You get to see a nice mix of portfolios coming out of schools ranging from Tyler School of Art, UArts, Drexel, Moore, Delaware, Rowan, Art Institute, PhilaU, Kutztown, and many more. Plus, you get to meet the students who create the work. And very much of it is inspiring!

The students get to have a professional reviewer see their work in 15 minutes interview sessions. This gives a fresh look at their work and a great way for the students to gauge which of their projects are more successful than others. It’s also a great interview practice session for the students since they will be job hunting and interviewing with many people and companies. Being able to effectively speak about their work in this amount of time is crucial.

There are some common mistakes that tend to pop up while viewing student portfolios. I guess we’re always learning and what better way to do it than at Feedback. Some general advice for students would be to spell stationery with an “ery” and not an “ary”, photograph their packaging work with actual product in it (without the product, there’s no need to design packaging), number pages in publications with odd numbered pages on the right-hand side, and don’t scale down website designs (or if you do, please keep them proportional). Many site designs I’ve seen were shrunk down way too small, thus not showing the actual representation of their intended design.

I look forward to reviewing more senior portfolios at Feedback 15 next year.

Mastering Type had more than 2000 entries and 247 were selected for inclusion in the book. 36 countries and 33 different types of projects by professionals and students are among the featured. Release Date is June 2012.

Communications technology permeates our society. Look around. Typography is everywhere. Commuting to work, grocery shopping, surfing the Web, or navigating a smartphone, we are bombarded by words of every shape, size, and arrangement. It is essential for designers to understand the basics of typography to get an effective message across instantly. The goal of this book is to guide the reader in building a solid foundation of timeless typographic knowledge, for both print and digital media, while transcending transient technologies.

Regardless of the ever-advancing technology at our fingertips, we still rely on the same twenty-six letters. Typographic basics start with the principles we all learned as children: letters form words, words form sentences, and sentences form paragraphs. The designer’s goal of optimizing communication via legibility, connotation, and form are as fundamental as the alphabet. Does this mean we can’t use technology to enhance our words? Certainly not. Typography is an art and can be treated as such, but only after the basics are thoroughly understood and ingrained in the mind of the designer.

This book breaks down the study of type into a systematic progression of typographic relationships—letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, pages and screens—through content, examples, interviews, and real-world inspiration. It illustrates to the beginning designer how professional type treatment looks, feels, and reads. Careful study of these step-by-step details provides a virtual apprenticeship in typography, a valuable education for any designer.

Logo designs shown include Retrospreads (designed for JEG Design), Chad Edward (designed for Digital Flannel), Here comes the sun (designed for Mount Sunapee Mountain Resort while working at Digital Flannel), Audience (designed for Digital Flannel), Aquatic Connection (designed while working at SK Designworks), and HERE Snowboards.

My newest venture is hosting the Heads of State lecture on April 5th, 2012. They’re a Philly-based design firm who, early on in their career, designed tons of show posters for concerts that took place in the same venue they will be lecturing in. It’s a perfect fit! See below for more details and to purchase a ticket for the event:

Come see THE HEADS of STATE, design duo of Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers, lecture at The First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia.

They are described as a Mom & Pop design shop, a garage band agency, a start-up that’s been around for years. 10 years to be exact – The Heads of State have been working collaboratively in one form or another since 2002.

For tickets, please go to:

http://theheadsofstate.eventbrite.com/

Visit www.theheadsofstate.com for more information and to see design examples. Lecture will be held upstairs in the main sanctuary. There will also be time to say hello, network and purchase HOS merchandise. Limited tickets, if available, will be $15 at the door. Reserving tickets in advance is highly recommended.

1.  Do you think the graphic design profession would benefit from a voluntary certification system? Perhaps. Only if it were a certification process that shows a designer is properly trained to perform quality design. A voluntary process – not so much.

///////////////////////////////

2.  Why do you think that graphic design certification does not exist in the United States? I’m really not sure. Probably due to the fact that the average person doesn’t know what design is – whether it’s good/certified design vs. bad design.

///////////////////////////////

3.  If certification was to occur should it be done through an existing body such as the AIGA?  Or some other option/quango? Yes – probably through AIGA. I’m currently not a member of AIGA, but they are definitely the go-to authority for designers and are the appropriate advocators of the design field as a whole.

///////////////////////////////

4.  Would certification help a graphic designer advance in their profession? Why or Why not? Maybe. It really depends on what the certification is telling the audience – or the public. There should be different levels or categories.

///////////////////////////////

5.  Do you believe that certification is a way to measure talent or creativity? Again, it really depends if there are specific categories – like a checklist. One of my favorite designers, James Victore, is self-taught. He’s certified in my book because he thinks conceptually and can design really well. Would he certify as a college design graduate holding a design degree? No.

///////////////////////////////

6.  What do you think would happen if all graphic designers became certified? The same thing as if there weren’t any certification. It wouldn’t mean anything. It’s like if you design for ALL audiences, you’re really designing for none. It becomes generic and meaningless.

///////////////////////////////

7.  What are your personal opinions on graphic design certification? What do you feel are the pros and cons? It could be good. There is definitely much potential. I never really thought about it until this interview to tell you the truth. Therefore, I must applaud you for picking such a topic. It’s a very interesting thing to discuss and research further.