A Short Biography The many portfolios of his images present a professional photographer’s life-retrospective of a true love for people of all walks of life, the environment and disparate places and moods, and the conflicts engendered by the variety of human and inhumane conditions, from Martin Luther King’s march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to […]
Reflections + Follies
A Memory of Human Survival with Dignity
In the mid-seventies I was director of the Institute of Design in Chicago. I started in fall, when swarms of migrating birds would negotiate the city with buildings mostly constructed with glass-curtain walls. Around Crown Hall, the design and architecture studios, every morning one could find hundreds of bird carcasses. Students, staff and teachers, would […]
Indulgences
Got a call from Benedict XVI, you know “good old Joe, but call me Al, Ratzinger”, formerly John Paul’s second Attack-Rottweiler, now Papa. He wondered if you didn’t need some earthquake insurance for the trip to Italy. He mumbled something about indulgences. I asked, “Do you mean beer?” He explained: “Not in Italy. No, no. […]
Psychological Testing
Background PSYCHOLOGICAL tests aren’t magic, so let’s get that clear right at the beginning. They assess and evaluate information that you give to the examiner, which is why the formal name of psychological testing is psychological assessment. You give this information either in the form of answers to interview questions or as answers on paper—or […]
Rip Van Winkler
The various roles of this story play in the shadow of the complex dynamics of their time, as collected in the chronicles of several German cities in the mid-20th century. Back then, there was a simple, average, basically contented young man named Rip Van Winkler. He was a good neighbor, who was always obedient and […]
Music as a Guide
Music is full of phenomena which make up the construction of various styles and philosophical intentions of pieces when composed. So, why is it not at all possible to find parallels between the aural phenomena of music composition and the visual phenomena of typographic design, just to break away from the monotony of Bauhaus or […]
Openness and Closedness
If one prefers not to copy or plagiarize someone’s else’s concepts or work, still, for the emerged frames of perceptions, which make attempts to freeze the understanding, conclusion or position, one is obliged to learn how to translate the wonders of today into positive realities for tomorrow. About how easy it was for a young […]
Design Failure, Safety and Form
By Len D. Singer Len Singer Design and Research , Portsmouth VA, 23703 USAFormer Professor of Industrial Design, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. Emeritus Member: Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, Industrial Designers Society of America, and Environmental Design Research Association. SynopsisThe objective of this paper is […]
The State of Graphic Design in Boston 1960s
During the early sixties, there were very few “graphic design studios” in Boston: Polaroid with Paul F. Giambarba and later with Bill Field; or the design staff at Arthur D. Little; or Carl Zahn at Boston’s MFA; Herman & Lees, or Omnigraphics with Alan Davis (one of the most competent designers, steeped very early in […]
Under Russian Rule
Introduction Paul Winkler was my grandfather. He was born in 1866, was a school headmaster and appointed church organist in Breslau, Silesia, a region which became part of Poland after 1945. It is assumed that he retired in 1931 at the age of 65 as most professionals of his generation did. Ten years before he […]