I taught graphic design for many years, and I always mentioned the two projects that professional designers dreamed about. The first would be designing a typeface that becomes popular. This is not only financially rewarding, but it is amazing to see the impact on the world.
Typography is now a lost art, primarily through the glut of available typefaces. When fonts were formed in lead with matrix molds, the choices were less. When fonts were designed in postscript, the choices were almost endless.
I was sucked into that designers dream when the first typographic app came out. A designer could load the font into each character, and at the end you could upload the font to your computer and type with it. Of course it was much more than upper and lower case alphabet stuff. It was special characters, punctuation, numbers, super script, etc.
I only got the upper and lower case finished. What I did was upload my favorite five fonts, convert them into postscript outlines, then I averaged them all together to create a blend.
The final project was unique to my selections and had many of the qualities that I admired. I typed a few sentences, then forgot about going further.
The second dream of designers is to make a lasting logo. A logo for the ages that becomes representational, a short cut of identity. Fortunately, I not only taught graphic design, but I was the institutional designer for the college.
I’m not certain that I was asked to make a logo. I was just aware that a design had not been decided, because I saw that there were several different ways that the college presented itself in print.
There was a letterhead that spelled out the college name in Copperplate, a popular typeface in the late 1800s. This typeface did not have lowercase letters, it just used smaller capital letters instead. It was remarkable because it had very small, sharp serifs… almost like thorns, on a mostly standard sans serif body style.
This worked well with the college name because there was the letter “g” that had a descender sticking down below the base line. In Copperplate there were no ascenders or descenders.
Then someone tried using just the four first letters to make a textual logo. I mention four because the official name was “Contra Costa Community College”.
The end result was that it looked like four horse shoe prints, or a long broken chain. It was better to drop the “community”. Three “C”s was enough.
I worked on three different designs. The first was different ways to present three “C”s, some based on type, some based on art. One that appeared interesting was three curved, swooping shapes. This was before Nike’s logo. It was promising.
The next idea was based on a Japanese style circular “chop”. I once saw a rendition of Mt. Fuji surrounded by a circular band. When I was walking the college upper road, I could see Mt. Tamalpais and the bay quite clearly.
I did a quick sketch of Mt. Tam with the bay below, and I made three choppy “C”s in the bay water. Like waves. Then, I placed a circular ring around it all, broken only by the water.
The third idea was slightly improving the old Copperplate idea.
I placed all three projects in a folder and present them to the President of the college. I wasn’t sure he had the authority, considering there was the chancellor of the district. He liked the “swoop” logo, but said he would take the projects to a district meeting. He came back with the Mt. Tam “chop” idea. Although he thought it was Mt. Diablo.
I almost said that we can’t see Mt. Diablo from our campus, but then I realized that the district office can’t see Mt. Tamalpais. I said nothing. I changed the mountain slightly.
The round logo lasted seven or eight years, from 1977 to 1985. In 1984 the college hired a new president, and as some presidents do, changes were made. In 1985 I was asked to “improve” the logo.
I replaced the circular band with a horizontal double oval. I also removed one line of the waves in the bay, and changed the “choppy” three “C”s with a more typographic look. I used a typeface with a slightly round serif similar to CocaCola’s typeface. Lastly, I was asked to make the mountain more similar to Mt. Diablo. I never said that it was Mt. Tam. I changed the mountain again.
For the last thirty-eight years it has remained the same, with eleven different presidents. It can be seen from space because it is in the middle of the football field. It is chiseled in stone on several signs on campus, and of course it is on every piece of letterhead.
It wasn’t the lyrics of a classic song, it was the announced death of a person I’ve known for forty years.
Relationships made at work are in a peculiar box. Often they are simply “associates”, people that are known, people that share a building or office, people that work together on projects… but often they never enter in to your private life.
‘Associate” does not necessarily mean being a friend. In academia, relationships have another label- colleague, another person at the “college”. Again, friendship is not implied, but the relationship is deeper on many levels. More complex, more commitment.
