TAKEAWAY: We knew there was something genius-like about the letters they create, but now it is official. Mathew Carter and Nicholas Benson are two of the recipients of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship, also known as “genius grants.” PLUS: It was an evening to kick off our shoes and relax, reviewing four decades of my life in this great business of ours.
Our intern Reed Reibstein (Yale University ‘11) was a very happy guy when this announcement was made: “It is a great day to be a lover of letterforms,” he wrote me.
Two of the recipients of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowships (a.k.a. “genius grants”) are letterform designers. Type designer Matthew Carter, creator of Miller, Galliard, Georgia, Verdana, among hundreds of others, and stone carver Nicholas Benson .
And, Reed writes proudly, both have a Yale University connection: Carter designed the Yale typeface and Benson cut the architectural inscription for the Yale University Art Gallery.
A tribute to remember
Several of you have written me wonderfully warm emails to congratulate me on the celebration of my 40 years in this business, for which I am grateful.
As some of you may know, SND honored me greatly with the sponsoring of very special program, An Evening with Mario, held Saturday night in Denver, just before the closing dinner of the organization’s 32nd annual conference.
Thanks to the great organization and planning of Jeff Goertzen, a good friend and head of graphics at the Denver Post, the evening was memorable and, although I was a bit apprehensive at first, I relaxed as the questions started pouring in. Jeff assembled a panel of five moderators, including himself, to ask me specific questions about various periods in my career.
So, Randy Stano, of the University of Miami, was in charge of my teaching years, with emphasis on my Syracuse University tenure, where he was my graduate assistant. Ron Reason, now a freelancer, another good friend, covered The Poynter Institute years; Bryan Monroe, of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, with whom I shared the memorable Boca Raton project for Knight Ridder, went back to his “flamingo” files; Jeff asked about the Latin American projects, since it was there that he and I collaborated on dozens of projects; finally, my son, Mario, took the stage to ask questions about Mario the dad.
Following the evening with Mario program , we all relaxed and did our best Chorus Line rendition: from left, Foster Barnes, Kelly Frankeny, Bryan Monroe, Ron Reason, Mario, Mario Jr., Nanette Bisher, Jeff Goertzen and Roger Black.
Highlights:
Randy Stano: Elaborated on my early teaching days at Miami-Dade College and reminisced about my auditorium, 8 a.m. class at Syracuse University, where he helped me collect homework and projects from the 120 students who registered for the required course each semester. Randy also showed clippings of my work with students, and with my mentor Barbara Garfunkel
Bryan Monroe: If there was a visionary newspaper project in the early 1980s, it was that sponsored by Knight Ridder for the Boca Raton News, a project aimed at creating the perfect American newspaper. We did try; extensive research was done, as Bryan reminded everyone, to see what readers wanted. I interrupted to reveal a long held secret: the majority of readers at that time said they would want the Boca Raton News to be a tabloid format, but Knight Ridder was not ready for that much innovation at the time.
Ron Reason: Oh, those glorious and fun Poynter years: the founding of the visual journalism program; the Mac tracks to train designers on those new wonders; the labs in the days before computers; the wax machines that would stop working just before deadline. But, most important, EyeTrack research and our findings. Ron asked what the most memorable of those findings was: we knew that photos commanded the most attention, but our study confirmed with a resounding YES.
Jeff Goertzen: The Latin American years, and drinking all those “cafecitos” in the newsroom to keep the energy levels as high as those of everyone around us. Jeff asked if I sensed a very different way of doing things with the newspapers in the southern hemisphere: more excitement, more editors coming to work having fun, and, the miracle of miracle, even though production may be a bit chaotic, the newspaper is always ready to be delivered at 5 a.m.
Mario Garcia Jr.: Mario the Dad. I was thrilled when Mario Jr started by saying: Dad, you are a very spiritual person. But, no sooner had I nodded, that he moved in for the rest of his question: However, many people here don’t know that you are also superstitious (tell him about the lucky dollar you keep in your wallet, please), and that you read horoscopes all the time and even see a psychic if you find one and have time to kill. Ok, Mario, true to all of the above. And the psychics are seeing tablets everywhere. So beware. As for the story about that lucky dollar in my wallet, I plan to tell it in an upcoming segment of 40Years/40Lessons.
Here is a link to Joe Zeff’s blog, where he gives us a post-script about his participation in “Paper to Pixels v2,” a panel discussion on tablet apps presented last week by the Society of Publication Designers in New York City.
Read Joe’s impressions:
http://joezeffdesign.com/blog/?p=1667