"More Cowbell"

 

Computing Devices International Symbol

Cowbell :: Image – Harbor Freight

“I think it needs to be punched up,” Tim the studio principal said. He was commenting on one of my most resolved sketches. I had no idea what he meant. It was the early 1990’s and I’d never heard those words put together before. Apparently, it was a phrase people were starting to use, at least in the marketing world, because I can’t imagine a designer saying it unless they were joking. Comments by the head of any studio should be more specific, or if not, only spoken with someone who understands them. I’m not convinced he understood what he meant. I think it was a phrase he’d heard at a marketing conference somewhere and thought it sounded slick.

“Remind me of where you went to design school,“ he said. “I went to Montana State University.” “Oh, that’s right, but didn’t you also go somewhere else too, somewhere out east, or something?” “Yes.” My neck started to get warm. It’s an innocent question if you’re just a curious person, but he wasn’t just curious, he already knew, and it smelled like an agenda. It was pungent and I could see it on his face too. I’d already been vetted, plus, I noticed the corner of my resume poking out from under his folder which is why I just said ‘yes’. Everyone around the table had blank expressions, except for the head designer. He looked at me knowingly.

I’d been hired to work with the staff designers on two identity projects. The studio was composed of Tim the principal, the head designer, two junior designers, a full-time freelancer, an account executive, and a production manager. A local corporation was dividing into two separate companies with completely different functions, so they required two different identities — one needed a symbol and the other a logotype. It was an extremely fast turnaround and they needed more help to make it happen, so the full-time freelancer who was also a friend recommended me. I sent over my resume and a few days later attended an initial meeting. We were briefed on the companies and the scope of each project. It ended with the creation of two teams, one for each identity. I worked on the symbol along with a staff designer and we had a week to generate the first round of ideas. I rendered my sketches with a black Sharpie on sheets of 9” x 12” tracing paper. We were encouraged not to throw anything away, to just brainstorm and keep everything for discussion. The following week everyone gathered in the same conference room as before. We pinned up our work and identified our strongest solutions and had brief discussions about the options. Two to three options were selected from each of us to be refined for the following week.

I worked on refining two symbols over the weekend. The following Monday the head designer called to check-in and confirm my approach to the revisions and talk about the schedule. After a minute, or two, he said, “of the two you’re refining, I think that one direction is the strongest and agree with your thinking on it, but Tim doesn’t understand what your mark means.” “Oh… OK, what questions does he have? Should I give him a call?” “No, I already went over it with him and said I thought it was the right direction. He still didn’t get it” To this day I don’t understand what he didn’t get. It literally incorporated the initials for the new corporate name and suggested a few appropriate tech references.

I arrived the following week with my refinements expecting the design staff to be gathered, but the meeting didn’t include everyone. It was just Tim the principal, the head designer I’d spoken with the previous Monday, and myself. I’m assuming the other designers had separate meetings too. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the opportunity see the symbol refinements that the staff designer had completed. After the meeting, the head designer said they would take one of my final roughs and tighten it up in-house. Once they did, he’d forwarded me their version to get my feedback. He called shortly after I received his email, thanked me for my work and asked me to send him my invoice. A few months later a cardboard mailer arrived from the studio and inside it was a spiral bound identity manual for the company symbol I’d worked on. I didn’t even know that my symbol had been chosen, but it was on the cover, used as a pattern on the inside front and inside back covers, and completely deconstructed throughout the manual outlining the usage parameters, including sizes, colors, its relationship to the brand typography, and various application options, from stationary to signage. I was in disbelief. Apparently, it didn’t need to be punched up, or need ‘more cowbell’.

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More Cowbell Quote by Christopher Walken, SNL

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For Paul S.

Songs :: It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll) by AC/DC, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper by Blue Öyster Cult, Lies by Manassas, and Respect Yourself by Joe Cocker

© C. Davidson

Passion Bullies

 

Album Cover :: Image – Highresaudio.com

Passion Type :: 1982-1983 Journal :: Bozeman

Passion Entry :: Journal 1982-1983

Neil Young has been a hero of mine since high school when I first heard and purchased Harvest. I’ve owned quite a few of his albums since then, at least I thought so until learning he’s made forty-one albums, and twelve with Crazy Horse. Our collection is less than half that and those are all digital now because I sold my vinyl collection years ago, and our daughter burned and uploaded all our CD’s when she was in high school. Sometime during the late 90’s and into the next century I lost track of him and only listened to what we already owned of his.

