 Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be here. I've grown to love Seattle. I've been out here a few times now What I'm going to do of course talk about typography and how it has been part of my work and Before I do that before I talk anything about design. I just want to talk a little bit about my entire career and some of the experiences that I've had along the way what you're looking at here is the beginning of my Well, it's my home page on my website but this is the work experience that I've had starting in school at Pratt and going up to that 68 which is the Olympics and I've had quite a bit of experience since then So I'm not going to talk about everything so I'm going to show the things that are near and dear to my heart and of course the Olympics is a big part of that so if you'll indulge in that I just love to explain some of the things that happen and In fact, I have to say something in New York I was invited to speak at the type directors club and I went over and I said, you know, I got I studied industrial design I don't even really know that much about I felt very Insecure and I don't know that much about typography really and they said well What the hell is Mexico 68 and I oh my god So there's a whole other angle that I've come at typography from and I'd like to talk about that because it has to Do with of course branding and it has to do with the third dimension. So, okay now I have my studio in Manhattan Right right across from the Museum of Natural History that's central circle I went to school in Brooklyn and I grew up in Carney, which isn't that far from Manhattan I was born in Newark, New Jersey, so I'm I'm kind of a local boy in the area One of the people in my life and I'm you know All of us that are in the creative arts have probably had experiences that have been not only memorable But very helpful as far as things that we do in our our profession in our careers my grandfather was my favorite guy in the family and he was an engineer on the Lackawanna Railroad and He well, this is me when I was about I don't know three four years old and that's him after he's retired He told me a lot of stories now. He was out west. He was in the Spanish-American War He was out west after that to kind of cool it and he was out there when Billy the kid Well, people were out there and he actually met Pat Garrett the guy that shot Billy the kid So, okay, I got all these stories and of course, I didn't know anything about design then so I wanted to be that's him and Of course, I wanted to be a cowboy Okay, I was the kid in class that could draw I imagine a lot of you had that same experience My father was a fisherman and I spent a lot of time out on the Atlantic and Any of you that are and you're very close to the water here, too So, you know the aesthetic that comes off the sea or that type of You know kind of no-nonsense aesthetic is quite beautiful The compasses the rope the knots and all of that and that was really important for me I had a lot of that and it has made a big impression in my early life I did a lot of work in Factories I paid my way through college by working in factories. My dad was he was second world war And he became alcoholic and I didn't really have a dad in my young life So my mom I might be she raised me so we were fairly poor So the working the factories was really helpful as far as getting me to college and so forth I really liked the rims and I liked them because of their helmets. So this is probably one of the first I was like 14 13 14 15 years old and I just love this helmet and Not really that I love Bob Waterfield. They had crazy legs hers. They had Bob Waterfield He was a quarterback and I wanted Bob Waterfield's autograph. So I had an idea. I Thought I knew Bob Waterfield was married to Jane Russell So I drew a picture of Jane and I sent it to Jane and I didn't hear anything for about six or eight months And I thought well, I tried then I got a letter Isn't that isn't that lovely and you know, it's these these things are like a epiphany moment She said thank you so much for the sketch your work shows definitely promise all of a sudden I like Jane, but also I got Bob's What a grandpa so I did sports I I did football I did basketball I did boxing and My boxing career I was in a boys club and it lasted I remember exactly four fights And as you get better you get in with better guys And I was doing pretty well and I got in with a better guy in my fourth fight And I really nailed him and all of a sudden I'm sitting on the seat of my pants. He hit me with a counter punch So I figured there must be something better than this I'm not so sure I made the right decision, but I Ran for it's my first poster actually And My spelling is bad, but I actually misspelled Pants that way, you know intentionally Anyway, I won I had no idea what I was getting into was more in my mind It was more of a popularity context and all of a sudden I won that I had to get up on stage and conduct every Friday the Assembly for the whole school and I remember the first time I got behind one of these lecterns and my knees were banging so hard That I actually had bruises on my knees So I got over that early on so here I am now as I mentioned I didn't have a Lot of tutoring and so forth as a kid and I had no idea of college I mean I just really didn't think about it my family couldn't afford it and I was president and I got interviewed and They asked me what I was going to do now everybody else was going to college to West Point and so forth So I got clever. I said well, I like art. I'm going to follow my art And then I read this and I thought that looks pretty good So I did and I wound up getting into Pratt and that's where the factories came in I you know, I could work the summers in factories and actually at that time you can't do that now pay for my tuition So one of the things that happened at Pratt. I studied industrial design. They didn't teach graphic design in the Undergraduate courses at that time. It was just coming over from Europe graphic design as we know it now And I guess it started more in Switzerland than any place for us besides the Bauhaus before that but anyway general Motors had instigated their first Student program a summer program and they they chose me they came around to the different schools in the country and they They chose one student from each industrial design school and from advertising At that time, but they did have a graphic design. They were smart enough to actually have a graphic design program So I went out the General Motors. That's the the new well at that time. It was a new tech center out in Warren, Michigan and that arrow is where the offices were So I went out and I was part of a group from all over the country and it was it was really It was a turning point in my career. First of all Pratt was difficult for me because I had no training in Art before going there and not that a lot of people didn't but also they were very stylized school And I really couldn't get into that So I didn't have a great time with a lot of the professors and then when GM came around and they chose me I thought wow, this is like wow So I went out and I met a I met a student from from Yale Who was studying with Paul Rand and they did have at a graduate level graphic design? So it was my first introduction to graphic design I absolutely fell in love with what they were doing at Yale and I went back to Pratt and then after Pratt I graduated this was between my junior and senior year at General Motors. I graduated from Pratt and General Motors hired me back and I developed I designed the the Delco symbol for all the Delco parts and Had a dose of systemizing. Thank God for my industrial design training. I did a packaging system that Served 1200 different packaging sizes and shapes and so forth So this was quite an experience with so much of an experience that I had to go into the military And I didn't want to go back to General Motors. I had enough of that. It's very funny there I go. I'm in the military and The experience I had there. I was in the fire direction Center And I did a lot of work on maps So I had no idea at that point that I that this would be very useful in Whatever I'd be doing in the rest of my life when I got out I got out and Everything was slow in New York then I didn't want to go back