On March 6th I introduced the well known Chip Kidd at our weekly Penny Stamps lecture held at the Michigan Theatre here in Ann Arbor. You may know Chip Kidd by one of the hundreds of book jacket designs he’s done over the years, heck, you probably have some of his work on your shelf or even on your nightstand. Perhaps you’ve even picked up one of his novels, The Cheese Monkies or The Learners.

Before the lecture began I introduced myself to Chip backstage, and chatted with him a little bit before going onstage. I was introduced to a packed crowd, there were probably twice as many people there than our usual weekly lectures. It really is true though, you really can’t see anything when your at the podium and in the spot light; just a bright light and a sea of black.

After introducing Chip to the audience I headed down to my seat and enjoyed one of the best lectures since Ellen Lupton last September, or 2×4 the February before that. It was great to see how he showed work that he did that clients turned down; most lecturers would never show how they failed. It was a pretty humorous lecture all-in-all, soon you should be able to grab the podcast through iTunes.

After the lecture I met backstage again with Chip, Chrisstina Hamiliton (the Director of Visitors’ Programs), and Art & Design professor Shaun Jackson. I managed to get my copy of The Learners signed by Chip before heading off to dinner.

We ended up having dinner at Pacific Rim, a pan-Asian restaurant. Our dinner party consisted of 4 A&D undergrads (myself included), a grad student, two A&D professors (Shaun Jackson, and Jill Greene), and of course, Chip Kidd. Dinner was pretty tasty. Conversation was a little awkward at first so I started asking some questions about his first book. After that, conversation seemed to flow pretty well. Dinner was tasty, as well as dessert.

Here we have A&D undergrad Jeremy Daly throughly interested in Chip Kidd’s melting face.

Dessert was an interesting affair. I was in the mood for something a little cold and sweet. The sorbet was the perfect fit, so I ordered it.

Immediately after I ordered Chip asks, “Now Alex, you are straight aren’t you?”

I was a little taken back by the question but I respond, “Well, yes.”

Chip then says, “Well the sorbet was a terrible decision. I’ve never seen a straight man order sorbet for dessert after dinner before.”

I get a little red in the face and laugh (as does the table) but I say back “What then, would you say is a more manly dessert.”

Chip thinks for a moment and then someone chimes in “The banana roll.”

The table laughs a little and Chip says “Oh yes, the banana roll does it for me!” Laughter continues and then dinner ends.

Quite the experience, definitely not my usual Thursday evening.

A few weeks ago the University of Michigan School of Art & Design hosted the very impressive graphic design exhibition The Graphic Imperative, an exhibition covering posters for peace, social justice, and the environment from 1965-2005 from around the world. It was one of the first all-graphic design exhibitions I’ve been to, it was also the first shows I’ve been to where the theme wasn’t just art for art’s sake. It was a very powerful show indeed; each piece spoke to some very important world issue, everything from AIDS to tolerance to war.

Before the exhibition officially opened Elizabeth Resnick, co-curator and Associate Professor at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, gave a little presentation introducing the exhibition.

The next day I went and sat in on a little early-morning coffee and bagels breakfast discussion with Elizabeth Resnick, two of my professors, a few grad students, and another undergrad. After the bagels had been eaten I had the chance to have a little portfolio review; I got some great feedback on my portfolio.

Pretty snazzy event overall!

Self promotion is important, and as visual artists we need to get our work out there to solicit paying jobs, be it freelance contracts or full-time benefits-paid jobs. Here are a few of the ways I can think of right away to promote yourself and your work:

1. The Internet

Get yourself a website; a your-name.com website. Put your work up. Tell your friends. Work the blogosphere (forgive me for the term) to your advantage. Find some design blogs, read them, post comments, leave your address in the URL box when replying. Traffic isn’t going to come to you at first, you need to place some lines and gradually reel in traffic.

Pros: Everyone uses the internet, your potential audience is nearly limitless. Personal portfolio sites are great to make your work visible to people that might hire you.
Cons: The Internet is saturated with everyone’s work it’s hard to stand out from the crowd.

2. Pro-Bono Work

Do some work for a needy cause, or an organization in a tight spot. Don’t just do some pro-bono work because the person soliciting the work makes some random promises of more work to follow. Be careful not to get taken for a ride though.

Pros: Everyone wants something for free. You can really easily pick and choose your projects and who to work with (or not).
Cons: You don’t get paid. Exposure is based on how high-profile the client is. Pro-Bono jobs don’t usually have much of a budget at all so often you can’t used much fancy stuff (materials wise).

