(TOP) LEFT: FUTURE//NOSTALGIA PROJECT, winter 2004. A personal semester-long project, undertaken while Emily Anderson was a student at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) in which she used all the photos she had taken with a digital camera in one year (nostalgia) to frame her ideas for the future. The resulting book uses transparency and the contrast between black-and-white imagery on a grid and dream-like color imagery to illustrate the current state of her mind; RIGHT: This Chariots record release poster and T-shirt was created in spring 2005 using hand-drawn type and illustration. A random element was added by using real objects to create patterns and shapes during the silkscreen process. CENTER: Cover and spread from VIM MAGAZINE, winter 2003. The magazine has a different editor each month that curates content from their surroundings, relationships, and personal connections; (BOTTOM) LEFT: The 2003 annual report for DUTCH BROADCASTING COMPANY, VPRO, was designed while Anderson was in the Netherlands. She collaborated with another student, Joost Van Der Steen, and the book recently was awarede De Bestverzorgde Jaarverslagen 2004 (Best Annual Report 2004) by Grafische Cultuur, Rotterdamn. CENTER: This catalog for the 2005 exhibition FROM>TO was designed for the MCAD Gallery. The booklet of postcards is bound with red gum-pad binding, so postcards can be torn out for mailing or assembling into a poster. RIGHT: GUIDE TO GET LOST, spring 2004, is a book Anderson made while studying in the Netherlands. It uses the concept of loss to generate new paths and discovery. The book was designed and produced democratically with four other students ... using cut-and-paste and screenprinting methods. The book is an A1 poster sheet folded to create a 16-page booklet;
“Graphic design, for me, is a way of thinking, processing the
world, and giving it back with a little Pantone 806 or 871,” says
Emily Anderson, a recent graduate of the Minneapolis College of
Art and Design (MCAD). “I feel as though design’s job is sometimes
believed to make things consumable. But I am driven to
make work that is functional and hopefully unique to a typical
experience. I love colored papers, overprinting, binding, the tactility
of the design materials.”
Anderson was able to bring these ideas to her position as the
first design intern for MCAD’s DesignWorks, the college’s inhouse
design studio. She was the only full-time employee and for
one year she was responsible for designing communication materials
for the college, including exhibition catalogs and systems for
the gallery and admissions, such as the new MCAD Viewbook and
MFA Catalog. “A large part of my job was to implement the new
identity system, designed by Jan Jancourt and Matt Rezac, into
MCAD’s vernacular. My clients were faculty or staff,” she adds.
Eric Olson, who was Anderson’s type instructor at MCAD,
says, “Design is almost never a one-size-fits-all situation, and
Emily seems acutely aware of and entirely comfortable with this.
I don’t think she has a style and she doesn’t seem worried about it
because she understands how to work with ideas first. The one element
that’s always present is her compassionate typography. I feel
like she’s rooting for the reader. She truly wants the work to be
used and enjoyed.”
Anderson, who was recently hired by Dwell magazine in San
Francisco, will have her chance to bring “compassionate typography”
to a wider reading public. “I like design that challenges an
audience to consider their place or relationship to the content. If
someone notices an honesty in structure or has a meaningful experience,
then I am happy. I hope to make work that contributes
to the larger community, and perhaps connects ideas as well as a
viewer to content in a new, genuine way.”
Emily Potts
WEB-EXCLUSIVE CONTENT!