to the General Motors as I mentioned But I didn't have any other work So they there was a small office in Detroit and I got hired there I went in I found that they were doing a show in Zagreb, Yugoslavia So I got hired to do the graphics. So this is me in Zagreb after I got out of the military And this was another one of those epiphany experiences the theme of the show was for the Department of Commerce it was at a trade fair and the theme of the show was construction use of leisure time and I took the idea of time being the hourglass and day and night time activity and that was the logo now Detroit was really full of beans at that time So I suggested when we were designing it that we do an entry gate based on this We designed it. We built it. You know, I mean it was like this is the biggest thing I've ever done and Also, we vacuum formed the logo Shipped it over to Zagreb and did a fence around the whole site So I was into taking graphics and going into the third dimension quite early in my career after that Things did loosen up in New York. We had the the World's Fair and I got hired by Irving Harper actually at the George Nelson office that's George and To do the graphics for the Chrysler Pavilion at the World's Fair now the Pavilion was an interesting site It was not just a building. They had like Five different buildings. So all of a sudden I was involved with something that was kind of way-finding without even knowing It even existed. So I developed a appointing fingered hand and For two reasons one it was I made a VIP button out of it So all the kids it was for children I should mention that the the whole Chrysler Pavilion was for children and when they entered the Pavilion We gave them a VIP that they could wear and it was great because it got all over the whole fair site in New York with the VIP button and then I experimented with how do you get people to these five different Pavilions on the site and That's what we did with a hand for that. So I really got into way-finding in a very early time now the factory work that I had done earlier really became very handy because they had things that The whole point was to explain to children how cars were made and so forth and they had a production line ride and I thought well, you know cars are made in dangerous places. Why don't we do safety postage for the kids too? So I did these and then Howard Miller picked it up as a product And I continued working on these when I am to the fair and it's all based on this little kind of work guide and I put him through all the things that You have to be careful of that. You know any kind of a factory And here this is me at George Nelson's office and these are the posters. They were safety posters They were called pronto posters and big companies like Dupont. They had them in all their factories So that was a very interesting experience another experience of doing something graphic and systemizing it making a system out of it now It was during this period that I one of the fellows that I worked with at the Nelson office had a brother studying at the Royal College And he said, you know if you're going over I was going to I was going to go over it for vacation to London He said I want you to meet my brother so I met his brother and It was during that period at the Royal College that I met Peter Murdoch who had just graduated And he had a choice of going any place He had won a scholarship for one year of going any place and doing whatever you wanted He wanted to come to New York when Peter heard I worked for George Nelson. He's he majored in furniture design We became instant buddies So he came to New York and Peter and I got on very well and this was his chair and I worked with him as he developed this into a product and At that time I was thinking of doing something else besides continuing to work with the Nelson office So we were going to start an office. Well One of the fellows I worked with at the Nelson office had worked on the Mexican Pavilion At the New York Fair and then he came over and worked at the Nelson office So I found out through him that there was going to be a competition to do the graphics for the Olympics so We took this fella his name is Eduardo terrasis and took him to dinner and got on the list and what he was going to do It's a long drawn-out story if you want to hear it ask a question later on because I don't want to keep you here We're all of this but anyway Peter and I and that's Peter and myself and Neela my wife Everything in my life seemed to happen in 1966 and Neela We just got married and all of a sudden we're going to Mexico with one-way tickets because it was a competition So we had one week No, we had two weeks actually to do something and if we didn't do something We went back to New York and we didn't have tickets to go back to New York So we kind of mandated ourselves to do something or have a problem Neela and I were married. We're still married. In fact in less than a month. We're celebrating our 50th anniversary. So So, okay, we go to Mexico now, you know, this is back in 1966 and Computers weren't very prevalent then so everything we did was By hand and I still keep my my drawing tools in a jar And this is actually the first sketch where I realized that I could take the geometry of the five rings and Develop it into the five. I mean developing into the year of the event to 68. This is actually Taking that discovery or thinking I had a discovery and making it work at first. I didn't like it Because I couldn't separate the 68 right. This is actually true So, okay, this is the beginning the 68 based on the rings like I just showed you and then I thought well I can make letters out of this too so I made letters from Mexico and Did not like the way they looked with the 68 did not like the 68 because I couldn't separate it And it would still fit with the rings. So then I realized that I had discovered something I discovered a ligature face really. It's a ligature face and when you put it together It had a nice eloquence Elegant quality to accept. It was a pain in the neck. I overlapped it two strokes all the letters If it didn't work two strokes, I adjusted it visually But it had a nice quality to it But it was a really a pain in the neck to clear out what the spaces had to be cleared out to make it work so I figured that out and That's it, you know, and that's actually the whole process of Getting to this point now at this time just before going to Mexico They had the op-art show where they had Bridget Riley and a lot of the people that did a lot of Extremely active things with flat graphics and that was very helpful. So I Let the geometry just start doing its thing, you know And of course this became the poster for the Olympics in Mexico and it's a very very famous image Now the other thing that this is based on when I first went to Mexico and this is a this was a real lesson for me I learned something in Yugoslavia You know that you people in different places do things differently you can still get things done and do good things So when I went to Mexico, I spent a lot of time at the Museum of Anthropology and discovered They had cultures there some of the early cultures that did absolutely beautiful things They had some of the best designers that probably lived any place at any time So this is just a very simple body stamp made out of clay But you can see the the the the lineal structure and the kind of expansion and so forth Is just embodied in that and then of course you have things from the folk art now that we troll Indians and They're still doing this and that's made out of wool So in other words what they did was take a board or take any object and cover it with wax And then push wool into it into patterns. So literally it's the same thing We were doing with the the Mexico 68. So it had a Mexican look to it And I think when the Mexico 68 was established people started coming into the office We Peter and I were there for about almost five weeks And I had to go into the architect and charge and say architecto. Okay, Pasa, you know, what's what's happening? We did we win did we win, you know, it's two weeks. We didn't we weren't sent home He said I guess so very Mexican. So then I said well, we you know, we have an apartment in New York We got to go back and close it and everything. So that was it. I mean