I adore a few of his albums, and dislike a few of them. Are You Passionate? is not a favorite, especially the title of the album and title track. It annoyed me from the moment I saw the album cover. Why’s he asking the question? Why does anybody ask that question? Are you passionate? Am I passionate? That’s kind of personal Neil. He’s not being ironic either. He’s sincerely asking us. Why does anyone inquire about someone’s passion? It’s feels gross and shallow. Most of the time the individuals who do bring it up, who talk about passion, who lecture on it, are suspect. They may even own software with an algorithm that calibrates levels of passion based on a series of questions, and attempts to tell someone else who they are. Like a lot of things, Neil’s not asking us as much as he is telling us, “we should be passionate about something and if we’re not… well.” It feels offensive because while we all search for a path in our lives, he’s exploiting someone’s uncertainty, insecurity and fear.

People don’t just talk about it either. Sometimes they try to brand it — not with optimism and helpfulness, if that’s even possible, but with judgment and a logo which they refer to as a visual asset — how to feel it if we’re not feeling it, and how to feel about ourselves if we don’t. I haven’t googled it, but I’m certain there are websites, apps, self-help books on Amazon, and books on peoples nightstands, even motivational vampires, running seminars in hotel conference rooms telling people how to feel more passionate. They might even offer all-day passion seminars for $500, or $650 which includes their book and a box lunch. It’s patronizing, dismissive and rude. If you’ve signed up for one of these seminars, get your money back. It’s a money grab.

It seems to me if we love something we already know it. If we don’t love something, we know that too and we’ll move on to something else until we find it — something we’re passionate about — and that’s only if we want to. We might even feel passionate about something and then lose that feeling over time, like lovers. Everything is possible. There are no rules. There’s no methodology no matter who tells us there is.

Teaching passion is a myth. It’s no different than telling someone who they should love, what their favorite color should be, or the proper way to grieve. Never listen to anyone tell you how to feel and what you should feel especially on social media. They always have an agenda and it’s most often self-serving because they’re lost and confused about themselves, they’re vampires, or worse, they believe they actually know. They don’t. Walk away. Don’t be seduced by their shiny objects and misled by the passion bullies, not even when it's Neil.

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“Passion Is a Fashion” – Joe Strummer

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Songs :: Only a Fool Would Say That by Steely Dan, Something You’re Going Through by Graham Parker, Brilliant Disguise by Bruce Springsteen, and Vampire Blues by Neil Young

© C. Davidson

Anatomy of a Screw :: [Supplemental]

 

Screw :: Image–Homestratosphere

Songs :: Europe Endless by Kraftwerk, Boogie Woogie by Kruder & Dorfmeister, and Vaseline Machine Gun by Leo Kottke

© C. Davidson

Ongoing Postcard Series

 

Postcard Series :: 2019–2024 – Produced for the Postcard Collective and studio mailing list.

Songs :: Pulses by Steve Reich, Strangered In the Night by Tom Petty, Higher Ground by Stevie Wonder, Escape Artist by Zoe Keating, and Lake Marie by John Prine

© C. Davidson

Dinner With Bradbury

 

Wolfgang :: Weingart bent a green flexible drafting rule into a curved shape high above his head and said, “Why can’t type do this? It was rhetorical, because the answer was that it could do that, and his work demonstrated it. During his lecture, he spoke about his general philosophy, things that excited him, showed us slides of his groundbreaking work, and went into some depth about a couple of his projects. He learned about typography, letterpress and offset printing through traditional methods. He didn’t just parachute into what we all knew him for, it came about organically over time. At some point he discovered something that changed everything for him, which determined his future work, our work, and the profession of graphic design forever. His work relied on photography, traditional typographic form, the layering of photographic films, and most importantly his intuition. Along with other legends like April Greiman, he provided my generation of designers even more permission to experiment. There were students lying on their backs in the aisles, drowsy, or dosing off, while others were slumped in the cushy theater seats. Not because it wasn’t extremely interesting, but because most everyone in the auditorium was sleep deprived.

