Just ran across this photo of Darcy Bowden, my high school “Production Art” teacher, during a brief visit to Fathom last summer. Her class was a two-hour studio that I was able to take both my junior and senior year—my first exposure to real graphic design exercises (creating black and white ink drawings of concepts like “contrast,” or making artifacts in the style of other eras of design, and so many others...) and gave me a chance to build a portfolio that helped me get into design school. I'd wanted to take the class ever since reading about it in the course catalog as an eighth grader picking out courses for my first year of high school.
Ms. B also kept Phillip Meggs' History of Graphic Design (which at the time had a different—though still fairly atrocious—cover) checked out of the school library for the whole year, so I could read it from cover to cover. Such a great book, and perhaps a small thing, but huge for me to get that exposure as a seventeen-year-old. And she helped with the bigger things too—like introductions for internships and letters of recommendation for schools—but sometimes it's the small things (whether the design exercises, a great group of people for class crits, or history books) that really stick with you.
So thanks to Ms. Bowden and the many other great mentors I've had over the years, and here's to my friends who are teaching this fall and having the same kind of impact on their own students.
We’d love to hear what you’re working on, what you’re intrigued by, and what messy data problems we can help you solve. Find us on the web, drop us a line at hello@fathom.info, or subscribe to our newsletter.
