Dear Readers,
When last I wrote I was just back in the US after two and a half years in Asia going from one adventure to another. It was 1973. A career now seemed not only a priority, but a necessity. I returned to New York City on my own with less than a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, not a hardship, but a fact.
I began looking for work as a graphic designer. No luck. I was told repeatedly that I was too experienced for an entry level job. I begged, promising that I would sign papers saying I would stay for at least two years. Finally I began freelancing as photographer, graphic designer, or city planning consultant, whatever role anyone needed. I did work off and on in all of these fields for about eighteen months in New York and Boston. I photographed the de-institutionalization of the Human Service Programs in Massachusetts for the commissioner; I took photos of Sarah Caldwell, the Boston Opera Company director, and of Elaine Noble, the first openly GLBT person elected to public office, for Ms. Magazine. My biggest contract was as designer/project manager for the Where's Boston? bicentennial souvenir book for the architectural firm, Cambridge Seven Associates. This was the first book I designed from beginning to end. It was nerve wracking not having enough experience for the job, but I was determined to make it a success. I sought advice from one of my graduate school professors working in Boston, we met every couple of weeks for a serious critique. I certainly needed it. I was not only responsible for designing the book, but for providing any extra photos that were required, soliciting printing cost quotations, and for supervising printing of this book, as well as two others. At last I had some professional design and photography experience that I could use in my portfolio.
But like the previous ten years of my life, career didn't necessarily determine my moves. As long as I could support myself (nothing elaborate, I might add), I would go where the life seemed most interesting. I had not taken a penny from my parents since the day I graduated from college.
Just as this project was finishing I met the man I am now married to, an Englishman. Once again I picked up and moved to another country. From the professional point of view not the most helpful place -- Cambridge, England -- the boondocks, from the graphic design or photography standpoint. Picture this as my change of address card.
Old address:
900 West End Avenue,
New York, NY
New address:
Gorse Cottage
Home Close
Little Eversden
Cambridgeshire, England. (This was a thatched-roof cottage built in the late 1600s.)
I spent the next twelve years in England and still return often. In those days it was not easy to commute back and forth across the Atlantic nor could I afford it. I took a gamble that I would find work when I left the US.
After a year commuting five hours a day to London to work at the well-known design firm, Pentagram (they had helped me obtain the foreign work permit I needed), I started freelancing as a book jacket designer and a photographer. Luckily I had my photos especially those I'd taken after moving on from the training-ground of the Insight Guides in Singapore. The Sunday Telegraph Magazine offered me my first break into photojournalism. While reviewing my slides, the photo editor mumbled, "We have this one story, London's Unusual Shops, ready to shoot. I'll give you a try, but don't tell anyone you live in Cambridgeshire; the newspaper doesn't want anyone working whose expenses include travel to the headquarters and we need you on the spot." (I was happy, of course, to pay expenses for the opportunity to become a photojournalist).
This first assignment proved to be one of the hardest I've ever done. There was so little light in most of the shops that I could hardly record the faces of my subjects and there were shiny surfaces (metal, glass, mirrors, etc.) everywhere causing images of myself to bounce around and into view of the camera lens from who knew where. But the Telegraph liked the story and I continued to be hired -- mostly for assignments about people in the arts.
I shot stories about famous people at work and at home. I became a sort of arts specialist. One assignment had me taking pictures of the Royal Shakespeare Company's pre-production activities for The Tempest, including rehearsals, the wig room, and the props shop where they were making a ten foot wave of plywood covered in black patent leather for the storm scene. I was thrilled to do this work; it connected me back to design. I thought to myself, "I would have paid the Telegraph for this opportunity instead of being paid." I photographed Sir Ralph Richardson, Jonathan Miller, Joan Plowright (Laurence Olivier's wife), Michael Horden, Keith Simpson (London's most famous pathologist) and more.
I worked for the Telegraph a number of years until I was asked jovially, but seriously to go on assignment to an oil rig in the North Sea in December. I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. The editor said he would send a helicopter for me if I went into labor. It was then I began thinking how I might return to design. In the early 1980s I got a position teaching design and photography courses at the Cambridgeshire art college.
By the time I moved back to the US in 1987 I was able to freelance in a variety of jobs. Still my aim was to find interesting work rather than work that would lead me higher up a career ladder. I worked as a design coordinator on the kindergarten twelfth grade Reading Experience program at Houghton Mifflin (having developed a passion for how children learn to read while volunteering at my children's school in England). I love the way design can connect to so many different interests. This led to more design work in educational publishing. I also took photographs on commission including those of Saul Bellow, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Walcott for a Boston University symposium. Then I signed on to be a part-time design teacher at Boston University and later at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, which happily I could do while working on the text book projects.
