Faculty Perspectives & Quotes

After a careful review of my emails, notes, and sketchbooks (excluding freshman foundation – still looking for those), I’ve compiled a list of quotes and observations by RISD faculty and administration members (inspired by Scott Stowell’s similar exercise):

Just walk. And breathe. (John Maeda, President)
Just think and make. And be nice to others. It will all be fine. (John Maeda, President)
All messages are subject to outside noise, affecting the quality of the message. (Hans van Dijk, Graphic Design)
Just think about toys and the power of imagination; that’s all design is. (Hans van Dijk, Graphic Design)
Culture shock is an individual being illiterate to the signs of other cultures. (Hans van Dijk, Graphic Design)
Plot is like the pencil outline that guides the designer. (Hammett Nurosi, Graphic Design)
Mediated images are the scribbled bedside notes of our cultural dreams. (Natalia Illyn, Graphic Design)
Letters are things that help us think of other things. (Lucy Hitchcock, Graphic Design)
Let’s keep our secrets, secret. (Lucy Hitchcock, Graphic Design)
We think in generalities but we live in details. (Tom Wedell, Graphic Design)
The form is the meaning. (Hammett Nurosi, Graphic Design)
Humans are intrinsically organizers and pattern makers. (Tom Ockerse, Graphic Design)
Our biggest failure is our failure to see patterns. (Marilyn F., Graphic Design)
A system is a way of looking at an object as a kit of parts. (Tom Ockerse, Graphic Design)

Graphic Design Classified (Nancy Skolos, Graphic Design):

A – Apple Advertising
B – Bold
C – Color
D – Digital
E – Emergence
F – Font
G – Graphology
H – Halftone
I – Imposition
J – Jacket
K – CMYK
L – Lithography
M – Macintosh
N – Narrative
O – Optical
Q – Quotation Marks
R – Rights
S – Series
T – Transform
U – Units
V – Video
W – Wood Type
X – Xerography
Y – Yikes
Z – Zzz
How do you “picture” intangible items? (Doug Scott, Graphic Design)
You really love graphic design, don’t you? (Bethany Johns, Graphic Design)
What’s not said is more important than what is said. (Matt Monk, Graphic Design/Foundation Studies)
Your rag should be evenly uneven. (Lucy Hitchcock, Graphic Design)
Even Toby (Frere-Jones) would admit that it is a terrible typeface in nearly all situations (in reference to Verlag). (Lucy Hitchcock, Graphic Design)
English isn’t Japanese. The only english word that should be written vertically is HOTEL, somehow it just works. (Franz Werner, Graphic Design)
Style – Form & Function – Experience – System – Network. (Bill Foulkes, Design & Entrepreneurship)
Design is something you can think about. (Tom Ockerse, Graphic Design)
Sensors will be everywhere. (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Design is becoming increasingly data-driven. (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Design education focuses on the form of objects which is governed by meaning and structure which is governed by context. (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Objects are embedded in systems which are in their in turn in ecologies (communities). (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Ask yourself, “is it necessary and sufficient?” (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
It is not what something is, it is what it is connected to. (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Design is delight, commodity, and solidity. (Hugh Dubberly, Graphic Design)
Hugh Dubberly’s 10 Principles of Service Design:
Value is in the experience.
Experience = Reputation = Brand
Sending a message is not enough.
Bill Verplank’s model of interaction.
Services must continuously monitor systems.
Conversation builds meaning.
Services are intangible and must be articulated.
Experience is a journey.
Create conditions in which users can design.
Users are becoming designers; designers are becoming meta-designers.
designers need to design design languages (platforms).
Take advantage of networked effects.
How do you help get your audience into character? (Karin Fong, Graphic Design)
You sound like an old person. (Paula Scher, Pentagram)
Attend to the literary character of what you are writing but be aware of language getting in the way. (David Bogen, Assoc. Provost)
The 20th century was “Instrumental vs. Value Rational.” (David Bogen, Assoc. Provost)
Why can’t students teach themselves? I’m serious. (David Bogen, Assoc. Provost)
Our reality is formed through fragments and faith. (Hans van Dijk, Graphic Design)
Make, study, reflect. (Tom Ockerse, Graphic Design)
We’re going to unpack the contents of leadership. (David Bogen, Graphic Design)
If you leave a heap of stones on the beach at the shoreline, and then go back next summer, you’ll discover something incredible. An invisible artist’s hand will have formed the pile of pebbles into a shape–bigger rocks in back, smaller ones in front, arranged in a curve. It’s the tide going out and coming back that does the trick, little by little. You could call it intelligent design. (?)
Letting go expands our view of what can be. (Tom Ockerse, Graphic Design)
Everything Matters. (Bathroom Graffiti College Building, Mike Fink, English)