Novel Graphics!

I finally started my first new graphic design class tonight, as part of a six-week course. Excited! If you haven't guessed by these blog postings, I have been wanting to do this for some time now, and the Arts Center of Troy, New York, helped make it possible.

Tonight we learned about some of the principals, history and key figures of graphic design. I had already been learning some of this peripherally at the Rockwell Museum (where I have even talked directly with a few of the designers mentioned), through my previous school study (long time ago), and just growing interest in design over the years... so I come to this class with a new found knowledge and desire to learn about the subject-- it really feels like a "missing link" that will be very useful for my future work. Now that I better understand what graphic design means (as opposed to advertising), it also feels like a perfect outlet for my interest/skills as a creative problem solver.

Our "hands-on" tonight was starting to learn Adobe Illustrator. The last time I really used this program was during a brief continuing ed class I took right after I graduated from college-- I'm not sure I really got the hang of it (or time to learn). Our instructor, a working designer, made it clear that the computer is just a tool, and that comforted me-- at heart, I'm really more interested in the creative process than technical... although I know that is necessary. Things have come a long way with Illustrator, or maybe I have-- I do use Photoshop and InDesign fairly regularly, so it made it easier to pick up. As we learned the ins and outs of the software, we simultaneously played around with re-designing some business cards. It was just the right balance, and I actually started to brainstorm on some possible ideas about how to make a florist's card more exciting, while playing around with color, shapes, and fonts.

"Art is everywhere." 42 Street Art Project, Manhattan, 1993

One of our homework assignments this week is to research one of a list of renowned graphic designers the instructor had on a list. I had first pick, and immediately zeroed in on "Tibor Kalman"-- I remember the name and work as being significant.

It's getting late... time to sign off, but I'm so happy to finally be moving ahead in this area!