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am I ACCEPTANCE Chapter
5
graphc
The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative
movement. Awe is what moves us forward — Joseph Campbel

we must assume a creative force in the individual himself before we

can arrive at a deeper understating of the art forms
produced by it.—Otto Rank

When I began my studies at VCFA it was with a clear vision and a firm heart. That is no longer the

Designer
case and I feel as I am on a turbulent sea and my tiny vessel is about to be capsized. I am trying to

& do I even find my way to shore. Sometimes I feel trapped as a “commercial artist” and if I had the skills to do

want be one?!? anything else I would. Sometimes I feel that any other position; a financial analyst or an engineer
or hell, even an insurance underwriter would be much more agreeable to me. I feel like graphic de-
signers have their heads too far up into the clouds and are overly concerned about fonts that no one
cares about and artistic concepts that are irrelevant to everyday life. I’m stuck on a careening train
called graphic design and I’m desperately looking for a way off.
If I’m being honest I must admit I despise fonts and I don’t understand the designer’s love of ty-
pography. I reflect on the fact that I spent so many years doing something that I once loved but now
abhor and I’m disgusted! How can I have been so foolish as to be suckered in by the siren bitch called
graphic design? By a career in which any highschool student with a bootleg copy of Photoshop can
Page 6
lay claim to? One could argue that a highschool
student cannot know the history of typography
and good design. My answer is this...he doesn’t
need to have such esoteric knowledge as long as
he has the internet. Many graphic designers are
not so fortunate as to have discerning clients;
many work for the local tavern or landscaper
if they are lucky. Likewise, most small business
owners that hire us, like lower level designers
and could care less if we know design history as
long as the work looks good to their untrained
eyes. “But Carl,” I can hear my reader say “we
need to educate them to understand that good
design is good for business.” Hogwash! Maybe
for choosing Coke over Pepsi but not for order-
ing a beer at a local divebar. I seriously doubt
the patrons will be upset if the menu does not
have the proper leading. I truly believe the
only people who care about graphic design are
designers and the sycophants that have been
blinded by the advertising design complex in-
Julien, Carl R., Jr. 2015. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
dustry’s “brilliance.”
I remember when a coworker first found out
that I was working on a MFA she was dumb-
struck! “But Carl,” she bellowed “You don’t
even like graphic design!” For the record she
was right...I. HATE. GRAPHIC DESIGN. I hate
graphic design concepts and theories. I loathe
typography and grid systems but I dislike the
design process most of all. Why am I doing
this one may ask; this is a master program in
graphic design. Well, one of the reasons people
choose graphic design or sequential art as a ca-
reer is so that they can do something they love
regardless of the financial rewards. If money
were their primary motivator they would have
become financial analysts. Maybe I should have
gone for the money.
One may ask why they should care about the
design process of a practitioner who hates to
design. I believe that’s a fair question and one I
don’t have the answer to. If the idea of reading
a thesis that has a disparaging view of design as
Page 7
it talks about the design process of its author
does not appeal to the reader, then I suggest
that he or she should close this thesis now and
read one of the countless pro-design theses that
are out there. Personally, what designers think
about my design process or any design process
for that matter means less to me than fresh
horse manure.. I wish I had the happiness and
joy that my classmate have found in design; it
would make life easier. I have failed so much in
life that even a win in something I abhor is still
a win.
I know that was a pretty angry and petty rant
but, it is how I feel about “Design”. I am not
a particularly good designer but that usually
comes with a passion and love for what you
do, neither of which I posses. How do I get that
passion and stoke it till it’s a burning flame of
desire? A desire for design that engulfs and en-
velopes me so that I can produce the work that
I know I have the potential for? How am I to
Page 8
reconcile my work as a designer with my total
apathy and blind rage at design? It is a question
I struggle with and I am still searching for an
answer; the following is part of a solution for
that dilemma.
I guess some of my hatred of design stems
from my lack of understanding of the funda-
mentals of the subject. With design and typog-
raphy, I need recognize the utter dependence
that graphic design has on type. It’s all about
the practice and the details, and with that prac-
tice comes understanding. Once I have an
understanding of type than the love of typog-
raphy should follow. Unfortunately, no matter
how much I practice I cannot understand the
details. Maybe I just don’t want to understand
them. If I am failure as a designer it would
make it much easier to leave design as a voca-
tion. It’s just as well, what university would want