It’s stranger still when the individual should be a “friend”, but has never quite transitioned to that close circle. It is always a missed opportunity. I received a death notice of a person that should have been my friend, but remained my colleague. We smiled in hallways. We brought joy to each other in the passing. We loved the same things in the world. We taught things of passion.
And somehow we never had the time for “friendship”. that was an error on my part. I should have reached out more because I appreciated his “being”. But I think he knew that, so maybe it was the same for him.
The college asked for comments, I sent the following.
David…
He was/is the purist definition of a colleague. We shared in teaching disciplines that did not directly lead to successful careers, yet we believed the disciplines were essential to being a successful individual. We shared being part-time instructors in the decades when part-time did not have the respect of others. We shared the challenge of being academic chairs when budgets were contracting every year. We shared the joy of loving the community of the college above all else. But he was kinder, wiser, and more gentle.
I will miss my rare colleague, as he continues to lead the way.
Frederick Wilhelm Diestler was born on May 6, 1860 in Lansing, Allamakee Countyt, Iowa. The new Republican Party had nominated Abraham Lincoln for the November election in 1860, and he won!
In the months before the election the country was defining issues issues with sharp edges, and the election of Lincoln was felt by some people in the South as the last straw. In Iowa they celebrated!
Frederick’s father, John Frederick, was an immigrant from Prussia. He was born in Gross Fahlenwerder, Soldin county. Over one hundred colonists had moved there from the Pfalz area near France, because of the threat of war, and constant French raids.
The colonists at first wanted to go to the United States, like their Hessian neighbors. But the Emperor had at first refused to let them go, asking them to consider going to some new lands east of Berlin. They spoke German there, and he promised not to draft their sons for war.
John Frederick was born in Gross Fahlenwerder, but as a teenager, he was one of the first that independently decided to move to America.
I’m not certain in what year he first came to the US. I found a record of him coming over when he was in his early twenties, but the oral history was that he was a teenager. I have found several instances where individuals came over to check things out, then went back to escort family and friends to the new world. In 1857 John zfrederick came by ship with a neighbor, Karl Berkeley.
John Frederick came to Iowa via the Great Lakes to Green Bay. From there he followed the portage trail through Wisconsin to the Mississippi River. I believe he stopped briefly to marry a distant cousin, Julia, at his father-in-law’s farm in Lansing , Minn. They stayed there for almost two years, and their first child died there in childbirth.
In a pattern that has repeated several times, after the death, they decide to move back to Wisconsin. This time there went to a sunburn of Milwaukee and lived on a small farm near Pewaukee. Julia was pregnant with Anna, and after the birth they went back to Langsing, Iowa. It’s possible that Julia’s father had helped, or knew, that a farm was for sale nearby, or perhaps they rented.
John Frederick had remember the area and decided to go to the neighboring farm, and Frederick William was born there as the oldest son.
It seems possible that Lansing was the place to go for births until 1873, when John Frederick purchased the Quincy Township farm. It was very isolated, no commercial buildings. The nearest hospital was in Dover, so perhaps that’s why several children had Dover listed as place of birth.
It looks like Anna and William had left the Quincy farm by the 1880 census. The unresolved mystery is where was Frederick William during the 1870 census. He was only ten years old, but he not listed in the family.
Perhaps this is part of the family lore… that Frederick William was often called “Wild Bill”. He was John Fredericks oldest son, but it appears that he and several of his brothers were not expected to take over the family farm when John Frederick lost his leg. Herman was given the responsibility, but even he gave up pretty quickly. John Frederick sold the farm in the Quincy Township, and brought a small house in the city of Nora Springs, Iowa.
As far as I can tell, Frederick William moved around Iowa, perhaps learning the trade of making rope for the farmers. Most farms had a patch of hemp growing, to use in the seasonal rope making.
