Visual Arts Briefs

As the Republicans decide who will represent their party in the upcoming election and President Obama campaigns for a second term, the public is hearing a lot of speeches and political sound bites. But what about the campaign logos emblazoned on podiums, social media pages, and Web sites? What do the candidates’ campaign logos say about them? Three SVA faculty members—experts on design, branding, and design criticism—weighed in.

Steven Heller, co-chair, MFA Design Department: Last campaign’s logo. Need something to show a new beginning—just a tweak of some kind. But it may be too early for the Obama logo. Perhaps a new one will be unveiled at the Convention.

Debbie Millman, chair, MPS Branding Department: After four years, the identity still holds up. But I am disappointed that his campaign isn’t using the branding more creatively. There is no question it is recognized worldwide. Why not have another riff on the logo or the man à la Shepard Fairey?

Alice Twemlow, chair, MFA Design Criticism Department: Sol Sender’s design for the 2008 Obama campaign reset the standards for campaign logo design. His iteration for the 2012 re-election is less revolutionary but no less sophisticated. The sun rising over the American fields emblem, which the campaign presumes is now so recognizable that this is all is needed to signify the president, has taken up residence in the 0 of 2012. The choice to reverse the text in white out of cornflower blue feels fresh and bright, and still hopeful. The typographers Hoefler & Frere-Jones created a custom slab version of Gothic with serifs for the 2012 campaign and so the numerals are made of blockier bolder stuff than they were in 2008. Let’s just hope the man is too.

Heller: Clean and predictable. Yet almost a parody. Still can’t take the name “Newt” seriously.

Millman: His branding and website looks like a banking identity. Intentional?

Twemlow: With its dull dark blue, serif typeface, and a double-lined border, the Gingrich campaign signals conservative classicism as emphatically as it can. It would be almost too boring to contemplate if it weren’t for the delightful synchronicity of the word “Newt” being underlined by a swoosh that resembles a slimy salamander.

Heller: His name is the most bland of all. Fitting [that] the logos are equal to the name.

Millman: Old and trite; branding has a corporate hollowness to it. Web site feels like an infomercial. What identity?

Twemlow: Ron Paul’s campaign, if you could honor it with the name, is a veritable grab bag of different styles, resulting in a visual chaos that prefigures his deregulatory politics. He has co-opted every iconic visual device from the “I heart NY emblem” to the Facebook “like” symbol. The audaciousness and lack of systematic thinking in this ploy is funny until you remember that this guy is running to be presidents of the U.S., not prom king.

Heller: Did you know his real name is Willard (like the rat)? Actually the R representing the PEOPLE is not a terrible idea. I can see this growing on people. I’m not sure I believe the tagline.

Millman: Simple and self-confident, but very much about the man (not so much about our country or our future).

Twemlow: This is the scariest logo of all, because it’s subtly clever in its attempt to steal the middle ground from Obama. Romney is three men—red, white, and blue—according to the layers of the initial “R,” and thus he hedges his bets politically.  He has co-opted Obama’s cheery shade of blue, attempted to replicate his clean graphics and the mix of serif and sans serif, and he’s even picked the word “Believe” to stand behind, since “Hope” was otherwise engaged. This logo is like a fake Louis Vuitton handbag.

Heller: What’s right with this logo, other than his political stance?

Millman: For a corporation, it would feel established and a bit stuffy. Seems as if there should be an image of the Bible on this page… If you’re going to make a site that looks like Tumblr, why not just create a Tumblr account?

Twemlow: The further right you get, the less care seems to have been taken with the visual presentation of a candidate’s image. Like a graphic equivalent of his lamely monogrammed sweater vest, this logo looks as if it were created from an interchangeable selection of hackneyed devices that signal American values (eagle, red and blue, stars) in a DIY business card machine.

In a recent Adweek feature, writer Brian Braiker opined that “political branding today is in a word, bad,” despite the fact that there is so much at stake. With the 2012 presidential campaign season now in full swing, Braiker consulted experts in the advertising industry, including SVA Acting Chairman Milton Glaser and MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman, to see how they felt about the way branding is being used in the current race for the White House.

“Nobody is taking the branding seriously,” said Millman. “It’s really laughable. And it’s shocking, given the sophistication of Obama’s branding…. Obama really changed the way in which design can be used effectively for a candidate…. He had a really powerful message—that ‘change’ message—and he repeated it over and over and over again.”

Glaser agreed, and pointed out the challenge of creating an effective political logo. “It attempts to produce a sort of atmosphere and attempts to be memorable the next time you see it,” he said. “It always traffics in the existing symbolism and things that people have already seen. So you will see the endless variation of stars and stripes and Statues of Liberty—and everything becomes banal.”

To read the full article, including critiques of the logos of the GOP presidential candidates, visit Adweek.

Image: Screenshot from Adweek.

The popular podcast interview series Design Matters, hosted by MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman, was named the winner of the 2011 People’s Design Award at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 12th Annual National Design Awards gala on October 20.