a graphics instructor that can’t teach the basics
of type?
Luckily I will not be using my MFA for teach-
ing. Not that any school would have me any-
way, I am too much of a misanthropic curmud-
geon to be an instructor, A true anti-intellectual
such as I could never be happy in an academic
environment. I really don’t feel as if I have the
patience for teaching, and if I had a student like
me in my class I don’t know what I would do.
Thank God, I don’t have to teach. I could work
as a designer doing what I do know in a pro-
duction environment but have a higher level
of understanding of what design means when I
produce. It may make me invaluable as graph-
ic production professional if the full weight of
design history and theory informed the few
creative decisions I do make.
What really scares me is that I am not good
enough at design to continue, and that maybe
I am better at something else I have not con-
sidered. However, as of right now, no matter
what my skill level is, or what I may do in the
future, I am a designer, I have to accept that
fact. It’s the only way I can make peace with the
decision I made to go back to school for design. being labeled a designer is to not worry about
Otherwise, whether I complete this program
or not Ill never be happy. If I don’t graduate I
will always wonder “what if?”, and if I do finish
I will never be satisfied with any other accom-
plishment I make. That acceptance has to come ists, with whom I include designers, have a cer-
from me and no one else.
To that end, everyday, whether I am working as
a designer or not, I should do something per-
sonal in design. This could be reading about
design or creating layouts or illustration- it
does not matter. What does matter is that I do
something, that is the greatest lesson of VCFA!
To keep pushing your personal design prac-
tice no matter what. In the process you will
become a better designer. In my case it may
help me make peace with design and maybe,
just maybe, I won’t feel such revulsion at the
thought of being a designer.
Page 9
Another way to defeat my sense of dread at
labels. This may be more difficult then it seems,
for the designer like the bohemian artist of the
early 20th century, has a specific identity in my
mind. According to Rank the professional art-
tain manner about themselves that is laid down
by artistic ideology1. I feel that this manner of
being has been promulgated in design schools
and seminars until most designers I meet have
more in common with each other than they
may realize. On some level I don’t feel as if I
belong in the same group as designers. Almost
everyday I have to convince myself anew that I
am a designer and that’s OK. Not everyone was
meant to be an engineer or a financial analyst.
The skill set that I can potentially bring to the
table as a designer is just as valid as any other
1 Rank, Otto. 1989. Art and artist: creative urge and personality development.
New York: Norton., 37
 Page 10
Chipp Kidd
profession.
Part of accepting myself as a designer and an
illustrator has been in creating highly personal
comic strips that detail my day-to-day life.
Most days I believe I have no discernible talent
due to unfavorable comparisons I make to oth-
er people’s work. That internal monologue is
not fair to myself. I am trying to learn how to
accept the talent level I have and improve on it
without being too judgmental. I tend to have a
hard time even drawing a straight line without
that line looking rather serpentine, so I prac-
tice twice as hard to go just as far. I also have a
very poor sense of color and I have a hard time
finding a color theme that allows me to com-
municate effectively with my audience. This is
one of the reason I like doing black and white
artwork. Illustration in that style reminds me of
Frank Millar’s work on Sin City. Furthermore,
the dark shadows hide my poor draftsmanship.
One designer whose work I really enjoy is
Chipp Kidd. I love the pop cultural feel of his
work. I am drawn to Kidd’s covers for various
comic book collections. However, I enjoy his
“real’ literature book covers as well. There is a
sense of unity in the collages and vintage pic-
tures that he uses in his covers. Furthermore,
as a fellow fan of comics, I admire it that Kidd
believes his most valuable lessons in graphic
design come from Batman action figure pack-
Page 11
aging2. I wonder in amazement at his collages
that utilize “chiaroscuro lighting techniques”
to showcase all of the age and character found
in the imagery he uses to create his book cov-
ers. According to Véronique Vienne, Chipp’s
work as a designer puts pressure on the reader.
The reader has to struggle to match what the
text on the cover says with what the image on
the cover conveys3. By analyzing ambiguous
imagery the reader than gains a deeper un-
derstanding of the meaning Chipp is trying to
convey. I would like to emulate him but I still
need to find my own voice and not just parrot
someone else. This may prove challenging for
me because I usually ape other people’s styles
at the expense of my own distinctive vision.
One of the things I could credit VCFA with is
allowing me the chance to discoverer Carl Ju-
lien’s style and why it is worthwhile for me to
pursue it.
2 Vienne, Véronique, and Chip Kidd. 2003. Chip Kidd. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.,20
3 Ibid
 Page 12 Page 13

