D e s i g n I n q u i r y*(the Fifth Business)
2004: Truth & Message
June 13 — June 18

DesignInquiry is a working symposium; 5-day workshops where participants probe and expand the proposition: Truth and Message. Join Elliott Earls, Peter Hall, Melle Hammer, Jessica Helfand + William Drenttel, Natalia Ilyin, Douglass Scott, Nancy Skolos + Thomas Wedell, and Lorraine Wild in this *evolved Maine Summer Institute in Graphic Design at Maine College of Art MECA.

Come for a week to Portland, Maine, to engage with design professionals and educators with the common goals of immersion and growth. DesignInquiry frames the questions, participants explore the answers.

See the after publication


>INTRODUCTION >WHO'S COMING >DAILY SCHEDULE >WORDS ON THE TOPIC >APPLICATION >COST >CREDIT >HOUSING >SPONSORS >DESIGNINQUIRY&MSIGD ARCHIVE >CONTACT US

Introduction to the Week

I think, if someone were to ask me "what will we do there," I would say that now more than at any time during my career, discussing design's current role in persuasion is crucial to the profession. Without clarifying their current role, designers find themselves working for interests with which they do not agree, agreeing to things they do not fundamentally value, condoning lack of integrity as a worthwhile skill.

What will we do there? We will not look at portfolio presentations. We will not concentrate on form, but on content. Working together, we will find what some of the most interesting minds in design today think is happening on the "content-side" of the profession.

When you get to Portland, you will be joined by fellow designers, educators and inspiring students to work on directed projects with the '04 teacher/practitioner faculty. Simultaneous workshops begin on Monday morning and each lasts the five-days, with everyone checking into 'extras' that might inform our topic throughout the week (see faculty workshop descriptions). Participants have 24/7 dedicated studio space, and many stay at MECA's residence's, a short walk to the studios. Read the application section, then download the PDF. Also, check out the archive.

You know how at conferences the most significant moments of inspiration and connection come in the hallways or in the bars? DesignInquiry is that hallway, that bar, those meetings we'll sustain for the week, shoulder to shoulder, working on projects, doing, questioning our work, in effort to hold significance, inspiration, or connection to our contemporary design practice.

DESIGNINQUIRY '04 …an anecdote
by Margo Halverson
When the Maine Summer Institute in Graphic Design was over two years ago, I found myself questioning the effect of the teacher-student relationship. I developed the summer program, ran it 10 years since its inception, so I was comfortable in challenging its value and its continuance in the same way. We had focused on personal growth and a connection to design basics and core, not on moving any particular contemporary issue forward. Could the substance of a workshop make a relevant and urgent contribution to the profession? What kind of gathering could provoke, inspire and move Graphic Design outside of designers teaching designers? Melle Hammer, typographer and design educator, living and working in the Netherlands, was a MSIGD faculty member. He understood this conflict and confirmed that the summer workshop focus on one critical, timely, design issue, not on the teacher-student relationship. And wouldn’t it be valuable and inspiring to include those from outside of our profession that may also inform and influence us?

So this year, outside of the design workshops that happen simultaneously around the topic Truth & Message, we'll have opportunities to connect with the arenas of psychology, anthropology, journalism, philosophy history, theater and architecture as they also question the topic. And we will gather to witness the work as it’s being done – the debates, the thoughts, the questions, the research – contributions from each participant. So: June, 2004: Truth & Message, with Maine College of Art’s support I am pleased to bring to design professionals and educators a program that is a working symposium, a collaboration of cross-discipline energies where participants will develop the answers or new questions.
Keep checking back, we are updating weekly. Jan & Feb I'll be listing Who Else is Coming, more essays, and eventually what the week may look like. Contact us if you'd like to receive a poster in January.

soon,
margo

>INTRODUCTION >WHO'S COMING >DAILY SCHEDULE >WORDS ON THE TOPIC >APPLICATION >COST >CREDIT >HOUSING >SPONSORS >DESIGNINQUIRY&MSIGD ARCHIVE >CONTACT US