Frederick did not get married early, he was 34 when he married Amelia Mary Louise Markmann Korth, on March 14, 1894. The oral story was that Amelia was a mail order bride, arranged through a German language newspaper. The surprise was that when Amelia arrived she was already pregnant with William Diestler, born September 21, 1893, in Fingal, ND.
The records show that she arrived in 1891, when she was 15 years old, she married Frederick William in 1894, when she was 18. Apparently she had been in the country for three years. Perhaps there was a previous mail order situation that didn’t work out, but she was already pregnant when Frederick decided it was time to get married.
His father, John Frederick was miles away in Iowa. His uncles and aunt were in Wisconsin, even further away. For some reason Frederick decided to raise horses in the plains near Fingal, ND, a town founded in 1891, by some Canadians, The nearest city was Fargo, ND and that was pretty small at the time. He purchased a ranch in 1893.
In 1876 the population of Fargo was only 600. By 1893 it had grown to nearly 8,000 people, then disaster struck on June 7, 1893. A fire swept through 33 blocks of the city, destroying nearly 300 buildings. The city responded by rebuilding within a year, and by 1894 most of the buildings were brand new, still standing today.
Frederick William was still living in Fingal, ND. From 1893-1912, he raised horses and slowly gained a measure of wealth. In 1912 he built an 18 room ranch house that was the largest in the local area. Then the winter of 1920 hit.
Frederick William had 160 acres about 2 miles east of Fingal. The blizzard killed over 200,000 head of cattle in ND. It wiped out 90% of the horses on the ranch. Only Ben and a couple of his sisters could help Frederick William. They had a half dozen horses left, which they quickly sold.
They have to sell the ranch at a great loss. The ranch house was moved by the new owner a few miles away. There was nothing left of the ranch.
The family spent the rest of the winter/spring in a stone silo that a neighbor rented to them. They picked the grains of wheat from the cracks in the walls, and parched them on the stove to make a decaf coffee. It was hard times. Most of the girls found jobs cleaning, washing clothes, doing house chores. The boys did the best they could but there was no steady work.
The economic pressure took a toll on the relation between Frederick and Amelia and they divorced in 1926. At the time Fargo was known as the divorce capital of the Midwest.
Amelia moved to the town of Fargo, and the older children found relationships and some work. For the next twenty years Amelia relied on support from the children in some fashion.
Frederick William was traveling throughout the Midwest with his rope making business. Frederick died in 1926, pretty much a broken man.
It was said that he mistrusted banks, but he didn’t put his money in his mattress. Since he traveled a lot, he sewed his money in the seams of his clothes.
He also was very talented with a pocket knife. He would often whittle a chain out of a two by four, complete with a box at the end that contained a small ball. He would do this often in one day.
‘Wild Bill” had many disappointments, and his life was hard. His true wealth was in the amount of his children.
I’m not saying that I’m completely knowledgeable on image making AI, but I have tested most of the commonly popular software, and some of the not so common. The trouble with reviews is that the software generally doesn’t get worse, it tends to correct itself and gets better.
For now, the best part of portrait AI is the backgrounds, the clothes, the hair, the skin tones, and the general placement of the facial features. Artistic styles can be fun to look at, but twenty anime portraits seems a bit much.
The spookiest feature is the ability to turn the head to a 3/4 shot from a full on frontal, or the ability to automatically animate the image.
Right now the easiest “tell” for an AI generated image is the pupil of the eye. The correct size, the correct highlight from eye to eye, and the general construction of the iris. The very last trial I made had nearly corrected this flaw, so it probably will disappear in the next few versions.
The text based AI is already scary, the image based AI will change forever our ability to trust photographic images.
I recently wrote about him on occasion of his birthday in January. He was 91, and I wished for him that 2023 would be a great year. He was still mobile a week before he died. Not mobile enough to go for a stroll, but he could get a snack from the refrigerator.
I don’t think he found much relief from the dementia caused by the mini-strokes from a few years ago. It’s been bad for his loved ones.
