Dear readers,
Last month I wrote about my early life after college. I hope that it was clear that my experiences then are still with me today influencing all aspects of my design work. This month I will explain how serendipitous it was that I became a designer, and then recall further digressions (critical choices I made) before becoming a full-fledged practicing designer and now teacher of design.
While I was attending graduate school for city planning in the late 60s and early 70s there was an atmosphere of anxiety across the country about all students at all schools. We were labeled rebel rousers. Whatever it meant at other institutions, for mine, Yale University, it meant the administration avoided contact with the students and left us on our own. They seemed afraid of us. We could do what we wanted (even enroll in classes outside our prescribed area of study) as long as we didn't cause harm or injury to people or the institution. (Unfortunately the building that housed my department was set on fire and a few students became suspects; later it turned out that some local residents had been responsible.)
A little older than most of the grad students and paying my own way, I was determined to get my money's worth from the university, if not from the City Planning program that had been taken over by student activists the year I arrived. Soon I found myself taking the following classes among others: Constitutional Law, Economics of Land Finance, Life Drawing, and Intro to Graphic Design. (Other students got credit for community organizing projects in downtown New Haven. But I'd had my time as a block worker in East Harlem; now I was at school to beef up my academic credentials.)
Through an open doorway in the building where City Planning courses were held, I had noticed the Baby-Graphics course, as it was affectionately called, taught by Chris Pullman, a recent graduate of the design program who would later become the VP for design at WGBH in Boston. He welcomed me into this class saying I could audit all the design courses I wanted - he encouraged me to participate fully if I attended. What a thrill. I had always loved making things with my hands, but I never knew there was a college discipline devoted to design. I had been an American Studies major in college. By the time I'd completed my masters in City Planning two years later, I had as many courses in graphic design as anything else. The department permitted me to return to Yale for one extra year and I received a second master's degree in graphic design.
At this point any intelligent and career-minded person, would have moved to a city and found a job as a designer. I was, without question, the least trained of anyone in my class and clearly needed some first hand experience. But I had other plans. (While in VISTA I had married a civil rights lawyer whom I met a few years before in Mississippi. He was now serving in Saigon as the head of an organization called the Lawyers' Military Defense Committee that provided free legal counsel to GIs in the war zone. The program created by US lawyers and philanthropists who believed that the constitutional right of military personnel -- to be represented in court by a civilian attorney instead of a military attorney if requested -- was being denied, because of the distance from America. Who could afford to bring a lawyer to Saigon?) So after finishing my graduate work in 1971, instead of a job, I set out to join my husband in Vietnam and to see another part of the world. On the way there I would spend time in the Far East: I studied pottery in Kyoto for four months while teaching English to Panasonic engineers in Osaka, I took photographs for a graphic designer in Hong Kong, made my way over land and sea to Korea, and visited the gambling casinos in Macau. Finally around Christmas of 1971 I reached Vietnam.
Because I knew that I would need to earn money to travel in Asia, I had obtained forms for submitting freelance articles and photographs, plus a letter of introduction from the New York Times before leaving the US. (I had had some photo experience because in those days one was required to take photography when studying design; my graduate thesis was a slide show - no PowerPoint back then - on the garbage crisis in New York City.) Armed with my letter from the Times indicating that I was a freelance photographer, I set out to take pictures of civilian life in Vietnam. (For example, I photographed a caesarian birth performed with only the aid of acupuncture.) Everyone else was photographing the war. I traveled the only way one could - by military transportation. It was an eye-opener. I cannot tell all the stories on this blog, but suffice it to say, some were heart rending, others terrifying as when our C130 plane was grounded due to fog, and we were forced to travel by jeep through an ambush zone with gunners at each window; or when my plane circled for four hours around the spot where an American pilot had been shot down, until he was rescued. Eventually I left South Vietnam because my husband and I were granted visas to North Vietnam - the first Americans allowed into this communist country in 2 years. Stories from there include our bugged hotel room and a hasty departure because the United States started bombing above the DMZ (demilitarized zone) in North Vietnam after a long quiet period. Our hosts feared for our lives.
