Design and Visual Culture
Design Observer
ArchiveBooks + Store
Job Board
Email Archive
Comments
About
Contact
Log In
Register
Observatory
ResourcesSubmissions
About
Contact
Featured Writers
Michael BierutWilliam Drenttel
John Foster
Jessica Helfand
Alexandra Lange
Mark Lamster
Rick Poynor
John Thackara
Rob Walker
Departments
AdvertisementAudio
Books
Collections
Dialogues
Essays
Events
Foster Column
Gallery
Interviews
Miscellaneous
Opinions
Poetry
Primary Sources
Projects
Report
Reviews
Slideshows
Today Column
Unusual Suspects
Video
Topics
AdvertisingArchitecture
Art
Books
Branding
Business
Cities / Places
Community
Craft
Culture
Design History
Design Practice
Development
Disaster Relief
Ecology
Economy
Education
Energy
Environment
Fashion
Film / Video
Food/Agriculture
Geography
Global / Local
Graphic Design
Health / Safety
History
Ideas
Illustration
India
Industry
Info Design
Infrastructure
Interaction Design
Internet / Blogs
Journalism
Landscape
Literature
Magazines
Media
Museums
Music
Nature
Obituary
Other
Peace
Philanthropy
Photography
Planning
Poetry
Politics / Policy
Popular Culture
Preservation
Product Design
Public / Private
Public Art
Religion
Reputations
Science
Social Enterprise
Sports
Sustainability
Technology
Theory/Criticism
Transportation
TV / Radio
Typography
Urbanism
Water
What I Did Last Summer
Editor's Note: Sue Nguyen, a graduate student in graphic design at RISD, spent the first half of the summer working in our studio as an intern. The following is excerpted from a letter she recently sent, in which she shares her experiences during the second half of the summer in San Francisco, working as an intern for McSweeney's. — William Drenttel
And now, the gossip...
McSweeneys was great, though extremely (extremely!) relaxed. The people were very kind, mostly male, and extremely odd. Often when engaging in conversation I was at a loss as to how to respond to whatever the person had just said. A polite smile and eye-contact avoidance was my default reply. I worked mainly with Alvaro, The Believer designer/production artist, although I did indeed meet Mr. Eggers (and shook his hand!) though I never worked directly with him.
What was really surprising was how few designers there are in the operations: one (plus one design intern). Given how great their stuff is and how many awards they win, I expected a whole design department. Aside from Dave, most of the design work was done by Alvaro or the McSweeneys general editor, Eli. Eli is really great, although he had a very specific aesthetic ("don't make it look designed!"), held some rather strong views about designers ("some designers only design for themselves"), and really liked to design things himself. Pretty interesting all around.
The intern situation was also interesting. (Almost all interns were hired via email, without being seen in person by anybody.) They had about ten or fifteen literary interns in the basement, which was hot and smelly and dark, and which also doubled as the stock room for all the books. There were more girls than boys and they were all extremely — suspiciously — attractive.
I worked in the space above the pirate store, so i had to climb a ladder to my "office" each day. The ladder was positioned on the periphery of the classroom space, so discussion was often interrupted when someone would unexpectedly climb down.
In terms of what I made, I got to work on a Believer cover (the "Games Issue"), scan a million photos of a senior citizen working in a mental hospital, add drop shadows to fan letters to Ray Charles, and design workshop certificates for the kids.
All in all I had a great summer.
And now, the gossip...
McSweeneys was great, though extremely (extremely!) relaxed. The people were very kind, mostly male, and extremely odd. Often when engaging in conversation I was at a loss as to how to respond to whatever the person had just said. A polite smile and eye-contact avoidance was my default reply. I worked mainly with Alvaro, The Believer designer/production artist, although I did indeed meet Mr. Eggers (and shook his hand!) though I never worked directly with him.
What was really surprising was how few designers there are in the operations: one (plus one design intern). Given how great their stuff is and how many awards they win, I expected a whole design department. Aside from Dave, most of the design work was done by Alvaro or the McSweeneys general editor, Eli. Eli is really great, although he had a very specific aesthetic ("don't make it look designed!"), held some rather strong views about designers ("some designers only design for themselves"), and really liked to design things himself. Pretty interesting all around.
The intern situation was also interesting. (Almost all interns were hired via email, without being seen in person by anybody.) They had about ten or fifteen literary interns in the basement, which was hot and smelly and dark, and which also doubled as the stock room for all the books. There were more girls than boys and they were all extremely — suspiciously — attractive.
I worked in the space above the pirate store, so i had to climb a ladder to my "office" each day. The ladder was positioned on the periphery of the classroom space, so discussion was often interrupted when someone would unexpectedly climb down.
In terms of what I made, I got to work on a Believer cover (the "Games Issue"), scan a million photos of a senior citizen working in a mental hospital, add drop shadows to fan letters to Ray Charles, and design workshop certificates for the kids.
All in all I had a great summer.
Subscribe to Comment Feed
Comments (3) | JUMP TO MOST RECENT >>
Will there be a follow up description for the first half of the summer? I would be curious to hear about this as well as the differences, both good and bad. It seems like a very unique summer. Do tell!
Here's a question I've wanted to ask about McSweeney's, or an issue I need to be set straight on: for all the quality of the content (admittedly aruguable, of course) and their earnest attention to detail, why are their books often so poorly typeset?
Take for example the full version of Vollmann's Rising Up, Rising Down. The books are well bound and attractive from the outside, but the inside: yecchh. Stark white stock and a spindly Garamond, the word spacing is sometimes very poor, there are more typos than there should be, and they don't even use old-style figures--which, whether you like their literary aesthetic or not, you have to admit is out of character for them. It's as if they set the type in Word.
This is true of others of their books I've seen as well. What gives? Can Sue or anyone else enlighten me?
Take for example the full version of Vollmann's Rising Up, Rising Down. The books are well bound and attractive from the outside, but the inside: yecchh. Stark white stock and a spindly Garamond, the word spacing is sometimes very poor, there are more typos than there should be, and they don't even use old-style figures--which, whether you like their literary aesthetic or not, you have to admit is out of character for them. It's as if they set the type in Word.
This is true of others of their books I've seen as well. What gives? Can Sue or anyone else enlighten me?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sue Nguyen is a graduate student in graphic design at RISD, and previously attended Carnegie Mellon University and University of Washington. Her work is available at designnostalgia. This essay is reprinted with the kind permission of folks at McSweeney's.More >>
DESIGN OBSERVER JOBS
RELATED POSTS
Mr. Vignelli's Map
Vignelli Celebration: Massimo Vignelli's 1972 New York City subway map is a beautiful example of information design that was ultimately rejected by its users.
Reflections on The Ephemeral World, Part One: Ink
An elegy to the makeready — those sheets of paper, re-fed into a press to get the ink balances up to speed, leaving a series of often random, palimpsest-like, multiple impressions on a single surface — in the digital age.
Cranbrook Commencement Address
"I come to you, like all commencement speakers, as an emissary from the future." The commencement address delivered by Julie Lasky at the Cranbrook Academy of Art on May 9, 2008.
Greening the Grocery Store
It turns out that the "recycling symbol" at the bottom of my yogurt container had nothing to do with its recyclability. So why was it there? My curiosity led to findings around which I built a design class.
O.H.W. Hadank
Paul Rand held Hadank in the highest esteem because he practiced modernist formal principles even though he did not follow its dogma or style. And most important, as Rand said “Hadank was then and always an original. A profile of O.H.W. Hadank by Steven Heller...
10.08.06 at 12:35