immediate reaction

the type tour is complete. (for now.)

we've returned in one piece, and it is surreal that we are done and experienced so much so quickly. this experience like most others will quickly fade into memory and details will be lost, reasons forgotten and explanations linked to inappropriate questions. so i will try to capture this as accurately as possible as soon as possible.

as the organizer and ultimate procrastinator i'm going to be filling in the entire reaction to the experience after the fact, which makes this more of a summary then a blog i guess. either way, it will be a venue where anyone interested in what we did or where we went can get details and respond with feedback. a lot of dialog would be great. so stay tuned. i will start dropping images, opinions and responses here soon.

ultimately, this was a once in a lifetime experience for everyone involved. i couldn't have asked for a better group of individuals to spend time with. everyone played a part, had a role and a responsibility. getting 12 people to do anything in unison is complicated but we managed to do it effectively. from packing and unpacking a van to wisking eggs to holding microphones and interviewing personalities, everyone pitched in and found a way to contribute.

this experience carried us places we did not intend to go and gave us chances to look at the world from a vantage point we had not expected to find. how does a group of 11 students and an outgoing professor experience not only a road trip in search of people place and things related to type, but also their surroundings in a world they are constantly being critical of? for example, what is more relevant, a view of a lake from a cliff or a wonderfully hand drawn "29" on the back of of circus wagon? who seriously asks themselves that question anyway?

the answer is "we do".

the wild west type tour was about a group of self described type geeks searching for answers. we met fantastic people and we asked them fantastic questions. we were invited into fantastic venues and spaces and told fantastic stories. we found fantastic type, typefaces and typography and used some of them for our own purposes. now we will share them with anyone who is interested in listening.

so be patient. more is on the way.

The First Days

DAY ONE:

It's been a great two days thus far. Yesterday, Hannah and I got up bright and early at my apartment so that we could be at the art center by 7:30am. We initially thought we were running late, but by the time we arrived, we noticed that the van hadn't been packed yet.

Once we finally got packed up, we left the art center by 8:15 or so. Before even making out of campus, food was already out and being devoured. Once we picked up Jamie from Coloma, we were officially on route to Milwaukee. I fell asleep soon after and woke up at our usual Indiana pitstop. Many people got out to use the restroom, stretch their legs, get drinks, etc. Anna and I stayed in the car. Once we were off again, we were taking pictures of type and signage out the van windows. I did a bit of that before eventually falling asleep for the rest of the drive. I woke up just as we were entering Milwaukee and started getting excited about finally reaching our destination.

We spend our day in the Third Ward district. We parked and the Historical Parking garage and went around the corner to a little Irish Pub. On a side note, it seems like every trip that our group seems to take, we end up going to an Irish Pub for some sort of meal; it seemed appropriate that we continue that tradition. Everyone at my table ordered a baked potato. Mine had sour cream, cheese, and green onions. It looked and tasted AMAZING!

After eating our food, we went to The Eisner. Walking around that place was quite interesting. My favorite part was that upstairs, they had an exhibit of Coca-Cola advertisements over the years. It was fun to notice not only how their tagline progressed, but also, how they handled their logo and name. I found it quite interesting how, in some of their ads, they had made it a point to tell people that Coca-Cola=Coke. Also, I recognized one of the Santa Claus ads which were illustrated by Norman Rockwell. Mentally, slides of Norman's initial sketches ran through my mind from Design History. Yay!

After The Eisner, we made our way to Cramer-Krasselt advertising agency down the street. Their space was great! It felt comfortable, relaxing, yet still professional. It definitely encouraged creative ideas and collaboration in a very functional way. It would be quite fun to work in a place like that.