My middle brother would call him every month or so, and talk for hours. He hasn’t been able to handle phone calls for about a year. I would write him an e-mail periodically, and his daughter would read it to him. Later, he would tell her that I had called, and he would share the news. It’s been over a year since I last wrote. I just finished my 20th letter to him.
Bob,
So, I’ve been told that you died. I saw on my phone that your daughter Sheila was calling me in the afternoon on Wednesday. It’s funny how fast the brain takes in information, and projects the possible outcomes. I knew that you had gone before answering. It didn’t help.
It’s been a few days now. A roller coaster of emotions, a Ferris wheel of departures. My car is now closer to the exit.
“Bob Stories” are on my mind. You certainly generated tons of memories. And naturally, that generates many questions that I never asked, and I couldn’t expect an answer from you for the last few years.
You were my connection to Gayle, though you never said much about her. Even when you were lucid, I never remembered to ask about her. I was always waiting for the right time. The same waiting time I had with our parents.
You were so much older than I, and you became somewhat mythical. You would visit on leave from the army, and there was always gear left behind. Web belts, canteens, pouches, even a training dummy M1 rifle. I always had the best stuff in the neighborhood to play army.
Weirdly, the one thing that stands out were the “white” Mickey Mouse boots. They were issued to you when you received advanced training for crashing helicopters in the snow. I think it was Mt. Rainier where you built snow caves, and wore insulated white rubber boots. They actually had a built in release valve to deflate the pressure built up when flying at height in the helicopter.
Obviously I had to wear a dozen socks to put on the boots, but I clumped around feeling pretty important for years. Then on another visit, you reclaimed them.
One year you left scuba diving equipment. I immediately drained the tank while sitting in the bottom of my friend’s pool. I didn’t swim, I just sat there, breathing underwater. Then I felt bad that I had used all the air. I did use the fins to learn to swim while camping. They were so much netter than the crummy cheap kids fins.
For years I spent more time with the objects that you left, and very little time talking with you. Later, when I was older we didn’t have much in common.
Then I was in the army and we shared ideas about weapons and things that were sharp. I think you were impressed when I brought up the black powder rifle that I had built. At least you enjoyed shooting it in the woods.
When visiting your house, I always asked, “How many weapons do you have within reach, as you sit in your Lazy-Boy?” If your answer was less than a dozen I would wonder what was wrong.
I am now sitting in my own Lazy Boy. I count ten, three of them Norwegian bearded axes. I’m a work in progress.
I’ll end this last letter knowing that I’ll still be talking to you, and remembering. You lead the way, my brother. I loved, and love you always.
A medieval Greek word meaning “made without hand”. I suppose that would be all objects of nature. In the art world it would be all “found art” that didn’t include manmade objects. But this Greek word was primarily used in the world of iconology. It was used for Christian relics with images. The most famous being the “Shroud of Turin”.
What I have found recently is that many scholars are now calling it the “Man in the Shroud”. This is the result of trying to describe what it “is”, instead of what it might be. It is the most tested relic in the world, but it is easier to say what it isn’t, rather than what it is.
Compiling the most conservative descriptions I’ve found…
1. The shroud is made of flax linen, in a herringbone weave, measuring approx 14.5 ft by 3.7 ft.
2. There is a frontal image of a man on the left side of the rectangle, with the head near the center, then a dorsal image of the same man on the right side of the rectangle. The suggestion is that the shroud was laid flat, the man was placed on the right half with the feet near the right edge. Then the rest of the shroud was drawn over the body, with the left side pulled to match the right edge. Essentially the shroud was folded in half, with the body inside, and the head near the fold.
3. The image is only on one side of the linen material, and is only barely on the surface, less than a quarter of a hair’s thickness. It doesn’t penetrate through, it doesn’t have directional brush stokes, it doesn’t appear to be pigment or dye.
4. There are many areas of blood stains, which do penetrate through the linen. The blood stains are constant with wounds created by the result of being crucified.