“Design Matters began in February of 2005 with an idea and a telephone line,” Millman said. “I thought it would be a great way to ask my heroes everything I wanted to know about their lives and their thoughts and their careers without seeming stalker-y…I realized the opportunity to share the brilliance of my guests with an audience I never expected was the gift of a lifetime.”

To clinch the People’s Choice Award, thousands of votes were cast for Design Matters, which edged out nominees including the High Line, the iPad2 and WordPress software.

“Design Matters harnesses the power of online radio to communicate insights about design, great design minds and the lives of designers,” said Bill Moggridge, director of Cooper-Hewitt. “I’m thrilled that the public has chosen to honor it.”

Upcoming guests on Design Matters include architect James Biber (November 11), designer Martin Venezky (November 18), book cover designer Peter Mendelsund (November 25) and designer and MFA Design for Social Innovation Department Chair Cheryl Heller.

New episodes air weekly on Design Observer, which also features the complete archive of past shows. To subscribe to the Design Matters podcast, visit  iTunes.

MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman has just released a thought-provoking new book. In Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits, Millman interviews 22 of today’s sharpest minds in marketing, design, and culture—such as Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Pink, Brian Collins, and Seth Godin—on topics ranging from the overuse of the word “branding” itself to the effectiveness of market research, and much more. Here are some responses to Brand Thinking so far.

As if “serving as AIGA’s president, running the world’s most listened-to podcast about design, working as a Chair at the SVA, and being the president of Sterling Brands” weren’t enough, said Steve Delahoyde at Mediabistro’s UnBeige blog, now Debbie Millman delivers Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits. We “have been fans of Millman’s for years,” and this book “seems like almost necessary reading and is sure to be great.”

“I am ordering my copy right now,” said Swiss Miss. Each interview in Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits “cuts through all the empty jargon and buzzwords to expose the underpinnings of how people respond to the ideas of designers, and how the best brands open avenues for cultural change in our daily lives—whether we’re aware of it or not.”

The word “brand” is “a challenge to define in our hyper-consumer economy: marketing differentiator, manipulative sales tool, creative triumph, all of the above,” said Graphic Design USA. But “Debbie Millman tackles the issue, or rather elevates the discussion, with Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits.”

To read Millman’s interview with Stanley Hiansworth from Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits, visit Fast Company.

Design Matters, the popular internet radio show hosted by MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman, has returned for its seventh season. Featuring one-on-one conversations with some of the biggest names in design and culture, Design Matters is recorded live at SVA, using a specially built booth in the MPS Branding studios. The new season kicked off on September 16 and featured the architect Michael Arad who, at age 34, was selected from 5,201 competitors as the winning designer of the World Trade Center Memorial. An archive of their conversation can be found here.

“Design Matters began in February of 2005 with an idea and a telephone line,” said Millman. “I thought it would be a great way to ask my heroes everything I wanted to know about their lives and their thoughts and their careers without seeming stalker-y. In the process, I gleaned the most magnificent view of some of the greatest design thinkers and practitioners of our time. I realized the opportunity to share the brilliance of my guests with an audience I never expected was the gift of a lifetime.”

Regular broadcasts of the audio interviews continue on September 23 with illustrator Jessica Hische, who was named one of Print magazine’s New Visual Artists (20 under 30). Future guests include designers Alex Bogusky and John Bielenberg (September 30), Fast Company Senior Editor Linda Tischler (October 7), design anthropologist Dori Tunstall (October 14), The Takeaway’s John Hockenberry (October 21), gardener and writer Margaret Roach (Oct 28), design firm Design Army ( November 4), architect James Biber (November 11), designer Martin Venezky (November 18), book cover designer Peter Mendelsund (November 25) and designer and MFA Design for Social Innovation Department Chair Cheryl Heller.

New episodes air weekly on Design Observer, which also features the complete archive of past shows.

Image: Courtesy of Debbie Millman.

Although students from the MPS Branding Department participated in SVA’s 2011 commencement exercises, coursework continued through the summer as the inaugural class completed a seven-month-long thesis. Rather than individual projects, “students were commissioned by Procter & Gamble, the world’s leading consumer package goods company, to develop branding concepts for one of their global beauty brands,” explained Debbie Millman, chair of the MPS Branding Department. “They were tasked with ‘thinking big’ and to communicate the brand’s purpose via events, on shelf and online.” On July 20, invited guests joined senior executives from Procter & Gamble as all 23 students from the department shared their thesis work in a polished group presentation.

At the reception following the event, a few of the graduates-to-be remarked on the uniqueness of the MPS Branding Department. “A lot of the students in the program contemplated an MBA,” said Jessie McGuire. “What made this program different was that it had a design element to it. The program is focused on the actual process behind design thinking, which is understanding how creative concepts come to life. The program teaches how design can move business objectives forward.”