that was the Mexican story. So, okay We did bring we trolly Indians a man and wife in to the to the same museum the Museum of Anthropology and What we did they were making their their pieces But we also gave them boards and I silk screen the 68 and then let them do whatever they wanted and This was really lovely. We we got quite a few of these and it was nice to see emphatically What they did with color and this was helpful to get into the spirit of color. I mean color in Mexico are kind of the same So with the structure of the 68 and the Mexico 68 it was possible to do a Program that was extremely colorful without really changing the forms of anything And you can see in the foreground here every week We had a publication in the top band banner on that was always a different color. So and Of course, we had a lot of publications the publications department became its own entity. I kept my staff There were about five of us throughout the whole Program I find I work effectively in a small group. I Radiated everything I had to do a series of stamps on a lot of diverse Subject matters. So I just radiated everything. It looked like it was part of the program It was very helpful in that sense And of course we did radiate everything. This is the entrance exit areas of the stadium Very large scale and these things were absolutely beautiful when you flew into the city and saw these different installations Now you can see here you can see the pencil lines I mean this would be a no-brainer to make a you know a large print and put it up as a billboard They had to paint it and I was so impressed with these people. I mean, they just had such beautiful beautiful visual skills Julia's wife, I mean Peter's wife Julia Murdoch came over eventually and I worked very closely with her to adapt the graphics to the To the uniforms this has just been put into the permanent collection at MoMA in New York This whole series of uniforms that we did So I mean this still looks good and Then also I worked very closely with Eduardo the fellow that I initially worked with in New York and we did the the Mexican Pavilion for the Trianal in Milan, Italy and The idea here I wanted to just take a print of the Mexico 68 expanding Do a mirror image on the wall and just connect them on the walls? So that that's it and that's the model we did and that's the actual pavilion when you looked in I mean, this is really I think it's one of the nicest Experiences I've had as far as doing it taking type typography and putting it into the third dimension Now I'll mention briefly some of the things because I don't really separate typography and iconography I see it all as basic communication and they work very well together or they don't and you can eliminate one And use the other so it's always a matter of what the you know What are you trying to solve that? Dictates what you use to solve the problem. We developed a series of icons Now what we did we focused on a part of the human body or a piece of equipment for each of the icons This is track and field when the event took place in water We made that part of the icon environment and then expressed what the event was Now here's another thing now this I have to say Ramirez Vasquez. He's actually the architect who designed the The Museum of Anthropology in Mexico I guess I have to tell you some of the history of this The Olympics were brought to Mexico the first time to a Latin country Latin American country by Lopez Mateos He was a former president of Mexico Very into sports he brought the Olympics and during the process of organizing He was the chairman of the Olympic Committee. He got very ill He went into a coma and he eventually died and they made Ramirez Vasquez the chairman And he was the guy that did the Mexican Pavilion in New York who Eduardo worked with and when he went back to Mexico He designed his office design the Museum of Anthropology now This is where our success really I mean my contribution was Important but what he did and he always did it and when he did a Mexican Pavilion at an international trade fair You'd go to that and he did it in New York at the World's Fair You'd go to it and you're in a very contemporary environment very contemporary architecture But you knew you were at a Mexican event or a Mexican structure and I just loved the way he did that and We did it for the Olympic Games and he had started before I went down with a group of students using the Image of the glyph systems that came out of some of the early cultures to develop the icons and some of the icons were already Started using this system. I did around 90% of these but That was really the impetus that really made the program so so Mexican and you can see here now Another thing that was going on at that period. I mean working on the Olympics Yes, you have an international audience. You try to eliminate language. We had to work with three languages We had to work with Spanish, of course We had to work with French and we had to work with English so any we had actually three Publications one in each of those languages, but when you did a sign that had any language on it or a ticket You had to have the three languages so we tried Excuse me, but we tried to get rid of all written words as much as possible so as A result of using the icons the Olympics was a natural but when later on and even during the Olympics when you mentioned doing icons people would say that's for illiterate people and I I really learned that you can do a lot of messaging Very very effectively with icons in this program and the metro that which I'll show you in a little while so No, that was back then so it's always been a pretty hard self in that point now You know we used icons without words in the streets Now we all use icons and everything we do I mean we were all probably sick of icons because we navigate our virtual reality with icons and people You don't think they're for illiterate people anymore and I don't think anyone in the world does so they become a real part of our Environment and I was really lucky because I got into it early and I did a lot of systems based on if they work Use them and try to make people realize they work so We developed the cultural program of icons I'll just take a little sidetrack here because you know everything has been really fun to do up to this point during the time just before the Olympics in Mexico they had a student revolution and one of the symbols that we did was for peace and not only in Mexico where there are problems, but Martin Luther King was assassinated and I was Working during the program when that happened and the Mexican government asked me to do a Stamp they were actually the first government in the world to issue a memorial stamp for King and I was happened to be there and I did it so I'm very very proud of that The students were using the images that we developed for the Olympics out in the street as anti-government posters And you can see a Lot of these images are still recorded. There were a lot more than this. I wish there were better records of them These are this is all student work I Gave a talk at the University of Mexico in 1986 and I have to tell you this was this was one of those weird Experiences I'm working for the government. I wasn't that much older than the students I was 29 at that point and I felt I guess the best way to describe it I felt dirty, you know, I mean I didn't want to be working for the government when they're out killing kids there were over 500 students killed during the uprising down there and at the University the the professor in charge of the program that I was lecturing to gave me this book and He thanked me a very special. Thanks. He said I want to thank you for Giving us and giving me personally. I was one of the students out in the street Making these posters a language a graphic language or visual language that we could be anti-government with and it was like a weird Experience I got very emotional. I had a hard time talking after he said that it was like having something lifted off my back I felt like I was I was participating. I wasn't just there not doing anything You really couldn't do anything. I could have quit and went home or something, but I didn't and Now this is the logo for the memorial of Platte loco, which is where all the students most of them were Were killed so