Earlier in the day, he’d informally stopped by the grad studio with our professor who escorted Wolfgang to the desks of anyone who was present to look at the book projects we were working on. His visit wasn’t for a formal critique of our work, it wasn’t even planned. We were introduced and asked to walk him through our book projects. When it was my turn, I explained my overall intent, and how each thematic spread interpreted the architecture of the State Capitol building. I don’t remember what his reaction was exactly, or what he mumbled, but I do remember he looked me in the eyes and nodded.

Armin :: Hoffman’s visit to our afternoon studio class was scheduled. We knew he was coming so I had all morning to get myself worked up, so I was nervous when he and our professor entered the room. After they had seen a couple of my classmates books, they made their way to my desk. It was the same book project Weingart had viewed. I walked him through it, he nodded a couple of times without speaking, or looking up from my drawing board. After I finished, he looked at me and said, “thank you”. I said “thanks Mr Hoffman'“, then we shook hands. Standing next to him while he looked at my work and listened to what I said about it was unimaginable. I owned his book. It was required reading for my first class in undergraduate design school. I knew a couple of students and professors who had taken classes with him in Basel, and at Yale, and his legendary frankness proceeded him. Apparently he could sound and be harsh and direct during critiques. I don’t know if it was true, or if it was just myth, but just in case, I tried to prepare myself for him to dismiss my work rudely and tell me I was in the wrong field. He didn’t though. In fact, he was polite and soft spoken. Afterwards, I walked outside to smoke with a friend and share our experiences. We both agreed it felt like a dream.

Bradbury :: Thompson was a legend too. My classmates and I had dinner with him during Fall semester. I don’t remember if the head of the design program, or any other faculty were present, but I know our meal was in a sparse, private room off the main dining hall on campus. It was surrounded on two sides by large floor to ceiling windows, glass doors with a single long table in the middle of the room. One side faced an outdoor courtyard and the other side faced inward towards the main hall.

Bradbury was seated at the head of the table and the rest of us flanked him on each side. I was three seats away facing the outside courtyard and relieved that I wasn’t sitting any closer. At some point early into the meal, a classmate who was struggling with the early stages of his thesis, asked Bradbury if he could ask a question. “Yes, of course young man,” or something similarly polite. “When you’re struggling to find a design solution for a project, or you’re having a creative block, what do you do to get yourself out of it?” There was a lengthy pause, long enough that it was noticed, and after careful thought, Bradbury looked at my classmate and said “Um… well… I’m not sure, I’ve never really experienced that.”

After a few beats, myself and at least two other people involuntarily snorted to try and avoid laughing out loud. We couldn’t help it. We weren’t laughing at our friend, or his question, because we were all struggling in various ways. Bradbury didn’t respond with ego, or attitude in any way. He seemed far too humble and too much of a gentleman for anything other than honesty, sincerity and empathy. Apparently, he just hadn’t ever experienced a creative block before. Our classmate who asked the question face changed. He looked even more pale than usual. Bradbury saw his face and sensed what was happening and said, “However…, sometimes when I need to think through a complex project, I’ll go for a walk in the woods near my home. That usually helps.” Our classmate was visibly relieved. We were all relieved because Bradbury had graciously provided an escape hatch for anyone who needed it.

Songs :: Walking In The Rain and Feel Up by Grace Jones, How Soon Is Now by The Smiths, Persona Grata by Joan Armatrading, and Burnin’ Coal by Les McCann

© C. Davidson

Building It :: [Supplemental]

 

KGLT FM Radio Logo (Proposed) :: MSU-Bozeman MT

Songs :: Whatcha See is Whatcha Get by John Scofield, and Sueno Con Mexico by Pat Metheny

© C. Davidson

 

Night Class

 

I was late for my first class of Fall semester — Typography One, a sophomore type class. By late, I mean I wasn’t early. I was right on time for the beginning of class, but late because I should have been there much earlier. It’s nice to greet students as they arrive during the first class, and not blow in sweating and panting while they’re already seated. I was both of those things.

