 Where she was the director of the BFA communications design and BFA designer technology programs from 2011 to 2014 She serves as the president of the board Or she served as the president of the board of directors at AIG in New York from 2014 to 2016 She holds an MFA in graphic design from Yale University School of Art and a B-Arch in architecture from Virginia Tech She established her small studio EAD in 2005 She's a co-author with Sue Appelbaum of the book Designing the Editorial Experience a primer for print web and mobile I'm actually really excited to have her today because she'll give us a rich and kind of unique perspective of being both Practitioner and educator having you know being Educated as a graphic designer and an architect and also writer and maker. So thank you and welcome So I'll use this one. This will be easier, okay Or maybe it's always hard to tell here. I'll use this one. It'll be better Okay, so I don't know is this okay for you guys. All right, I feel kind of And let's switch this here. Okay, so thank thank you guys for for coming I'll probably have a little bit of a different talk from what you guys are used to from the other Presentations just because like I was I was not born as a graphic designer. I was I was originally an architect And so I want to talk a little bit about how I wound up from Going from architecture into graphic design and then what are some of the questions that came up from doing that and and also just like these kind of questions that are always on my mind like This one here, which is is graphic design architecture and is architecture graphic design As as you need said, I'm a professor at the new schools parts and school of design I went to Virginia Tech for architecture school and I went and I did a graduate degree in graphic design later So I will do a little bit of a you know Hi, how are you and show you some work along the way? But mostly I want to focus on some of these these bigger questions and we'll get to some of these later Also in thinking about like what happens Where are we now versus where we were then just some of the recent thoughts that I've had about that? So I want to give you guys like an idea of just like why did I even become interested in what I do now? Which is to give you I'd have to start by showing you like what where Virginia Tech is so this There's a little okay, so this thing here right here. That's Virginia Tech. This is Washington, DC This is five hours away. This is Raleigh, North Carolina four and a half hours away And then this is Columbus, Ohio. So like you're talking about a place where we are in a time that is you know, you just you just have this enormous amount of distance and My entire connection to the world was basically through this screen here. This is the VTLS This is the Virginia Tech library system, which they Claim claim fame to and this is our library over to the right Which I also worked in later on but like so and we know we are so used to the environment that we're in now But I can't emphasize enough how in this moment when I was an undergraduate Like if I wanted to see what a picture of a building in Japan looked like for example I had to like go to the library look it up on this machine and go to go to find a Book that had that picture in it and that was it like there was really no other way Sometime during this time this was about my third year. We had to do a case study of a building and We did a case study of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC and went to go visit pay cop freedom partners here in New York and so me and my team we we did this trip to New York and We stopped at the Guggenheim at some point and I was rifling through the bookstore and I ran across this book and I love like Just love this thing because of what it engendered later because the the book was was torn in half So because it was torn in half it happened to be half off so I I with my Blacksburg, Virginia Pocket money was able to purchase this this book here and it was very much my introduction to architectural theory Because at the time, you know again like here's here's our building. This is our library building it was the only architect design building on the Virginia Tech campus and And you know and I had rolled into architecture thinking that it was gonna be math plus art But all that I got in architecture school was that I had two choices. I could either Be into this so you could be a big me's Vandero fan or I could be into this which was Carlos Garba So if you were like hard-hearted you could be a me's Vandero fan and if you were soft you could do Carlos Garba and I was this person who was not really I did not I didn't come from anything that was able to gel with either of those things And so when I picked up that book that was in the Guggenheim and I started rifling through it It was it's amazing now to think about it too because it was designed by Massimo Vignelli and like it has It does so it does so well with like so many really crappy images. It's just proceedings from a conference But I just slowly got into like all of these new new ideas I should also mention at the time that you know the whole idea of whether or not you should make architecture on a computer was still a debate It is still a debate and a lot of schools in the United States still so but like this was this was the state of Of Auto cad and all that kind of stuff and then over to your right that was the state of the Internet at that time so we're talking like 95 96 and Again, you know like if we You know, we were an all-inspired school It was like every bit everything was a modernist and you know Everybody we talked about was dead and and the idea was like you you really wanted to be making these kinds of drawings And of course like it was pretty clear that this world was coming So it was was really unclear to me like what it was that I was going to do between these two things and In the meantime, I was really deeply interested in this stuff, you know So like I was a huge John Haydick fan. I just loved all of these drawings and all of these books that he was producing I was a huge Peter Eisenman fan also like of all of these kinds of iterations of visuals of Form of geometry remember again, I was into art and math like I wasn't really into this whole idea that we were gonna create poetic space Leave a skin's drawings Zahideed's drawings And I mean I find this stuff like really interesting to look at now because like we are in this very digital time And it's hard to remember back to you know back to the 90s Really like when you have this being this completely different type of form and then you have just you know Even even with this this is leave us woods the Zagreb free zone. You have the Berlin free zone You know all of that stuff is influenced from the 60s from Archegram