Excerpt from An Interview with Milton Glaser
Martin Pederson:
Students today seem drawn to that kind of multi-disciplinary approach.
Milton Glaser:
I think they like the idea, but one cannot overstate the difficulty involved in it. The nature of professional life is to keep you limited in what you do-for you to specialize. That’s the way you develop a reputation. It’s the professional path. You get to be the best within the category. You get known for something. It’s very hard to switch around, because people don’t like to be confused about what it is you do. The professional criteria does not encourage you to broaden your practice. So while a lot of people call themselves generalists, what they really mean is they’re in marketing. So it’s not easy. Also, people are not necessarily disposed to doing more than one thing. Some people do one thing, some do a lot of things. It’s the old hedgehog and fox argument. The only thing you have to watch out for is that you’re not a hedgehog working as a fox, or a fox working as a hedgehog.
You can read the rest of the interview here: http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20030801/an-interview-with-milton-glaser
Source: metropolismag.com
Annotated Bibliography Set 01
{ 01 }
Gadi Amit addresses the issue of design education in America and how hard it is for him to bring young and fresh graduates on his design team because the lack of strong designers.
Amit, Gadi. “American Design Schools Are a Mess, and Produce Weak Graduates.”American Design Schools Are a Mess, and Produce Weak Graduates.Fast Company Design, 10 Dec. 2010. Web. 17 Jan. 2012. <http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662634/american-design-schools-are-a-mess-and-produce-weak-graduates>.
{ 02 }
New concepts, ideas and improvements are looked at in design schools in America; from different designers that have been through the typical design education.
Hall, Peter, et al. “NEW CONTEXTS/NEW PRACTICES: SIX PERSPECTIVES ON DESIGN EDUCATION.” AIGA. AIGA, 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. <http://www.aiga.org/new-practices-six-perspectives-on-design-education/>.
{ 03 }
Elliot Earls is commenting on the designer themselves and the design education being taught to them. Questioning who and what kind of designer we are to make us think deeper into the subject of design.
Earls, Elliot. “The Sentient and the Bag of Meat.” Design Observer. N.p., 29 Apr. 2010. Web. 27 June 2010. <http://designobserver.com/>.
The Sentient and the Bag of Meat
I have re-read this many times from the past few years ever since a colleague of mine showed it to me. It always makes me think deeply in self reflection and education. So here it is…
It is the Sentient student with whom we are concerned.
In most cases, design education takes place within the larger context of this thing called “art school.” Art school culture is a unique subculture within American education. In Art School Confidential, Dan Clowes claims to “blow the lid off a million-dollar racket” whereby Clowes carefully exposes art school as a cabal of snake oil salesmen, has-beens and hirsute poseurs. Well, I’m calling bullshit.
Just as the smash hit films, Superbad, Knocked-up and She’s Out of My League, resonate deeply in American culture because they portray a re-balanced universe of pathetic couch-squatting, disempowered male losers [1] who magically win the affection of overachieving super-females, Art School Confidential resonates deeply with all of those sleep-walkingBags of Meat, who see any knowledge beyond their immediate intellectual grasp as illegitimate. Art School Confidential is a mirror that legitimizes ones’ intellectual, spiritual and physical laziness. Like the law of gravity, there are simple immutable physical laws that govern the universe. [2] Chief among these laws is: knowledge is power. This simple inescapable truth undergirds what Sentient students in real art schools are working so hard to achieve. These students strive to achieve agency and real power through knowledge. Knowledge begets power. Power begets a higher level of self-determination. Self-determination begets a better life.

Clowes outlines two potential career paths for the art school kid. With this kind of pathetic attitude, what would you expect? It would seem far more productive to throw down with Busta Rhymes, “There never was a plan B.” Or to assimilate the kind of gangster-grind work ethic of 50 Cent. Come on kid, I’m gunna make something of myself “or die trying.” Clowes and Judd Apatow’s toxic ideology would have you believe that merit, meaning and success (yes, success) are the result of luck and the ability to talk a big game. Of course, verbal skills may be important, but I would posit the opposite. Merit, meaning and success are the result of the hustle, skill, knowledge, sweat and heart.
The real issue regarding life and work is the struggle. The struggle to transcend our own limitations. The arrow through the heart of the matter is the desire to achieve higher consciousness, greater power and meaning in life and work. This happens not through the anti-intellectualism, entitlement, sloth and the general existential malaise that pervades our culture. Disaffection, ennui and nihilism are for the weak. The pathetic characters populating Clowes’ art school landscape, and those they appeal to, are Thoreau’s great mass of men who “lead lives of quite desperation.” Campbell’s “bliss” is the eternal sunshine piercing the fog of this torpor. Bliss is the pathway that the Sentient struggles to remain on. Bliss, that feeling of being deeply at home in something, denies external pressure. It denies duty and expectation in favor of knowledge of self. It should have been a critical component of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It is in fact, the primary mechanism enabling and leading to self actualization. It is akin to the Jesuit notion ofmagis, Latin for “the more.” Bliss enables and engenders magis. [5] In its simplest terms the concerns of everyday life appear to be at odds with Bliss and with self-actualization. [6] Yet this simply reflects a failure of imagination.
Apatow and Clowes are but two of a nearly infinite wellspring of sources, seducing the populace with the promise of short-cuts.They are pied pipers leading others down the primrose path of victimhood, they encourage the viewer to distrust fancy book learning and sweat equity. Go ahead park your ass on the couch all day and smoke some weed, somehow you’ll score a hot-chick with a great job. Oh, and if you don’t make it as a designer, blame your school: after all, those fancy polysyllabic words in those books were a con game anyway. Good luck with that and let me know how it works out.
Oh, by the way, next time you see Mr. Clowes do me a favor, and ask him how he likes working at the art supply store.
Source: observatory.designobserver.com
The Daily Barometer on Bacc-core requirements
I need to talk to them. Thanks Tat for pushing this my way!
New Milton Glaser Website
I know this is old news in internet time but still want to share with those who have not seen yet. Enjoy.
Taken with instagram
Private collection (Taken with instagram)
First library card. (Taken with instagram)
My boys. Good NBA tonight. Our two teams in one night. (Taken with instagram)
Something to make you smile today :-)
Looky what I found in one of my boxes. #knife I have no idea where and when I accumulated this. (Taken with instagram)
Taken with instagram
Homemade Korean. Thanks Sam! (Taken with instagram)
