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tures in the not-for-profit world of the

WEEK 2 www.pen.org
Tuesday, Oct. 13: Started off the day with the weekly “traffic” meeting. The
idea of redoing the PEN logo comes up. Popular consensus is that its “ghastly.”
I’m honestly confused as to why it’s so universally hated, but I keep my mouth
shut. At the meeting, Anthony brought up the work flow arrangement, and that
all design jobs for me to do should go through him. Robyn reiterated the need
for a proper workflow arrangement briefly, in a slightly scolding way. No names
were mentioned, but I gave Caro a wink. Prior to the meeting, I brought up the
last minute resizing that I had to do at the end of the week with Anthony, and his
advice was that once I opened the door to taking any work that was brought to me,
I’d be inundated with tiny design jobs. We discussed the fact that since I work
Wednesdays when Anthony’s not around, it puts me in a difficult position to tell
people that they have to send their job briefs to him first before they come to me.
So it looks like while I’m at PEN, Anthony will be coming in on Wednesdays to
help me out.

I spent most of the rest of the day working on the Prison Writing postcard. All of
PEN’S flyers and promotional materials are printed inhouse from a giant Minolta
all-in-one machine. This is all well and good, but my Mac workstation doesn’t
print out, and so while I try to work out the details of getting the postcard files
print-ready, I have to keep jumping back and forth unto Anthony’s computer. This
is incredible inconvenient for both of us, but it’s what we have to do for now.
Hopefully we can get an IT guy to sort this out before the next big job.

Because of the printer and postcard paper we’re using, there’s an unfortunate need
to leave a quarter inch border around the original artwork. I’m not thrilled with
it, but I have to make the best with what I’m given. The postcards end up looking
pretty good as they are though. Compared to the mutiple versions I had to do for
the Natalya flyer, getting my concept approved was a relatively simple process this The postcards as they actually printed. I tried to figure out a way around the border issue, but we were pressed for time.

time around. Jackson (the event organizer) thanks me and says, “I love the brick
wall. That’s better than anything we came up with.” I honestly feel that it was
the least creative of the designs I turned in, but I guess the important thing is that
they’re happy.

There’s an event
that night, co-
sponsored by the
ACLU called
“Reckoning
With Torture”,
that both jobs I
worked on will be
distributed at. I
stop by the event
for a short while.
I’m impressed
by the ACLU’s
A previous postcard, NOT
flyers and posters, designed by me. I do like the
which contain graphic simplicity, though, and
the handprints of have a soft spot for the font used,
prisoners that have Impact. As blocky and inelegant
as it is, It’s gotten me out of many
been censored a headline jam, where space and
by the Dept. of readability would have otherwise
Defense with black been a problem.
marker.
 bearing in
witness
the legacy of
Chechnya
The PEN Prison Writing Program’s second annual benefit reading and reception, featuring readings by
Natalia Estemirova
Salman Rushdie Michael Arena
John Turturro, Mary Gaitskill, Patricia Smith, Eric Bogosian Elena Milashina Tanya Lokshina
and others.
Keith Gessen Zarema Mukusheva
Monday, November 9, 7 p.m. A evening of readings and conversations in remembrance of award-
WNYC Greene Space, 44 Charlton Street, NYC winning human rights activist Natalia Estemirova, who was murdered
Tickets: Collaborator, $75/Friend, $50. while working to uncover violations in Chechnya. The original web banner that Anthony hates.
Thursday, October 29, at 7pm FREE
CUNY Graduate School Proshansky Auditorium 365 Fifth Ave., NYC

www.pen.org
www.pen.org

Wednesday Oct. 13: Spent the early part of the day resizing the work I completed the day before, to be placed on the website and on
The Paris review web banner, that Anthony likes.
the screens of the NYPL. To me, this is actually a bigger deal than the flyers, as there are potentially thousands of people who will be
visiting the NYPL while the ads are onscreen. It’s unfortunate though, that these end up being even more text heavy than the original
designs. Blah. Oh well. It’s a start.

Everyone is thanking me for the work I did. Apparently there were a lot of positive comments from the night before about the an association of WRITERS
“provacative” flyer that we distributed. I like being thanked for the work I do. I used to work for people who thought because they
were paying me a salary they could treat me like shit. Now that there’s no money involved, I’m in a position where I can pretty much working to ADVANCE literature
get away with anything. Maybe that’s the key to being happy - I’ll play the lotto to make my millions, and then just do design for fun. and DEFEND free expression.
When Anthony gets in, he has me work on a design that will cross over from the masthead on the website to the flyers and petitions
that PEN sends out to its members. This is part of the “rebranding” assignment, to make sure that all PEN communications have about membership support programs publications contact search
the same look and feel. It ends up being a pretty laid back day. I have 8 hours to fool around with the various elements and so I take
my time. I look at a few of the sites of PEN’s peers, like the ACLU and MoveOn.org site, as well as the Paris Review. It seems like
Anthony’s main gripe with the old masthead is that it’s too busy. I strip down the elements to their core - the logo, the tagline, and the an association of WRITERS
web address, and start to build it back up. Past a certain point I feel lost. There are elements of my designs that I like, but I do so many working to ADVANCE literature
of them that it starts to feel like I’m just changing colours. I’ve always had a problem with minimalism - though I like minimalism in
other people’s work (especially Japanese and Scandinavian design), in my own work I worry that it feels lazy. “Less is more” is what and DEFEND free expression.
I keep hearing at Pratt, and I write it down every chance I get so that it becomes ingrained in my sensibility.
www.pen.org

LESS IS MORE An association of writers working

less is more to advance literature and defend free expression
www.pen.org
less is more
less = more An association of writers working
to advance literature and defend free expression
les = mor about membership support programs publications contact search

... but I think I’m happiest throwing everything on the page and giving the viewer epilepsy.
An association of writers working
to advance literature and defend free expression
epilepsy.
epilepsy.epilepsy.
epilepsy. TA KE ACTI ON
epilepsy.
epilepsy. EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.
epilepsy. epilepsy.
epilepsy.epilepsy.
epilepsy.
epilepsy. epilepsy.
EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.
epilepsy.
epilepsy.
epilepsy.
www.pen.org
epilepsy.
epilepsy. epilepsy. EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.
epilepsy.
EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.
EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.
epilepsy.
EPILEPSY.
epilepsy.epilepsy.
epilepsy.
My redesigns, attempting to reconcile the two. Trying to use the pen in the logo to interact with the rest of the design, and hopefully lead
the eye across.

epilepsy.