Art of the Hills Fall 2010

The business of art

GRAPHIC DESIGN: art for all of us

The art of Business

�MAKE YOURSELF UNCOMFORTABLE�:

knowing when you need A design PRO

branding madness the biggest ad job there is branding companies and branding communities with

sign language

design everyone can see

perspective Graphic designer

greg geiger

“Red Butte – Yellow Moon – Blue Night” An Acrylic on Canvas by Mark Zimmerman

"There are moments at the close of day—looking at the dark of night rising in the east, and the sun’s last radiant, red rays setting Red Butte afire—that stay in your mind’s eye long after a pale moon washes the colors away. It is in the evening that Harding County, South Dakota, is most enchanting and, some believe, enchanted."

EXPERIENCE

N a t i v e A m e r i c a n a n d Contemporar y Fine Art 2 7 7www.artofthehills.com Ma i n S t re e t , H i l l C i t y • 6 0 5 - 5 7 4 - 4 9 5 4 • w w w. L e at he r F ra me Ga l le r y. com

October 23 SYMPHONIC MASTERWORKS December 4 WINTER DREAMS December 31

A TALE OF TWO CITIES : NEW YEARS EVE IN VIENNA AND LONDON

March 5 VIRTUOSO April 9 DAKOTA PIANIST Tickets Call 1-800-GOTMINE or gotmine.com All Concerts at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Theatre

www.bhsymphony.org Your Community Orchestra

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Volume 4 Issue 2

From the Editor

4 Midwestern Mad Men:The Graphic Design Issue

How graphic design shapes the way we see—and think. And buy.

The Business of Art

8 Graphic Design: Art for All of Us by Marcia Mitchell

Graphic design—changing at the speed of technology.

What is Graphic Design?

by Justin Mather Is it art? Advertising? Communication? What?

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The Art of Graphic Design

16 by Travis Schaunaman and Nathan Cantwell

How creativity plays a part in the game of advertising.

Integrating Fine Art in Graphic Design

20 featuring Travis Schaunaman, Nathan Cantwell, and Sarah Carlson

Bringing various art forms together into the perfect design.

Beyond Words: Designing the Look of a Book I Am South Dakota by Toby Brusseau One project’s trip from concept to the bookshelf.

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The Art of Business

22 Make Yourself Uncomfortable by Ted Hereen

A humorous look at the realities of hiring someone to turn You into a Design.

Making John Lopez Uncomfortable

by Kristin Donnan Standard When Art of the Hills and a sculptor with big ideas faced off to design a book.

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Branding Madness

by Jason Alley The challenges of “bringing it all together” into a marketable brand. Also featuring

notes on branding companies and communities.

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Sign Language

by Janna Emmel The pervasive presence of signage, and how we can see, “hear,” and steer it.

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Perspective

The Column Formerly Known as Q&A, gone graphic Featuring graphic designer Greg Geiger—and his artwork.

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On the cover: One of Rapid City’s iconic signs, “a great example of graphic design as public art,” according to signage expert and Creative Director for AOTH, Ray Berberich, who also shot the photo. The sign can be seen at the corner of St. Joseph and 5th Streets.

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Photo by Jessica Simons

midwestern mad men Even on the Great Plains, graphic design has infiltrated our landscape. It defines how we perceive products, places, people, businesses, services, and ideas. It is so pervasive, so much a part of our everyday environment, that it becomes “invisible”—even as it shouts messages through every available medium. In effect, a global team of translators guides many of our perceptions.

Partly because of the pervasiveness of graphic design, the average person doesn’t think of it at all. When we do think of it, we consider whether we need it, how to integrate it into our projects, and whether we should focus on print, broadcast, or digital. We rarely consider the fundamentally artistic aspects of either our projects or the experts who help us create them.

This issue of Art of the Hills explores how graphic design artists must be students of art, concept development, marketing, and also culture. For them to create successful vehicles of information exchange—such as signage, branding, logos, and other “identity” materials—they must understand how people think. What they want. What they need to know to make decisions. What makes ideas exciting and interesting.

In this Graphic Design Issue, we begin with an exploration of how the discipline has changed over the most recent decades, and how both computer technology and desktop publishing have impacted the field—in topics from concept development to identifying the “design expert” (“Graphic Design: Art for All of Us,” page 8). Beyond offering a primer, however, we realized that coverage of this subject required the input of several graphic designers who could share their reflections about a variety of interrelated subjects. By definition, these topics had to weave together, even comment on one another. We asked for reflections on the purpose of graphic design (page 14), designers’ roles as “artists” (page 16), the role of fine art in design (page 20), and how graphic design defines the look of other media, including books (page 21).

We also explore the challenges faced by consumers when choosing a professional (“Make Yourself Uncomfortable,” page 22), and one example of an unsuspecting sculptor, John Lopez, who marched outside his comfort zone and into a relationship with graphic designers (page 26).

We then move into thinking about packaging, whether for a company or a community.