We finished our tour and then our group split up. Some of us went to interview people on the streets of Milwaukee; the others had already completed their interviews with the people who run The Eisner. We got quite a few good interviews. There was one in particular that not only cracked us up, but was definitely out there in terms of the answers given. We'll just say that some of the answers this guy had to give about typography were kind of risk-ay (for lack of a better word). He was one of the only people we interviewed who wasn't a student at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. It seemed like many people didn't want to take even a few minutes to talk to us. Another downside was that many of the people we interviewed were freshman at the Institute and either didn't know much about typography, or didn't use it. Surprisingly, a lot of them claimed that Comic Sans was their favorite typeface; granted, since they don't know much about type, at least they gave an answer at all.

Anywho, after those got all wrapped up, we went and walked through Broadway Paper store as well as a little design boutique. Both places were so nice. I wish I could have bought things from both places, especially from the paper store. We continued to explore the 3rd Ward for a little longer as we casually made our way to the Iron Horse, a nice hotel we were advised to see because of its atmosphere. A few of the guys went to go get the van as the rest of us settled in until they got back. A few of the others bought drinks; I just sat and enjoyed the conversations.

We made our way to Two Rivers, stopping only to get some food. A few of us got McDonald's as the others got Subway. David got a happy meal; which supplied us with a Kidz Bop 2 CD as entertainment for the next 20 minutes in the van. I fell back asleep shortly after the CD ended and woke up as we were literally pulling into the driveway at the Schwartz House.

Looking around the house was great. The lighting, the open space, the comfortable bedrooms, the open backyard. Pretty sure, I want this house. We chilled in living area for a little while after we unpacked the van with the necessities. I was excited that we get to stay here for two nights. Around midnight or so, I went to bed. Alaina and I shared a bed in one of the smaller bedrooms right off the upstairs. That bed was soooo comfortable and warm.

DAY TWO:

We woke up semi-early to get ready for today's adventures. The Hamilton Wood Type Museum couldn't have been more fun and interesting! The guy shared with us the whole story about Hamilton and how he got started, how type used to be made, and so on. Learning about the process was very interesting. Also, I had no clue that Hamilton had ended up monopolizing the wood type industry. It's a shame letterpressing is really only a hobby now.

After lunch at Fatzo's (at which four of us split a Fatzo's Supreme Pizza -- super delicious!), the type museum allowed us to use their type, presses, and ink to do some letterpressing. We had brought a TON of paper for this very occasion. It became quite obvious (mostly based on time) that we were barely going to make a dent in it. This wasn't a problem, since we had planned on donating our unused paper to the museum anyway. I ended up working on a sled with Drew and Justin joined us a little later. Our first message that we were pressing read "Made By People not Machines" and our second was "1984 was a bad year." The second was a comment about how wood type wasn't being used or produced as much after the year 1984. It was a fun few hours of printing.

After cleaning up, we went across the street to a little Ice Cream Parlor, which was also a museum about things of Two Rivers. The little old man and woman who ran the shoppe were so cute and sweet to have kept themselves open for us. They shared with us the history of the building (which used to be a hotel) as well as interesting stories about people who had came there and the way things used to be years back.

Now, we're back at the Schwartz house just hanging around. It's sad to think that the trip is already half way done. The next few days will be a little less structured and a lot more go with the flow. Tomorrow night we'll be staying in teepees, which should be fun (unless it's rainy *crosses fingers*). I don't want to leave the Schwartz house, but the adventure must continue! On to more experiences and adventures!!

The First Day

Good morning. This morning in the Schwarz house, I was able to walk out on my room's own balcony (niice!). The weather here is cool and foggy.I think all of us are sizing up the place and keeping mental notes for future houses we design. Right now we have three guys trying to cook eggs and cheese and I can hear them planning their plan of attack...lots of "whisk" being said. Frank Sinatra is playing softly in the great room which I feel pretty fitting for our group and the space. And Drew is playing a "good morning song" on Alaina's accordion. Also, we've figured out that taking a shower here is pretty complicated. There is one switch to clog the grain or open it (as usual), there is one knob to turn the water harder or softer, one knob to turn it from the shower to bath, and another knob to turn it hotter or colder. On the second floor, we couldn't figure out how to turn the water off; and on the bottom floor, they couldn't figure out how to get any.

