I’ve been invited to contribute to the Rockport Press blog, RockPaperInk (thanks to Emily Potts and Steve Heller!). Posts will be about ‘Playing with Type’, and include projects from the upcoming book I’m working on. So far two posts are up:
Urban Cross Stitch
What Type are you

LookBook for Visual and Critical Studies, School of Visual Arts. 250 pages of amazing work!

Location: School of Visual Arts, E23rd st building

During the last course, students applied for the ‘Ideas that Matter’ Sappi grant, received $6,000, and lent their design skills to the nonprofit Build It Green! NYC. With myself as project manager, Vivianna Briseno, Liu Chiawei, and Libby Clarke completed the project with amazing results.

Process
On the first day of the course, the students all wrote a list of things that are important to them. Something that everyone had on their list was living sustainably. Libby knew about BIG NYC!, a non-profit retail outlet for salvaged and surplus building materials. Their mission is to keep these materials out of the landfill, while offering deep discounts on their resale. All proceeds help support environmental education programs in local schools and host lectures and art events. We told them about the grant and they were pleasantly surprised by the offer of free design and production. They had nothing at the time; no in-store signage or print materials.

For signage, we discussed what type of materials could be used to print on that would last long and have multiple uses. The set of signs we created were silkscreened onto wood. They are posted in the warehouse, and can also be easily transported for use at expos and their green market booth.

We also designed canvas bags, using bags from the silkscreener that had been misprinted on (and would have gone to waste). These were turned inside-out and printed with the BIG!NYC logo. T-shirts were printed for staff using the same screen used for the bags. Flyers with general information, and a brochure about deconstruction were also produced in large amounts on recycled paper by a local printer.

At the end of the project, we sent the client pdf’s all our initial design explorations, a basic style guide, and all native files for the projects. We made ourselves available as consultants if they have any questions or need help updating files. Additionally, the client recognized the need to have a graphics person in-house, and were able to allocate a budget to do this.

What did you takeaway from this project?
“I learned how to apply for a grant, pitch ideas to non-designers, and exchange ideas with non-profits,” notes Vivianna. “This project demystified the process of grant application. If this Sappi grant exists, there are others out there for non-profits that I can apply for” adds Chaiwei.

“My first inclination was ‘let’s make some sexy design, it’s free for them’. I thought it would be a vanity project. It ended up being very practical, in the trenches reality. It’s not about producing an extravagant portfolio piece, but giving the client what they need, and being of service.”

“I feel more empowered to reach out to local resources for printing versus going to larger suppliers. Working with a local silkscreener and printer, there was a more personal level of involvement,” says Libby.

In Closing
I recommend to all of my students that they do one pro-bono design project a year. Big or small (depending on where they are in their career). It’s a way to give back and feel a part of something bigger than just making things look good. Each time a project based around helping others is assigned in one of my classes, it is the most favored assignment of the semester and almost always produces the best outcomes.

Check out the project press!
Graphic Design USA’s Nov 2011 Issue
Design Observer 

Typeface design, created during the Cooper Union Typography certificate program. Summer, 2011.
Derived from sketches, created using FontLab. Swel is a working font available upon request!

Whenever a friend asks for help with the design side of wedding organization, i’m always happy to help. I like to get crafty and stay very low budget. With this one, I used a rubber stamp to decorate the menu, back of favor tags, and other printed items at the reception (cupcake descriptions! cake flavors!). The nametags also used a rubber stamp alphabet, and have that nice silk screened affect. The reception is at Frankie’s in Brooklyn so the palette and type choices (Knockout and Mrs. Eaves) fit perfectly with the environment.

 photos: Eva Dahl

I’m taking the type@cooper program this summer and loving every minute of it! Learning so much and meeting some great people. Sumner Stone is schooling us on the history of typography. We’re spending hours drawing letterforms and practicing calligraphy. Sara Soskolne from H&FJ is teaching us FontLab and helping with the development of our typefaces (more to come on the progress of my project). Yesterday Ken Barber from House Industries had us practice hand-lettering.

A few classmates are blogging about their experience (thanks to all!), i thought i’d share:
Desmond Wong,  Jack Curry

Collaborated with Annica Lyndberg to create this piece for ‘Art Around the Park’ at Tompkins Square Park in the east village. So much fun! Our work was featured by the Six Word Story Every Day, inspirational daily storytelling!