I the rings are gone But now I brought the the dove back and I hope I hope this one sticks Now other things I'll just briefly touch on a couple of things here I use a technique that the Greeks used the silhouette and I did a series of postage stamps one for each of the nineteen events and Design the stamp so you took the stamp and put it next to itself the action went through the whole thing now The silhouettes were were important. They became a part of the the Olympic graphic environment and I use them I want to just come back to this a little bit because I mentioned before that I Tried not to use any language and we developed a silhouette language to get people of a very very mixed language grouping To get to their seats and we did it with silhouettes So on the ticket for example all the tickets were color-coded the 14th of October would be an olive green The symbol for the track and field was the only way that track and field was called out The only words were used where Mexico 68 the event a Stadeo 68 where the event was and then the dates and Numbers and so forth And then you see the blue area on the ticket is where you'd find your seat The entrance gate the row of seats and the seat and when you get to the entrance entrance 13 Would be marked in the blue entrance to the stadium These work and they work very well, and I'm I'm surprised that there's not more done in this vein I've not really had a chance to do that much more and so pure in such a pure way as this But we didn't have any complaints, and we didn't really use a lot of words on on the tickets Okay, that's the Olympics. I Stayed in Mexico after the Olympics and had the opportunity I hope I didn't give you too much Olympics because I just love that program so much I love talking about it and I could I could stay here for another hour and talk about different details and so forth Anyway, let's go to the Metro the Metro. These are these are my early sketches to do a an image identity image for the Metro and Basically what I did I took the Zocalo the Zocalo since Mexico was a city way way back when when the Aztecs first came and established It was a was an island on a lake and they it was a square Shape that they developed it into and I took the square of the Zocalo and then cut into it the three lines of the inauguration Three lines of the Metro making the M for the Metro rounding that upper right hand corner off was Something that was very very useful I developed a typography based on the form of the Metro and what I wanted to do was keep keep it a very Geometric extremely geometric. There was microgramma, which was not geometric. It was a rounded corner type of Face the Italian face microgramma and I was aware of that But I really wanted to do something that was more I don't know architectural if you want it and something that would work in The sign banding and so forth where I could go very large As was allowed on the banding Sizes so that's the typeface and that's what it's based on the M itself We use the color orange because all of the The trains are orange. They still try they still keep this tradition going Now this is where the rounded corner became really important. It gave me a background shape for the Icons we developed icons for all the stations now This is this is where it was a little difficult because they said when I had the idea and I thought I Suggested it and they said what what do you want people to think we're a bunch of illiterates here We're going to put icons on the stations and I went through a pretty elaborate presentation to show them how on signs How historically they would bring was like excavating History in the city people that live there could learn about their city people had visited could know more about the city and so forth And it worked and we did it and the system still has you know, it still hangs in there This gives you an idea of some of the Relationships of the icons. This was the first line and the crossing of the blue and the green lines So there you see the blue and green and this was the first map that we did and it was just literally lining up the icons and That became really I think the most important thing that allowed the system to Still be in use because they still put these line maps in the cars When you're on the train and you have an idea of where you want to go and you can describe it If you're from China, you don't have to read anything you can tell your friend to meet you at the grasshopper station or the you know and That was something that I didn't really think it through to that point But in some of those icons where you couldn't do that the system doesn't work as well So anyway, that's the line map and as I mentioned the the if you're going to Baldera station You can say I'll meet you at the station with the cannon and there you can see the name. It's really fills in the whole Sign band. I never understood. I mean I've been in SEGD my whole life It seems now and there's been a lot of studies on typography and everything as far as legibility is concerned There's never been a problem as far as legibility with with this face And I don't know why to tell you the truth because a lot of it has to do with Ascenders and decenters and you know, so I don't want to study it. It's still been going on and I'll show you a little bit more of it later My daughter Stacy was born. So she's officially a Chilanga my wife of course is from New York. So but a Chilanga is a girl born in Mexico City These are my two assistants Pancho and on the left I brought over from the Olympics the Kinyoni Sarturo Was given to me as a translator and it was an architectural engineer And it was really the three of us that put the first three lines together and all the signage and everything Here's the symbols for the first three lines now they have 12 lines and they kept up the system and Some of them are good. Well some of mine are good and some of them aren't so good Carry they carry that tradition through but it works and I'm very proud of this because it's I think now it's starting to get a lot more attention internationally because you know all the all the maps and so forth are looking the same and One of the things that I learned in Mexico is that cities are like people they like to be themselves and As graphic designers we can help with that actually and you can get more support from the city itself If you do it in a way that's sensitive to who and what the city is Here's a good example. This was last year They had a an uprising against a product a project that was happening a big development and they were talking about the The city stealing the land of the people now the land of the people were these four areas around line one and they had they had four of my station icons in a bag that was being taken away by You know, so there it is. It's part of it's part of the city when I came back in 19 I came back to New York in 1971 and I made a partnership Arrangement with Bill can and Bill Bill and I worked together at the at the Nelson office and at that point He was a vice president So he left the Nelson office and we started a partnership We worked together for about almost ten years and we we had a lot of wonderful projects during that period one of the first ones with the was the the subway in the metro in Washington, DC and my most of my attention we did Neighborhood maps and we did the system map and I worked very very closely on the system map with I actually a graduate from Yale Phil hard harding and we did that we did the map and In 19, let's see 19. It was 2000 and I think 11 or 12 The metro asked me if I'd come back and add a line to the map coming in from Dulles Airport It was a one of those really strange Assignments because they didn't want to change the map But you know these lines were very very bold because I wanted to put symbols in the lines Like in Mexico. We actually plan to do that and then when they got the metro up and running It was so complicated that it was a we just never got off the ground with it So I had to thin the lines out a little bit and bring the line in and they call it the silver line Which I thought was really not so great. I said yes great silver when you have silver ink But it's going to be a gray line when you don't have silver. I said, why don't you make it? you know cherry blossom color something you know