Anyway, yesterday Elise and I arrived at Calder at 7:30 and all of us left between 8:15 and 8:30. Food was immediately taken out (even before we got off campus!). We went to Coloma to pick up Jamie and made a pit stop at our usual Indiana pitstop between campus and Chicago. As we went through Chicago, we got on a different piece of highway which happened to miss an hour-long traffic jam (thank God). And eventually we reached Milwaukee.

The 3rd Ward district of Milwaukee was pretty sweet. We decided it had a sort of Chicago/Grand Rapids feel with historical buildings and an artsy community. We kind of felt like outsiders because no one in the area walked in a group; and here we were a group of 12. We parked our car in the Historical Parking and literally went around the corner to the Irish Pub (sort of a tradition of ours). At the Irish Pub I had a baked potato with broccoli and cheese (but it was a TON of food and absolutely delicious)!

Afterwards, we went to the Eisner, took an interview of the two who run it, and then walked around to experience the museum. Then we went to a studio tour of a very famous advertising agency on the same block. I think we all got pretty pumped about the workspace. It was really relaxed, but professional. It made work look like fun.

After that half of us went on the stret to do interviews with random people and the other half got some coffee because they had already interviewed the Eisner people (I got coffee). Afterwards, we explored some of the 3rd Ward (because we've only really seen one block). Some of us tried to go see Fashion Ninja, a fashion boutique and school, but it was closed. We all went to the Iron Horse, a swanky hotel, just to see the atmosphere (we were told we must). Some of the guys went to get the van because we had walked through a really shady part of town to get there and it was now getting dark. The rest of us stayed and bought a drink (I had a glass of Pino Grigio--like I said, swanky).

We had a safe ride back to Two Rivers, but had to take a quick pitstop at a Subway to get food and go to the bathroom. I practially climbed over everyone to get there first. We arrived at the Schwarz house and looked around. Its pretty awesome that we get to "have" it for two days. We chilled for a while, and Anna, Fox, and I went to get some supplies for breakfast today. We ended up finding a gas station that had the stuff we needed, and I must say I've never seen that many bananas in a gas station in my life. It was as if they were stocking up for the apocolypse or something.

And on the way back (since we had already taken most of everything out of the van) Fox scratched the top of the van on the low porch ceiling. It was too dark to tell if there was a problem, but we all laughed nervously.

And, that's about all that's happened so far in a nutshell. Off to a new adventure--to the Hamilton Museum!

The T-shirts

Our t-shirts came in!

The Countdown

With only two days left before our great journey, we are all filled with excitement. We are looking forward to not only the things we'll see, but also the interesting and informative conversations we'll be having with people about type.

It feels like we still have so much to do in preparation for the trip. Much of the group things are on their way (such as pulling together each persons stack of French Paper to letterpress on at the Hamilton Type Museum); still left to be done are things like each person's individual packing, as well as the gathering of camping supplies. Also, figuring out how all of this gear will fit in a fifteen passenger van filled with twelve people.

Again, two days left to tie up loose ends before our journey to Wisconsin. Wednesday won't come soon enough!

The Beginning

As the first entry to this blog, I will explain a little about who we are and what we're doing.
And, go:

Not Design is a collaborative between designers to find and fill a need by pulling in appropriate people and resources. This concept is on common grounds with a quote by Bob Dinetz, "I could help you if I knew what problem you were trying to solve." Ultimately, we are creating experiences that both inspire and inform.

The Wild West Type Tour has been a natural progression from a 'last hurrah' for professor Fox to an intrinsic project that allows us to explore and analyze historical and contemporary type. We will be visiting the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, the Eisner [American Musuem of Advertising and Design], Frank Lloyd Wright's Schwarz house, among other relevant destinations. We are focused on making an informative and inspirational film for educators, students, and other type geeks.

Currently, we are digging through plans, selecting paper from a mountain of donated French Paper (for letterpressing at the Hamilton), assigning tasks, ordering Taco Bob's, and other forms of sifting, organizing, and collecting.

We leave the day after tomorrow!