Wednesday, February 18, 1998
Pencils in hand, designers learn to depend less on computers
PROFILE: Professor Ivan Chermayeff advocates flexibility,
practical skills
By H. Jayne Ahn and Andy Shah
Daily Bruin Contributors
Behind the famous symbols for NBC, Mobil, and Xerox is a man
named Ivan Chermayeff, who likes "simplicity for its freshness" in
graphic design.
Chermayeff, an internationally- renowned graphic designer and
artist, was appointed this year’s Art Council Professor of Design
and is currently sharing his expertise with a design class in the
School of Arts and Architecture.
Prior to taking his seminar, design students had to submit
portfolios and be approved by the department.
"Normally we do more theoretical stuff and computer in our
department," said Jason Moskovitz, a third- year design
student.
"But (with Chermayeff) we are doing a lot of collage and
cut-and- paste which is more ‘real-world’ than we are used to,"
Moskovitz said.
Both the students and the visiting professor seem to agree that
they are trying new approaches to learning design.
"The students are fun, articulate and hardworking. But they are
rather unknowledgeable about other disciplines and they delve very
much into the computers and multimedia." Chermayeff said.
"They don’t draw, and they don’t use their hands much. I think
that’s a shortcoming in how flexible they can be.
"If you never hold a brush, or pen, or pencil in your hand and
only press buttons, you are losing something," he said.
The School of Arts and Architecture should be more
"multi-disciplinary" and allow students to have some experiences in
other ways of learning "besides moving mice around in the dark,"
according to Chermayeff.
"Design is a service to other people. (We) are solving other
people’s communication problems. Therefore, it is becoming of us to
know something about other things that go on in the world," he
added.
In addition to working with students on campus, Chermayeff will
be giving a public lecture and walk- through of an exhibition in
mid- March featuring his recent mural project of over 1,000 square
meters, "Tiles of the Oceans."
He blended the classic Portuguese tile with the computerized
process of digital imaging to produce the gigantic tile wall at the
Lisbon Aquarium.
The 55,000 tiles were individually hand-painted, each
representing an abstract design that bears no distinct relation to
the overall subject of the oceans of the world.
"If you step back, it’s a photograph (of ocean creatures). If
you are up against it, it’s a wild abstraction of blue and white,"
Chermayeff said.
The Lisbon Aquarium was recently constructed as part of EXPO ’98
and is the largest in Europe. Chermayeff, who studied at Harvard
University, the Institute of Design in Chicago, and graduated from
Yale University, School of Arts and Architecture, owns a firm in
New York that has created a number of logos for large enterprises
that are now much like household images in America.
His exhibition and graphic designs have won awards from numerous
places including the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Type
Director’s club, and the Society of Illustrators. In addition, he
received honorary doctorates in fine arts from the Corcoran Gallery
of Art (Washington, D.C.) and the University of the Arts
(Philadelphia).
In the future he will be working on projects at the Smithsonian
museums.