ode to Print

I was browsing through the AIGA Design Archives this morning, and I looked through my lightbox of favorites. I found this Print cover and skipped ahead 30-40 years in life to consider how this cover impacted me as a young designer. Perhaps I will be one of those old designers with decades of experience, sharing my wealth of knowledge and my work perspective with others. I'll look back and remember how it impacted me as a young designer. How it fascinated, captivated, and inspired me. It will be one cover I don't forget. But I don't have to be 30 years into my career for a design retrospective on what impacted me as a design student, do I?

It cost me $12 my freshman year. I probably bought it at The Art Store, lumping the cost into my bill for 2D and Drawing I supplies. I considered the expenses "books." It's one of the first covers I distinctly remember associating with great design. I probably used it for one of my magazine analysis assignments a year later, picking apart the ad/edit ratio, commenting on the use of large serif type to introduce each article, and I'm sure I read the editor's letter with more than a curious eye. I remember how the "TNN Logo Search" article amazed me with dozens and dozens of thumbnail logos. My intro-design classes were barely scratching the surface.

Print quoted designers on the cover whose names I was only beginning to recognize....
+ Trial-and-error and try-again are often paving blocks on the long road to the right idea. (Milton Glaser)
+ Without the harvest of visual experience we would be unable to cope with the plethora of problems. (Paul Rand)
+ Creativity requires a sandbox bigger than ink on paper. (Clement Mok)

Yes, it's one of my favorites. So much so that the perfect binding is wearing loose.