5. In addition there are blood stains on the head and face, and from “scurging” of the body.
6. Finally, there are blood stains on the feet, wrists, and the left side of the chest.
There is agreement that the shroud has been positively known from at least 1354. During a public viewing in 1898 it was finally photographed by Secondo Pia.
It wasn’t until then that the original image was discovered to be a negative. When the photographic negative was developed it showed that the man’s image was a positive with many details now being visible.
The fine details in a normal photograph were still unresolved because of the fibers of the flax linen.
During the 1500s there was a fire in the cathedral where the shroud was stored. It was folded several times and just the edges of the folded material were burned. It was fortunate that one of the image was damaged, but several holes were charred and burned through. Local nuns sewed patches on the holes, and sewed a linen backing cloth, completely covering the backside of the shroud.
In 1988 there was an agreement with the owner of the shroud that carbon 14 testing may be done on some samples that didn’t disturb the image. Unfortunately, carbon 14 testing requires the sample to be completely destroyed in the test. The sample was taken from an 8 centimeter strip of the edge of the shroud. Samples were given off to three different labs around the world. All of them came to the same conclusion. The flax was harvested in the range between 1290 – 1350. The shroud was made in medieval times. The findings were combined and published by an independent scientific organization.
Later, scholars discovered that sometime in the 1600s, some of the edges of the shroud were patched with 1600s linen material with a “French invisible weave”. The 8 centimeter strip sample was part of that weave. So, the sample had original linen material and 16th century linen material mixed in the carbon 14 results. This meant that the average of the two resulted in the dates provided in the report. The same organization gave a second report that they could not very the dates of the contaminated samples. It was back to square one, nothing proved, nothing disproved.
In 2002, a restoration was made on the shroud. The patches were removed, the charred material was cut away and stored, and a new backing cloth was sewn in place of the old. This was done in secret without consulting dozens of shroud scholars. Some have said that important data is now lost forever.
Some say the the removed material could have been used for a new carbon 14 test, but now it’s been removed and can’t be validated. Other material has been micro-vacuumed from the shroud with consulting experts. ‘Sticky tape’ has been pressed on the exposed backside with some force to collect dust and pollen samples. Wrinkles may have been “steamed” in order for the shroud to lay flat, with lead weights attach to stretch the material.
Lots of opinions written by many people, but what has been done, is done. And nothing has been proven.
The shroud exists, the image exists. The age is unknown, the method making the image is unknown.
In the late 1300s it was declared a forgery. An artist made the image, intending it to represent Jesus in his burial cloth, showing signs of the crucified body.
Hundreds of facts and details have since made that very hard to believe. The idea that the image was made by the body being reincarnated is also very difficult to believe.
It wasn’t until 1988 that the ownership went to the Catholic Church.
It is still the most researched relic in the world.
This word has been bouncing around in my grey matter for a few weeks. Not because I self identify, but more that I’ve read the word in several different sources.
Most recently in an article in “The Atlantic Monthly”, by Agnes Callard. She is probably someone that I should know, or at least heard of, but I’m clueless. Agnes’s article was titled, “A Philosopher Gets Fed Up With Profundity, There are better ways to communicate.” The graphic was three repeating words, chiseled in stone…”Yada, Yada, Yada”
I think for most people it was a quick way of dismissing something that was said or written. A sarcastic response to wordy communication perhaps. I don’t know if many people would know that “Yada” is Hebrew, meaning “to know.”
So that “Yada, Yada, Yada” might still be sarcastic, but more pointedly, suggesting that you might “know too much”. Interestingly, the Hebrew could also imply that Yada is to know carnally.
The article begins with a warning from her Phd. advisor to not call herself a philosopher once she receives her doctorate. Better that she identifies herself as someone who reads philosophy. The reasoning is that she might be expected to be profound!
Apparently there had been a profile of Agnes that was based upon an interview, and not upon her written perceptions of philosophy. The reviewers of the profile responded that she was boring, banal, and unremarkable. And certainly not profound!
The expectation of profundity from a philosopher was not met.