Over the years teaching began to take priority over my other work. And now, as you know, I am a full-time design educator. I came to Simmons about ten years ago and began full-time in 2004. My special interest is in teaching design principles, typography, information and environmental design, in conjunction with research and writing to be used with original art and photography created by the students. These subjects cover not only essential skills for designers-training, but for everyone interested in communications. They also suit the mission of a liberal arts college. Consider how studying the 30,000 year history of writing and printing, many examples of which can be found in Boston's museums and libraries, adds breadth to a student's knowledge. I encourage students from all the Communications tracks to study design. I also hope to offer workshops throughout the college.
From my stand point, the job I have could hardly be more suited to my interests and expertise. Not a day goes by that I don't think to myself how lucky I am to be at Simmons in this job. I continue to take small design commissions and have had exhibitions of both my color and black and white photography. As I write this blog, I am working on a photo book, Likenesses, of writers and artists.
Philip Pool in his pen shop, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, 1977
Norman Mailer, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 2007
Sir Ralph Richardson, London, 1978, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine
When last I wrote I was just back in the US after two and a half years in Asia going from one adventure to another. It was 1973. A career now seemed not only a priority, but a necessity. I returned to New York City on my own with less than a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, not a hardship, but a fact.
I began looking for work as a graphic designer. No luck. I was told repeatedly that I was too experienced for an entry level job. I begged, promising that I would sign papers saying I would stay for at least two years. Finally I began freelancing as photographer, graphic designer, or city planning consultant, whatever role anyone needed. I did work off and on in all of these fields for about eighteen months in New York and Boston. I photographed the de-institutionalization of the Human Service Programs in Massachusetts for the commissioner; I took photos of Sarah Caldwell, the Boston Opera Company director, and of Elaine Noble, the first openly GLBT person elected to public office, for Ms. Magazine. My biggest contract was as designer/project manager for the Where's Boston? bicentennial souvenir book for the architectural firm, Cambridge Seven Associates. This was the first book I designed from beginning to end. It was nerve wracking not having enough experience for the job, but I was determined to make it a success. I sought advice from one of my graduate school professors working in Boston, we met every couple of weeks for a serious critique. I certainly needed it. I was not only responsible for designing the book, but for providing any extra photos that were required, soliciting printing cost quotations, and for supervising printing of this book, as well as two others. At last I had some professional design and photography experience that I could use in my portfolio.
But like the previous ten years of my life, career didn't necessarily determine my moves. As long as I could support myself (nothing elaborate, I might add), I would go where the life seemed most interesting. I had not taken a penny from my parents since the day I graduated from college.
Just as this project was finishing I met the man I am now married to, an Englishman. Once again I picked up and moved to another country. From the professional point of view not the most helpful place -- Cambridge, England -- the boondocks, from the graphic design or photography standpoint. Picture this as my change of address card.
Old address:
900 West End Avenue,
New York, NY
New address:
Gorse Cottage
Home Close
Little Eversden
Cambridgeshire, England. (This was a thatched-roof cottage built in the late 1600s.)
I spent the next twelve years in England and still return often. In those days it was not easy to commute back and forth across the Atlantic nor could I afford it. I took a gamble that I would find work when I left the US.
After a year commuting five hours a day to London to work at the well-known design firm, Pentagram (they had helped me obtain the foreign work permit I needed), I started freelancing as a book jacket designer and a photographer. Luckily I had my photos especially those I'd taken after moving on from the training-ground of the Insight Guides in Singapore. The Sunday Telegraph Magazine offered me my first break into photojournalism. While reviewing my slides, the photo editor mumbled, "We have this one story, London's Unusual Shops, ready to shoot. I'll give you a try, but don't tell anyone you live in Cambridgeshire; the newspaper doesn't want anyone working whose expenses include travel to the headquarters and we need you on the spot." (I was happy, of course, to pay expenses for the opportunity to become a photojournalist).
This first assignment proved to be one of the hardest I've ever done. There was so little light in most of the shops that I could hardly record the faces of my subjects and there were shiny surfaces (metal, glass, mirrors, etc.) everywhere causing images of myself to bounce around and into view of the camera lens from who knew where. But the Telegraph liked the story and I continued to be hired -- mostly for assignments about people in the arts.