On the road to discovering who I am I would

like to dabble in postmodernism. I may be too
Rox Chast, Can’t we talk abuout somthing more pleasant? 2014

late as the postmodern movement might have

already giving up the ghost. However, I don’t
want to box myself in with this label either. I
am trying to discover my own process. The way
I understand things, life is like a salad bar- take
want you need and leave the rest for others. I
know want I want from post-modernism, The
concepts of appropriation and deconstruction
will mesh with the designs I am trying to cre-
ate, especially the collage work. In addition,
I like that the postmodernists never had any
formal training in design as I did not have any
serious training before I started my MFA. I like
that the postmodernists tended to make a lot
of mistakes because of that lack of training. In
my own pursuit of perfection I know I use the
computer way too much, though when I draw
things by hand people have said there is vitality
Andrew Aydin, March #1
to my work. The computer kills that vitality and
Page 14
replaces it with what Rick Poyner called a “sim-
ulated world” that begins to “eclipse all other
consideration.4.” I need my work to be about
me as much as possible. The computer should
be a tool, not the means to an end.
One of the ways I have worked on my design
and draftsman’s skills while at the same time
making peace with my chosen profession is by
creating autobiographical comic strips. Michael
A. Chaney states that there are inconsistencies
within the term “autobiographical graphic nov-
el”. Such works, according to comics scholars,
”make referential claims to the author’s lived
reality and therefore are not technically nov-
els at all”5. It may be a valid point that autobi-
ographical work can be self indulgent, but they
are also quite cathartic for the author. It’s like
4 Poynor, Rick. 2003. No more rules: graphic design and postmodernism. New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press.,42
5 Chaney, Michael A. 2011. Graphic subjects critical essays on autobiography
and graphic novels. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press. http://site.
ebrary.com/id/10451116. Diego,CA: IDW, 2012
journaling, but Lee, James Robinson and Congressman John
instead of doing Lewis.
it only for oneself Most of the other autobiographies with ex-
it allows others ception of Congressman Memoirs “March”
to see what your are from people involved in some way in se-
internal mental quential art. Stan Lee should be known to one
landscape is com- and all as a prolific writer and creator at Mar-
prised of. Broken vel Comics. He co-created almost every ma-
down to its suffix, jor character published there. Roz Chast is an
prefix and root award-winning cartoonist for the New Yorker,
autobiography Scientific American, and the Harvard Business
comes from Lat- Review. James Robinson was a wunderkind
in and Greek for during the comic book boon of the nineties
“self” “life” and and is known for penning a pastiche of golden
Greg Hinkle, Airboy #2
“picture”. Who bet- age comics’ characters. All of them are success-
ter to make pictures ful in their own way and each book held my in-
about one’s life than a sequential artist? Even terest, but how valued is a graphic novel mem-
better if the artist has a graphic design back- oir if it is about the cartoonist themselves? John
ground. Lewis’ memoirs dealing with his early days as a
In the process of working on my thesis I have impoverished seminary student involved in the would like to read6. Chast’s Cant We Talk About
been exposed to some autobiographical mem- fight to integrate restaurants in the south, fol-
oirs in the form of comics by Roz Chast, Stan lowed with his work with the Freedom Riders
Page 15
and culminating in his march with Martin Lu-
ther King, Jr. at Washington sees more weighty.
The fact that Congressman Lewis’ graphic nov-
el starts with him being beating near to death
by southern police offices as he kneels in prayer
sends a powerful message about his personal
philosophy.
While the other autobiographic works seem
smaller in scope they also have there own
things to say. Stan Lee grew up in similarly
poor circumstances as a young Jewish man in
the early twentieth century who found work at
his uncle’s publishing company. In those ear-
ly days working in comics was seen as a step
above being a gravedigger and Stan “the Man”
only started to become the household name he
is now when he decided to buck the system and
create comics that he as a 40 year adult male
6 Lente, Fred Van and Ryan DunLavey. The Comic Book History of Comics. San
Page 16
Something More Pleasant?: is a memoir that
deals with the pain of having to deal with one’s
parents as they get older. It is a bittersweet tale
of reconnecting with one’s parents and learning hand at this style of sequential art. One auto-
to deal with one’s own mortality as well. It de-
scribes in great detail the reversal that happens
as one’s parents age: as they took care of you,
you will have to care for them. Finally, James
Robinson’s “Airboy” is superficially a superhe-
ro comic but in actually it’s about Robinson’s
own demons, faced while he creates a superhe-
ro comic. He takes a hard look at his own life
and examines why his marriage failed and why
some of his peers in the comic book industry
view him as a has been. It talks about drug and
sex addiction and how they can kill creativity. It make her happy no matter what I tried. On top
tells the story of how the hero Airboy from the
comics leaps out of Robinson imagination to
help him clean up his act. An alternate hypoth-
esis is that maybe Airboy is a hallucination and
Robinson imbibed way to much cocaine. EIther work to support us. Not liking the corporate
way, it’s a fun, trippy read.
Reading these various autobiographies in com-
bination with some personal crises that I ex-
plain in detail below forced me to try my own
biographical comic strip that I recently created
is about my recent breakup with my spouse of
10 years. The first five years of our relationship,
while not perfect were actually kind of pleas-
ant. I guess that was the honeymoon phase
because once we left Chicago for Atlanta things
changed. Ayanna, who had always been very
particular about how things should be done,
became more upset with me when I didn’t
meet her expectations. Her frustrations led to
my own frustration when I couldn’t seem to
of that, financial worries put a lot of strain on
our marriage. In our first few years in Atlanta,
I had a hard time securing full-time employ-
ment and Ayanna was resentful that she had to
rat race Ayanna quit her job as soon as I start-
ed working full-time and then started her own
company that I helped with as much as I could.
After my wife finally left on December 26, 2015
I was devastated and at a total loss. Thinking
about graphic design let alone writing a the-
sis was the last thing on my mind. I loved her
as much as any man could for 10 years, HOW
could this happen? Part of the reason I went
back to school was to get the skills I thought
I needed to secure a good life for us with at
least a small degree of financial security. Now
I needed a new reason to go on and finish my
MFA. Usually in situations where I am tested I
have my faith, but without access to a car (the
family car left with her) my transportation was
limited to going back and forth to work. I could
walk to the mosque but at my current level of
fitness it would take me couple of hours to walk
the 3-4 miles there and back. Even walking the
mile and half to the store and back has proved
to be a challenge. Additionally, taking Cabs and
“Uber” everyday is definitely out of the ques-
Page 17
tion with my budget conscious lifestyle. I have
been praying by myself, but no man is an is-
land, and one quickly sees that having a com-
munity around helps in troubled times. Unfor-
tunately, I just joined this religious community
after searching for a while when we first arrived
in Atlanta and do not know anyone well enough
to get help. Luckily, I was able to journal about
how I was feeling. The journaling led to the
comic strip that is presented here in my thesis.
Having the ability to create the comic about
what I was going through with the breakup of
my marriage was a lifesaver.
In addition to “My Breakup” comic I have in-
cluded in this thesis another short strip doc-
umenting my first residency at the Vermont
College of Fine Arts. That residency did not go
well. In fact, none of my residencies have. To
be honest, the last two years have been hell and
I sometimes think I must secretly be masochist
to go on!
Page 18 Page 19

