FullBleed

The Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington is proud to have six, nationally-known design professionals judging the 60th Annual Show. Meet them all on March 20.

Doug Bartow

Doug Bartow

Doug Bartow — principal and design director at Troy, NY-based id29 — began flirting with design and typography at any early age. In grade school, he was drawing fraktur letterforms on his notebooks while his classmates were doodling KISS and Van Halen logos.

His passion for typography was fully ignited while in the BFA program at the SUNY New Paltz. Professor Muneera Spence, who studied under Paul Rand, gave her students a rigorous introduction to typography using only five typefaces. This training imparted Doug with a strong confidence to take typographical risks and further explore their abilities.

While he is an enthusiast of type, that’s not to say a typeface doesn’t rub him the wrong way on occasion.

“As far as faces I’d like to see less of: Trajan. It’s beautifully drawn, but so ubiquitous. I can rarely go a day without seeing it used in one form or another.”

As a man familiar with the state of type, Doug knows what he wants to see from up-and-coming designers.

“I see too many typefaces in the work of young designers, many of which are poorly drawn or freely downloaded off the Internet. Show me you can communicate beautifully using only three weights of Univers. I’ll be much more impressed.”

Doug, like many of us, is navigating his first recession as a working professional, but he and his design firm are staying firmly grounded while remaining optimistic. He points out that in a recession, the same rules apply as in a boom: designers must intently listen to clients, perform the necessary research, and produce outstanding work. He also believes that in a down economy, clients can’t afford to forgo going out on a creative limb.

“Common sense would dictate that clients will get more conservative in tough times,” he said. “I would argue now is the time to differentiate yourselves from your competitors—using good design and smart strategy to rise above the din.”

Doug will be looking for good design and smart strategy at the Annual Show. He’s sure to bring his unwavering enthusiasm for new design to this position.

“I love looking at and discussing current design work. Meeting other designers never gets old,” he said. “If you’re someone interested in the state of design and advertising in DC, this show will feature the best of 2008.”

What kind of work is he hoping to miss?

“Anything that uses Trajan.”

Kate Bingaman-Burt

Kate Bingaman-Burt

What types of quotidian things have you spent your hard-earned dough on today? Deodorant? A trashy magazine? An overpriced salad from a fast-feeder masquerading as a white-collar eatery?

If you’re like most people, you forget about your insignificant purchases shortly after having made them. Kate Bingaman-Burt immortalizes hers in a project called “Obsessive Consumptive.” Since 2002, she has been chronicling one item she purchases each day by either photographing or hand-drawing it. Plus, she hand draws all of her credit-card statements until they are paid off. In 2010, Princeton Architectural Press will publish a book filled with these daily drawings.
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“When I speak with another person’s voice, I am a graphic designer. When I speak with my own voice, I am an artist.” — Chris Noel

I’m just walkin' here - Chris Noel

Maybe you know him for his award-winning graphic design work or maybe for his signature use of undiluted process colors in his layouts. But what you might not know is that Chris Noel is starting to make a name for himself as a fine artist.

It all started — at least the revived, fine-art part of his life — in 2002, when Chris was returning from a press inspection in Los Angeles and found himself seated next to a young man going to a music audition in Nashville. While he says he doesn’t think it inspired him to start painting again, the young man’s excitement about the audition clearly awoke a part of Chris that had been dormant since his early twenties. Back then, he would paint using supplies his older brother had given him and, not able to afford expensive canvasses, he used discarded sheet rock and other flat surfaces he could get his hands on.

After that flight back from the West Coast, Chris found himself drawn to painting again. At first, he started with store-bought canvasses, but soon realized that he didn’t want to keep buying them to feed his growing habit. Remembering his early days, he looked for cheaper surfaces on which to lay the fast-drying, thick acrylic paints he favors. As luck would have it, he was restoring an old wooden boat and he found himself with numerous scraps of interestingly-shaped wood that soon became his new canvasses.

Chris said that finding this new, scrap-driven direction was what kept him going in those first couple of years of painting again.

“I’m not sure I would have kept at it, to be honest,” he said. Soon, he began incorporating other found objects — old floppy disks, scraps of cardboard, computer parts — into his work, often allowing the objects themselves to suggest new directions. He called these “debris paintings” and the overall style “Post-Consumer Realism.” In his words, he just “turns it loose and it evolves on his own.”