I am not a philosopher, although I have been philosophical at times. For many years I was paid to profess. The teachers Union actually pushed a policy allowing the college district to call us “professors” without the usual requirement of the rigorous academic structure.
The problem with titles is that sometimes it is just a title, without the reenforcing background.
Most of the reenforcing background is actual work, and work that is decades long. Being “philosophical” on a lost summer day in 1969, does not qualify a person as a philosopher. It takes time and effort. Calling oneself a professor because of a labor policy is problematic.
How to be profound. It does not come with a title. It comes from the opinion of others, and not self identification. Multiple opinions of others, over a period of time. In addition, the opinions are from individuals that have a solid understanding of what “profound” means. A steep requirement.
Should one even desire to be profound? In one sense it is a label that establishes a “distance”. You can’t be close to a profound person. You might ask them for an opinion, you might sit quietly in a garden with them. It might be dangerous to be close to a profound person, they might parse your soul, judge you, and find you wanting.
I like the idea of “occasional profundity”. It would be every now and then, and definitely not on call. There’s a dramatic quality of not being able to be profound consistently.
Funny thing about choices and decisions. On the surface it would seem that the big choices are issues of light or dark. And yet, as humans we screw that up so often it’s ridiculous. A selfish, or mean spirited decision can never be a good choice.
The real difficulty in choice, is one between a great path, and a wonderful path. Neither path is perfect, both will have hardships. The problem is that the choice will give tremendous joy and direction, but will also remove other specific joys and directions because that path wasn’t chosen.
I used to sail, there were four cardinal points of direction, north, east, south, and west. I picked north and all of my future experiences were based upon my northern route. They were good, I was challenged, I met the challenge, I basked in the sun, and I made safe harbor. But I could have sailed West.
For a time I traveled by thumb, meaning I caught a ride with a car or truck that was already heading for a destination. I was willing to go along with the ride. Often I would be let off when the driver left the more traveled road, with the understanding that I had a direction but not a destination.
I was once let off in the desert on Highway 80. My ride was taking a sharp left turn into a dusty ranch house. I was grateful for the miles. As I put out my thumb again I noticed that I was almost a quarter mile past a fork in the road. Maybe a hundred cars were going east on 80, but maybe 25 cars were taking the right fork to go east on Highway 50.
My decision to stay where I was meant that I would never have the choice to take Highway 50. I was already past that exit. My entire future was going down Highway 80. As the morning sun became the afternoon sun, I was aware of dozens of cars that could never pick me up because they had turned off to go on Highway 50.
Then I thought that I didn’t make the choice of where I was, I was just left off because my driver had reached his destination. I could choose to walk back, past the fork in the road. I could then put out my thumb that would include all those cars that would end up going on Highway 50.
I was still true to my general direction, but now I could allow my destiny to make the choice. Perhaps Highway 50, or maybe Highway 80. A car going on to Highway 50 could stop, but there might be dozens of empty beer bottles rattling on the floor. I could refuse the ride. I still had choices of light or dark.
After I walked back, it turned out the next ride was continuing on Highway 80, but it was in a sportscar with two people in the front, and I had to crawl up on the uncomfortable back shelf. But there were no rattling beer bottles.
And eventually, almost fifty years later I am here in my recliner, having lived everything in between.
Yep, that fluid stuff under your skin. Tricky stuff, half of it is blue, until it hits the air, then it turns red, the other half is red already.
Apparently its like oil in an engine. If it gets low things go bad. If oil shows up where it is not supposed to, then something should be done. The driveway is generally a good place to check for your engine maintenance.
If it’s your body, then perhaps the bathroom. Color is important in the bathroom. Unusual color is often from blood, unless asparagus/beets are involved. Although I have had several incidents when instead of urine, it was a stream of bright thick red blood.
That is so unusual that alarms go off. The first time it happened I thought I only had minutes left on this earth. It seemed like a pint each time I went to the bathroom. Not good for an engine to lose that much oil, really not good for a body either.