Who's coming

Elliott Earls
contribution: week-long workshop:
"Truth and Message"
Through; Sound Design, Image funking, Trash talking and motion hackin.(make "many-media")
I'll be working with the students on a small multi media piece...combination of print sound and motion

Elliott Earls became Head of the 2-Dimensional Design Department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in September, 2001. His thriving commercial practice, The Apollo Program, incorporates his experimentation with nonlinear digital video, spoken word poetry, music composition and graphic design. Earls founded the company in 1993 after earning his mfa from Cranbrook. Clients include Elektra Entertainment, Scribner Publishing Co., Elemond Casabella (Italy), the Cartoon Network (U.K.), Nonesuch Records and Janus Films.

Following in the footsteps of the many illustrious designers at Cranbrook is a challenging proposition for a young designer, but Earls has already established himself as a significant force in the graphic design industry as well as a larger creative world. His graphic work, original typefaces, music, performance art pieces, and self-published interactive cd-roms always stem from design as a primary frame of reference.

A key part of his philosophy focuses on hard work. Earls insists personal responsibility is the largest factor for one’s success or failure in life—“Personal responsibility”, unfortunately is a cultural cliché that seems all too at home on “Oprah.” And yet the simple fact remains that on one very important level the human brain is nothing more than a highly evolved excuse machine. It’s important not to let “the system,” or “circumstances dictate what is possible in life.”

Consistent with these concerns, the reading list for his students during the first semester at Cranbrook includes (among others) “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” Earl also instituted a department film series which focuses on works as diverse as the Frontline documentary, “The Merchants of Cool,” “Salo, 120 Days of Sodom,” and the seminal documentary, “Gimmee Shelter.”
www.theapolloprogram.com
www.cranbrookart.edu/

Peter Hall
contribution: lecture:
Truth and the Message
Peter will moderate a readings seminar on questions of the designer's role in conveying a message according to various interpretations- from "author" to "translator". Texts related to design practice, criticism and information theory, will be forwarded to participants mid-May in preparation for the discussion."

Additional Readings
Lupton, Ellen "The Producers" in Inside Design Now: National Design Triennial (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003)

Rock, Michael "The Designer as Author" in Looking Closer Four (Allworth Press, 2002) also in Eye no. 20 (Spring 1996)

Poynor, Rick "The Designer as Reporter" in Obey the Giant (Birkhauser/August, 2001)

Sontag, Susan "The World as India" in Times Literary Supplement, June 13, 2003

Peter Hall is a writer and design critic based in New York. He is a contributing editor for Metropolis magazine and senior editor and fellow for the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota, where he is editing the online conference review, Knowledge Circuit <http://design.umn.edu/go/to/kc> and an upcoming book on mapping, ELSE/WHERE. He also teaches a seminar on design theory at Yale School of Art's MFA graphic design program. He wrote and co-edited the books Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist, Sagmeister: Made You Look and Pause: 59 Minutes of Motion Graphics, and recently contributed essays to Designed by Peter Saville and Up, Down Across: Elevators, Escalators and Moving Sidewalks.

read also Words on the Topic

Melle Hammer
contribution: week-long workshop:
truth and image: not the map, the landscape instead
- we need a map in order to navigate or to understand the details of our surroundings.
- a GM-counter makes us aware of radio activity, without this instrument this quality remains unknown.
- a ball is easily represented by a dot, but the behaviour of the ball is not captured by the drawing, nor by a photo.

this is where design starts: a lie in order to be clear, to visualize what is invisible, using the technical preconditions and limitations of print or screen.

ethics, technical skills and a personal point of view seem to be important tools of the designer...

blue is the color of your yellow hair? (kurt schwitters)

'yes i know you are there, but: who are you?'
(mh)

during the workshop we will explore this theme in everyday and popular culture by watching, labeling, remakes and careless play: uncensored and filthy?.

our main aim won't be: finding the ultimate answer, but an exercise in recognizing the question as often hidden in the assignment ...