and And So that that's what I'm known for is Suggesting that they make it cherry blossom color if you look at my It's weird isn't it? So anyway, that's the map and the map it got this was a actually the bottom part and the top part of the Washington Post Talking about the map and I mean this is I mean of course publicity is great But the thing is and the one thing that I'd love to do is to get design more understood by the general public and a lot of my work has really literally been out in the street and the biggest reward that I've had is being Taken in if you will by the public and having the work be Used in a public way and become part of the urban environment and that's very very satisfying So that's the Washington Post story Now one of my really really favorite programs is in Minnesota, and this was back in I think 1980 19 yeah about 1980 and these are early studies for the Minnesota Zoo and again typography I had to bring in the moose and integrated the moose in the M for the zoo and I just love with working the third dimension with this. It just had a nice charm to it And then from that from those forms again, I developed the the typography For the zoo and I use that well. I use it in different ways now This this was something that's really important, you know the idea of synthesis as we get involved in Doing more and more and more graphics and trying to you know keep things so you could trademark things and register things and so forth It gets more and more difficult and one of the things I found is that you can combine things Synthesize things and you know take two things and make one thing out of it So the numbers are obvious there and the different animals that Occupied those particular trails are obvious too. So I just really like this I use the same system at the Museum of Natural History in New York to in a different way But the same approach and it worked very well Works on maps works on handouts Works on signs. I also took the arrow and made a we called it the guide bird So did a lot of synthesizing And then the whole the signage system uses the typography so it keeps it all looking like you're in the zoo and It was fun doing it the winters out there are fierce. I Wasn't used to that so Okay in 1981. Yeah, it was chosen as one of the ten best designs in night from 1980 or in 1981 By Time magazine. So that was wonderful I have to show this because it is typography, but I had a guy when I was still working in Mexico come in from Chollute was it Cholluca? Anyway, a little town outside of Mexico and he was a pasta manufacturer And he said mr. Wyman, I want you to do a logo for my my you know my pasta factory So I talked to him and I said what's the name of it? He says la Moderna. I said that has nothing to do with pasta he goes because I know and He said come on out and he was just importing All of these machines from Italy that made these beautiful shapes and pasta so and out and I saw this so I transform La Moderna into La Moderna the logo logotype from from these pasta shapes at that point He was just a little company. I think he's now the largest pasta manufacturer in the world I think he's bigger than a lot of the Italian exporting companies and pasta So I still keep in touch with the fellow's son that I did this originally with So this is this was fun. I mean it was a fun job Recently let's see 2014 I had an exposition of my work at walk at the University of Mexico. This is the the new Gallery museum they have there and it was a real honor to have this and It had a lot of the things the dimensional things a lot of the programs They went into depth and talked about them. So it was a real magical experience for me. This is They did a book of 11 projects that I did in Mexico If there any left this was carried on Amazon so Anyway, the cover of this was interesting in another way I gave a talk in 1970 I think it was at the Art Directors Club in Washington, DC and They did this as a poster and now we didn't have computers in it And I knew how hard it was doing that Mexico 68 poster and getting it right and they actually did this by hand and Then the Mexicans use it as a cover for the book. So that was that was really quite nice I'm I showed these guys before they came to the opening Arturo on on the left. He was my model for all the going up and down stairs He's been going up and down stairs for almost 50 years now and he signs And he still looks the same he gave me this he had one of the the original You know application for the no smoking signs. We signed it. That's him So It was magical I have to tell you this is that's my daughter the baby back at the metro that's her daughter my granddaughter and You know and actually the poster that I did the handout and the poster this is interesting This is I did this poster for the for the show at walk and it's it's called urban icons and You know when I did the poster I thought put these things in the space and it was a very interesting experience because you can literally build up Space with things that you normally put out in space and it was a nice play on all of this and that's the poster and I use this during that period of the exhibit also For I mean scgd is I was on the board for quite a few years and I just love the organization and They asked me to do the poster for their 40th anniversary so I took the 40 I put the idea of passing through with the four and the zero made sense and So that's the poster. I use the colors that were developed by pentagram if you look down below They did the the logo for scgd. So I had my color palette was quite good So that that helped So that's for that now I'm working on a project. It's called Alberto. They disenyo and it's the the open the design open That's coming up in Mexico City and it's in all the areas around the Zocalo in on the Zocalo This is that that square the center I mentioned before and I thought you know the idea of kind of playing with this idea of the square now Okay icons we started with that rounded square for the Olympics and now we all use it for all all the icons on our apps and so forth and so I thought I'd develop a typeface based on that and Put it into the third dimension but have fun with it putting it in the third dimension So just by doing that It was possible to do things like that You know and it this thing has been so much fun and you know then when you take that and Put it together with itself Alberto me cano de disenyo and then use the type on an angle and so forth There's a whole system there and it's it's almost like doing something out in the urban environment You you you just do what you have to do to you know make it work and it all looks like it's part of one thing So this is still in the works This was actually the first thing before I came out here. We just got this up on their web Now they have the different areas of design and again using the a and putting it into that same spatial kind of Relationship so you can do it with typography and you can do it with icons Well, I knew you could do with icons because of that poster. I showed you before but so that's one thing That's happening now now. This is I this drove me crazy I didn't think I was going to make it because I had to do the final art for a map for this is the the National Gallery in Washington DC now the Washington Gallery has a sculpture garden. I mean the Washington The National Gallery. I'm sorry. The National Gallery has a sculpture garden West building and the East building East building of course is the the I am pay building so the map that they have now it just puts it all down in a flat way and It's really hard to know how to get from one to the other and you're not even sure that you're this is one museum I mean, it's just really hard So what I suggested is that we take the site itself and put it into an isometric So that you saw the relationship to the streets to the environment to the context of the museum and that the gallery was one thing and then the next step is to put it into its third dimension and You know, it's a very very complex type of thing to do So, okay, so I kept it in pastels and kept it soft so that the information could be put in hard And you get all the icons so you know where the elevators are, you know all of the Horizontal connections and you know all the vertical connections So you can actually with you