Every residency, from the very onset of my

trip, till the closing tear-filled ceremony, has
been pure,unadulterated torture. The torture
has been on financial, emotional, and intellec-
tual levels . Maybe self-directed study was just
not for me. I did seem to be lost without the
structured rigor of traditional learning. Howev-
er, I knew what I was getting into. I read VCFA’s
prospectus, just like everyone else who has at-
tended the low residency programs. To be fair,
from my own limited understanding of how
things work, the program is actually fairly ro-
bust, and offered me a lot as a student. Maybe
I suffered more growing pains than what I was
used to. In any event, now I have to figure out
what is next.
Page 20 Page 21

I’m Late!
OH S#]T Where So MUCH to
OH S#]T are you at? do it almost makes you wish there

N
were more hours in the day. VCFA
ew Student
presentations. sure packs a lot in a week, and it᾽s
just the beginning.
You suck

I want you
to think about …
WELCOME Projects
NEW STUDENTS to make.
… TO GRAPHIC
DESIGN
Where
are you going? Well, as I

BOOT- progressed through

the week It wasn’t as bad
???????????? as I thought. However, Faculty
???????????? There was a lot to choose.
???????????? to do.

We have plenty of
Study

Lectures to attend.
workshops and classes and plans to make …
working sessions… and let's not forget
your presentations of your current work.
Then we will explore where you are, and were are
you going …Then is we have exercises for you; also
packets have to be turned in on time.

OH S#]T

Lets not forget─more lectures.

Buckle up it’s going to be a
wild two years

Julien, Carl R., Jr. 2015. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Page 22 Page 23

Julien, Carl R., Jr. 2015. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Page 24 Page 25

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