Black Magic

During the darkest period of my life to date, and by a strange twist of circumstance, I had the delightful experience of staying at a bed & breakfast in Harlem. Strange sentence. It was under a shroud of sadness that I came to stay at this bed & breakfast, but the time there was irreplaceable and meaningful in many ways -- not least because of the swell guy who rents out the bottom floor of his brownstone as an apartment for visitors, which also houses his unbelievable bookstore, open “by Appointment, Invitation or Serendipity.” On 160th street between St. Nicholas Avenue and Edgecombe, just west of the Harlem River, sits Jumel Terrace Books, at the peak of the cobblestone street. Directly across 160th rests the stately Morris-Jumel Mansion (the oldest house in Manhattan) where George Washington was headquartered for September and October of 1776.
Jumel Terrace Books is owned and run by Kurt Thometz, a scholar, collector, and enthusiast of African and African-American literature. Beyond that, he is an expert on a wide berth of philosophy, but has a keen interest in the human transition from orality, to illiteracy (which is a concept in itself) and through to literacy and our modern ways of thinking, communicating and transmitting thought from person to person.
During our two days staying with him, effectively living in his bookstore and sleeping in the beautiful basement apartment in the next room over, he was kind enough to show us around Harlem, teach us a great deal about its history, and he spent hours talking with me, recommending literature, music, and relating stories from his life’s-wealth of experience.
While there, I was so taken by all of the book covers and art around us, I had to capture as much as possible. Many of the following photos are grainy, but were the best I could do in the half-light of the bookstore with a borrowed iPhone. The images start from the street, looking into Kurt’s bookstore at night...

Drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones

While photographing a recent project which I can show but, say little about, my wife and I decided a local graveyard was the ideal set. Upon seeing these old headstones which are, in some cases, nearly 200 years old, I was blown away by the quality of the typography. Jennifer took some pictures of our favorite one.



















These days, few could do anything this beautiful, given days of editable work on a computer screen. And yet, here it is, written in stone, chiseled with steel. And the (almost) hundreds of years have added their grace — the rose-colored patina of the stone, the green of the moss and the mint-colored lichen just kill me.

The Young Ones

In my second year type class, I admit (right off the bat) that I can't TELL anyone how to be a designer. But I can impart thinking on the subject, ways to approach the process, and the importance of full life-immersion. Ultimately, being a designer is as much a mode of conduct as it is a way of thinking. Dabbling is fruitless. It becomes EVERYTHING.
In this class, there are a wide array of projects, each one introducing and illustrating the important balance of concept and execution. This past year, for example, students were assigned an LP packaging project. What made the assignment difficult was that the music act was chosen at random and HAD to be executed in the style of a noted designer (who was also chosen at random) who is heavily influenced by the use of grids. My favorite execution is by John Cox.











Another assignment was to design limited edition DVD packaging for one of the following movies: Bladerunner, Paper Moon, Network, Rashomon, Basquiat, or Being There. There were a bunch of great, conceptual, format-reconsidering executions from the class. Here are two, one from Kathryn for Paper Moon, and John's for Network.




































One was a project in presenting narrative. Everyone read The Second Coming by W.B. Yeats, which is one of my favorite pieces of writing. Then, in whatever form that came naturally to their concept, they had to marry imagery with the language of the written piece. The imagery had to be an interpretive or photographic representation of commercial packaging. The main thrust being to present the prose in a way that the imagery enhanced the meaning of the words. And, to force the class to search and find poetry in the mundane. Here are a couple I particularly liked, the first by Olena Schmahalo, using photographs of a rubber cement canister. The second is by Kathryn Brylinsky, using incredibly detailed scans of a mailed package from overseas.



























In a relatively direct project from early on, students had to use typographic elements ONLY to deliver a quote, phrase, or saying to maximize communication. Below is another one by Kathryn.









There were two massive projects, the scope and scale of which I had no preconceived notions for. They occurred at the end of each semester, and took several weeks to research, conceptualize and execute. The first originated with numbers, but delved into the research of numerology, religion, geometry, and numerical significance. This execution is by John, and deals with investigating the theory of interconnectivity between the golden ratio and the Amen Break (the world's most frequently, and famously, sampled drum break).









The big one from the second semester began with a form of Buddhist meditation/education known as a koan. Each student was assigned a different koan, the meaning of which they interpreted themselves, and which informed the direction they would take the project. During the first week, they had to come up with 100 concepts for their project, one of which was selected during a class discussion, to be further developed. The two below are from Olena, and Kenia del Rosario. Olena's, a block of time, became a multi-dimensional electronic portal, traveling exhibit and website. Kenia's, a pop-up book documenting the struggle with, and ultimate acceptance of her father's bi-polar disorder, titled The Dischord and Harmony of an Intricate Mind.