and then you have you know you get to things like this where it's like oh my god, you know as an architect I can produce a Zine like this and like this was something that was in our library I probably like picked it up and checked it out like a thousand times and And again like you know just to kind of look at like what was in the library at the time You know so you had all of these communications that were there all you know that I would be waiting each month You know for the new domos castabella to come out. There were all of these newer theory Publications as well zodiac. I was in love with any Just in love in love with any because I had I had that book that anyone and again like when I pick up that Anyone book in the bookstore at the Guggenheim. I'm I'm 20 years old I don't know anything you know I just pick it up because it's 20 bits half off and it's pink and I kind of think I might be able to read it You know and this is something to also consider You know like we make so much of the things now like in the in an with an idea that we're only speaking to the people who Already know More than we do whereas like you know you have to also think about all the people who know less than you do but But anyway, just to kind of give you a better picture of like so what kind of person I was at the time when I graduated The one thing that I was excited about for architecture school The one excitement that was left was that we had to make a book for our fifth year So like it was like a requirement that the thesis be a book and I was like yes So what I did was I threw myself completely into making the book and this was the thesis book that I made for my for my graduation and and You know it it just and and this was the book that I moved to New York with like in the end And I want to take a little pause and quote Michael Rock who you guys heard from yesterday Say who says architecture is born and dies is graphic design And like this was so much true for me at that time And it still is now that you have all of this kind of output, you know of drawings and of Material, you know in the very beginning and then you have this kind of packaging at the end And in a lot of ways like I kind of went to the death part of it afterwards to after I graduated in terms of making making things for architecture, so So that's like, you know, so this whole question of like I me Gravitating towards these things like architecture was very much a type of graphic design for me at that point I would kind of dispute it a little bit now, but I want to get into like the next question Which is is graphic design architecture? because when I graduated I went and so I Again, I was obsessed with any so I applied to be an editorial assistant when I moved to New York I really wasn't interested in designing buildings that much like I wasn't going to be convincing in an interview And you know and and I I really wanted to be making the things that were around architecture I really wanted to make the books and the publications and the magazines. I didn't know anything about How to do any of this stuff though because I was an architect, so But I so I went to go work I went to interview with Cynthia Davidson at any and she was like look, you know, we really like you You seem really smart, but you don't know anything. So Why don't you go apply to my my husband needs an archivist? Why don't you go and apply with him? And I was like, oh, okay who's your husband and that already indicated like how much I knew because I didn't know that she was married to Peter Eisenman and so I went to go work for Peter and You know while I was his archivist like I would that was only one part of the job description I did everything the architects didn't do in the office So like I was the if somebody if there needed to be an exhibition set up in Istanbul I was the one who like went and did it If somebody left their umbrella in a restaurant, like I was the one who went and fetched it, you know So like it was like both both things. I did learn more in those two years. However, then at any point before just because like no one had ever expected that much for me before that point so and After two years of being there and like generally doing all of this stuff Like I started to kind of get a little grouchy after about a year and I said like look, you know I have this design degree all I'm doing is I'm purchasing toilet paper for the office Like is there something else I can do and so he was like well, you know That's cute that you like you want to do design stuff like why don't you go ahead and you know Rizzoli wants us to do this little book Why don't you go ahead and do it and of course like he knew me quite well so he you know, he was like, yeah, she'll like she'll stay if she does this book so I did and and so I The threw myself into making this book and I and I still really I mean This is still like one of my favorite projects that I've ever done just because of the way that I approached it You know, I had because at that time to like when I was working in his office I transcribed all of his lectures and I organized all that material And so I had this like very deep understanding of the material But because I was the person who fetched the umbrellas and and ordered the toilet paper I never felt qualified to actually say anything about it. You know, it wasn't my place to do so So the book in some ways was a way to express some of the ideas I had about what his work was about which and what at what point it changed and there is there is a kind of point where he went from these kind of more Platonic or geometric Explorations into like more real or representational forms and I just wanted to say that basically and I still think like I and I kind of love this too just because like it's a I would never ever make a table of contents in a book now like this But because at the time I was like well naturally like the table of contents should exactly show you the proportions of like what's in the book Like I don't know. It was just the way that I approached it But anyway, like even in the middle of all this though, it still wasn't enough to keep me in the office so I finally left in 98 and I Had answered some ads in the pay we had newspapers that you would look through ads to find jobs and stuff So there was one For the Museum of Modern Art and so I I went and I wound up working there in their graphics department for a little while And it was kind of interesting to see what they Saw in me because they were like well, you're an architect. So therefore Naturally, you should be able to do big type, you know So like anything that was like larger than sort of paragraph type They were like she should do it and so I did all of the big type in the maps. I should be able to do maps I made some like really horrific Illustrator files