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.

Facebook, it’s pisses me off. It was nice back in 2005 when the feature list was short. But now?

I hated the integration of college Facebook and high school Facebook. I loathed the opening of Facebook to anyone with a valid email address. I abhorred the addition of all those third-party applications. And then all the requests from applications, that friends have added, to have me add the app as well. And now I’m getting spam from random people asking me to be their friend, people whom aren’t real quite akin to those spam friend requests on MySpace.

I haven’t tracked my time usage on Facebook but I’m sure most of my time would be devoted to denying requests, not actively posting on friends’ walls, sending messages, or browsing photos.

The harmony of the design I once lauded has been tainted by the introduction of those eyesore applications. Facebook used to be about communication, but now that part has seemed to take a backseat to lolcats, zombie attacks, superpoking, sending gifts, and stupid crap like that.

I’ve been thinking that perhaps I might remove all the frivolous information on my facebook, the “favorites”, the received gifts, photo albums, wall, etc, and just put up a generic message that says:

“I’m Alex. If you want to know about me or just want to say ‘Hi’ open up your email client and send me an email. I like emails from friendly people and I send emails back too!”

It’s not really Facebook’s fault I feel this way, it’s the fault of the general population that makes up the Facebook user base. I still think the company is pretty cool and the whole platform is quite an amazing piece of programming.

To this date, my laptop screen has been hit by no less than six different asses in lecture.  All asses belong to freshmen girls. Only one apologized. What does this mean?

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?!

Between classes this fine Monday I’m listening to my iTunes library on random. First song up is Bing Crosby’s Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams, second up is Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise and third is a little swing number, Ingrid Lucia’s (& the Flying Neutrinos) Some of These Days. The randomness of the song lineup didn’t seem weird at all to me; must have been the mood I was in.

I love having such a varied music library.

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.

The other night I had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by legendary modernist designer Massimo Vignelli. It was very interesting to hear this guy who’s been in the industry for over 50 years now talk about all the projects he’s been involved with, from when he worked with Venini in Milan to his work with Bloomindales, the National Park Service, American Airlines, and The New York Subway System.

Massimo divided his lecture into groups of 5 years, and the beginning of each section he had a cute little black and white of his wife and himself. Massimo really injects a lot of humor into his stories; his pretty strong Italian accent and old-man behavior lend to some funny on-stage happenings.

Over the two hours of lecture I jotted down some things that Massimo had said here and there. Here are a few of the notes I took; things he said, advice, and a few random out-of-context sentences. It should be noted though that Massimo is an unapologetic, opinionated, modernist and some of the things he says definitely aren’t for everyone.

I see graphic design as the orginization of information that is semantically correct, syntactically consistant, pragmatically understandable, visually powerful, intellectually intelligent, and above all timeless.

Don’t trust market research, do what you want.

How can people judge design if [they don't know|it never existed before].

If you can’t find it, design it.

Have imagination, have courage, be fast.

If you listen to the manufacturer you’ll still be making mickey mouse trays.

Stay away from miserable design.

The grid is a lion, and you are the grid tamer. If you stay too long in the grid, the grid will eat you.

Look at my pants!

Luck is very important, you should be lucky.

Never work with middle management, work with the president. Middle management is afraid of losing their jobs.

Adding is stupid, subtracting is genius.

At the end of the lecture I stayed behind for a few minutes to have a short word with Kely Salchow, the AIGA Detroit Education Chair, and of course, Massimo. I had also brought along Massimo’s book, Vignelli: From A to Z, which I had a copy of in my library in the hopes that he’d be so nice as to autograph it, which he did.