((-the first, the second and the last day of our meeting i will wear another
shirt... -how about you?))

workshop: the Truth against the wall?

the Truth?: a daily extending wallposter
-executing statements from the lectures we experienced, personal thoughts about the topic and remakes of found footage

Both the content and the design of this publication examins truth? and image?.

17-3-1956 it’s a boy! Habit: Amsterdam
Together with Margo Halverson he 'refounded' the summer program of Maine College of Art and is now back in another role. Typographer. Designer. Teacher. Lingering between art, design and advertising. Easily seduced to design a table, a chair or a stage set. Every now and then: a movie or a poem comes out. Always: questioning ‘the spot’. On and on surprised, outraged or in love. Lost? Found!
http://www.mellehammer.nl/


Jessica Helfand + William Drenttel
contribution: week-long workshop:
what comes between/rethinking the ampersand

The DNA of AND: Ampersand as Myth and Metaphor
From corporate rhetoric to consumer cliche to faux finishes and Photoshopped veener, TRUTH has gone from being a steadfast principle to a silly posture. Once the stuff of morals and fables, its presence in everyday life has become an imperiled commodity. We're left with a culture teeming with contradiction: Reality TV. Fuzzy Math. Jumbo Shrimp. Political Intelligence. Is it real or is it memorex? If form is driven by content, then the consequences of this shaky reality have driven us further from the utopian promises of modernism than any of us ever dared imagine.

In this one-week studio, we will examine the designer as the metaphorical ampersand uniting not only form and content, language and type; moral consideration and material culture; reflection and reciprocation. In a decidedly non-utopian analysis of current design thinking and practice, the ampersand provides a unique lens through which to examine truth as an ideal -- and design as a reality.

Jessica Helfand and William Drenttel are partners in Winterhouse, a design studio in Northwest Connecticut. Their studio focuses on publishing and editorial development; new media and cultural institutions; and education and literacy projects. Recent clients include the New England Journal of Medicine, Norman Rockwell Museum, Yale Law School, New York University School of Journalism, University of Chicago Press and the National Design Awards. Jessica and William are contributing editors to Design Observer, (www.designobserver.com) a collaborative weblog on design and cultural criticism that launched late last year. Their imprint, Winterhouse Editions, publishes design criticism and literary works by writers including Jessica Helfand, Leon Wieseltier, Paul Auster, Paul Celan and Franz Kafka, among others.

Jessica Helfand is currently Critic in the MFA Graphic Design Program at Yale School of Art, and is the author of several books, including Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media and Visual Culture (2001) and Reinventing the Wheel (2002) published by Princeton Architectural Press. She has lectured at The Netherlands Design Institute, The Annenberg School of Public Policy and the Walker Art Center, among other institutions, and received her B.A. in Architectural Theory and her M.F.A. in graphic design, both from Yale University.

A principal of Drenttel Doyle Partners until 1995, William Drenttel has been a co-editor of three of the Looking Closer anthologies of critical writings on design published by Allworth Press. He is president emeritus of The American Institute of Graphic Arts, a trustee of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities at NYU. William has lectured at the Library of Congress, the Walker Art Center, and the San Francisco Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. He received a B.A. in European Cultural Studies from Princeton University.
http://jhwd.com/
www.winterhouse.com/


Natalia Ilyin
contribution: week-long glue & workshop:
Truth and the message
Natalia Ilyin’s interests in contemporary mythic imagery and semiotics (the study of how images "mean" something to us) have led her to teach at The Cooper Union, Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Washington, in Seattle. She lectures widely on the history and effects of cultural imagery, speaking most recently at The AIGA’s National Conference in 2003. Her graphic design consultancy specializes in the unique communications problems of nonprofit organizations. Ilyin’s second book, Chasing the Perfect, a look at the effects of Modernism on contemporary life, will be published by Metropolis Press in 2004. Her first book, Blonde Like Me: The Roots of the Blonde Myth in our Culture, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2000.