out of this by the way But but it was really a nice introduction to Graphic design and and throughout this whole period too. I was always you know I was always thinking like well, this is just kind of I'm just taking a break, you know We'll get back together. It'll be fine. You know, like I'm you know I kind of saw it as a as a way of taking a break and during the time that I was there to You know the the people at Rizzoli they were like, well, you know, you did this book with Peter Eisenman Obviously, you can work with difficult people. So like why don't you do a book with Daniel Liebeskind? Why don't you do a book with Karen machine? So like I started to kind of it was freelancing on the side while I was there and You know and and also like, you know, I continued also to work with Peter like we worked on the blurred zones book together that's the one in the middle here and And you know again like I'm starting my project like this, you know Like this is like I'm thinking like this is the way to do it like first you make a site plan, right? You know, it's like you make you figure out like exactly what's all the content in the book You know, I had a lot of ideas about also like the effects of the different pages and while I'm I'm working at MoMA I'm freelancing working on these books and when I was sitting one time like working on this book with with Peter He was like, why don't you just be a graphic designer and I was just like graphic designer Because like whenever I thought of graphic designer, I thought of something like this I was like, no and like and in the and I'll say like I mean he didn't mean it as a compliment You know, like that was definitely not his intention but in a lot of ways like he really was pretty correct about about that But you know, and I had it just had a rough time reconciling but also at the time, you know, I met MoMA and my Supervisor there is a woman named Ingrid Chu and she had gone to Yale For her graduate degree and she was she was always kind of with me by the by the printer You know saying like hey, you know, maybe you should apply to school and like maybe you should do this and and so the And again, like so I'm getting these two messages at the same time, but at the time I'm just thinking No, you know like architecture and I will get back together. It'll be fine I'll go to graduate school for architecture. You know, it's just a separation like we're gonna be fine But but in the end like I you know, I basically said like okay Well, if I if I get into the program like maybe I'll commit and I'll do this like I'll definitely do it and And so when I went to so I did go to Yale and and I have to say And you guys will hear from one of my contemporaries at the time and I'm sure he can corroborate this I made the weirdest work at Yale like just because I didn't really I didn't have a graphic design Background and I didn't really like I I definitely knew how to make things because I had been making things but I didn't really I just didn't follow the I just couldn't get with the program so but there were a couple things that were really nice Like I you know, I kind of got to explore some of like the material things that I really was interested in I also I also got to kind of reexamine because we got to do a book again thesis book like making books So we got to do I got to do a thesis book for that too Where I got to kind of go back and look at some of the projects that I had done before I went to school and Asked questions like why did I why did I do things that way? Like this is it's just such a weird way to approach things because you know and this what I'm showing you here Like this was the diagram that started that diagram diaries book So like this was like my approach to starting that book like now if I approach a book or the way I'm kind of Train to approach book now is to like think about like what's the identity and like how do I what like I'll start by choosing a font For example, whereas like this was this was much more of a priority for me at that time so Anyway, so 20 years later, so I just want to announce the sort of more more talking and reflecting parts so 20 years later we can ask this question again of like is is graphic design architecture, right? You know, so like what? where like where are we now and I have to say like the the Again kind of zooming us back like it to maybe 10 years ago like the whole question of Living in the internet like the worry was that it would be like this You know people thought like there was a lot of talking especially in architecture about second life and like how you know We would be building these virtual spaces that would look like our physical spaces And like would we be confused between our virtual spaces and our physical spaces and like what are we going to do and like no one? No one imagined that we would be living in this kind of digital space where you know, we had social media and like we had this kind of Like pulling away of like basically truth in reality like by the time like in the very short space of time, so and also like What what has what where with where we are now? I think ideas some of these some of the newer ideas are really important I mean, I don't know how many of you guys have read this book, but if you haven't I would recommend it But you know in in are we human Beatrice Colomina and Mark Wigley like they basically say like look You know like what we are designing in turn designs us You know so like if what you're making like the world that you're making is is creating humans in return And you're kind of responsible for that in certain ways and and I do think that that's that's absolutely true especially when like the environment that you live in kind of looks like this and You know like this is basically like half of my sort of perceptual day sort of looks like this So, you know, I read a lot I read a lot of stuff on my phone I write a lot of stuff on my phone and and it's like I think a lot about like what does it do to us, you know to be experiencing our world in this way And and it's it's funny because it brings us almost back to like a lot of the same questions, too Like why does everything look the same? What about accessibility? How does design define and change culture? How do the ideas of our time influence form? What's our relationship to capital? so these are all really big questions for What in my mind is graphic design and graphic design for me is is everything it's not like just the brochures or whatever You know, it's like the entire expression of the experience with content to me. It's graphic design. So But when it comes to architecture, you know, there's this whole Some things don't change, you know, so buildings don't move. They're they're not easily collapsible into two dimensions It's really hard to express a building in