LEFT: Christopher Sleboda created this set of postcards to promote the New York chapger of AIGA’s 2005 SMALL TALKS SERIES. “Since the postcards were connected and mailed out together, it made perfect sense to make them into a mini-poster,” he says. TOP MIDDLE: “PLAYING TERRORISM,” a spot illustration for New York Magazine, accompanied an article about rescue responses to a simulated terror attack. TOP RIGHT: This poster was created while in graduate school at Yale. It’s based on a lecture by classmate Ramon Luna about his thesis topic THE MARVELOUS, playfully exploring ideas of representation and intertwining the narratives of the lecture. BOTTOM: Created for Issue No. 3 of FAESTHETIC MAGAZINE this is part of a series of personal work that plays with ideas of representation and perceptions of space in flat land.

Christopher Sleboda, Gluekit Latin Name: Eximius Glukiticus Age: 30 203.467.8787 | www.gluekit.com

“Glue is good,” says Christopher Sleboda, a graphic designer and illustrator working under the moniker of Gluekit. After all, glue is that which holds everything together. For Sleboda, things often get sticky in New Haven, Conn., where he has set up shop.

Sleboda’s fascination with design began in high school when he discovered punk rock fanzines. “I loved the rawness and immediacy of them, and I also liked how the design of a zine reflected the author’s personality. Anything could be said, and anything could be done. This was a great form of expression,” he says. “I started to make my own zines and really loved the craft of it—using photocopiers, typewriter text, collaged photos.”

He studied graphic design in college and started a side business designing and selling T-shirts, as well as designing record and CD covers for local bands. After college he freelanced and received his MFA in graphic design at Yale University School of Art in 2003. Allen Hori had Sleboda in his Typographic Form + Meaning class at Yale. He says in five years he sees Sleboda “continuing in the development of his personal visual language—hopefully engaged in a commercial arena where a larger number of people make up his audience, or, heading a small boutique design studio making beautiful and funny commentary with design.”

In addition to his Gluekit work, Sleboda has returned to New Haven as the director of graphic design at the Yale University Art Gallery. He collaborated with Ed Fella on a recent project—Fella did the lettering on the cover of the gallery’s fall 2005 calendar and Sleboda designed it. “The students really responded to it. We had to do a second print run because we ran out of them in a matter of weeks,” Sleboda says. “I love being around the artwork and I love everybody I work with. I also get to work with great design firms such as Open and Flat on a number of gallery-related projects.”

When asked what graphic design means to him, he responds, “It’s like throwing a brick. The impact is immediate. Something can be communicated in a matter of seconds, and it can have so many levels of meaning. I just find it amazing.”
Emily Potts