To find his scraps, Chris combs dumpsters and roadsides, recently finding an old French-style armoire that he hauled back to his house strapped to the top of his car. Disassembled, the various pieces have become expressive backdrops for his latest work.

Got Jobs? - Chris Noel

There are plenty of creatives out there who harbor secret ambitions to be fine artists. The problem is, it’s hard work getting noticed in the art world! You really have to work at it, be willing to accept rejection, and be committed enough to it that you’re willing to work, as Chris does, in a cramped, partially-heated garage much of the time. While this may not qualify as suffering for your art (he still has both of his ears), it certainly tests your commitment.

And committed, Chris is. In the last six years, he has made more than one hundred colorful, deeply layered works that fill his house, garage, and now, galleries. Since 2006, he has had a few gallery shows, was featured in several local publications, and has even made it on television. Drawing on more than 25 years as a communicator, Chris promotes himself using beautifully-crafted promotional books that he makes himself and even has a website devoted to his fine art. He estimates that, at any given moment, he’s got six or more paintings in various stages of completion.

His most recent show, at the Black Rock Center for the Arts in Germantown, was a dual show with established sculptor Marcella Morgese. Her mostly monochromatic steel and mixed-media sculptures were interspersed with Chris’ colorful debris paintings to great effect, made all the more dramatic by the gallery’s high white walls. As someone who dabbles in fine art — but who has yet to put in the serious kind of effort Chris has — it was an inspiring sight. It’s got to be some indication that you’ve become a serious artist when people eat hors d’oeurves while looking at your work.

So what are Chris’ next steps as a fine artist? At some point, will painting become his primary pursuit and graphic design fall by the creative wayside?

Industry’s Revenge - Chris Noel

“There’s a spark I get from painting that used to be there for me about design and I’m not really sure if I can come up with anything new, design-wise,” he said. “I’m obsessed with it.”

He’s definitely noticed that when his design life is busy his painting is looser and the opposite is true when things are slow, suggesting how important an outlet painting is for him. And though he remains committed to his painting, he has also branched out into beautiful art boxes — or “Sassy Boxes,” as he calls them, which are colorfully textured cousins to his debris paintings.

Recently, Chris has been instrumental in putting together the Art Directors Club’s upcoming fine art show for area creatives. With the same commitment he puts towards his artwork, he has toiled to put on a serious, first-class exhibition. It’s a shame we’ll only get to see a fraction of what he’s done over the last six years, but Chris is too honest — and modest — to try and skirt the rules limiting each artist to ten entries.

“I don’t feel ownership of my work,” he said. “Because it’s cast-off debris, it really belongs to all of us. How can I claim it as my own? And besides, until someone wants a piece to hang on their wall, it’s still garbage.”

Alas, I wish that extended to the cost of buying one of his paintings. Until I can afford one, I’ll have to wait for him to have the “art garage sale” he keeps talking about.

To see more of Chris’ work, go to www.postconsumerrealism.com.

To find out more about the Designer’s Art Exhibition, visit http://designersartexhibition.eventbrite.com.

“To me, this stuff is still graphic design. There’s really no distinction between design and fine art when you remove the client from the mix. I will always be a perpetual student of color, form and composition. Being a designer is a terminal affliction from which one never recovers. I like to think of my current state as being somewhat reformed.”

This is Part I of a series of solutions to pro-bono design by the Washington, D.C. design community.

There is an old saying that I kept sticking in my mind as I was preparing for this article:  “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

One of the biggest hurdles in doing pro-bono design is how to manage all of the requests for free design services with the work we do for paying clients.  In trying to meet some of these requests, we as designers are strained for time, so we offer our pro-bono clients a fish.  Not an actual trout or salmon, but maybe a blue gill. In design, that might be a brochure or a poster — that tangible solution to their communication problem.  We are, first and foremost, businesses that have to make decisions as such.

So, how do we find the time to teach our pro-bono clients to fish, or, rather, to give them the plan and strategy that will make that brochure really impact their cause?