another form But there's a really really big difference between experiencing it's experiencing a building from a distance like this or Experiencing it like this. And so I think there is I think for you guys like there's this whole question of What is going to be that relationship of the built form to to the communication of that built form? Especially when like also there's this whole question of building things just so that they can Be you know shared and snapped and all this kind of stuff So like this whole you know the the kind of Axe grinding of the 90s was like oh, it's paper architecture, you know, none of that stuff matters You got to build a building where the ceiling leaks or whatever and like now it's like more is it Instagrammable? Which I think is like a really It's like through the looking glass, you know at this point like once you get to this once you get to this phase And and I think I think both of these however do have within them some questions about the relationship of architecture to graphic design Other things have changed to there's a much tighter relationship to marketing real estate capital You know so you have you're making you're making architecture that creates graphic design that like moves money from place to place Which I think is a really weird Purpose for graphic design like we had this whole again like kind of Worry and anxiety about like the Bilbao effect, you know that like people would make buildings just to bring people to places Which to me feels really quaint because now the building is built not to bring people there But to like just move money from like one bank account into another bank account, which is like a whole other Dimension and a very abstract one Similar things will happen, you know also in our worlds like so we you know We really went from having a kind of more concrete Industrial world of making books and other objects to like now. There's a huge rise of Book fairs conferences content. There's very it's very difficult now to make graphic design. That's not also coinciding with some sort of event art is going through a very similar turn as well So there's a strange time baseness like to the whole activity that that is also very very new There's so much more of it and it's kind of cool, you know to have all of this But it's also kind of bizarre and a little scary This is also to me kind of like awesome and scary Which is this is the New York art book fair attendance like so it went from I think like 16,000 people to 35,000 people over three or four years and and again This is all connected to the internet like this is not this has nothing to do with You know people just suddenly being interested in stuff it has a lot to do with the whole like is it an Instagram a bowl sort of thing and and and It's so it's like really shifted like the context in which people are working And then meanwhile and some of this is you guys this stuff here You know, there's also a very different Attitude towards architectural communication online and like a lot of people trying to figure that out in different ways which I think is Interesting and like both kind of similar, but not but like it's it's and then the thing though That gets me is that you have all of this stuff So, you know, I think about that moment of going to the library and there's the there's the thing of magazines And they're very much chosen whereas like there's there's this like really there's so much excellent thinking online now that You know much more so than there was 20 years ago But it's up against like so much of a gigantic mountain of trash that like it's really hard to figure out What is what and what are the differences and like how do you actually start to rise above this? and so you so the space of like working in In in graphic design that has something to do with architecture now is just different You know, so a lot of the work that I do now You know it has is is either like specifically for an event like this was for an exhibition and this is also Brad club filled this was for and this is this is a Hatch a cons thing that was a distributed our publishers thing Which is like, you know, so there's a lot more of this kind of do it all yourself Sort of graphic design that's happening rather than the more like rotoli type of stuff that I was doing before and and it's distributed very very differently and So a lot of like but also because of that too like a lot of this work is a lot more prescribed because you're actually like Thinking about like how is it going to get represented like when you make it? and Recently so just to kind of I know I'm just bouncing you guys back and forth But recently in April there was an exhibition on John Haydek in the Cooper Union that I went to and it was just like So amazing to revisit some of these projects because these are the things again that I had kind of grown up with at the time and And it would just be impossible like in some ways like they resemble the work that you'll see in a book fair just for their just because the book fair stuff is so nostalgic but There's there are moves and there are Organizations and there's an inscrutability to these publications that you just would never have now And so I really wonder like you know, can you make Mask of Medusa now like as an architect? I don't know like and what if you did like what would it be and it's such a it's such a different Attitude towards like a publication then then what we have now What was awesome though is that they also rebuilt You know, this is also very graphic architecture too, right? And it was always questionable to whether you could call it architecture So this is the house of the suicide in the house of the Suicide's mother and and it's it's so bizarre to like be experiencing this stuff now too because like you go around the corner and And this is where I'll throw you guys back in the present So this is a photo that I took out the strand and the entire back section of the strand Used to be all art and architecture and then they moved all the art and architecture stuff upstairs And they replaced it with cookbooks, which I think is really interesting because now almost all the work I do now is cookbooks and like cookbooks are really big and they're you know people are always buying cookbooks in the same sort of fetishistic way that they used to buy architecture books and So like and and and things and a lot of other things have changed as well So like a lot of my work now like in terms of its environment looks like this I do still make models of things So this is like a small model of a book that I did and laid out This is in a space that we were working in You know, I still iterate like everything like one after the other like just always making making making to like arrive at something You know, I'm I'm still Working out like, you