We spent the next few months in Laos, a country swarming with CIA agents and American military who lived in a compound that resembled a perfect US suburb complete with swimming pool, movie theatre and popcorn. Imagine! (Vientiane, the capitol of Laos, had no paved roads at that time.) The CIA regularly tried to pry information from us. We hadn't much. While there I converted a letter to a friend back home about my experiences in Japan, into a story, and sent it off to the Times. Acquaintances told me honestly that it wasn't publishable; it was too personal. Imagine my surprise and delight, 6 months hence, when I found an acceptance letter and check for $400 waiting for me in Singapore. The article appeared on the front page of the Travel Section accompanied by a response from the Times Tokyo Bureau chief. For a while I thought I might try being a journalist and worked on a story about hippie travelers in Asia. I went to the home of the exiled Dali Lama in northern India where hippies tended to gather, and spent weeks at Hindu ashrams meditating and leading the ascetic life in order to experience the lives of these travelers.
But the lure of seeing the rest of Asia attracted me more than being a journalist. My husband and I roamed South-East Asia, first on a riverboat exploring a jungle in Borneo, then for three months taking in the sites and arts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Finally we landed in Singapore where we joined two new acquaintances (a German photographer and American writer) to launch what are today known as the Insight Guide books with over two hundred titles. (The company was purchased by Houghton Mifflin in the 1990s). This, as one might imagine, was a totally different experience than the political life I'd been mostly leading previously. Here, working with one of the best photographers I would ever meet, but taking no pictures of my own, I learned virtually everything I know about how to take a picture. I also experienced a publishing company being created from scratch. We all did as many jobs as we could. I created a comprehensive photo archive for the photographer, Hans Hoefer, <http://www.hoefernet.com/>, accompanied him on shoots in places as far away as the Himalayas in Nepal. It was during these sessions, by some sort of osmosis, that I learned the techniques required to convince a timid subject to let one take his/her photograph, to understand what unusual angle would work best to bring the subject to the printed page, and to know what lens would suit the subjects' peculiarities. Without taking any pictures of my own, I seemed to learn all the skills I needed to later be a professional photographer.
I took no pictures for almost a year while I worked in Singapore. Then I left the publishing company, deciding that I must return to America because I was becoming too entrenched in the cushy life westerners had in Asia. Something told me I was avoiding what I should really be doing. It was all so appealing and comfortable in those foreign, but hospitable lands. It took me five months traveling through Nepal, India, Israel, and Greece before arriving back in the USA in the fall of 1973. Then I began looking in earnest for work as a graphic designer.
Here are some photos from those days:
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This ends Phase 2 of my adult life. Tune in next month for the story of my becoming a professional photographer and designer.
Last month I wrote about my early life after college. I hope that it was clear that my experiences then are still with me today influencing all aspects of my design work. This month I will explain how serendipitous it was that I became a designer, and then recall further digressions (critical choices I made) before becoming a full-fledged practicing designer and now teacher of design.
While I was attending graduate school for city planning in the late 60s and early 70s there was an atmosphere of anxiety across the country about all students at all schools. We were labeled rebel rousers. Whatever it meant at other institutions, for mine, Yale University, it meant the administration avoided contact with the students and left us on our own. They seemed afraid of us. We could do what we wanted (even enroll in classes outside our prescribed area of study) as long as we didn't cause harm or injury to people or the institution. (Unfortunately the building that housed my department was set on fire and a few students became suspects; later it turned out that some local residents had been responsible.)
A little older than most of the grad students and paying my own way, I was determined to get my money's worth from the university, if not from the City Planning program that had been taken over by student activists the year I arrived. Soon I found myself taking the following classes among others: Constitutional Law, Economics of Land Finance, Life Drawing, and Intro to Graphic Design. (Other students got credit for community organizing projects in downtown New Haven. But I'd had my time as a block worker in East Harlem; now I was at school to beef up my academic credentials.)
Through an open doorway in the building where City Planning courses were held, I had noticed the Baby-Graphics course, as it was affectionately called, taught by Chris Pullman, a recent graduate of the design program who would later become the VP for design at WGBH in Boston. He welcomed me into this class saying I could audit all the design courses I wanted - he encouraged me to participate fully if I attended. What a thrill. I had always loved making things with my hands, but I never knew there was a college discipline devoted to design. I had been an American Studies major in college. By the time I'd completed my masters in City Planning two years later, I had as many courses in graphic design as anything else. The department permitted me to return to Yale for one extra year and I received a second master's degree in graphic design.