“Brands can bring a lot of meaning into people’s lives if done correctly and ethically,” said Abby McInerney. “A brand is not a logo, it’s so much more. There’s a very thorough approach to research, to understanding who your audience is. What they do in their regular lives. How that affects what your brand does. What is true about your brand.” These are just a few of the concepts students were challenged with during their year of study.

Reflecting on the end of the program’s first year, Millman said, “This far exceeded my expectations. When I co-founded the program with Steven Heller, one of my long-term goals was to develop partnerships with some of the greatest corporations in the world. It was an incredible and unbelievable opportunity to work with Procter & Gamble. I still can’t believe that our first thesis out of the gate was so big and so successful.”

Image: (first) MPS Branding Department students Natasha Saipradist, Daniel Lin, Maxine Gurevich and Kathryn Spitzberg at reception; (second) Debbie Millman and students at presentation rehearsal; (third) MPS Branding Department student Noah Armstrong in class. All photos by MPS Branding Department faculty member Scott Lerman.

Since 2003, MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman has hosted Design Matters, an audio podcast that features one-on-one conversations with some of the biggest names in design. Millman records the podcast at SVA, using a specially built booth in the MPS Branding studios, and invited the Briefs for a behind-the-scenes look at her interview with alumnus and faculty member Gail Anderson (BFA 1984 Graphic Design).

For each of the 12 episodes Millman produces each semester, she does meticulous research on her interview subject (which usually requires reading and annotating one or more books authored by the interviewee) and prepares a list of questions about the designer’s life and work. On the day of the interview, the department’s students, faculty and staff are invited to watch the recording in the program’s main classroom space—the glass-walled booth looks out onto the classroom, and the audio is fed into large mounted speakers.

Once the show’s producer, Curtis Fox, got both Millman and Anderson hooked up in the recording booth (including bottles of MPS Branding-branded water!), the host began an easy-going but focused conversation that started with Anderson’s childhood interest in the Jackson 5 and Partridge Family and moved onto her time at Rolling Stone magazine and theatrical-promotion firm SpotCo. One segment of the interview focused on Anderson’s years at SVA, especially her relationship with designer and faculty member Paula Scher. “I owe her a lot,” said Anderson, citing Scher’s influence as both a teacher and professional mentor. At the end of the interview, the two were still clearly enjoying each other’s company and the conversation continued even after the recording had stopped.

The episode of Design Matters with Anderson is set to appear on Friday, February 18, on the “Observer Media” section of the Design Observer Web site [UPDATE: It's right here]. For more images from the recording of the episode, visit our Facebook gallery.

Images: Photos by Brian Glaser.

The design blog swissmiss launched the 2011 edition of its monthly Creative Mornings series at the SVA Theatre with a talk by the College’s Acting Chairman Milton Glaser. A capacity crowd filled the lobby and main auditorium on the morning of January 13 for a breakfast, lecture and Q&A session, hosted by swissmiss founder Tina Roth Eisenberg. (Past installments of the series have included MFA Design Department Co-chair Steven Heller and MFA Interaction Design Department Chair Liz Danzico.)

Glaser took to the podium and showed examples of both preliminary and finished work as he talked about his creative inspirations (referring extensively to the lessons of Pablo Picasso’s career) and the upsides of failure. “You can’t fail often enough,” he said. “I urge you to fail more often in your professional life if you want to find out what you’re capable of.” Glaser also made several references to the SVA Theatre itself (which he designed), showing studies for the exterior marquee, lobby and even the carpet beneath the audience’s feet. Throughout the 20-minute talk, the accompanying images showcased one iconic design after another, attesting to the impact Glaser’s work has had on business and culture for more than half a century.

Following the talk, Eisenberg announced the next Creative Mornings event, which will take place on Friday, February 25, and feature MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn.

Images: (top) Milton Glaser speaking at the SVA Theatre; (bottom) Glaser and Tina Roth Eisenberg. Photos by Emily Gilbert and Chasi Annexy, from the Creative Mornings Flickr feed.

In “Design On The Air,” an article for Imprint magazine, Steven Heller (co-chair of the MFA Design Department) interviewed Debbie Millman (chair of the MPS Branding Department) about her ongoing Design Matters interview series, which transitioned from an online live radio show to a podcast series on Design Observer. The podcast is recorded in front of a live audience at the MPS Branding Department studio, which means that, as Millman explains in the interview, students are able to participate as well as meet the guests that are brought onto the show.

MPS Branding Department Chair Debbie Millman is bringing her popular Internet radio show Design Matters back for a new season. Hosted on the Design Observer site, the sixth season of Millman’s interview show begins on Friday, September 17, 3pm, with guest Massimo Vignelli, a Modernist designer who co-founded Vignelli Associates with his wife Lella in 1971.

Millman will be recording the new season of design conversations at the MPS Branding Department’s studio at 132 West 21st Street, and among her upcoming interviews will be sessions with SVA faculty members Steven Heller and James Victore. To listen to the latest episodes of Design Matters and browse the series’ archives, visit designobserver.com.