know, what is the whole sequence of the book and like? What's the what's the actual map of of the thing like much more interest me a lot more than the kind of identity of the book and and one of the things that connect also with architecture a lot is Or maybe the only thing for me, which I just try to hang on to and you guys will hear next from commercial type Which I'm super excited about is is that everything now is like about type like and I It's really hard for me to do a project now without making type for it because there's just something so elemental about about doing that So I'll I'll I'll make type I'll make the type into typefaces and then I'll use that in books and then this is this is type for an identity project with that same client Which then turned into like different variations of the identity here. It is back stuck onto a piece of architecture And and and this is like this is the way that I work now you know, which is just Everything is not at a distance, you know, the work is at a distance like and the If I go and be with people I'm with them like I'm in here I am in the basement, you know of this of this restaurant in San Francisco And it's just really really different from what I had imagined 20 years ago because I always thought that I would be working like this like this was like the dream you know, so you're gonna work in a studio and and I But I have to say like there are there are real joys in this in this new environment But I so this is the kind of a polemic part of this So one, you know, it's since you guys are architects like I just really want to Underscore and this goes back to the are we human book like you make the environment and the environment makes you So like the the degree to which you also influence like what is being published about architecture? What does it look like? What is that world? Who does it reach? What is its audience like then reflects back in turn and creates the kind of architecture that it makes, you know so like if you If you're not paying attention to that like it's really hard for for the the whole sequence to You have you've a lot of influence by it by doing that So, you know, you're what you're making influences what you're what you're looking at influences What you're making and then one of the best things about architecture is the possibility of autonomous conversation And I say this because you know, we are in a field in graphic design like all of us That you see here like we like we all know each other But like we don't we don't have a kind of apparatus or a structure that has already been built to like Communicate amongst ourselves in a way to about the things that we do in the way that architecture does and And I know that like there there were many many years of people saying like oh But that's such a waste of time and those people aren't like, you know, they're not doing, you know But it's it's really really important to have that conversation in order to then influence like the architecture that is made made next and You know, if you're an architecture school or your firm and like you're Making your stuff to show the world like how expensive you're gonna be like yeah I would tell you like go ahead and like hire, you know The sharpest knife in the drawer graphic designer you can find, you know find somebody who does that all day every day You know do that But you know for the stuff that is about like the conversation you're having amongst yourselves Especially about especially when it comes to that early work and that early graphic work I just feel like there there's a sense of that fearlessness That's been lost to be able to kind of autonomously be producing these works and to like be be sharing them amongst yourselves And like and whether it's digital or it's physical. I just think it's a really Fantastic thing to do just both for yourself and for the field And I also I mean I know it's nerve-racking because like everything is visible and every you know Everybody's watching you on everything, you know, it's like everybody's watching you in Instagram and Twitter and whatever But like at the same time it is possible and if you throw yourself into it like it's possible to you to Really change the direction of like what is the thinking and what is the making that is in the field of architecture? In a way that just doing, you know that kind of more external A partnership cannot do like I just think it's it's an it's an it's an important thing to do I'll leave you guys off with a couple of thoughts. So I wrote a book last year That was about my field now my field now my new fields my new relationship which is graphic and communication design and I Interviewed three different architects within it and one of them is my friend Luke and he said which I just think is great He said the word amateur has within it the suggestion. Well, he's he first talked about how I know I asked him like what did you get out of your architecture education? He said like well one of the best things about architecture education is that it makes you into Excellent amateurs like you're always like really game to like pick up some new thing and And he said and I he was like and I don't mean that in a Like Derogatory sense. He's like the word amateur has within it the suggestion of the love of doing things so in some ways it can also be a way to avoid the kind of professionalization that tends to kill a certain spirit and sensibility of exploration and And so like there was something about him saying that that kind of made me think about like all the work that I just showed you and all The stuff that I was looking at before of just thinking like, you know, where where did that fearlessness go? like to just go ahead and throw in and like make things and be amateur in that more loving way and And I'll end with Just you know a thought that I've had lately, which is you know at the time, too If you look at graphic design theory there's always like this whole question of like is graphic design a kind of writing and I'll propose to you that graphic design is not a kind of writing But it's a kind of reading and in that sense It's also a kind of way of loving things and so, you know any opportunity that you get to do that I would encourage you to do so so and that's it for me Follow me on Twitter Any any do we do Q&A or no? Yeah. Um, thank you Justin. Do we have any questions? How do you design a tight face? How do you design a tight face? I mean there are a hundred different ways to design a tight face One I mean there there are more official like you can you can learn how to do it, right? Or you can just do it on your own You could you can use really except there are a lot of accessible online tools for Typeface design the most most accept accessible is one called font struct where you can just go ahead and