Hosted by Aaris Sherin
Thursday, February 12, 2015
4PM-6PM
(Mixer to follow colloquium)

Manhattan campus of St. John’s University
Room 214
51 Astor Place
New York, NY 10003

Save the Date!

Please RSVP if you plan on attending. Submissions are closed for this event. Head to BBar (40 E 4th St, New York, NY 10003) following Colloquium to schmooze (space permitting.)

Presentations

dis_assemblage
Peter Fine
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
University of Wyoming

What’s ‘American’ about American Industrial Design?
Carma Gorman
Associate Professor of Design History
The University of Texas Austin

Not Dead But Sleepeth: A Study of Gravestone Lettering
Doug Clouse
Co-Founder and Principal of The Graphics Office
Adjunct Professor at Purchase College and the Fashion Institute of Technology

PublishMe!
Stephen Eskilson
Professor of Art History
Eastern Illinois University

Attendees
  • Elizabeth Guffey
  • Stuart Kendall
  • Andrew DeRosa
  • Aaron Fine
  • Joel Mason
  • Liz DeLuna
  • Janet Esquirol
  • Kathryn Weinstein
  • Kristin Derimanova
  • Susan Spivack
  • Grace Moon
  • Eli Neugeboren
  • Andrew Shea
  • C.J. Yeh
  • Anita Giraldo
  • Dan Wong
  • M. Genevieve Hitchings
  • Aaris Sherin

dis_assemblage

Peter Fine
Assistant Professor of Graphic Design
University of Wyoming

A book project Fine is working on with the poet Carmen Gimenez Smith. Their collaborative dialogue addresses the personification of objects: the voice that their former and present lives come to form. The texts are informed by both fiction and non-fiction, and in this way, approach the notion of assemblage just as the collages themselves. The work resonates because of the whimsy, but more importantly, because it reminds the viewer of the material life all around us.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St. John’s University Manhattan Campus on Thursday, February 12, 2015.

What’s ‘American’ about American Industrial Design?

Carma Gorman
Associate Professor of Design History
The University of Texas Austin

Why does it makes sense to talk about industrial design—as distinct from the fine arts or even graphic design—from a national perspective. Gorman argues that design historians need to rethink the way they assign ‘nationality’ to products in order to more accurately capture the realities of international trade today.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St. John’s University Manhattan Campus on Thursday, February 12, 2015.

PublishMe!

Stephen Eskilson
Professor of Art History
Eastern Illinois University

Author of Graphic Design: A New History (Yale University Press) and editor of reviews for Design and Culture (Bloomsbury) talks about different publishing experiences including books, journal articles, book reviews as well as digital and self-publishing.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St. John’s University Manhattan Campus on Thursday, February 12, 2015.

Not Dead But Sleepeth: A Study of Gravestone Lettering

Doug Clouse
Co-Founder and Principal of The Graphics Office
Adjunct Professor at Purchase College and the Fashion Institute of Technology

Doug Clouse will speak about his research on lettering on nineteenth-century American gravestones and memorials. His work focusses on lettering in the Midwest, with particular attention paid to gravestones in and around Wichita, Kansas and the work of the marble company Kimmerle & Adams. The liveliness and variety of letterforms on memorials by Kimmerle & Adams and other Kansas firms reflect the ambition of pioneer settlers as well as the influence of print typography on inscriptional lettering. The ebullient mix of scripts, slab serifs, serifs, grotesques, and shadowed letters, the way lines of letters curve and angle, and the integration of letters with ornament recall the fancy print typography of the 1870s and 80s. Clouse will look closely at the letterforms and trace the materials, skills, technologies, and beliefs about death that coalesced to create this brief Midwestern flowering of lettering in marble.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.4: St. John’s University Manhattan Campus on Thursday, February 12, 2015.

History of Color In Comic Art: Technology, Aesthetics, and 64 Colors

Eli Neugeboren
Assistant Professor
Communication Design
New York City College of Technology, CUNY

Comic books are now considered high art and are included in museum collections around the world. They are given national awards, reviewed alongside literature and are printed on high quality paper. Their origins were not so lofty.

Comic books were cheap. They were printed on cheap paper, with cheap ink, and sold for pennies. To help cut costs special methods of coloring were developed to minimize the amount of ink used on the page. These methods allowed publishers to maximize the intensity and consistency of color while printing on what was essentially newsprint.

Most comics still use the stylistic look that was made necessary by limited resources and technology. The comics we see in comic shops (and online and on our iPads) today still, for the most part, have the same look they did at their inception. They have line art printed over color. The look of comic books is overdetermined and continues to reinforce itself from generation to generation; kids that grow up reading comics copy the style of the art and it becomes their style as well. In the age where digital comics are becoming more and more widespread, and is becoming the standard way to consume them, and where there is no need whatsoever to use line art because it is strictly pixels on a screen, the legacy of printing technology is ever present in every panel on the page and the screen.

This research was presented at the Design Incubation Colloquium 1.3: Parsons The New School on Tuesday, December 2, 2014.