Her articles on the effects of design and media have been published in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Miami Herald, and Portland Oregonian; in the magazines Metropolis, Eye, Critique, Mirabella, the now defunct AIGA Journal, and Adobe Magazine, and in the anthologies, Sex Appeal: The Art of Allure in Graphic and Advertising Design; Design Culture; Looking Closer 2; and Looking Closer 4.

read also Words on the Topic

Douglass Scott
contribution: lecture:
truth is fiction, and fiction truth.
Designers have much to learn from writers, poets, painters, sculptors, and filmmakers. let’s talk about the story – how to tell it, the form it takes. if truth is sincerity in action, and a body of real things; how do we negotiate fidelity in an age of meaningless images and assaultive messages. Dostoevsky wrote " for a moment, the lie becomes truth."

Douglass Scott is design director of print and video at WGBH, public television and radio in Boston. He teaches graphic design, typography, and design history at Rhode Island School of Design and at Yale University.

Nancy Skolos + Thomas Wedell
contribution: cocktail hour exercises:
Seeking Plastic Truth: how does form mediate truth?
Design inquiry cocktail hour exercises.
We will work with intuition through collage experimentation. Collage is a very fluid process and one that quickly poses possibilities for associations of meaning. As random elements begin to "fit into place" we will have fun exploiting the power of composition to form a believable reality.

Principals of Skolos/ Wedell an interdisciplinary design and photography studio. Husband and wife, designer and photographer, the two work to diminish the boundaries between graphic design and photography-creating collaged three-dimensional images influenced by modern painting, technology and architecture.. With a home/studio halfway between Boston, and Providence they balance their commitments to professional practice and teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design where Nancy is Head of the Department of Graphic Design.

The studio's work has received numerous awards and has been widely exhibited. Awards include the Silver Prize, Lahti Poster Biennale and the Bronze Prize, International Triennial of Posters Toyama, Japan. Group exhibits include: "30 Posters on the Environment and Development," Rio de Janeiro; "The Modern Poster," The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Festival d'Affiches de Chaumont. Skolos/Wedell's posters are included in the graphic design collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich, Switzerland. Nancy is an AGI member.
http://skolos-wedell.com

Lorraine Wild
contribution: week-long workshop:
What's TRUTH got to do with it?
The mechanics of message making
Lorraine Wild is a designer and educator living and working in Los Angeles. She has been teaching at the California Institute of the Arts since 1985 (she was the director of the Program in Graphic Design from 1985 to 1991). She served as a project tutor at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, The Netherlands from 1991 until 1998. One of the founding partners of the Los Angeles design firm ReVerb since the early nineties, in 1996 Wild established her own design practice to focus on collaborations with architects, curators and publishers in this country and abroad. Recent projects include the design of exhibition catalogues for the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, The J.Paul Getty Trust, and the UCLA Hammer Museum. Her work has been published in Emigre, Eye, I.D., Print, Design Quarterly, Studio Voice, and in the anthologies The Graphic Edge, Typography Now and Typography Now: Two. Her writing has appeared in numerous periodicals and books, including Emigre, I.D., Print, Graphic Design in America, Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse, Lift & Separate, Looking Closer, Looking Closer 2, Looking Closer 4, and The Edge of the Millennium.

In 2003, Wild’s work was included in the National Design Triennial exhibition presented at the Smithsonian / Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In 2001, she was one of three finalists for the Communication Design Award of the National Design Awards sponsored by the Smithsonian / Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. In the same year she was awarded a Gold Medal by the New York Art Director’s Club for the design of Height of Fashion. In the spring of 1998, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibited Lorraine Wild: selections from the permanent collection, a display of recent work acquired as part of their collection of significant design produced in California. Wild has received numerous awards from The American Center for Design, The American Institute of Graphic Arts (her books have been chosen for the AIGA’s highly selective “50 Best books of the Year” twelve times as of 2003), the American Institute of Architects and the American Association of University Publishers, among others. She was named as one of the “I.D. Forty” in 1993 and was a recipient of the Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design in 1995. She currently serves on the design advisory board for the international Design Conference at Aspen. Wild received a bfa from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a mfa from Yale University.

check this site again, it is regularly updated

WHO ELSE IS COMING:

Ron Botting
contribution: workshop:
Page to the stage.
Text is primary. Plays have no unimportant words. That gun in Act I goes off in Act III. The Process. How DO those actors memorize all those lines? An actor prepares. Am I saying this line to someone in response to something they said? Play's the thing. What kinds of tools are useful? Emotional and physical connections to words. Gesture. The action to the word (the word to the action). Bring a short bit of memorized text that means something to you (sonnet 14 lines or shorter). We will be doing some acting exercises, so be prepared to move.