like make a grid-based typeface a little bit More complicated, but still free. I think it's something called glyph that people have been using I totally encourage typeface design for and I maybe this is my way of plugging My our next guest here I totally encourage typeface design to Architects because typeface design is all about space It's all about like this space around a letter and within a letter and and then the relationship between characters So that they're all equally different and like that whole mode of thinking is just so much closer To the kind of thinking that is required for making a building or for making a plan Then it then you're like is this gonna appeal to somebody, you know Which I like never really like I don't really care Like if something appeals to you know, like it's it's not something that I feel it's close to but like type design is like this Awesome obsessive thing where you're you know It's like you because you go ahead and you start making it And then when you as you get into like the later letters and things like you get to W And then you have to redo everything else and it's and I love that like I think it's the best I think it's the best thing and it's and it's strange too because like I in terms of the projects that I do like I just I have such a hard time just kind of pulling a typeface off the shelf and then using it I also have a hard time with like I Love all the new type but it now it to me It's so associated with startups and with venture capital that like I'm always trying to figure out how to buck that and there's two ways You can do it. You can use old type and finesse the hell out of it or you can use or you can make your own type Otherwise, it'll be perfect and if it's perfect it will it will look like that kind of money So it's a really weird kind of dilemma. I think so Other other other questions Started much more of the architectural book type Yeah, and now you mentioned you're doing more of like a cookbook type and how that changes your approach to design Based on who you're imagining these books are made for Well, it's it's tough because you know, again, like I started with that architecture book You know, but I was this audience who knew nothing, right? And and so I Always want to be interested in but then never quite get interested in books or publications that are made for like Like that are more insidery just because I feel like if it leaves out that person and if there's no way in I Find it really hard to love it You know, so I've really and this is this is like a kind of crisis for me because like, you know in our world Like the lower the lower number of copies that something has like especially if you can get down to one Like there's only one copy available like the more valuable something is it's like and most of the books that I was doing earlier They you know, they were I mean they weren't like super small run But like they like usually that two thousand to five thousand realm is like what an architecture book is If they print one at all at this point there's really very few architecture books now that aren't like associated with with selling something else, but but the the the cookbook is fifty thousand so like it's a very different space and And so you can kind of get in there and like do things that You know will reach people who are not looking for that and there's something really exciting to me about that like I and but That's that's a totally personal thing for me that that I always want to have Something there that that somebody who is Unfamiliar doesn't is not in it is gonna like grab into and is gonna be able to like connect into that larger So that you know so that those other books that I also love, you know that they can actually get there at some point You know through through these other things I mean, I don't know that's a complicated way of saying it But yeah, like I think having things be a little more general is is is kind of cool Well, I'm always asking like what's I mean the first question and I usually have the client there for this You know so my process for making a book now is like I will sit down for three days I'll make the maps. I'll make a whole book and I'll just I'll just make it And then I'll sit down with the client with them sitting next to me and then we'll start We'll start making the book, you know, so like I just I just go ahead and make the whole thing No, no sample pages. No, whatever. Like it's just the full the full thing My question is always like how how is somebody gonna experience this work? And what are what are they? What are they gonna get out of it? That's like a larger? question the The first question though to the client before we even get started is is this a book or is this a brochure? and and I think it's a really really important question to ask before you make anything because if it's a brochure Then you can just yeah, you can just go straight into just like is does it look nice and whatever and like leave it at that? But if it's a book then somebody who is reading it Depending on who they are and how they go through it and how much of it they go through will develop different insights Like depending on depending on that so like if they only read the interviews like they'll get one thing Or if they only do that, you know, like so that you have built into the book a whole set of different experiences Otherwise like it's just a brochure and a lot of books are brochures, you know, like I I'll give you that but But a book it has a point of view that is expressed through the through the organization of the content and the naming of that content that That makes it a book otherwise, it's not a book You see like I think well, I think you always have to I mean the way I usually explain it to students Is I say like it's kind of like when you're Like if you're if you look at a group of goth kids like in a high school I don't even know if they still exist or kids still goth they might be so to you They all look the same, you know, like they all look totally the same right they have black eyeliner They've got black clothes on But then to each each goth kid all the others are different because like they have Doc Martens on but their Doc Martens are purple And the other ones have laces that are slightly different So like you always have to decide like how much do you need to be look look like other things to be in the group and to be Recognized as part of the group and then what do you need to do to differentiate from the group? So I think if you completely throw yourself outside of it, like you're you're that's not good because then you're not no one's Recognizing you and like we're humans right so like humans are born to recognize things Like when you have a year and a half old kid, he's like giraffe hippo Rhino, he's like never met any of