Developing a cohesive “brand” is perhaps the tallest order in the graphic design field (“Branding Madness,” page 28), whether for a company (page 31), or a community (page 32). We also profile the essential impact of signage, and explore how one community has approached the process of finding consensus on design, content, and placement (“Sign Language” page 34).

The art of designing “a look” or “feel” of a person, company, or town does not define everything graphic designers do. They also create video games, commercials, animation for movies, Web sites, and much more. They are the people who make your environment speak to you in images you recognize. And speaking of being recognized, sometimes one individual makes an indelible impact on a community by designing an array of different elements for different entities.

In “Perspective” (p. 44), we show how one graphic artist has done just that in the Black Hills.

Meanwhile, this magazine is itself an example of graphic design and how ideas are enhanced through the use of visuals. Still, when the Art of the Hills design team suggested this subject for an issue, I was at first...uncomfortable. I knew that graphic design was art, but I had never considered its scope, its reach, or its influence. Then I imagined these pages devoid of anything but words, and I picked up the phone. “I need a professional,” I said. “Wait, I need a herd of them.”

Kristin Donnan Standard 4

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WINE • FOOD • EVENTS

PUBLISHER Art of the Hills, LLC

EDITOR Kristin Donnan Standard

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Ray Berberich

associate designer Jessica Simons

FAMILY TABLE

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STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Neal L. Larson Jessica Simons Ray Berberich

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ADVISORY BOARD Linda Anderson Lynda Clark Jon Crane John Gomez Lori Nonnast Anna Marie Thatcher Graham Thatcher

INQUIRIES For customer service or subscription queries, changes and renewals, contact:

Art of the Hills Magazine P.O. Box 405, Hill City, SD 57745 info@artofthehills.com

IRON STAR by John Lopez on Hill City's Main Street

605-574-2810

Advancing the Arts in the Black Hills with Sculpture, Theatre, Film and Design

Art of the Hills is published bi-annually.

Proud Sponsor of Public Art in Hill City - Patriarch and Iron Star Sculptures The Black Hills Playhouse 2010 Summer Season Sculpture in the Hills - June 2010 The Black Hills Film Festival - May 2010 An Architecture Symposium - April 2010

Subscriptions mailed within the U.S. are $18 per year; to Canada & Mexico, $28; to Europe and Australia, $42.

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Comfort is a relative thing.

Our senses conspire to make

us feel comfortable and to avoid too much sameness, Mother Nature endows us with personal variations. Occasionally these variations morph into a perfect storm of sorts, attracting diverse personalities and mindsets to a common place.

Enter Black Hills.

A small area by some standards, yet a magnet for, but not

limited to, creative types. Nature buffs, history lovers, adventurers and rock hounds abound too. But this is about creative types. Fresh air, idyllic lakes and ponds, soaring rock formations and caves make the Black Hills an artist’s paradise.

Budding and established artists find common interests and uncommon interpretations, all celebrated and encouraged. This is a place where patrons can find just about any style and medium of art. That’s the really great part! Diversity! And all within easy grasp.

Signature members of Artists of the Black Hills are artists and

galleries who have joined together for the purpose of promoting the Black Hills as a destination for people who are interested in a fresh fine art experience. Spirituality is the driving force for some in this creative community, for others it’s a sense of history, and yet for others it’s the diverse beauty. Or maybe it’s a combination of all that speaks to the essence of the Black Hills. It is something special for each of us. You’re invited to join the experience.

Mick B. Harrison President, Artists of the Black Hills

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www.reflectionsofsouthdakota.com

Original Local Art Paintings • Photography • Pottery Jewelry • Sculpture • Baskets • Gourd Art Furniture • Specialty gifts and more 507 6th St. Rapid City • (605) 341-3234

The business of art

graphic design: art for

by Marcia Mitchell

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all of us

Fall2010

9 Photo by Jessica Simons

E

Every day of our lives, graphic design surrounds, informs, and influences us as does no other art form.

Think not? What about the games we play, the magazine covers that tempt us, the films we see, the layout and typography of the newspapers we read, the flyers and billboards and packaging and signage and branding and so much more that shapes the way we think and what we buy?

Design media are everywhere, and we are the audience. Whether we stop to think about it or not, we are clearly identified targets of skilled artists whose sole mission is to influence us through communication. Visual communication.

Picture this: It is 1851, and Herman Melville begins to write one of America’s great novels, Moby Dick. Soon, a wandering sailor named Ishmael, Captain Ahab, and the whaleship Peaquot make their first voyage—from inspiration to manuscript page. With only pen, paper, imagination, and wordsmith mastery, Melville has created a literary masterpiece. It is most likely reproduced with a mechanical typesetting device and the recently-patented rotary press, technology that will allow the book to enchant generations to follow.