know a very complicated site I hope you can navigate it much easier and at least understand that You know what's going on. So that's that's the last thing that I've been working on now. Let me just go back and I'll end by by talking about the Mexico 68 I'll talk about the metro. I am now working on a project with say day and Mekis at CDMX and It used to be Dayefi district federal federal federal federal district and Now they've they've got a different thing. It's actually a city that has kind of the state hood. It's like a state and They have me working on Again what I called urban image and thank God I had that exhibit So it really explained what the urban image is all about So I mentioned before that the the Mexico 68 typography is a ligature and I've never really seen that font used effectively in words because I just don't think it looks good in words They're the letters are too active. They don't look nice together. They look nice when they're Combined like I showed you so I thought Let's do a ligature face that you can type out in ligature format So I developed this with the three lines where you only overlap one Line and we're working on the technology now that we can actually type out your words and get the ligature effect without going crazy and Now this is interesting this this is sketches and taking that three line structure and Making it into a a literal structure in other words taking Structural elements and having them be made in The form of the three lines on their different faces and let them go through space to define sign shapes Let them go through space to define Beams that hold up roof structures and so forth. So here the urban image is Underway we're developing this now and if it works This is just a model of one of the things that is part of it. And if it works, it'll probably be one of the first times that Literally typography steps into being a structural part of the city. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one Now I know you guys are football fans. I'm going to end with a little football I did a lot of work during the 1970 World Cup when Pele and that great Brazilian team won the cup and I developed Pico which is a mascot for Mexico and I thought, you know, they have an eagle the same as us Representing the country. So I thought well, why don't we birth the eagle out of a soccer ball? Now the nice thing about this They do traditionally down reforma the main drag lights and I had nothing to do with doing this But they took pico and he was all the way down reforma. So that was really beautiful during the World Cup period in Mexico Now this is the book that unit just came out with not that long ago and I just loved working with Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brooke and this is where I'm going to do a signing a little bit later tonight and I have to show you something when Tony and Adrian were at my studio My studio is still a recce. I mean they pulled everything out of every place to get the material for the book And we had a lot of fun because the World Cup was going on So we'd go out to a bar watch one of the games But I had to get back and get a poster done within 90 minutes for a group over in Liverpool That had a designer from each country that was involved with the World Cup do a poster for their country's team The result of the game and you had 90 minutes to get it up So these guys would still be drinking at the bar and I was back working posters I was very proud of the US team. I have to say We know we played Ghana. Thank God Ghana had some political problems because they're a very tough team And we beat them and we were in that if you remember the tough group we were in with Germany Belgium Ghana and Portugal Okay, so we beat Ghana then we played Portugal It was like a humid humid humid jungle environment. We played Portugal. We tied them. So that was good We're still alive and we played Germany and of course Germany eventually won the cup and we only lost one nothing So that was great. So both us and Germany got out of that group and then we played Belgium in the knockout round So that was the end of my poster career for the World Cup Okay, that's the log books if you see that that row of black books this is in my office and Adrian really discovered them when they were putting the material together for the the other book and This is over in UK in Sheffield and they had an exhibit of the books and You know, it was one of those experiences I mean these things have been just part of my life for so long and they set up a whole bunch of shows Okay, so they I think they photographed every page and they were projecting them on windows of the gallery and so forth and It was like watching your life go past You know, I mean there were things there that I absolutely completely forgot about that never happened And they were ideas that you know, you love them at the moment and then for whatever reason they don't happen So you kind of get off it and get on to something else and it's quite an experience for me to go through the You know to see that was New York block associations Anyway, all of these sketches and early ideas are in these books and they're the books are getting old They are old in fact, I'm getting old, but I have gotten better with my posters I was they asked me to do a poster for Obama for his first campaign at 08 and Again, that's my Obama poster so I'm still doing it Thank you. Thank you very very much, you know, I Love if you have questions and don't be afraid anything you want to ask me I'll do my best to answer because this is really the part that I enjoy most to see what's on your mind As far as what you're doing or what you might think I could help with or whatever so please We have two mics one and two So if you have a question just go up to the mic and ask me great Hi, that is on loud My question for you is you did a lot of Side work while you were down in Mexico doing the Olympics and I was wondering we all know as designers There's a lot of times where people ask can you do this for me and some of its pro bono? How much of that I'm curious was actually negotiated where you had Income coming in and how much of that was actually just volunteer work for the sheer love of what you were doing It was it was a combination. I Mean I wasn't getting a lot for doing the Olympics and it was during that program It's it's it's an interesting question. So I never really thought about it in those terms Ricardo legureta, which was one of the very prominent Mexican architects was working with Luis barrigan and the tears guirats on the the new hotel the Camino Real and I Met him through Matias guirats who was organizing a sculptural program for the Olympic Committee and I met Ricardo with the idea of doing graphics for the Camino Real Because a lot of the dignitaries that were coming to Mexico would be staying at the hotel They were gonna have finished for the Olympic period so I I met Ricardo and fine, but I also had to show my work to Luis barrigan. So we went over to Luis's place and You know that famous room that has the staircase kind of going up the side of the wall was in that room and I'm showing my slides and There were you know the first slide was upside down This is carousel tray right the second slide all upside down. So I'm man. I was really nervous You know so Luis says don't be I know how to turn slides over too so he turned half over and I turned half over and I I made the presentation and I remember he and he and Ricardo helped me turn him over and I remember having Ricardo come up to Was Miami knows in Dallas. We had an SEGD conference and I introduced him and I told that as my finest Collaboration with architects as a designer, you know, but now that was a paid project to get back to your question I think I Did both I remember I did I did a couple of things for organizations that were as a children's organization for example Yeah, and I mean I'm kind of a design freak on you know if I have time and energy. I'll do anything You know if I like it Yeah, so yeah, I did I did both and I still do Yeah, thank you. You're welcome Hi Lance, my name is Terrence This is really great work. I have to say that I remember your Signage from the Minnesota Zoo from about 1988 when I was there maybe but I was curious if you had any Any failure stories that that you