One local design firm has found a unique way to balance both its business and its desire to really make an impact for local non-profits.

For the past five years, Basis: A Brand Consultancy has participated in the nationwide Create-A-Thon®, an annual 24-hour marathon of design that offers a soup-to-nuts approach to design and marketing.  Plus, it benefits some of the local regions smallest non-profits in dire need of marketing and communication assistance. Create-A-Thon happens each year on the same day.

Basis’ President Catherine Shaw is the driving force behind the DC-area’s chapter of Create-A-Thon.  She spoke with FullBleed about her firm’s pro-bono work.

“Create-A-Thon is a great way for us to answer those non-profit requests in an organized fashion,” Shaw said. “Lots of clients that benefit from Create-A-Thon are those with very small budgets, struggling to come up with answers to questions like,‘What comes next?,’ and are the most involved at the grass-roots level.”

Create-A-Thon is more than just 24 hours of producing communication solutions.  Basis first recruits volunteer designers, producers, and writers to participate, then determines who will receive these creative services — a process that begins months in advance of the actual event.  And Basis isn’t alone in making these determinations; members of local non-profit communities review applications from non-profits (more than 60 in 2008) to match resources with needs and attempt to find those that can “go to a whole new level with communication assistance.”

“We look at who we have volunteering and how what we donate can make the most impact,” Shaw said.  “This is not just once a year for us; it’s an underlying aspect within our company values.”

This process, while time consuming, is well-worth the effort to Basis, and the time up-front is crucial to allowing them to hit the ground running on the day of the event.  With clients’ needs already assessed and paired with the creative talent, the work that then comes from the event can be focused on a holistic approach to addressing those needs.

“We take a very thoughtful and intricate approach to each client’s needs, and we make every effort to determine what is appropriate for the client,” Shaw said.

Each client meets with its team to develop an articulated communication plan that includes strategy and the creative to implement it — in other words, how to fish.

“It’s one thing to hand a client a brochure. It’s more valuable to help them understand how it fits into their whole communication strategy.”

Create-A-Thon has proven to be a win-win solution for Basis, allowing them an organized way to give back to their community while maintaining a successful business.  Mentoring Today CEO Penelope Spain offers great accolades for this process after her non-profit participated in the 2008 Create-A-Thon.

“A few weeks ago we sent out our ‘annual appeal’ to individual donors,” Spain said. “The response we have received so far has been tremendous!  We have already raised more money than from any prior annual appeal!  We have also received countless emails and phone calls from donors saying how impressed they are with the brochure and with how far we have come as an organization… Also, since we mentioned in the appeal letter that the design of the brochure was donated through Create-A-Thon, folks are impressed with our ability to be frugal with our funds and still deliver quality outputs.”

This is just one of the countless ways that local design firms and designers are giving back to our community.  We hope that this unique approach to pro-bono design will offer you some inspiration and insight into designing for the greater good.  If you have a unique solution to pro-bono design that you would like to share with the community send your ideas to publications[at]adcmw.org.

Other Good Resources

• Designism
• Probonafide
• Idealist.org

Embossed on the cover board of Beware Wet Paint by Alan Fletcher is the following paragraph:

“A marketing manager, resentful of being told by the Chairman that he had to see me, made his position absolutely clear. ‘I know nothing about design,’ he said; ‘furthermore I don’t want anything to do with it.’ He was kitted out in a chalk-stripe brown suit, a distressed-patterned tie, wore glasses the color of stewed glue, sat behind a tacky reproduction antique desk, and worked in a bureaucrat’s office to match. I believed him…and left!”

This anecdote will give you an idea of what famous graphic designers go through with some clients. Just like us! And from the Preface:

“Marcel Duchamp used the phrase ‘Beware Wet Paint’ to remind us that it takes time to judge the worth of work. This book looks at thirty-five years of Fletcher’s work: some of the most recent may not yet be dry.”

Fletcher, along with Bob Gill and Colin Forbes, started Pentagram in Britain in 1965. He is as close to being a graphic design god as you can get. This man was a true thinker and artist. He died on September 21, 2006, at 74.
To quote Steven Heller, “For Mr. Fletcher, nothing was as important as the idea.”

Beware Wet Paint is published by Phaidon.