3. Competitions

There’s lots of creative competitions out there; everything from shirts to posters to mockups. Be wary of what you submit work to though, just sayin’ is all.

Pros: Crazy exposure + prizes!? What’s not to like.
Cons: You’re competing with everyone else for the top spot, which means your work needs to be that much more creative and awesome than everyone else’s. Know your rights when submitting work.

4. Be an Entrepreneur

Perhaps get some of your work printed up and sell it, not necessarily to make a big profit but just to get your work out in public (of course you don’t want to lose money). Start a business, a sole proprietorship (cheap and easy), and sell stuff online or in person.

Pros: You can turn self-promotion into money and potentially a side business for supplementing your income when your job/career workload is light.
Cons: You have to know how to do a bit of marketing (and self-promotion [now were getting recursive!]) already and how to work the hype-machine in your favor. Can be a bit costly to get things rolling.

5. Portfolio Magazines

Submit your work of online (or meat-life) magazines that are purely about up-and-coming artists work, usually centered around a theme. JPG Magazine is one dedicated to photography, ANTI by RevloverLover accepts all mediums, ROJO Magazine, and a few others (you can find a bunch at PDF-MAGS.COM).

Pros: Usually completely free. Great way to get your name out there.
Cons: There’s no money it in, but hey, self-promotion’s a bitch.

Jeffery Zeldman hits the nail on the head with his latest essay. I really suggest that everyone take a few moments and read it over, even you non-web designers; it’s a smart article that while relatively brief, covers the important things about web design so that even those that don’t speak XHTML can understand things.

I meant to write about this some time ago but things have been rather busy lately. Anyway, a few weeks back as part of the University of Michigan School of Art & Design Distinguished Visitor Series lectures (damn that’s a long title!) Ellen Lupton came to give a talk to the entire Art School body plus anyone from the public that was interested. Her lecture was entertaining, funny, a bit racy, and short (a welcome rarity among many long-winded, boring lectures). From what I hear the Q&A afterwards was even better than the lecture itself, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend due to another class coming up.

Anyway, Ellen Lupton recieved the AIGA Medal the previous night, in New York, for her fabulous contributions to the visual design world. And the day after the lecture, the Umich AIGA Student Group Board was able to obtain two or so hours to meet with Ellen to have a little portfolio review. To have a portfolio review with such a highly regarded designer is a rare event indeed.

We sat down with Ellen at 10am in the senior studios and talked a bit before delving into our portfolios; we talked of her newest book in progress and what it was like to receive the AIGA Medal. Three of us had a pretty well-rounded portfolio to show, one was just beginning to assemble her portfolio, and one was just there to take it all in. She had some pretty good, rather constructive, things to say about each of our portfolios.

Personally I had a decent reaction, but she did criticize the typography my business card as being “amateurish,” which admittedly it is. To be fair it is over 2 years old and I had never taken a typography class before this semester. Also, she commented that my portfolio website is rather plain and boring. I explained that it’s minimalist, but she said that I gave it a bit more depth it’d be a lot better. And guess what? She’s right. Not that that opinion was exactly rocket science but she hit the nail on the head. Goes to show outside opinions on projects are totally helpful, which isn’t that the whole point of a portfolio review to begin with?!

I was asked recently to introduce Helvetica to an auditorium of folk at the University of Michigan Helvetica Screening (sponsored by UMMA, University of Michigan School of Art & Design, University of Michigan AIGA Student Group, and AIGA Detroit). I happily agreed and last night I made my way through a completely packed auditorium (the isles were full as well and people stood outside the doorways in the halls to watch) to introduce myself, the sponsors, Craig Steen the president of AIGA Detroit, and finally introduce the film itself to get things rolling.

The movie itself is amazing; it’s very well produced. The interviews are very interesting, insightful, and overall extremely funny. These interviewees are leaders in their fields and while they are all respected for their work, a lot of them have outrageously contrasting viewpoints as far as typography and “good design” goes. It certainly is a group of very opinionated designers. Seeing two renowned designers such as Massimo Vignelli (whom I just wrote about) and Erik Spiekermann get so worked up over this one little ubiquitous font is really interesting, though I think Spiekermann would win if they came to fisticuffs over the matter (being 16 years his junior).

After the film we facilitated discussion to a smaller audience on the opinions expressed in the movie and on the movie itself. Some interesting points and questions were raised.

For our first UM AIGA Student Group event it was an amazing turnout and super successful. This movie is definitely a must see, but good luck finding it at your local Blockbuster.