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!!