Another brush with fame

Lucky me. Not only do I have the best and most dedicated team back at Boheem Base, making it possible for me to flit about the American countryside on this self-indulgent journey of self-discovery, today I got to meet Gail Anderson, Broadway poster designer extraordinaire. She has about 15 years experience on me in the design industry, and when you think about the experience she's had working with Rolling Stone and then Spot Co, the key Broadway agency, you could probably multiply that by about 100. 

Gail started in visual communication long before Adobe made it possible to delete an unwanted element at the click of a button. She uses real ink and paper, and continues to encourage her staff to do the same. Besides art-directing at one of the city's arguably most influential design studios, she also teaches at the School of Visual Arts. On top of this, Gail has co-authored a number of books. As I sat and listened and silently admired this woman who has transcended the gap between art and design amongst other superhuman accomplishments, the desired affect: a thing called inspiration, started to once again come over me. Maybe I could teach? (Mum, don't say 'I told you so'!). Maybe I could write a book?! There's something incredibly liberating in those moments of raw realisation: the world is my wood-block printed, scanned and retouched, and conceptually developed oyster.

One interesting thing we talk about was the new generation of design students graduating at the moment. Apparently I, 10 years in the industry, was one of the last designers to graduate without some solid education in motion graphics and animation. Apparently these days it's a must. Seems I slipped through fairly unscathed by After Effects and the like; only time will tell if I can continue to get away with that.

The other pearl of wisdom, or more so a truth which Gail articulated and to which I found myself nodding and frowning; was the fact that 'in the past', clients were shown simple sketches as ideas first before any time was spent on design development. 'These days', with Adobe etc making new possibilities available, projects are more often than not presented as almost finished, final art: first round. Gail noted that more and more, clients are becoming used to getting everything: they want clever ideas, fully developed AND fully editable, immediately (oh and on budget please). It's the marketing culture we're in, and there's not much we can do to change it but good to acknowledge and manage as best we all can.