Trip :: The elevator was notoriously slow — slow like the first creaky 1857 Otis elevator, or even earlier ones that were powered by steam, or coal. I’d only ridden in it once, or twice, over the course of four years because the stairs were always faster. I was carrying stacks of syllabi, attendance forms, department guidelines, other miscellaneous handouts, a briefcase filled with samples, and a can of coke. As soon as I got to the first step, I started taking them two at a time, and didn’t slow down until I rounded the landing onto the final set of stairs between the second and third floor. Two students were just about to open the door to the third floor and heard me coming. They turned to look, I looked up, and at that instant I tripped and spewed everything onto the stairs. They paused to watch it happen, looked at each other, then turned and continued through the heavy steel fire door which slammed shut behind them. I bent over to gather my sliding pile of stuff, breathing heavy, embarrassed, and continued to the stairwell door. I opened it, turned the corner, and walked to the far end of the hall where the classroom was located.

Explode :: I walked in and saw a full class of students, including the two who witnessed my stairwell incident. I noticed a lot of large unfinished cabinetry in various stages of completion in the front and scattered around the perimeter of the classroom. I set my now disorganized pile of stuff, on a table at the front, found my class list, caught my breath and welcomed everyone to Type One. The first thing I do is confirm that everyone is in the right class. Immediately three students’ hands shot up. There are always that many with instant questions — someone is concerned, or confused, about their individual credits, a work schedule conflict, and a myriad of other issues. They’re all valid questions, and I let them know I’m happy to discuss everything later. I handed out all my paperwork, walked back to the front of the room to continue my introduction, and opened my can of coke. I took a drink, and before I wrote my name and contact information on the board in front, I set my coke on top of the unfinished cabinet next to me. I didn’t realize it, but there was no top, and my full can of coke dropped five feet, hit the bottom of the cabinet and exploded on impact. There was a three, or four, second uncomfortable silence, except for the coke which was spewing, fizzing and dripping onto the new cabinet and floor. My students could see the entire drop and explosion because the side that faced them was open, like backstage of a puppet show, but the side facing me wasn’t. I peered around the corner of it, turned red again and accessed the mess while my students mumbled, snorted and giggled.

Reveal :: After the coke exploded, I acknowledged how ridiculous I was, regrouped and wrote my name, office hours, and email on the board. During that period of my teaching life, I almost always wore a button-down long sleeve shirt, often white, a tie, a sport jacket, jeans and boots. It wasn’t until years later that I dressed far more casually. This night I didn’t wear a jacket and I had my sleeves rolled up because it was hot. As I wrote on the board, my arms caught my eye and I was alarmed and embarrassed once again. They were extremely scratched up from our cat. He still had his claws and he and I rough housed a lot. I wrestled with him like a medium sized dog, and he went after me like I was an intruding cat. What wasn’t always apparent in the heat of battle was just how much damage he inflicted on my bare arms. What began as dozens of white scratches on both arms, turned into raised red scratches. My students saw this too. They must have assumed I was self-harming.

Within the first twenty minutes of entering the building, I’d tripped and spewed everything in the stairwell, my coke exploded, and I revealed my shredded arms. I’m assuming I probably lived with cat scratch fever for years.

The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin, Busload of Faith by Lou Reed, Going Under by Patti Smith, and All My Tears by Emmylou Harris

© C. Davidson

Time Management Flashback [Supplemental]

 

Clues Annual Report Photo Shoot - 1993 :: Photograph – Charissa Uemura

Songs :: Moods For Moderns by Elvis Costello, Time In a Bottle by Jim Croce, Time by Pink Floyd, Time by Hootie and The Blowfish, and 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton

© C. Davidson

April Window

 

Sometimes it Snows in April by Prince came on the radio because he’d died that morning, and one of the local stations was paying tribute to him with an uninterrupted afternoon of his music. It was April 21st, and it was snowing, a heavy, wet, Spring snow. I was home working and thinking about how the graphic design profession keeps changing, and how the ground that I’d staked for myself decades earlier continued to shrink and morph. Because of this, I’d been planning to shift my focus on a bunch of work-related things for a long time, but I had an extensive list of reasons not to.

Most types of big changes are riddled with anxiety and forward progress is slow, glacial even, because I usually wait for the perfect time to begin, and because the perfect time is rare, I have another excuse allowing me to procrastinate even more. When I have moved beyond what’s stopping me, and real change does occur, I don’t often remember the details of how it happened, and what I did to help it along, because the process takes so long, I’m not taking notes, and I’m not always objective. So, everything from beginning to end is mostly nebulous, blurry, and hard to describe.