Ron Botting joined Actors Equity Association in New York in 1979 and is also a member of United Scenic Artists Local 829 NYC. An actor and teacher for Shakespeare & Co. he assisted Director of Training & Master Teacher of Voice Kristin Linklatter's 4 week Intensive Professional Actor Training Workshops. He moved to Maine 8 years ago with his wife Anita Stewart, Artistic Director of Portland Stage Company. Currently wrangling daughter Cecelia, age 6 and James, age 3 months.

Margo Halverson
contribution: founder & main/Maine glue
alicedesign.com mhalverson@meca.edu : Founder with Melle Hammer in '03, Margo was the Director of the Maine Summer Institute in Graphic Design for all it's years. She teaches graphic design at Maine College of Art full-time, designs books and other projects for museums and architects, and is mother and vigilant observer of Jack and Cora, 6 & 8 with Charles Melcher.

read also
2004 …an introduction

Wil Heywood, PhD.
contribution: lecture & short workshop
Truth is in the Eye of the Beholder:
an afternoon workshop that explores how personality type and belief systems filter incoming information. Using the work of Carl Jung on personality type, participants will first learn their own type than how typology effects communication between people. We will then explore how personal belief systems filter information based on our past experiences, our values, our associations and perceptions of the truth.

“ When ever two people meet there are really six present. There is each man as he sees himself, each as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is."
– William James

Wil Heywood is a clinical Psychologist in private practice in Phoenix, Arizona and faculty of the School of Design, College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University. His training has been in Reichian body work and Jungian Depth Psychology. He has been teaching courses on creativity and life purpose for the past twenty-three years.


Camille Trabanco
contribution: discussion
Ain't It the Truth?
A discussion of how Western philosophy has moved from the Eternal Platonic Forms of Truth, Goodness and Beauty, to our postmodern conceptions of regimes of truth. We will examine how this affects the discourse of Graphic Design, and what this can mean to you and your work.

Been at Maine College of Art the past 5 years: taught courses in modernism and philosophy, and post modern philosophy as well as ethics. Degrees: Phd, Abd from Columbia, Ma (licentiate) from Louvain, BA from Fordham. Short and sweet.

Participant List

Fifth Business …definition
Those roles which, being neither those of Hero nor Heroine, Confidante nor Villain, but which were nonetheless essential to bring about the Recognition or the dénouement, were called the Fifth Business in drama- and opera-companies organized according to the old style; the player who acted these parts was often referred to as Fifth Business.

Tho Overskou, ‘Den Danske Skueplads’.

>INTRODUCTION >WHO'S COMING >DAILY SCHEDULE >WORDS ON THE TOPIC >APPLICATION >COST >CREDIT >HOUSING >SPONSORS >DESIGNINQUIRY&MSIGD ARCHIVE >CONTACT US

Daily Schedule
PROGRAM : DesignInquiry 2004 the skin:



sun June 13 @ 619 Congress
07:00pm OPENING: How and What and Who of DesignInquiry & INTRODUCTIONS by everyone
08:ish SETTING THE BAR by Natalia Ilyin
08:30ish THE BAR

mon June 14
09:00 FOCUS: Melle Hammer
10:00 WORKSHOPS begin with MH, EE, JH&WD, LW
01:30pm INTRODUCING: Wil Heywood PhD
02:30-5:30pm Workshops continue
06:00-7:00pm Doug Scott
08.00pm participants exchange