After much worry, my urologist cleared the issue up. Five years earlier I had successful radiation treatment on my prostrate. There was some scar tissue and now that had caused the bleeding. It would clear up in a few days.
It was still not pleasant to see a specific kind of fluid appear where it wasn’t supposed to, but it did clear up. Why wasn’t I told that this could happen five years ago? I could have had a heart attack! It happened again two years later, it was still shocking, but not a big deal.
So this week was another “fluid event”. This was concerning “sputum”, “phlegm”, or “mucus”. All disgusting words to describe a disgusting but normal object. And color is also important.
If the color is clear or white, things may be normal. If the color is yellow or greenish then perhaps a few alarms will go off. If the color is brown, leaning to red, then lots of alarms. Bleeding in the lungs is always serious, and sometimes deathly serious.
So I spent part of this month coughing. A lot of coughing, not from COVID or flu, just coughing. Then for a week it was brownish, then really brown. Alarms went off, things had to be done, experts had to be contacted. Oil was dripping on my driveway again.
There is a saying, that mostly, “things are simple.” I must admit I go there a lot, particularly when something happens to me that is brand new. It doesn’t have to be tuberculosis, or lung cancer, it could be an irritation or a slight case of pneumonia. I’ve never had pneumonia, so what do I know?
Now I know, and for a week I have two more pills to take everyday. The brown mucus has faded, the oil in the driveway has disappeared.
Now I just have to watch the amount of sugar in my oil.
I’m writing about something unknown becoming known. I’m a sucker for this. If I stumbling upon a website, or blog, that promises five new facts about a person or place, then I’m there. I usually bypass the preceding paragraphs to get to the numbered lists, then often enough I’ve already heard about most of them. Sometimes I’m even knowledgeable enough to know they are false.
I’m not particularly intelligent, it just that I have a lot of experience digging after trivia. Very wide knowledge base, but only about two inches deep. I do have some pride in a few areas where it is deeper than two inches.
I taught in college level art areas for about forty years. The history of photography is one area where I go fairly deep. I also taught a general course for non-art majors for 4 or 5 years. Admittedly it ranged from cave art to modern art in 18 weeks, so we couldn’t get very deep on any decade, but we touched on the major art movements.
Naturally I spent a little more time on the movements where I had a personal interest. Impressionism, surrealism, and photography were in my wheelhouse. Did I know well every artist? Of course not, but I would have bet that very few had escaped being read about.
So, naturally, last year I was dumbfounded when Alice Neel, the great portrait artist, was a new discovery. How did that happen? Did a chapter fall out of the book I was reading? Did I miss the room in the museum I was visiting? (Well, that’s probably true!)
Fortunately I was able to get to know Alice’s work all at once, and coming late in life, I enjoyed it even more.
This should have prepared me for more surprises, but it didn’t. My daughter emailed a question for me, “What did I know about Man Ray, and Lee Miller?”
Ha, well… very early on I read about Man Ray. I mean the very name demanded attention. To find out that his medium included photography and that his work is classified largely as “surreal” meant that I had background knowledge.
However, with more thought I realized that as an artist I had about two inches deep on his life, and maybe 4 or 5 specific images. Mostly I remembered his work in solarized photographs, not even knowing that he popularized the technique.
And about Lee Miller? I replied to my daughter that I didn’t know a thing about him.
12 hours later I knew a few things about her. And mostly I knew how embarrassed I was that I was so ignorant.
Lee Miller, (1907-1977), born in NY, became a fashion model in the 1920s. Interested in getting behind the camera. She went unannounced to Man Ray’s studio in Paris, saying that, “you must study with the best,” so she became his model and intern, regardless of his opinion.
She became a fashion photographer, after years of being in front of the lens. She also had several shows of her surrealistic photographs. Man Ray introduced her to everyone in Paris. With the coming of the war, she went to London and worked for Vogue Magazine. She became one of five women that were war correspondents.
