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This
month's Design Notes is written by James Victore, who is a
graphic designer, illustrator, animator and product designer. He
also teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Victore
is fortunate to be doing exactly what he loves to do, but as he
shares with us this month, there's no "right" way to get there.
 My professional bio reads, "self-taught." This
is both right and wrong. It's right in that I have no formal
education and never learned the right way to do ... anything. But it
is wrong because throughout my career – hell, throughout my life – I
have been able to seek out and find great mentors, teachers and
influencers. One of my mentors, the great poster designer Henryk Tomaszewski, once told me, "You can only
teach what you know." So I teach what I know. I teach how to play. I
teach how to invent. For a while, the title for the class I teach
was "Knowing Your Butt from a Hole in the Ground." This is much more
accurate than "Class GDD3015E." As a teacher, I use assignments that
come from Tomaszewski's method of teaching abstracts: words and
phrases designed to put students in a dark room and make them fumble
around for the door. I sometimes feel like an evil, mustached
tormentor when I give out an assignment. One exmple would be "Always
the Other," or "A Big Nothing, A Little Nothing." On the surface,
they mean nothing. No visual clichés or rote responses are embedded
in them. But when the students really put their minds to it, they
arrive at unexpected places. Places that are often personal,
intuitive and meaningful. My own education was flecked with failure. As a
university freshman, I ended the first semester with a 0.04 GPA. I
was asked to leave. I was sure that things would be different in New
York City, and I transferred to the School of Visual Arts (SVA). I made it to the
second year before I was asked to leave. It wasn't that I didn't
like design, but I just couldn't find the excitement in it. Never
being one to say "uncle," I pressed-on. Today, I teach at SVA, my "almost mater," where I try to be the teacher that I needed: less a teacher, more a fire starter. I discourage my students from becoming designers. Designers tend to think alike. They even dress alike. I want my students to become good, strong citizens, independent thinkers and entrepreneurs. I try to get them to look inside themselves for answers, and not to follow trends or fashion. I try to get them to be open, and to expand their ideas of what design is and could be. I encourage them to see possibilities everywhere, love the process and read Rilke. Only when students question everything can they find ways to surprise themselves and, ultimately, their audience. But I think one of the most important things I do with my students is allow them the freedom to fail. This is important to me because when you are free to fail, you stop searching for the "right" answer. I teach design, not math. There is no right answer. No right typeface or right color. My own work is a continuous search for illogical ideas, the beautiful ugly and the confidence to put it on a page. Being a teacher has led me to surround myself with even more hotheads, anarchists and geniuses. I will be starting a new experiment this summer with my designer/teacher pals Paul Sahre and Jan Wilker. "SahreVictoreWilker" is a weeklong design workshop in NYC. This will be the first time we all teach together and we have no idea what to expect. It will probably be a glorious mess. If it's not, we will have to try harder next year.  James Victore  |
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| Tour
de Force Marais is an unpre- tentious chair that transcends cultures and trends. Constructed of smoke grey or brightly colored steel, it is a hardworking, dramatic and timeless design that can hold its own. See the Marais Chair > |
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| Indoor-Outdoor
Comfort The Elba Collection (2006) brings the comfort and flexibility of a modular sofa to the outside world. See the Elba Collection > |
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| Studio
Events: Celebrating 50 Years of the Egg Chair 3.27.08 Location: NYC – Flatiron Help us mark the golden anniversary of this mid-century icon. Cleveland Floor Sample Sale 3.28.08 Location: Cleveland March 28 – 30, save up to 50% on floor samples from Studios all over the Midwest. A Block Party for the Arts 3.29.08 Location: Scottsdale DWR is hosting a spring arts block party spanning genre and medium. An Evening with James Victore 4.3.08 Location: Los Angeles – Beverly Blvd. Meet James Victore, author of this month's Design Notes, who will be discussing the Surfboard he designed for DWR. See all DWR Studio Events > |
| From the Blog | |
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A "green" light gets a Red
Dot. Yves Béhar's innovative and eco-friendly Leaf® Light has been awarded a 2008 Red Dot Award for Product Design. This LED light was chosen from thousands of entries in the lighting category for its functionality, ergonomics, durability and energy-saving capabilities. Read the full post > Read more from the Design Notes blog >
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