could share with us to I do you know I was asked this in I did a talk at the Walker in Minneapolis and that question came up and I couldn't think of anything and It was embarrassing, you know, I mean maybe I kind of push those things out. You know now that I have these Design logs all of that stuff is out there now, but okay I was doing a project or I was part of a team doing a project up in Toronto, and it was for the underground, right and I developed a Program based on Toronto underground city, and I did a little chipmunk and I remember I'll never forget this I did a little chipmunk and in my presentation I had a map of the city and I said now here's where all the entrances are for the underground and this little chipmunk popped up in all the entrances and it was very very effective and the program was called TUC tuck I Didn't know tuck was a suppository That was the end of my my tuck program, you know It's not the end of it though because the The client I just with last year I got a little little baby gold solid gold coin from Canada, and they actually it's embossed with a chipmunk So I mean this is I don't know I'll never forget the program now, and I'll never if anyone asks a question I'll never forget that that happened So anyway that things like that do happen Hey, I just had a question as you said like icons have just become the norm now But they get very systematized to the point that I find a lot of icon systems are pretty dull My question particular though goes back to some of those the Mexican squares where a lot of the shapes were round But an icon like the horse was almost composed entirely of straight lines So I'm wondering if that was personal preference, or do you think if That was more the tools you're using and like the tools we're using today Yeah, that's a good question. I don't think it has much to do with the tools. I think When you're developing a system There's a certain look that usually holds it together You know a lot of a lot of things I use the background shape like I showed you that rounded on the on the Metro M Actually, I didn't mention that but the 68 radiating out to a certain point became the background shape for for all of the cultural symbols for the Olympics and That's one way of controlling things the way that you form the things usually do Have it really usually does have a really big impact on what the look is going to be and I always think of a of a an icon especially an icon system is having a lot of layers of communication information and the form is certainly one of them and Sometimes it's something I like a lot of times. It's something that I like because it's appropriate for what I'm trying to solve So it's not just a personal Quirk on my part that I like square things or straight things or I love geometry And I think one of the quests that I've always had is to give geometry personality to make geometry communicate And I've been pretty successful at that. So but it takes a lot of different approaches and a lot of different Context I think that you have to weigh that kind of an approach in So just a quick follow-up. So like the cricket is one of the more detailed Icons in in their early system. Wait, I get a little bit closer the cricket In particular has like two antenna. Yeah, I'm just wondering how many versions Do you think you might have done with that because even in the? the The example where someone had made the poster like the the red poster with the bag Yeah, like that icon is distorted because it's so much more detailed than the other ones I'm curious like in that process. Are you struggling with the detail? Yeah You do especially in something like the the station icons for the metro In fact, you pick one that has detail, but it still maintains geometry If you look at the Zadagosa for example, it's a guy Mexican guy on a horse with his horse stepping on a helmet a French helmet You know and I couldn't really do anything Except a pure silhouette and the interesting thing there is because of the background shape I was able to sneak that in without having the simple geometry You don't even notice it so you can have variation within the system But you have to have something strong enough the whole system together Yeah, so yeah, that's a that's a good question actually you design icons. No, I don't I just think like when you know Referencing even like an iPhone like We're now or you see dribble like websites like everything's so Systematized yeah, and it's easy to cut and paste corners and chop things up that sometimes I do wonder if it is more of a system to symptom today of the tools we're using and Recycling curves and you know in a way that if you're working more with your hand You might introduce a little bit more variability Like I think a lot of the icon systems you showed yeah, well, I think the bottom line is communication I use the analogy of a joke. You've told Good jokes and bad jokes. You know when you tell a bad joke, you know, you don't have to explain it You can't explain it really. I mean it either communicates or it doesn't period I have a question about your influence So you grew up in the Midwest ish area. No, I didn't I grew up in I was born in Newark, New Jersey Yeah, but you worked in the Detroit area. I worked in Detroit for about two and a half years. Yeah, so Where you live and where you're designing how much of an influence does that have as opposed to where you're educated? Oh Gosh, that's a that's an interesting and hard question to answer I mean I can speak from my own experience. I know one thing when I went to Mexico It's like a like a baby. You know, I mean, I I didn't know anything about Mexico So it was like I was like a little kid. It was like I was like an open book, you know open sponge And I took it in and I know that was easier than working in New York for me because I know so much about New York and you get I Guess what happens? You get attitude, you know, not not good attitude You get attitude that kind of gets in the way and when I went to Mexico I just saw things that were kind of amazing and I was able to bring that into the work What was a stronger influence like where you were at the time or Like if you're I think I think the best influence I don't think there is an answer to that I think the best in influence is you yourself and it's just a matter of showing up I don't think it has to do with the place as much. It has to do with you the person Yeah, I was beginning to worry about microphone number one. No one's coming up front I'm gonna segue that question as I'm sitting over here thinking about my question. I'm like, well, it's perfect I might as well get up now So there's a lot of young people in the audience. There's a lot of students here with us today I'm an educator. So of course I'm thinking about them in My idea when I talk to the students that talk about their their design voice their style and finding their own style So when we look at your work, it's very Lance Wyman no matter what we see We see all of your work having harmony, although it's also separate beautiful in itself So as they're working towards graduating their degree what kind of Inspiration or talk would you or message would you have for them so that they're working out Who they are as a designer and who they are as as their own style? And then as they enter that work world and not have that that fear or courage Yeah, no, that's a that's a difficult question. I mean, it's it's I taught at Parsons for 40 years in New York I just stopped in about two years ago now because I just couldn't keep up with everything that's happening of my My life and my career right now with all of the books and so forth, but I Think getting back to that attitude thing. I Mean what what I think is really important is To not have attitude and I think attitude is takes a lot of forms I Even think of fear as being an attitude, you know, if you have fear you're really stopping yourself If you have attitude about people you might not get on so well in a particular environment And I think along with that it's just a matter of following your nose. I mean you kind of We all know what we like to do. I mean, I know what I don't like to do and I get in the trouble Sometimes I don't do that But I mean there are things you have to do But I think basically in your career in your chosen path of what