The Best of Brochure Design 12

(RAY)

(Fogra 39) Job:01-29775 Title:RP-The Best of Brochure Design 12

#175 Dtp:204 Page:62

058-151_29775.indd 62 1/14/13 11:29 AM

This Brochure

Was NoT

supposed To happeN

Martin Venezky

Appetite Engineers

San Francisco, California

(RAY)

(Fogra 39) Job:01-29775 Title:RP-The Best of Brochure Design 12

#175 Dtp:204 Page:63

058-151_29775.indd 63 1/11/13 5:32 PM

62 63

(Text)

This Brochure

Was NoT

supposed To happeN

Martin Venezky

Appetite Engineers

San Francisco, California

(RAY)

(Fogra 39) Job:01-29775 Title:RP-The Best of Brochure Design 12

01-C68346 #175 Dtp:225 Page:62

058-151_C68346.indd 62 1/30/13 10:49 AM

62 63

(Text)

This brochure was not supposed to happen. Its creation

was a subtle act of defiance and necessity, brought about

by the California College of Art’s newly minted policy

that severely limited new printed materials. The com-

munications department felt that eliminating print would

send a positive message of environmental stewardship

and concern. Perhaps it did. But it did other things, too.

Every year during the fall semester, graduate art pro-

grams gather for a series of portfolio events across the

country. Direct engagement with serious potential can-

didates are valued moments. As prospects visited our

table, their arms loaded with other schools’ ambitious

catalogs, this new initiative left us empty handed. We

could only offer a flimsy postcard inviting them to read

our documents online and a boilerplate booklet (created

by the communications department) exhorting the fulfill-

ment of graduate life in the most general terms possible.

It was an embarrassing exercise.

There is a deeper meaning in the presentation and

exchange of real materials: ceremony, gratitude, respect.

When you are on the road meeting candidates, or in the

classroom teaching those who have been admitted, you

understand just how much these folks are putting on

the line. A return to school is an enormous threshold

to cross: redefining one’s career, sharply bending one’s

trajectory, relinquishing predictability for an uncertain

path. So something as simple as a brochure can make a

difference at a vulnerable moment.

Moments like these, when the gesture and exchange

have an inherent reassuring meaning, cannot be repli-

cated through online media. But within an institution,

the argument can be futile. That’s why our core faculty

decided that actually creating our own brochure, even in

secret, was more important than arguing the benefits of

print over digital.

We knew that if we were going to exercise defiance, the

result had better be special. And if we were going to put

up our own department funds and donate our own time

and effort, we had better say something of significance,

and craft an object of value and meaning—a showpiece

for ourselves and the school.

So we tried to imagine what would please us. What

would we want to receive and keep and examine and

admire? Isn’t this one of the great pleasures in design?

When you can set aside messaging and demograph-

ics and budget and timetables, and just for a little while

imagine saying something honestly—from one adult to

another—about a subject that means a lot, and to realize

that voice in an object of permanence and commitment.

We imagined topics of concern and controversy and

how a poetic voice might mingle with a critical one. The

text was written alongside the design, and the process

helped generate the content. What are we concerned

about as educators? As inhabitants of an urban world?

We didn’t need to be clever or sporty or smug. We exam-

ined pictures not of beaming students looking creative

and scholarly, or lecturers looking concerned and wise,

but my own personal shots of the designed world around

us in all its complications and surprise.

Put aside was any notion of being the hippest on the

block and instead we looked to old 19th-century post-

cards, and geometric structures: these are things we

have all enjoyed as curious, collecting humans. We

engineered the typographic details, small asides and

footnotes, details within details; lists of things that fas-

cinate us hidden behind back covers. The making of the

brochure became its own continual discovery and led to

lively conversation and debate.

I mentioned permanence and commitment. These words

have critical value in today’s online world. You can add

slowness to that, too, for with this brochure, we were try-

ing hard to reduce its speed of transmission. We wanted

to make the most of our print resources to allow the pub-

lic to mull over the issues and images and connections. It

is very hard to mull over anything online.

Perhaps this is a lesson for those who consider every-

thing print passé. Understand the medium for its special

value. Put in the effort to make everything you print

meaningful and worth the investment—no more clichés

or wasted words. Save those for the Internet.

Martin

This Brochure

Was NoT

supposed To happeN

Martin Venezky

Appetite Engineers

San Francisco, California

(RAY)

(Fogra 39) Job:01-29775 Title:RP-The Best of Brochure Design 12

01-C68346 #175 Dtp:225 Page:63

058-151_C68346.indd 63 1/30/13 10:49 AM