More Ellis Island

Some examples of maps and train timetables and other type from Ellis Island.

Steven Heller

Monday13th
We all met with Steven Heller to interview him for our project. Steven Heller is an American self taught designer who has worked as an Art Director for the New York Times. He currently teaches on the MFA Graphic design course at the SVA in New York and writes and edits many design based books, including those on design education such as:'The Education of a Graphic Designer.', which was based on a conference entitled: 'How we learn what we learn'. Consequently Steven was a perfect candidate for our interviews.

Steven barely experienced a formal education. He applied to The SVA to escape being enlisted in the Vietnam War and on acceptance, he was soon asked to leave the course due poor attendance. It is debatable that Steven is 'unteachable' or without need for education to flourish however, when we asked him about this he claimed that everyone can be taught. In Graphic Design there are skills that can be taught, but you have to be patient enough to learn.
The subject of money verses design education has frequently been discussed during all of our interviews and by and large our theories about the differences between the UK design education and that of America, being as a result of different tuition fees has been dispelled. However, Steven did highlight that the current economic ball and chain would have an effect on Design and the education of it.

Ken Robinson says Schools Kill Creativity

We have been soaking up opinions from all sources in our quest.. Ken Robinson has some interesting views (2006)

Ellis Island

After visiting Steven Heller, we decided to go on a trip to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. Ellis Island made a big impression on all of us, I could write about it all day! Two of us have had relatives pass through Ellis Island so it meant a lot to us. I thought that it was really significant to have this monument to racial diversity of America, and in particular New York. One statistic stated that when immigration was at its peak during the later 1800s up to 70% of the New York population was made of immigrants or the children of immigrants. There was a whole area dedicated to the statistical history of immigration and the impact this has had on today's population. 100 million people in the USA can trace back an ancestor that travelled through Ellis Island. Among all the sad and fascinating stories were rooms full of amazing artifacts and personal items. The above photos detail some of the tests that immigrants would have had to pass in order to enter the country. 

From top: 

1. Mental ability was tested via a series of logic and aptitude tests. The top photo shows children's drawings of diamonds, copied off a diagram. For some children it would have been the first time they had held a pencil.

2. Medical records. Immigrants could be sent home if they had chronic or infectious diseases. Many patients spent weeks in the large hospital on Ellis Island recovering before being able to join their families, who were also detained on the Island.

3. Literacy tests. As many immigrants could not speak or read English, literacy tests had to be carried out via an interpreter. 

4. The standard eye test adapted for people who could not read, or whose native language did not contain the standard English/European alphabet (eg Arabic, Chinese etc)

Coney Island

Last weekend we took a day trip to Coney Island, just to see what all the fuss was about. We'd been told that it was like Brighton pier on acid, and we wanted to see evidence! What greeted us at the train station was a maze of run down fast food stalls, amusements, and an abundance of painted and garish signs. Personally, I liked the decaying charm of the place and all the tackiness. The painted signs were gorgeous though and we all took hundreds of photos. We went on the wonder wheel which turned out to be over 90 years old and a terrifying combination of ferris wheel and roller coaster! After soaking up the atmosphere, browsing the market (which sold exclusively gold jewelry, knock off DVDs and Michael Jackson t shirts) and listening to a latin jazz band, we went to the museum which was small and full of old signs, photos of 'freak shows' and archive footage of Coney Island in it's heyday. All in all I would say that Coney Island is worth a visit for the pure spectacle, if not the beautiful and bizarre type.

Coming Soon: Our visit to RISD (Rhode Island) to tour the magnificent facilities and speak with Chris Rose and Paul Sproll, Ken Robinson speaks about schools killing creativity for TED and we interview Steven Heller.

Marshall Arisman

Our second interview was with Marshall Arisman. An American Illustrator who originates from a farm and now lives and works in New York City. His ore inspiring almost spiritual paintings have been used in many major publications. He works to commissioned pieces as an illustrator and as an artist on his personal visuals. His mantra seemed to be that to be successful he felt he needed to paint what he had knowledge on and from this visceral images have been born. Marshall is also a lecturer of the graduate Illustration course at The School of Visual Arts in New York and so he was very useful in informing us about the American education system and his opinions on this.

These are just a couple of quotes taken from our interview with Marshall Arisman. Marshall really emphasized the role of the individual in education, which is often over looked by 'systems' and 'curriculum's'.

"In terms of the work, I’m not convinced that any school makes good work. I’ve been to Wyoming, South Dakota, I’ve been to places where the art school is very small and there is very good work being done there. I think what does matter, maybe, is the advantage we have in New York City. That’s a great advantage in the sense of who we have access to, we can reach out and touch all kinds of people who are willing to come in, and are willing to teach – so that energy does make a difference."

"I’ve been teaching for much too long and I think the one thing you can’t teach, is desire. No matter where you are, or who you’re talking to, or who you bring in the class, if there is not an addiction – that’s not a good word it’s a drug word – there has to be an addiction, there has to be people that can’t help but do this, and if you have those people, and they have that, the all of this makes a difference."

Internship Day One

Tuesday 7th
As part of our internship for Andrea Purcigliotti, Millie and Chloe went to work on a talking heads show as part of the Michael Jackson memorial for BET Networks. We were mainly just spectating the events but it was a great event to be a part of. We met lots of interesting people from the camera man to the special guests on the show. It gave us an insight into production behind the scenes.

Interview no.1

Alongside all the fun we have been having, the "Transatlantic Design"  Project is now well underway. We had our first interview this Monday with Ritta Ikonen and Ian Wright. They were both amazing characters who were so welcoming and honest, it was very refreshing and exciting. We really enjoyed conversing with them, We learnt a lot and cannot wait to interview even more people.

good day for chocolate, bad day for type.

After taking a few days to settle down, get ourselves sorted and find our bearings we found ourselves at the July 4th holiday weekend. On Friday we went for a wander round the city. We had chocolate lunch at  Max Brenners on 2nd Ave & 9th St before heading up to the Natural History Museum.  Along with the most amazing dinosaur exhibition any of us had ever seen was also some of the worst type that we had ever seen! After that we spent some time in Central Park with some of Millie's MCAD friends, Liz and Michael, and got into a discussion about the project and it's implications. It left us very keen to follow them up on their opinions and really get started on the project properly. Unfortunately, we have to wait until the weekend is over before we get to start interviewing so we've just been doing a lot of research while it's raining. The rest of our July 4th weekend involved rooftop views of Manhattan, a trip to Long Beach and fireworks. Enough relaxing, time to get on with it!

Day 2 Again (to make up for day 1?)

Our new business cards.

Day 2 (ok, so we were jet lagged on day 1)

We have arrived safely and after leaving England's heatwave, it is raining in New York! however this did not deter us from eating pizza and perusing the delights of The Strand bookstore...