tuesJune 15
09:00 FOCUS: Elliott Earls
10:00 WORKSHOPS continue with MH, EE, JH&WD, LW
01:30pm INTRODUCING Camille Trabanco
02:30-5:30pm Workshops continue
06:00pm Nancy Skolos + Thomas Wedell / Plastic Truth
08.00pm Elliott Earls performance @ SPACE Gallery

wedJune 16
09:00 FOCUS: Lorraine Wild
10:00 WORKSHOPS continue with MH, EE, JH&WD, LW
01:30pm INTRODUCING Peter Hall
02:30-5:30pm Workshops continue
06:00pm Nancy Skolos + Thomas Wedell / Plastic Truth
06:00pm Soccer (w/Peter & Charles)
08.00pm participants exchange

thuJune 17
09:00 FOCUS: Jessica Helfand + William Drenttel
10:00 WORKSHOPS continue with MH, EE, JH&WD, LW
01:30pm INTRODUCING Ron Botting
02:30-5:30pm Workshops continue
06:00pm picnic

friJune 18
09:00 FOCUS: Jessica Helfand + William Drenttel
10:00 WORKSHOPS continue with MH, EE, JH&WD, LW
01:30pm INTRODUCING Ron Botting
02:30-5:30pm Workshops continue
06:00pm picnic
07.00pm(mussels), DRINKS, PARTY

read also
application

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Words on the Topic

Paul Nini
A Manifesto of Inclusivism (download the pdf)

Peter Hall
"At this moment of relativism and virtuality, I'm not sure how many would agree on what truth is or how important it is in our private and professional lives. But we must begin somewhere. The question becomes a professional one, because as designers …we are constantly informing the public, transmitting information, and affecting the beliefs and values of others. Should telling the truth be a fundamental requirement of this role?"
Milton Glaser

Telling the truth is not a moral problem peculiar to graphic design—journalists are guilty of cow-towing to publishers' or corporate agendas at the expense of facts—but design is undergoing something of an identity crisis. Is it possible to even practice graphic design without a certain amount of institutionalized lying, a shading of the facts in order to convey a certain commercial message?

In 1930, the Dadaist Kurt Schwitters drew up a handy chart depicting the percentage to which typical design projects serve two Gods —information and advertising— from letterheads to illuminated signs. Today, what once seemed a natural alliance has become the source of an ethical dilemma. Advertising is villified for its propensity to misrepresent, and designers castigate themselves for blithely participating in the process. One aim of the First Things First manifesto in both 1963 and 2000 was to raise designers' awareness of their complicity in the marketing process, their refusal to consider the consequences of what they do. As Jan van Toorn put it recently, "although communication design in itself is unable to change much of the shameless exploitation of people and the natural environment, it is high time for it to relate its own practice and idscourse again to social relations."

There is an implication in Glaser and van Toorn's comments that the profession once had a stronger sense of its social function. But when exactly was this? It would certainly be difficult to draw up a history of graphic design independent of advertising. The suggestion seems to be that the lying has reached endemic proportions. In her 2000 essay Truth in Advertising, Naomi Klein argued, "Quite simply, branding doesn't deliver. We don't find community at Starbucks, a global commons through Cisco or transcendence through Nike, just as we don't find political engagement through Benetton."

But was there something misguided in Klein's attack on the falsehoods implicit in logos and marketing campaigns? The Marxist cultural critic Judith Williamson has argued that the anti-branding debate and the "culture jamming" that accompanied it has only demonstrated "an over-emphasis on the signifier. Rather than this helping to get us away from the signifier, we are caught in its glare.."

Why is it that the whole design-ethics debate tends to leave us in roughly the same place every time? Clearly it's not a debate that can be effectively played out in the graphic field alone. Design is contingent on larger issues, like labor practices, free trade, the legacy of imperialism and so on. So let's look again at the terms of the debate and address some of the broader political, ethical and philosophical questions. What is truth? Is it even a useful concept?