Lee Miller was at the D-Day landings, and took photographs all the way through the liberation of Europe. She also photographed the liberations of the concentration camps. She witnessed horror, and was deeply affected by it.
It turns out that I did know about her. I had seen some of her photographs, I just didn’t take the time to find out the photographer’s name. The sad truth is that when a painting or sculpture is viewed you natural want to know about the artist. When you are impressed with a book, you want to know about the author. When I see an interesting photograph, I don’t always think about the photographer. I want to change that.
The Logo
I taught graphic design for many years, and I always mentioned the two projects that professional designers dreamed about. The first would be designing a typeface that becomes popular. This is not only financially rewarding, but it is amazing to see the impact on the world.
Typography is now a lost art, primarily through the glut of available typefaces. When fonts were formed in lead with matrix molds, the choices were less. When fonts were designed in postscript, the choices were almost endless.
I was sucked into that designers dream when the first typographic app came out. A designer could load the font into each character, and at the end you could upload the font to your computer and type with it. Of course it was much more than upper and lower case alphabet stuff. It was special characters, punctuation, numbers, super script, etc.
I only got the upper and lower case finished. What I did was upload my favorite five fonts, convert them into postscript outlines, then I averaged them all together to create a blend.
The final project was unique to my selections and had many of the qualities that I admired. I typed a few sentences, then forgot about going further.
The second dream of designers is to make a lasting logo. A logo for the ages that becomes representational, a short cut of identity. Fortunately, I not only taught graphic design, but I was the institutional designer for the college.
I’m not certain that I was asked to make a logo. I was just aware that a design had not been decided, because I saw that there were several different ways that the college presented itself in print.
There was a letterhead that spelled out the college name in Copperplate, a popular typeface in the late 1800s. This typeface did not have lowercase letters, it just used smaller capital letters instead. It was remarkable because it had very small, sharp serifs… almost like thorns, on a mostly standard sans serif body style.
This worked well with the college name because there was the letter “g” that had a descender sticking down below the base line. In Copperplate there were no ascenders or descenders.
Then someone tried using just the four first letters to make a textual logo. I mention four because the official name was “Contra Costa Community College”.
The end result was that it looked like four horse shoe prints, or a long broken chain. It was better to drop the “community”. Three “C”s was enough.
I worked on three different designs. The first was different ways to present three “C”s, some based on type, some based on art. One that appeared interesting was three curved, swooping shapes. This was before Nike’s logo. It was promising.
The next idea was based on a Japanese style circular “chop”. I once saw a rendition of Mt. Fuji surrounded by a circular band. When I was walking the college upper road, I could see Mt. Tamalpais and the bay quite clearly.
I did a quick sketch of Mt. Tam with the bay below, and I made three choppy “C”s in the bay water. Like waves. Then, I placed a circular ring around it all, broken only by the water.
The third idea was slightly improving the old Copperplate idea.
I placed all three projects in a folder and present them to the President of the college. I wasn’t sure he had the authority, considering there was the chancellor of the district. He liked the “swoop” logo, but said he would take the projects to a district meeting. He came back with the Mt. Tam “chop” idea. Although he thought it was Mt. Diablo.
I almost said that we can’t see Mt. Diablo from our campus, but then I realized that the district office can’t see Mt. Tamalpais. I said nothing. I changed the mountain slightly.
The round logo lasted seven or eight years, from 1977 to 1985. In 1984 the college hired a new president, and as some presidents do, changes were made. In 1985 I was asked to “improve” the logo.
I replaced the circular band with a horizontal double oval. I also removed one line of the waves in the bay, and changed the “choppy” three “C”s with a more typographic look. I used a typeface with a slightly round serif similar to CocaCola’s typeface. Lastly, I was asked to make the mountain more similar to Mt. Diablo. I never said that it was Mt. Tam. I changed the mountain again.
For the last thirty-eight years it has remained the same, with eleven different presidents. It can be seen from space because it is in the middle of the football field. It is chiseled in stone on several signs on campus, and of course it is on every piece of letterhead.