these animals But like the first exercise that you have is in recognition And so like you spend the rest of your life like going through just like saying like what the fuck is that? What the fuck is that and like you're just always recognized and you're always asking those questions And so if as a designer you don't answer that question immediately like you're you fail, you know So you have to answer that question But then if you answer that question and your your thing looks exactly like everything else It becomes lost again because you cannot differentiate like between your thing and the other thing and and it's really I Think this is really bad for us now Especially with with phones because like you're talking about a space of a business card to like try to differentiate between things And so like for example if there's a lecture series here, and there's a lecture series Like you guys have this beautiful stuff for Syracuse, you know For example, and there's a lecture series at UCLA and there's a lecture series in Texas Like on a poster they can all look incredibly different, you know, because there's a lot of space there to to Experiment and like do different things on the space on a space that's this big It's really really hard for them not to look all exactly the same You know, so it's it's just it's constantly thinking about like how is it different and how is it the same? I think you know in terms of Like like trend to me is like how much are you the same and then what was your other word? appeal and appeal Appeals a weird one, but like appeal I actually don't think that things that are the same are appealing, you know But I think appeal is kind of like that that's surprise. It's like rituals and surprises, you know So like you do the ritual of making it look like the Architecture school or whatever and then you do the surprise of like this is a new thing. I've never seen this before I'm interested like I want to be in it So like that's that's how I think is the best. It's almost like a mechanical description of like what we do But like that that is kind of what we do all the time It has nothing to do with what we personally like just to make it be clear Is there anyone else? I mean, I think that that like I think the content is the design to such a huge degree And the editing of that content generally speaking though most people don't see a graphic designer as being Capable of being involved in content selection and editing which I think is still surprised to me like whenever I encounter it They're like no, no, no, we already figured out like here's a table of contents and here's the stuff like most Publishing house processes in fact are built that way, you know, so they actually will request that the author do the entire manuscript Complete, you know, even with the images ordered already like before they hand it over to a designer Which I just find confounding because like it's a really it's a it's a it's a way to make a book that looks like a wordpress template Like if you do that, like you really come up with nothing because they the author usually is not It's not good at understanding how somebody's reading their work, you know, like they're they're good at writing it or they're good at They're good at understanding what the content is but they don't really they're not gonna like turn that around in their mind a few times before writing it down so So I usually just kind of I mean I'm I'm a pain in the neck when it comes to that because I usually will just go in and I'll just start changing stuff and I'll start like Moving stuff around or adding more content or whatever and then like but but the way that I you can only do that if you gain trust and And I gain trust by usually like I usually start each of these projects by just going and spending like two three days with someone Just like listening and asking them questions and at the point in which they Decide that I understand what it is that they do they usually like relax and they let me get my hands in the content and like You know actually move the content around but there are moments that where you just have no control and like that's like a really Tough tough thing and if you're doing anything for the web That's like more of a container like you definitely have no control over the content So then you have to like just focus on making a really heavy frame So that like whatever comes through it is just gonna survive That that that that process, you know, so that it's not gonna be as selective or as picky like the more the more The more selected and the more precise the content selection is the more minimal the design can be too Like so like if the content is perfect and it's beautiful like I don't have to do anything Like you can just like stick it on the page and like make sure that like, you know It's like the proportions are not like awful But like if things are if you have no like if you do an exhibition with like a hundred different artists Like you got to make sure that the whole thing looks like like there's flashing lights and everything to like not make it look like a complete Like fresh kills disaster because it's you know, you don't have any control over that so oh You see like that's a I think that's the question like my like I I'd love to recommend my route, of course But you know, that's not necessarily like the only way or the best way I mean the only graphic design is a practice So like the more you practice it is the same way as like if you wanted to take up ceramics You know like I would tell you to like go make some ceramics and go hang out with people who know Things so that they can tell you what's wrong with your pots, you know So and graphic design is the same if you can get yourself in a situation like one of the things that was really good about working at MoMA was There was just an infinite number of projects, you know So like that first year before I went to grad school like we used to have these corporate forms You know for each of the projects because they were we were an internal agency and I did 77 projects in that year You know just like if it whatever it was, you know, it's like oh We need a letterhead for the education department, you know, it's like I would just go ahead and do it So the more you do it And the more you get some feedback like the better the better you get at it So I would definitely recommend that overall how you manage to do that Especially now is really really rough because you know We are all like now collections of aggregated data on LinkedIn or whatever So like people are less likely to give you the chance to make stuff If they if you don't already show that you've been able to make exactly the same thing before, you know So so I think a lot of it now Maybe the next turn is to just do a lot of your own work and like you know