At this point any intelligent and career-minded person, would have moved to a city and found a job as a designer. I was, without question, the least trained of anyone in my class and clearly needed some first hand experience. But I had other plans. (While in VISTA I had married a civil rights lawyer whom I met a few years before in Mississippi. He was now serving in Saigon as the head of an organization called the Lawyers' Military Defense Committee that provided free legal counsel to GIs in the war zone. The program created by US lawyers and philanthropists who believed that the constitutional right of military personnel -- to be represented in court by a civilian attorney instead of a military attorney if requested -- was being denied, because of the distance from America. Who could afford to bring a lawyer to Saigon?) So after finishing my graduate work in 1971, instead of a job, I set out to join my husband in Vietnam and to see another part of the world. On the way there I would spend time in the Far East: I studied pottery in Kyoto for four months while teaching English to Panasonic engineers in Osaka, I took photographs for a graphic designer in Hong Kong, made my way over land and sea to Korea, and visited the gambling casinos in Macau. Finally around Christmas of 1971 I reached Vietnam.
Because I knew that I would need to earn money to travel in Asia, I had obtained forms for submitting freelance articles and photographs, plus a letter of introduction from the New York Times before leaving the US. (I had had some photo experience because in those days one was required to take photography when studying design; my graduate thesis was a slide show - no PowerPoint back then - on the garbage crisis in New York City.) Armed with my letter from the Times indicating that I was a freelance photographer, I set out to take pictures of civilian life in Vietnam. (For example, I photographed a caesarian birth performed with only the aid of acupuncture.) Everyone else was photographing the war. I traveled the only way one could - by military transportation. It was an eye-opener. I cannot tell all the stories on this blog, but suffice it to say, some were heart rending, others terrifying as when our C130 plane was grounded due to fog, and we were forced to travel by jeep through an ambush zone with gunners at each window; or when my plane circled for four hours around the spot where an American pilot had been shot down, until he was rescued. Eventually I left South Vietnam because my husband and I were granted visas to North Vietnam - the first Americans allowed into this communist country in 2 years. Stories from there include our bugged hotel room and a hasty departure because the United States started bombing above the DMZ (demilitarized zone) in North Vietnam after a long quiet period. Our hosts feared for our lives.
We spent the next few months in Laos, a country swarming with CIA agents and American military who lived in a compound that resembled a perfect US suburb complete with swimming pool, movie theatre and popcorn. Imagine! (Vientiane, the capitol of Laos, had no paved roads at that time.) The CIA regularly tried to pry information from us. We hadn't much. While there I converted a letter to a friend back home about my experiences in Japan, into a story, and sent it off to the Times. Acquaintances told me honestly that it wasn't publishable; it was too personal. Imagine my surprise and delight, 6 months hence, when I found an acceptance letter and check for $400 waiting for me in Singapore. The article appeared on the front page of the Travel Section accompanied by a response from the Times Tokyo Bureau chief. For a while I thought I might try being a journalist and worked on a story about hippie travelers in Asia. I went to the home of the exiled Dali Lama in northern India where hippies tended to gather, and spent weeks at Hindu ashrams meditating and leading the ascetic life in order to experience the lives of these travelers.
But the lure of seeing the rest of Asia attracted me more than being a journalist. My husband and I roamed South-East Asia, first on a riverboat exploring a jungle in Borneo, then for three months taking in the sites and arts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Finally we landed in Singapore where we joined two new acquaintances (a German photographer and American writer) to launch what are today known as the Insight Guide books with over two hundred titles. (The company was purchased by Houghton Mifflin in the 1990s). This, as one might imagine, was a totally different experience than the political life I'd been mostly leading previously. Here, working with one of the best photographers I would ever meet, but taking no pictures of my own, I learned virtually everything I know about how to take a picture. I also experienced a publishing company being created from scratch. We all did as many jobs as we could. I created a comprehensive photo archive for the photographer, Hans Hoefer, <http://www.hoefernet.com/>, accompanied him on shoots in places as far away as the Himalayas in Nepal. It was during these sessions, by some sort of osmosis, that I learned the techniques required to convince a timid subject to let one take his/her photograph, to understand what unusual angle would work best to bring the subject to the printed page, and to know what lens would suit the subjects' peculiarities. Without taking any pictures of my own, I seemed to learn all the skills I needed to later be a professional photographer.
I took no pictures for almost a year while I worked in Singapore. Then I left the publishing company, deciding that I must return to America because I was becoming too entrenched in the cushy life westerners had in Asia. Something told me I was avoiding what I should really be doing. It was all so appealing and comfortable in those foreign, but hospitable lands. It took me five months traveling through Nepal, India, Israel, and Greece before arriving back in the USA in the fall of 1973. Then I began looking in earnest for work as a graphic designer.
Here are some photos from those days:
View image
View image
View image
View image
View image
View image
This ends Phase 2 of my adult life. Tune in next month for the story of my becoming a professional photographer and designer.
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