Drawing Inspiration
The Evolving Face of Main Streets, USA
Wednesday, March 25, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Randy Smith – Smith recently retired from a 35-year career as creative director for Jack Rouse Associates (JRA), where he provided design leadership for a variety of JRA’s museum and entertainment projects.
Muhammad nafisur Rahman – Rahman is an assistant professor of communication design at the University of Cincinnati’s Ullman School of Design at DAAP and research lead of the eXperiential Design Lab (XDL).
Stephanie Sadre-Orafai – Sadre-Orafai is associate professor of anthropology and director and faculty chair of the Taft Research Center at the University of Cincinnati/
Tod Swormstedt – Swormstedt is the founder and curator of the American Sign Museum. He formerly served as the editor & publisher of “Signs of the Times” magazine.
D.J. Trischler – Trischler is an assistant professor of communication design at the University of Cincinnati’s Ullman School of Design at DAAP
The American Sign Museum continues to both honor the heritage of signmaking and explore its future.
The new exhibition, “Back to the Drawing Board: The Art of the Sign Sketch 1925 – 1975,” looks at the process of creating a sign, from simple sketches to detailed renderings. It also offers a timeline of historic events, to give context to how signs changed with and during pivotal periods.
Typically headed for the trash after their usefulness has ended, sign sketches could be viewed simply as renderings for how a sign will look and function in its environment. That practical view does not do justice to the artistry and detail that signmakers put into these sketches.
This exhibition will take you “back to the drawing board” when considering what qualifies as art through an exploration of sketches spanning 50 years and gathered from across the country.
Digging a bit deeper into this concept, a panel of experts will discuss how graphic and commercial design have evolved over time in response to new technologies and cultural shifts and explore how the artistic process has been impacted. “The Evolving Face of Main Streets, USA” moderated by retired DAAP professor Randy Smith, will take place on Wednesday, March 25, from 7 to 8:30 p.m.
The main streets of communities across the U.S. are supported by their businesses. Those businesses are in turn supported by creatives across fields like graphic design and signmaking to create vibrant and memorable visual messaging that can turn streets into spectacles. Join the ASM for a panel discussion for a dive into how graphic design and signage in particular have shaped the face of main streets across the country over the past century.
With more than 75 sign sketches from the museum’s permanent collection and on loan from private collections, the self-organized exhibition brings 50 years of sketches from across the country together to explore the artistry of the signmaking process through objects that are usually never seen by those not involved in the work.