daniel pipitone

// Work in Progress /

June 24, 2008 [UPDATE]

Photography proof of concept:
I have been working with my Canon SD1000 point and shoot (which has a really great Macro setting) to see if I could achieve the look I am after. So far, so good, although I have lighting challenges around the house, so it looks like it will have to be a daytime shoot, relying primarily on available light.

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I have a final direction: IMPACT EQUATION (aka. “my responsibility as a designer”)

So I move ahead. At this point I am planning new photography of select work and a minimalist layout approach to the body of the book, so as to not detract from the work detail. Finishing will include screw post binding and an oversized poly bag.

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I have a confession to make. I have been picking up way more books lately, but reading very little.

Q:
Why is this?

A:
I have been succumbing to a habit I have nurtured for years, where I blow right by the text and zero in on the images. I go through phases with material where I ignore all context and flip rapid-fire style through the pages, taking in as much of the visual information as I can.

This is not, mind you, merely a childish “I get bored by too much text” thing. No, this is a ravenous skimming to find the visuals so I can “soak” them up. It’s the kind of thing I starting doing hardcore in college, and now I revert to this behavior in periods of high inspiration.

This time it has been the work of Massimo Vignelli and Michael Bierut and the partners at Pentagram. All it took was a few hallway discussions about Vignelli with a co-worker about the new archive collection at my alma mater, RIT, and I was off spinning. At this very moment – directly behind me as I type this post – I have no fewer than 22 books towering in the stack on the table. Vignelli had me digging again, as I had years ago, and I uncovered yet another gem from my past interests, the work from the Pentagram office. Pentagram, by way of partner Michael Bierut, has a Vignelli connection as Bierut was once a principle designer in Vignelli’s studio, his first job fresh out of University of Cincinnati’s College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning. And ‘round and ‘round it goes…

So, in this stack is everything from Vignelli’s Vignelli from A to Z (published in 2007) to The Compendium: Pentagram, their voluminous historical collection of work that illustrates their key tenets as they relate to their approach to work. It has all come full circle again for me as I have rediscovered this volume of work. Once the cornerstone of my instruction as well as a key source of inspiration early in my career, their work has taken on new meaning as I now have more than a decade behind me in the discipline as a designer.

Q:
Your work hardly resembles theirs…so what’s this got to do with a “work in progress by you?”

A:
Their work has reminded me of precisely what I found in it that was once important to me, and what is easily lost, overlooked or discarded as the years (and priorities) go by. Why I work. What is the work doing, and for whom? What is it communicating, really? What value and impact does it have on our surroundings? Our culture? Our values? Is it valuable at all? It has prompted me to ask myself these questions again. Everyday.

So this brings me to the concept. A personal capabilities piece that functions as a summary of my work experience, while also folding in complimentary narative to illustrate the importance of this work as it relates to key motivating forces. The reasons “why I work.”

Over the next…however long…I will be posting some sketches of concepts, layouts, etc. as I begin to form ideas for the piece.

Check back soon and often for more!

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Sketches

5ive Reasons

Forgive the crudeness of these napkin sketches.

Using an eight column grid (w/4 rows = 32 modules) for structure, this gives a a fairly flexible range of layout parameters. Lots of room for variation if needed, but plenty of structure. With type fit in proportionally, I am hoping to end up with harmonious balance of image and type, with some interesting type “as form” to keep things dressed up.

I will plan to use this grid framework to hold a few kinds of information, including “hero” (headline) text, smaller narrative copy and perhaps caption copy to act as image callout / project summary.

Update:

I have given thought to two distinct approaches for this first concept. The first was, admittedly, one most like my usual line of thinking, using imagery consistent with what I have been using thus far in my identity.

The second was a decidedly different take, and a deviation even for me. This idea is directly influenced by Vignelli’s point that a cover should sometimes be quieter or simpler regardless of what may lie beyond it.

As he writes about covers in Vignelli: From A to Z:

…They all scream for attention, and in that noise nothing is noticeable. That is why I prefer covers that are silent, because a pause of silence is more noticeable.