Writing and Research for Graphic Designers

(Ray)

(Fogra 29_WF)Job:08-28858 Title:RP-Writing & Research for Graphic Designers

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(Ray)

(Fogra 29_WF)Job:08-28858 Title:RP-Writing & Research for Graphic Designers

#175 Dtp:225 Page:13

001-017_28858.indd 13 8/30/12 4:34 PM

(Text)

WHY I

WRITE

concieving

research

analyzing

organizing

WRITING = DESIGN

structuring

(Ray)

(Fogra 29_WF)Job:08-28858 Title:RP-Writing & Research for Graphic Designers

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(Text)

Why do I write? I write, therefore I am. I need the

intellectual and emotional stimulation that the act

of putting down ideas in the form of words on paper

and screen gives me. Writing is the culmination of a

process of conceiving, researching, analyzing, ordering,

and structuring. Writing is design.

So it makes sense that I write mostly about design.

As a kid, I thought I wanted to be an historian. My uncle, a former Columbia professor of American

studies, taught me the pleasure of studying history. I loved reading historical tomes (especially about the

Civil War and The New Deal), yet I had little patience for the rigors of academics. I was never a very good

student. So I compensated for my scholarly deficiencies by writing and drawing. Indeed, I once handed in

an illustrated paper on “isms,” which was entirely plagiarized from a text that was, predictably, familiar to

my teacher (at least he hadn’t written it; now that would have been embarrassing). I received an F for the

paper, but he gave me an A for the satiric artwork. It was a wash.

This act triggered an epiphany. My pictures were visualized words, and if I could conjure my own images,

I could also write my own words. Although I didn’t bother to rewrite the “isms” paper to get a better

grade as my teacher suggested, I did begin to do more original research and write more original prose for

subsequent history assignments. I wrote incessantly and took uncanny enjoyment in rereading my own

words aloud to myself. I wanted to get the rhythm right. The one thing I missed, however, was a real focus

for my writing.

Every writing teacher says to write what you know. Passion is the ticket to success. And my particular

passion was for art, but not just any art: I favored the satiric kind. But not just any satiric art either; rather,

the radically strident political commentary that shot barbs at fat cats and besotted cows, images that were

caustic and indelible, like Goya’s stern “Disasters of War.” I found my initial métier was writing about

how satire fought folly (and sometimes won).

As fate would have it, all those pictures paid off. When I was twenty-four, I was hired as art director of

the New York Times Op-Ed page. Years before I began, that valuable real estate opposite the editorial page

was already a revolution in journalism and journalistic illustration. Its visual personality was built on a

foundation of satiric art history, and in order to do a credible job, I delved into the study of the eighteenth

(Ray)

(Fogra 29_WF)Job:08-28858 Title:RP-Writing & Research for Graphic Designers

#175 Dtp:225 Page:13

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