RISD is an amazing and mysterious place. The talent and amount of creative output on our campus is staggering and nearly impossible to quantify. We invite luminaries from around the globe to challenge us, inspire us, and push us to be our best. However, at times we forget to stand back and attempt to understand what RISD has really given us and what we’ve given back.

It is common practice to cite that “students” are what make a school great but in the case of RISD, our students truly play a unique role in that statement. By the nature of the studio environment, the intensity of our pursuits, and the general personality of our work, RISD students stand alone in their importance in shaping the academic environment and experience.

This book isn’t meant to encapsulate the breadth, depth, or richness of that perspective but rather act as snapshot to provide a look into what really makes RISD, RISD. It is the work and people. I hope this will be a resource to provide you with the perspectives of an amazing collection of talented individuals as they make the transition from this school out into the world they will someday hopefully impact.

Thank you to all the students that participated in this exercise (see full list of names at the back of the book).

As my time at RISD comes to a close and I continue both my personal work on my degree project and my involvement with RISD’s strategic plan I began to consider the place of the faculty perspective in my process. Knowing that Krzysztof Lenk (Graphic Design) was retiring, I became interested in offering retiring faculty the opportunity to speak with me about their philosophies, experiences, and pedagogies as a sort of exit interview. The importance of such an exercise cannot be downplayed and I was justifiably surprised to hear that RISD had no organization for such an activity.

Working under my own direction and motivation, I took the opportunity with three of RISD’s retiring faculty members, Krzysztof Lenk, Maria Tulokas (Textiles), and Brian Kernaghan (Interior Architecture) to hold a meaningful reflective conversation as we each “graduate” from RISD. The results were both surprising and exciting. Hearing from these three individuals who have dedicated much of their careers in service to RISD gave me a new perspective of not only RISD’s institutional structure but also insight into the leadership and organization of creative individuals. Throughout the separate one-on-one conversations I became increasingly aware of the overlap and commonality of their ideas and views. Repeatedly they turned over in their minds RISD’s greatest threats and challenges, each weaving in the richness of their personal philosophies and experiences.

While I could discuss several quotes that stood out to me personally from the conversations, I would rather examine the body of conversations as a complete narrative reflection of these individuals on their time helping to build RISD. By organizing the three conversations in concert, I am inviting the reader to see the connections I have worked to cull from their words. The work was an amazing exercise in discovering the subtext of our conversations and generating a list of themes (seen in the gutter throughout this book) that provide the foundation for their pedagogy and practice.

Though I have only been here for a fraction of the time they have, and in a much different role, lately I have found myself taking more and more time to reexamine and “unpack” my experiences from a broader view -allowing me to slowly form a more cohesive narrative of my time here. By no means am I claiming to have anything close to a complete understanding of RISD or any design institution but the combination of their perspectives and my other research has enabled me to undergo the most meaningful self-reflection of my life. By listening to their thoughts and stories I have found strength in the development of my own ideas. This experience is something I someday hope to pass on.

Throughout my undergraduate career at RISD, I feel like I have developed almost as much as a writer as a designer. Rarely do I create a design project or undergo any design exercise without pausing for reflection and taking the time for a more critical reflection of my practice through writing. While this has led me to feel empowered to both articulate my thoughts visually and through language, at times I feel the two exist in separate universes within me- the complex division of left and right brain.

In order to remedy this I chose to reinvestigate my entire writing portfolio both for content and a deeper contemplation of my personality with the hope that I would find a more holistic cooperation between my “two sides.” The result, the record you hold in your hands, is a collection of relevant pieces chronologically organized to illustrate the development of my thought process and skill as a writer. To further challenge myself to understand the significance of my writer I have included visual poetic summaries to precede each piece, inviting the reader to better understand the unique combination of my passions.

This complete work has enabled me to re-approach and re-package my thinking, in an exercise that is counter to my normal practice. My ability and failure at times in this challenge have reaffirmed my love for both visual design and writing. At the same time they have provided a coherent and intensely personal record of my undergraduate education.