BRB

Thank you for viewing Positive Negative.
Please hold for the Holidays.
Your comments will be answered in the order they were received.
Please enjoy the yule log while you frantically refresh the page until we return.
Thank you, and have a wonderful day.

Everyone Deserves a Break. Just not us.

Project One: Check.
Project Two: Next.

These past few weeks have kind of been a blur for many of us in this class.
It seemed as if we just started the new semester after Thanksgiving break.
As winter quarter just started to become our new routines, here we are; dispersed all over the country on Winter(Holiday/Christmas)Break.
Here at good old RIT, we have this lovely thing called the "Quarter System".
(To clarify,this means there are 4, 10 week terms throughout the year. The other type of calendar system is the semester system. There are usually two main semesters a year (fall & spring); each running between 15-17 weeks depending on the school. )
Imagine being a student (much less an art student) only having 10 weeks per class.
That averages just over 3 projects in 3 weeks (with a week for finals, of course).

This publication we're undertaking would take easily, several months to perfect and make "print ready" with any other group.
But us, we're special.
Not like the special your mom ensures you that you are.
I'm talking like the real "you-work-your-ass-off-and-it-creates-an-insane-work-ethic-and-personal-drive" special.
I think many people don't realize (or underestimate) the integrity of work RIT students hold.
Among our peers, more often than not we are very prepared for the industry.
Fast paced, and get it done yesterday mentality is more or less taught in art foundations.
I'm not joking. It's pass/fail.

Don't just flip through these pages and say "cool".
Take your time and look at each one.
For making flawless designs, and immaculate pictures in just a few weeks time is a skill and a gift.
I said I was impressed with this group.
I whole deeply mean it.

Stay tuned. Stay classy.

Clegg+Allen Project #1 Feature

Designer Megan Clegg talks about her first project with Photographer Jackie Allen.
" For our first editorial spread, we chose to showcase the poem "fa|ll|n's ", a litteral (spelled with two t's) poetics poem from the collection "+|'me'S-pace". Litteral Poetics is a division of psycholinguistics and a method for studying psychic structure in the English tongue from the viewpoint of poetry. The litteral perspective sees language not as a tool, but as an organ that has it's own vital function. The belief behind litteral poetics is that a variety of words can be explained as the different arrangements of a set of atomic characters.

Because the poem is so abstract in it's meaning, we decided we wanted to portray it's mood in our imagery and type. The poem has a feeling of isolation and frustration, which is compounded in the reader when they try to understand the poem. With so many of the alphabetic letters converted into punctuation and symbols, one has to go over the poem many times before they can grasp what is going on. The photo is composed of a bird's nest-like image filled with letters to further reflect the entanglement of meaning and type. It's a cluttered mess at first sight but the message becomes clear when light is poured through it. An excerpt of our poem is arranged to reflect the wispy look of the nest's tendrils, with an explanation of what litteral poetics is on the neighboring page. The whole composition comes together to produce a study of space and type, much as the poem itself does."

Pelz + Murtagh Project 1 Feature

We asked Photographer Nikki Murtagh to comment on her project#1. So, here's her dish!
"I worked with designer Sarah Pelz and photographer Evan Witek helped with lighting. Hopefully you can tell we took a negative approach. I really love how she (S. Pelz) took the minimalist approach we talked about and thought of a great design. We are thinking about playing with the shape and the placement of the string more possibly, but otherwise I’m happy with how this came out"

Location! Location! Location!

Spending two hours with a pair of tweezers and an array of clock parts doesn't sound like an ideal night, but for Photographer Jackie Allen, and Robert Luessen this is just the tip of the iceberg!
While shooting for his article about the Large Hadron Collider(LHC) Robert's eye for extreme detail helps Jackie while she is assisting with tiny little clock parts.
Styling is a thankless job until now! Way to go Jackie! YAY! *applause!!*

Ding, Round one.

Here was our first project: First project of Editorial class this winter. Our assignment was to choose an article that was either positive or negative and create a spread with what we thought illustrated not only the article well, but also conveyed our positive or negative viewpoint.
After 3 weeks of blood, sweat and tears our photographers and designers put up some really solid work for crits.
I'm sure I can speak for us all when I say "I'm glad that's over" However, it is with bitter sweet words.

There was a lot of really powerful pieces, as well as some really strange pieces!
We had topics ranging from swineflu, to dust, to body protection, to "the god particle", and everything in between.
We hope to publish a few pictures in the near future of these first spreads and show off the talent that our peers have.
Stay tuned. Stay classy.

It's new to us too...

I suppose since this is a new and different way to approach a class setting I suppose that it's a good idea to explain what this whole thing is...Grab a drink, and some popcorn and here we go....
So here's the situation...

We are an Editorial Design class at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). It's a blended class of Senior Graphic Designer and Senior Photographers.
This class focuses on editorial design (obviously) and publication output.
That's the coolest part of this class, the whole class's work is geared and focused to create a 100 page publication in 10 weeks. (that's how long our semesters are. Seriously)
Within the class we have elected a staff of students who guide this publication (art directors, photo editors, design directors, production managers,proofreaders, etc) The professors are running this more like a professional publication as opposed to a class. Student are ultimately responsible for the look, feel, tone, readability of this publication. The professors are there to help curb massive freak out.
Articles are determine by students, and organized by students. The assignment given by our professors is "Do your best work yet".
By far this class could be considered one of the most education classes in our academic career!
This publication is 100% fueled by donations.
This year is the 3rd year this class will produce an edition of Positive/Negative [the name of the publication

We hope that you join us as we mold this into the most proud work before we graduate in May.
Stay tuned. Stay classy.