you want to do and what you want to make your your life path from I Think following my nose and just not not trying to have a negative attitude about things just Don't don't give up. I feel like I'm an Olympian now But it's so true, I mean it's really true and I mean I've had a lot of hard times and I think it's It's really up to each of us to find a way of kind of navigating those hard times, you know So I mean I can't give any more advice than that because I certainly don't want you Thinking you have to do what I did or you know want to do what I do because we're all very different And I just love seeing people do things in a creative way I will say one thing and I think teaching has been Difficult in a lot of ways because I think now with all the data with all I mean I'll never forget when the computer first came in I mean boy you and you could put shading in the illustrator. I mean everyone was doing shading and they thought they were geniuses Don't don't get snowed by the technology use it, but don't don't think you're creating something It's like, you know typists became designers when when the first came in with the computers and You know design is a very very very delicate part of our social structure as far as keeping quality as far as keeping Both quality communication and quality image quality relationships I mean there's a lot of things that we can contribute to and if that type of area interests you Go for it and find it's find a place to do it, you know and don't get Don't get yanked around too much when you get out of school I see so many students they get out of school and they do good work in school And all of a sudden they're working with a client or something that starts telling him what to do You know be careful of that. You don't have to be yanked around you can leave you can be aggressively Confronting something try not to get yanked around doesn't mean you have to go out and be Donald Trump or something But I mean Okay Hi, I've got a question about But architecture get a little closer because I have a hard time here. I've got a question about architecture Have you ever wanted to be an architect? You've always you've done a lot of great work with design work in 3d space Did you ever at some point or maybe here in the future want to jump into more architectural based projects? On I would say Probably 95% no, but there's that 5% that I love working with architects I've done and when I was studying industrial design. I did a mobile home at Pratt And it won an honorable mention in a national contest as a student that was open to you know There's a part of me. I think if I would have had the choice when I Was looking at going to college and everything I might I might have chosen architecture I wasn't thinking in those terms. That seems like a more elevated profession especially back then and But I would say no, I'm happy doing the dimensional communication I think that really that fuels me in a different way and I think good architects know how to do that too So I like to I mean Ricardo legate in Mexico I mean he was just so beautiful to work with because he he integrated as part of his architecture You know, yeah, that's great. So, yeah personally though, no First of all, thanks for coming out. I really enjoyed this I Think one of the most impressive things about your work is that it has that physical presence It has that third dimension to it You go from a logo or a symbol and a person can then walk into a structure use it as a sign And and that's just amazing to me How do you when do you make that jump to the third dimensions that plan at the beginning or does that kind of get legs throughout the process? You know, that's a that's a it's an interesting question. I never had that asked so directly because I Didn't jump from Graphics into 3d. I studied industrial design. So I jumped into graphics so to speak, you know And I think the thing that puzzled me was that Graphic designers we all live in a three-dimensional world, but So often there's not any knowledge or any interest in the third dimensional wall You know, it's either publications or posters at least it was when I was going through the whole thing and Now that's changing and I just love it and I have to say I Love the exhibit that you guys have here the type type directors Exhibit and I've seen the I think was the last book that was done in New York and the type directors club And I just love the experimental stuff. I mean, I think typography now is becoming a bigger part of communication It's not just typography for typography sake and I think there was a lot of that going on Not not completely of course, but now It's it's a more integrated part of the endeavor of Typographic design and its conceptual problem solving and its graphic communication and you know That's a different different ballgame and a lot more can be done in I love working with typography I never just I never just I never thought of being a typographer though because I wasn't I still am not in that sense In the strict term of typography. I mean there's a whole world of typography that I mean I don't Get so involved with because it's very intimidating for me I don't I don't understand a lot of it, but I do understand the communication part of it And I do understand the the finesse of refinement, which I think is very important There's a lot of things that are important that I do understand so Yeah Thank you. You're welcome Just wanted to ask you Lance that obviously the current Olympics has just come and gone And it seemed to me that with the 68 Olympics you had an immense amount of freedom and You seemed very inspired by the idea of kind of going into a situation where you weren't a hundred percent sure it was going on But there was this freedom and to be very inspired by the culture around you to you know To develop something that you kind of seem to have carte blanche to create Do you feel that even by looking like that what had happened with the recent Olympics with Rio and maybe even in London? Prior to that. Do you think that there's an element of things being co-opted almost like designed by committee that almost without having that sense of freedom Things are becoming almost too compromised Absolutely, yes, and I think there's a lot of reasons for that I think the Olympics themselves have changed quite a bit and I think a lot of reasons for that I mean the coverage we were the first Olympics to be covered on television actually And I remember making a presentation in Washington for the bicentennial and The fella that was in charge of that was formerly with ABC Channel 7 in New York And I got to the Olympic part. He says Lance you just show the pictures And I'll tell him what it's all about and he did and I had no idea that what we were doing in Mexico was being seen here, you know like that and I think now I mean you know you're with someone and Ten minutes later you're on Facebook. I mean it's like all over the place quickly You know, it's a very very different type of environment now. The other thing is is I think we were less commercial I think when the Olympics started becoming commercial There's a control factor when you are sponsored very heavily by you know a commercial entity and I think also One thing that we did with the games themselves is create a sense of place. I think now That's being done at the opening and closing ceremonies, but it's more like being invited to Cirque du Soleil Say, you know, this is London or you know, and it's different because it takes away from the games I love the Olympic idea in the games themselves and I'd like to see them be a more powerful force As far as the graphics are concerned. I think the reasons I just mentioned have a lot to do with pulling away the you know the The interest in the graphics for the games themselves. There are a lot of other things that the graphics are a part of But yeah, there's there I think it's always a struggle, you know, and I Just hope that they come back more to the Olympic Programming that came out when Pierre Coubertin first started the modern Olympics again You know and it's I mean I could go on and on because there's a lot of pieces that we're talking about here But to answer your question. Yes, it's harder to do the Olympics now And that's some of the reasons that I'm aware of Thanks. Can I go home now?