However, somewhere between the amber light at my desk, and the blue light through the window, something felt different, even magical that afternoon. What I’d been thinking about, worried about, mulling over and over for years, needed to begin right then. I’d talked myself out of it so many times, imposed so many rules and restrictions for myself, and listened to so many actual and imaginary opinions, that it was difficult to move forward. I’d been stuck for a long time. Except that afternoon I was ready. So, I started to write and didn’t stop for hours. I hadn’t written in that way for decades and I’d never heard this song before. Everything merged into something uncomfortable and better.

For Prince

Sometimes It Snows In April by Prince, Waiting for My Real Life to Begin by Colin Hay, Always Returning by Brian Eno, Survive by Reviver, and Gone On a Purple Cloud by Daily Bread

© C. Davidson

Eye of the Tiger

 

Album Cover :: 1986

North Avenue Beach :: Chicago – 1986

One Friday afternoon in 1986, my boss, the owner of the design studio I worked at, came to me around 4:30 and asked if I’d stay late and help him with a project. We needed to design an album cover and generate a final comp for his meeting in our office at 7:00. I agreed. Shortly after 5:00, my co-workers began to filter out for the weekend, and I walked outside with one of them to smoke a cigarette. When I returned my boss said, “Ok, here’s my plan. I have this color print from an unused photograph we shot for the (Furniture) Corporation brochure, and earlier today I had a variety of transfers made in different colors and sizes and in various typefaces, for the album title, and the bands logotype. I’d like you to do a couple of layout options while I’m getting the final photo print ready. Do whatever you think works best combining the photo and the type, and then let’s meet about 6:00 and make a final decision.” I looked at the transfers and asked, “so the band is Survivor, you mean the Eye of the Tiger band… that’s the client?” “Yeh.” “So, we’re designing an album cover for Survivor?” “Yes.” I wasn’t a follower of Survivor, but it was Survivor, and they were huge at the time, so I started to get nervous.

I made Xerox copies of everything so I could generate the layouts while preserving the ‘final’ color components until we were ready. Then I made two full-size black and white roughs. After I finished, we looked at them together, picked one, he suggested some adjustments and then proceeded to create the final comp. We mounted it on black presentation board, looked at it for a minute, and congratulated ourselves because we’d pulled it off with time to spare.

Since there were ten minutes until the meeting, I started to head back outside to have another cigarette when suddenly the studio door flew open and Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik appeared. They saw my boss and walked briskly past me towards the conference table where he was sitting. Both of them wore tight, black, leather pants, shirts with the top three buttons undone showing their tan skin and chest hair, and 3/4 black boots similar to what the early Beatles wore. They met and I went out to smoke. When I returned I cleaned-up the mess we’d made at the opposite end of the studio.

When they finished, the three of them walked over to me and my boss introduced us, Sullivan and Peterik smiled, they thanked me, we shook hands and they left. My boss smiled too because they liked the cover. Then he and I gathered our things and walked out together — him to the nearby parking lot to retrieve his car and me to the ‘L’ station on Chicago Avenue. Meeting two pop rock stars, walking out into the hazy orange dusk and summer heat, with the rumble and squeal of the trains passing overhead was surreal. Everything happened so quickly and then it was over. I found a window seat on the train and looked towards Lake Michigan where I’d spend Saturday and Sunday afternoon tanning, wading and eating Italian Ice on the beach with thousands of other Chicagoans.

Later that summer, my boss told me that the cover design had been approved by the record company and there weren’t any changes. Then a few months after that, an afternoon in November, I walked into my neighborhood record store on West Belmont Avenue under the tracks, and saw the album sitting on the ‘new releases’ shelf. I’d spent hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of seconds in record stores in my life and felt a lot of things, but I never felt that.

Songs :: Is This Love by Survivor, Run Through the Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival, She Caught the Katy by The Blues Brothers, Sunshine In Chicago by Sun Kil Moon, Someday, Someway by Marshall Crenshaw, and I Feel Alright by Steve Earle

© C. Davidson