I shot stories about famous people at work and at home. I became a sort of arts specialist. One assignment had me taking pictures of the Royal Shakespeare Company's pre-production activities for The Tempest, including rehearsals, the wig room, and the props shop where they were making a ten foot wave of plywood covered in black patent leather for the storm scene. I was thrilled to do this work; it connected me back to design. I thought to myself, "I would have paid the Telegraph for this opportunity instead of being paid." I photographed Sir Ralph Richardson, Jonathan Miller, Joan Plowright (Laurence Olivier's wife), Michael Horden, Keith Simpson (London's most famous pathologist) and more.
I worked for the Telegraph a number of years until I was asked jovially, but seriously to go on assignment to an oil rig in the North Sea in December. I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. The editor said he would send a helicopter for me if I went into labor. It was then I began thinking how I might return to design. In the early 1980s I got a position teaching design and photography courses at the Cambridgeshire art college.
By the time I moved back to the US in 1987 I was able to freelance in a variety of jobs. Still my aim was to find interesting work rather than work that would lead me higher up a career ladder. I worked as a design coordinator on the kindergarten twelfth grade Reading Experience program at Houghton Mifflin (having developed a passion for how children learn to read while volunteering at my children's school in England). I love the way design can connect to so many different interests. This led to more design work in educational publishing. I also took photographs on commission including those of Saul Bellow, Seamus Heaney, and Derek Walcott for a Boston University symposium. Then I signed on to be a part-time design teacher at Boston University and later at The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, which happily I could do while working on the text book projects.
Over the years teaching began to take priority over my other work. And now, as you know, I am a full-time design educator. I came to Simmons about ten years ago and began full-time in 2004. My special interest is in teaching design principles, typography, information and environmental design, in conjunction with research and writing to be used with original art and photography created by the students. These subjects cover not only essential skills for designers-training, but for everyone interested in communications. They also suit the mission of a liberal arts college. Consider how studying the 30,000 year history of writing and printing, many examples of which can be found in Boston's museums and libraries, adds breadth to a student's knowledge. I encourage students from all the Communications tracks to study design. I also hope to offer workshops throughout the college.
From my stand point, the job I have could hardly be more suited to my interests and expertise. Not a day goes by that I don't think to myself how lucky I am to be at Simmons in this job. I continue to take small design commissions and have had exhibitions of both my color and black and white photography. As I write this blog, I am working on a photo book, Likenesses, of writers and artists.
Philip Pool in his pen shop, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine, 1977
Norman Mailer, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 2007
Sir Ralph Richardson, London, 1978, for the Telegraph Sunday Magazine
Sarah Caldwell, Boston Opera Company Director, for Ms. Magazine, 1975
Hi Judith,
I am Senior Graphic Designer here at Simmons in the Advancement Marketing Dept. I wanted to tell you how much I have enjoyed reading about the fascinating places that design has taken you. Thank you for sharing!
~Julie
Hi Julie,
So glad you've found this good to read. Do you also find that design connects you to many places and areas outside your own speciality? I think we are very lucky in this profession that we can work in so many different places. Which projects do you work on at Simmons? Is there anything else you think I should write about?
Judith Aronson
Yes! Design has exposed me to many different work environments from small design studies to children's book publishing and higher education. I was thinking the other day how lucky I was to have a skill set that adapts to so many different industries. Here at Simmons I work on many different projects for Advancement Marketing. I have a diverse portfolio and have presented to undergraduate classes before to give them a sense of the scope of projects that a designer is asked to work on. If you are ever looking for someone to show their work to any of your classes please let me know. julie.choquette@simmons.edu
Your experience is SO diverse, I look forward to reading about any of the interesting places that design and photography have taken you.
~Julie
Hi Julie,
Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Actually tomorrow evening I'm having a portfolio session for my Advanced Design students to talk about presentation of their portfolio. The time is rolling as it is outside class time and all the students weren't available at the same time. If you'd like to stop by at any time to chat that would be fine. If we are right in the middle of something, I might have to ask you to wait a few minutes, but if this won't bother you feel free to come by. We are meeting from 4:30 onwards until about 6:30 or 7 pm in L 325.
If not tomorrow we can talk about your coming to show the students your work and talk another time. We're trying to generate more interest in design at Simmons because with the budget crunch we need to expand the size of our classes by 3-4 students.
Look forward to meeting you.
Judith Aronson