a lot of your own content To be able to explore and experiment with with the medium So that would be my just to do it I mean there's no there's no barrier in graphic design That's the one wonderful thing about it Like I mean you can like walk you can decide like right now like I'm a graphic designer and like just like pick up your laptop And like there you are like there's no And I love that because you know architecture if you decide especially that you want to work for yourself Like that's that's like good luck to you, you know, like there's there's really Not there's really like two or three very set paths in Architecture unless you're independently wealthy, so it's really I'm sure you guys are all already know this so like So so it was really I mean I didn't go into graphic design I mean I went to graphic design Partly because I loved these things and I got loved books and I loved like going through content and like I'm a reader Like I just I read all the time but You know a lot of a lot of the appeal was the fact that I could always work for myself and like that I didn't have to apologize for it and I could just keep doing it like there's no all I needed was a laptop It's true. That's all you need like you don't need anything else and a community a laptop and a community so I Mean you you I is not going to solve anything in in graphic design, but I see the I see any any Tamp tampering with like the experience of a person and content is being graphic design So I mean UI is definitely part part of that What I see as a kind of danger zone though is like there's so much there's so much templating at this point They know it's like even with UI like even if I was to teach you all of you this afternoon like UI design I would start you off with like a bootstrap template You know because there's all these like kind of efficiencies within the making of digital products And the efficiencies develop their own like they kind of dictate what things are going to look like, you know, so You know the tools dictate what things are going to look like the efficiencies dictate what things are going to look like So eventually you start to roll into this pattern where like a lot of that stuff looks very similar and So that that's and I don't think that I don't see that changing I see like more and more templates coming, you know, like it's going to be like you're going to push a button It's going to read your brain and it's going to make a website for you You know like so that's And that will work for you know, 90% of projects, you know, that's the other thing too like there's so much There is a gigantic mountain of trash, you know that is created every single day And like there is no real need for humans to make it in a lot of ways. So But the question of like what is going to be that 10% that's going to be better That that's kind of interesting like I actually think that to ignore the the web and you know mobile all that stuff Is to like ignore half of human experience like you have to be able to like look at it think about it have an opinion about it Be able to make it like I don't see why not Okay, it's good There aren't more questions, baby I'll ask you one question that I always think about you know having only been trained as a graphic designer and having you know Practices a graphic designer for many years, but that I am exposed to architects a lot I work a lot, you know as a studio. We work a lot with architectural content. I'm a fan of architecture I teach architecture students and there's you know incredible sort of overlap between the two two fields But then there's also these kind of very very different aspects to to the two sides as well In your experience, what do you think we can learn from each other graphic designers from architects and architects from graphic designers? Oh, that's that's a good question I mean I can definitely speak to like what graphic designers can learn from architects and part of that is a Moving away from the sort of professionalism and like moving towards like oh, I'm just gonna like go ahead and and Roll into things that I don't know anything about like that that sort of courage I think is is missing in a lot of graphic design also like the The idea that talking to each other about what we do is itself valuable and that it doesn't need to be Validated outside of the field. I think it's also kind of missing like I've always felt that to be missing As far as what architects can learn from graphic designers, I mean, that's a good question I would say probably like really understanding how to work with humans would be one of them like I was a lot more I Don't know like you know When I was it when I was more Architect like I was much more like yeah, you know if you don't understand what I'm talking about. That's your problem That's not my problem and now like I'm Fascinated by like I have no no longer any kind of like cognitive friction Like when I'm sitting in front of somebody who like doesn't understand what I'm talking about or vice versa Like I just think that's actually a really awesome moment and and I and I like it I think because now I've been thinking so much about communication and about how lossy Communication is that that like I can find that to be interesting rather than finding that to be irritating and And and like you know because as a designer like all you do is that like you're just constantly trying to explain to people You're translating people because like somebody comes to you and they have this like Really awesome idea and they just can't they can't communicate it And so you're you're you're there sort of midwife, you know for that And so you really have to thoroughly understand it and be able to like re-represent it and and I just think that whole Process of simplifying and clarifying a thought like I think is a really excellent one And I think most architects don't think they need to do that and in like I whenever I read Architectural theory today, you know like when I do finally like dive into e-flux or whatever Like I will love like a whole passage and then I'll be like, ah, but you know Nobody's gonna understand this like nobody knows any of these references Nobody like especially if you're a UI designer for like if you want to even step into that like you have like Evidence that like nobody knows how to use a computer, you know So like it's it's really like you're there's data there that shows you exactly what people know What they don't know what they know how to use what they don't know how to use and so like your view of like humans Is very different if you're a UI designer or you're a book designer or you're an architect, you know Like architects really generally seem to think that people understand most of this stuff and they don't so like none of it makes sense Thank you so much Juliet