Natalia Ilyin
Designers are constantly examining the condition of their status or their ethics, like the gardener who kept pulling up his radishes to see how they were growing. We are a self-absorbed bunch. But perhaps self-absorption is not a bad thing in people who handle the communication in a society. To stop working for a moment, to think for a bit on the idea of "truth," or about what messages one is sending— these cannot be bad things. And if we were wise, we would revisit these questions often, and schedule silent, pondering moments into our calendars as religiously as we do dates with our dermatologist.

If you communicate for a living, you spend your time telling the truth or shading it. Telling the truth or moving it around to fit. Much as designers like to talk about type and image and aesthetics, much as we may walk around in soft shoes looking sensitive, we are very much in the propaganda business. We send messages and inform people. Sometimes those messages are true. Sometimes they aren’t. Part of being a designer is deciding exactly what you are willing to propagate.

The choice always comes at a bad time. You have a client, and you have a deadline, and the mortgage payment is due and the dog has polyps and the vet says polyps are expensive. And just at that moment, something about the message of what you’re designing starts to look not so great. Starts to look not right to you, not true. And there's the choice, right there. You will promote that message, or you will stop what you are doing, make a call-- though it is one in the morning-- and suggest an alternative, work the client around, or say you don't agree, that you can't do it. And this is the moment at which Truth and The Message often part company.

In the end, everything that you are becomes clear in this moment: Everything that you are, and everything that your work is. "What am I agreeing to?" "What am I telling other people to believe?" These are simple questions. If you would like to pretend they don’t exist, you can easily avoid them.

1. You can fall back on the old "What is Truth?" gambit. If you decide on this route, you will be repeating the same words that Pontius Pilate first made famous when he threw in the towel.

2. Put the responsibility for the decision on someone else. "The client wanted it--what choice did I have?"

3. Look craggy and eagle-like and say: "I’m a
designer. I’m hired to do the best job for my client, truth is not my concern." And if you go this route you will have some history behind your words, because that was Albert Speer’s line when confronted with the fact that he had been Hitler’s favorite architect, and had done a smashing job designing for the Nazis.

4. If you are very educated and profound, argue that truth depends completely on context, on interpretation, on who is doing the listening, and on who is doing the talking. "Subjective, or objective truth?" you could say, and bring the conversation to its knees for forty minutes.

But truth in design is far more important than semantic gamesmanship, and design that lies teaches people to live and die hating and fearing.


Add to the issue As you will understand, the summer gathering of DesignInquiry 2004 is continuously under construction: The aim is to organize six loaded days and bring about a kaleidoscopic view on this year’s topic: Truth & Message Please provide Margo with essays, articles, short thoughts (no problem if it’s been published before) or links that could add to the topic.

And: consider to apply to come to this working-symposium.

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To Apply
1Complete and send us the application
2Complete a housing application (& deposit) if you wish College dorm housing
3Include a $40 non-refundable application fee

Still accepting Applications through April.
Max. enrollment: 50

Admission
Participation is open to professional designers and educators, graduate students and undergraduate design majors with 1evidence of eagerness in the topic, 2project proposal 3evidence of talent and capability of working in collaboration, through a 4application

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Cost
Program tuition is $795 for the week

Payment
Full payment of all tuition and fees is due on or before May 13, 2004. Arrangement for deferral of payment can be made to accommodate your Institution's fiscal schedule: contact us

Refunds
100% of tuition charges will be refunded for withdrawal before May 20 and 50% refunded for withdrawal ends June 3. No refunds will be made after June 3. The application fee is non-refundable.

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Credit
Maine College of Art is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. College credit may be awarded for work done in this Inquiry. contact us

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Application for Housing in MECA's freshman dorms
$300 Double occupancy/per person
$350 Single occupancy *

The College has two dorms available for DesignInquiry participants; Holbrock House (MECA's modest freshman dorm) and Portland Hall (USM's modest dorm). Most DesignInquiry participants choose to live together in the College dorms, both are only a short walk to the studio. Both are, yes, modest but accessible, friendly, and easy walking to the studios and the Old Port. (Check out the websites below.)

