Gretchin

Crystal, we were on TJ’s site at work last month and everyone could not get over how beautiful your bridal pictures are—it’s all you!

Thank you for your honest comments and commentary. I have actually posted a mea culpa in response to many of your concerns. I have grown to understand how the SCAD culture operates, and heretofore, my experiences with the academic environment and professor relations had been largely positive. I am constantly evaluating and reevaluating my work in light of criticism and commentary from professors and peers. I believe that I am beginning to understand the direction of SCAD’s graphic design program, and, honestly, it does not mirror my goals or aspirations. My pursuits and thoughts are largely academic, and my ultimate goal is more philosophical in nature, less preparatory for a design career. What my experiences at SCAD have taught me, more than anything else, is that my affections do not lie in advertising design or related commercial design fields. Over the past year, I have increasingly embraced intellectual pursuits in art history and methodology to the exclusion of business-oriented graphic design production. I hold no ill-will toward Professor Casem, or any other professors I have interacted with; my only desire would be their salvation and complete knowledge of Christ. I have received valuable advice from numerous professors, and their insight has been helpful in augmenting my intellectual and experiential knowledge of graphic design. In fact, it is through my desire to “take responsibility for [my] education” that has driven me to correspond with professors, even those I do not agree in regards to design methodology, in the evalutation of projects. Many hours have been spent designing, rethinking, and redesigning based on the comments of professors and peers. My goal is clarity and intrinsic communicability; often clarity is misunderstood as laziness, and I have attempted to demonstrate my intellectual commitment throughout each project. In most cases, this additional effort has been rewarded; I will continue to strive for design excellence regardless of the preferred design style of the viewer. Thanks again for your perspective. I hope that my comments have clarified my attitude and intent.

-colin

I ran across your blog after doing some random surfing. It is very interesting to read the perspectives of a BJU grad working on his masters at SCAD.

Statements like “I can only come to the conclusion that she did not understand the Christian target audience, or that she had some antagonism (sic) toward the presentation of this aspect of the gospel” do nothing for your grade, testimony or reputation of your school. It is damaging to you, BJU, and especially the cause of Christ. Even if you sincerely feel this is the case, I would advise against airing it in a very public forum. Although I was not in your critiques, nor did I have Professor Casem for this class, based on the statements reproduced below and your work, I see no prejudice, and the statement itself comes across as extremely bitter.

As I recall, your style was always clean and simplistic; nothing wrong with that, as I am an advocate of the same. The general aesthetic at SCAD is generally deconstructed and grungy. That doesn’t mean that the professors cannot properly grade your work. Looking at your posts, I can see many of their criticisms. Your simplicity is probably being construed as laziness - there doesn’t appear to be much effort put into them. The typography is especially weak. I would recommend you look at some well done clean, simple work; BMW immediately comes to mind, as do some of the books by Tufte. Right now, based on the work seen below I do not believe you will pass your reviews. If your professor failed to see your message, it is you who failed in presenting it, not an aversion to the message of the gospel. That is the point of design; to present things in a manner that all can understand.

Interestingly, it was in this particular class, and on this project that I received a public and humiliating smack in the face so hard that I immediately saw that I was also being lazy and probably wouldn’t pass reviews; I didn’t read the brief, got up to do a interim presentation and was publicly humiliated. I had never been so humiliated in my life, and it was 100% my fault, and I immediately acknowledged it. Take comments like “at the grad level, you must take responsibility for your education” to heart. I got a D on that mid review, but I buckled down, redid the concept (in a grungy style, to expand my design palate and diversify my portfolio) and got an A on the final presentation. Do everything you can, and make everything, even your process book, top notch work.

Be careful you don’t see yourself as a victim of the “evil liberal professors”; I found them to be open-minded and very helpful, something I was not expecting. One thing that bothered me at BJU was people preaching to me about how I should act and feel and noticing their obvious power trip out of it. I am not doing this. I hope you find this constructive criticism.

Good luck,
JDooley
BJU graphic design major and SCAD MA graduate.