To Apply for Housing
Complete and send us the housing application with your DesignInquiry application
Include a $60 non-refundable housing deposit

Confirmation and housing assignment will be sent by mail. Full payment is due May 13. The room deposit is not refundable to applicants who withdraw after room assignments have been confirmed. Housing through MECA is limited and on first-come, first-served basis. Most rooms are double occupancy. *Only a couple single occupancy rooms are available and cannot be guaranteed.

for more housing options
read also
visitportland.com
mainetourism.com

Procedures/Policies
• Maine College of Art is the final authority on all room assignments. The College will do its best to place participants according to their wishes.
• The College reserves the right to make changes in residence hall room assignments and the right to change living arrangements when circumstances necessitate such action.
• Rooms are furnished with beds, dressers, lights, desks and chairs. Residents are responsible for bringing their bed linens and towels. Holbrock House offers cooking facilities and supplies, laundry facilities, and common areas. There are no cooking facilities in Portland Hall.
• A Resident Assistant is an occupant of the residence halls and is available for assistance and information.
• Roommates will be of the same sex, though a couple may apply to share a double-occupancy room.
• Upkeep of the rooms is the responsibility of the occupants.
• Residents are liable for the damage to rooms beyond normal wear and tear. Each resident is responsible for the conduct of visitors he or she allows into the residence halls, and assumes full responsibility for any damage.
• The College cannot assume any responsibility for loss or damage to personal property.
• All residents are expected to honor other residents’ rights to privacy and to peaceful and quiet use of the facility.
• The residence halls are non-smoking facilities; no smoking is permitted inside the buildings.

>INTRODUCTION >WHO'S COMING >DAILY SCHEDULE >WORDS ON THE TOPIC >APPLICATION >COST >CREDIT >HOUSING >SPONSORS >DESIGNINQUIRY&MSIGD ARCHIVE >CONTACT US

Sponsors in alphabetical order

Thanks to:
Spectrum Printing & Graphics Inc. : poster (printing)
Scheufelen North America, Inc. : poster (paper)
for their support in making the poster happen.

Thanks also to the following for additional support toward DesignInquiry '04:
Gmund North America
Type Directors Club
UCDA
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design, Smithsonian Institution



>INTRODUCTION >WHO'S COMING >DAILY SCHEDULE >WORDS ON THE TOPIC >APPLICATION >COST >CREDIT >HOUSING >SPONSORS >DESIGNINQUIRY&MSIGD ARCHIVE >CONTACT US

Contact us
email us your address and we’ll send you a poster.
18”x24”/four spot colors, designed by Elliott, Melle, Jessica + William, Tom + Nancy, Lorraine, and Margo

Spectrum Printing & Graphics Inc. : printing
Scheufelen North America, Inc. : paper

Administration
Margo Halverson, Director of DesignInquiry
Stacy Kim, Assistant to the Director of DesignInquiry
Catey Draper, Assistant to the Director of Continuing Studies
Greg Murphy, Dean of the College, VP for Academic Affairs

Maine College of Art
97 Spring Street
Portland Maine 04103
207 775-3052
mdi@meca.edu

The Maine College of Art reserves the right to withdraw or modify the DesignInquiry at any time. Changes will be updated on the website.

Maine College of Art does not discriminate against any individual on the basis of sex, race, color, religion, age, handicap, national or ethic origin, or sexual orientation.

Friday

Feed the mussels the last time: put them in the washing water and sprinkle some flour on the surface. The flour will sink. (The mussels like this.) And as they will poop before eating, they’ll clean themselves from the last sand and dirt. Remove the dead and broken animals.

A big splash of olive oil , roughly chopped garlic and a small chili pepper into a big iron pot. Let it simmer so the taste gets into the oil. Remove garlic and pepper after 5 minutes and turn up the heat to the max without burning the oil. Add the mussels straight from their bath. Temper the fire again and wait until they are open.

Mix spoons of cooking water with creme fraiche , add some fresh garlic and black pepper and fine chopped parsley .
You can either use the sauce for some tagliatelle (a small plate) or dip the mussels in it.
Drink Orvieto .

Cheers,
melle