Now picture this: Opposite page: The 2007 Black Hills Playhouse poster created by Hot Pink Ink. Agency co-owner Bill Fleming describes this series as a good example of how he and his painter-wife / business partner Susan Turnbull “play loose against tight (tension and release) in graphic design.... Susan is a romanticist and I am a classicist. Together we make this kind of interesting, post-modern-meta statement...on good days.” Image provided by Hot Pink Ink. Following pages, Top: Two screen shots from Opera Slinger, a wacky platforming and singing game developed at the University of Central Florida by 10 Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy (FIEA) students. Using a unique pitch detection system, Opera Slinger engages the player in a series of sing-offs against the destructive diva Aria in a ruined opera hall. Images provided by FIEA. Bottom: Another sample of Hot Pink Ink’s Black Hills Playhouse series, a 2006 brochure. Image provided by Hot Pink Ink.

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It is 2010, and graphic artist / educator Jack Lew suggests that university students explore a new method of creating and sharing the same arch-enemy whale, vengeful sea captain and wandering sailor. As a university administrator, he believes it’s an ideal assignment for graphics students who Lew says “grew up in a social community within the virtual landscape.”

In a course called “Books without Books,” professor Carla Poindexter takes Lew’s suggestion, and asks students if it wouldn’t be interesting to leverage the power of an iPad’s incredible capabilities to design illustrations for Moby Dick. Create the new edition using typography, graphics, even sound for the waves slamming against the Peaquot and the seabirds whistling overhead; click into the Internet to research story elements; utilize

all the other wonderful design tools stashed away in a single, handheld electronic platform. Not even in a laptop, mind you.

There’s more. Lew suggests that designing an interactive component for the newly illustrated novel could make it more enjoyable for the reader, who might like to add different sounds or replace the titanic white sperm whale with a more colorful creature.

Further, a well-designed Web site could provide linkage to a wellspring of information about whales or Herman Melville.

Dr. Lew, dean of Visual Communication at the Laguna College of Art and Design, is one of the most distinguished, most successful leaders and educators in the field of visual arts and design. In his role at Laguna, he oversees a division that includes Animation, Game Art, Graphic Design and Illustration—all reflecting an extensive background in design, one that included several years with Walt Disney Feature Animation.

Asked to define “graphic design,” Lew doesn’t separate design from the fine arts.

“Design is way of painting. It is illustration. It is also,” he adds, “creative problemsolving.” The prominent educator has been a painter, a calligrapher, and an illustrator on his way to becoming a graphic designer. “I’ve always been involved in art,” he says. At the moment, his focus is on Game Art—today’s most exciting graphic art medium.

The kids will tell you. Interactive is way cool and it’s where they want to be— especially with regard to their constant companion, The Electronic Game. There is no longer a need in a child’s life for an imaginary friend. In its stead is an image friend, a faithful, virtual pal.

Lew notes that game art is the career destination for a great many design students, soon-to-be professionals deep into an educational admixture of traditional studies and the latest innovations in the field. And the hottest of the latest is the video game, its industry the fastest growing media segment in the world. Global hardware and software sales are close to 57 billion dollars annually.

Those of us with a background in the art of the moving image are quick to insist that film is America’s “true collaborative art

form.” But Lew will successfully argue that video design is even more so. First consider only the graphic elements of films and games; both media require many phases of development and many professionals—artists and illustrators and inter-disciplinary designers and computer scientists and engineers and programmers. Still others who design for film also create sets or wardrobe or whatever; Lew trumps the entire process with the ultimate collaboration: “With games,” he says, “the viewer interacts with what’s on the screen.”

The viewer, the player, becomes something of a designer in the process. And since games reach more consumers than do movies, a designer has more opportunity to collaborate through that medium. However, as in good books and good films, success is finally determined by what is being communicated.

“Success of a moving image is more than technology,” Lew advises. “It’s really about stories—it’s the stories that have heart. You can have the most amazing graphics, but if they have no heart, they are, in a sense, meaningless.” By choosing Moby Dick, Lew reinforces salient points both about collaboration and about the critical need for an aesthetic, creative balance in the arts.

Lew advises students interested in graphic design to opt for a career where he sees the best opportunities. “Although,” he admits, “print still exists,” interactive media is currently the low-hanging fruit. In support of students following his career advice, he has established intern programs at Hallmark Cards, Disney, and learning institutions that include Laguna. He’s arranged internships with film studios, design firms, and video game companies. “They are extremely valuable for both the industry and the student,” Lew says. Students are provided with invaluable hands-on experience in the field, and industry gets a look at “some of the brightest minds to come.”

Education in the design arts faces a constant challenge of The New, with yesterday’s technology already tomorrow’s has-been. Effectively dealing with innovative issues requires putting new technology into a proper context. First, “while technology is a powerful, many-faceted tool,” Lew explains, Fall2010

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publish small books. We tell ourselves that we’re amazing, and perhaps we are—for selftaught amateurs who haven’t had a Jack Lew in our home office.

Next, picture this:

“a designer needs to understand the classical elements, the basic principles, of good design.”

Then, building on that foundation, the teacher must teach the student how to embrace, and not isolate, new design technology. And finally, Lew acknowledges, “Teachers have to accept the fact that their students may know more about the technology than they do.”

Today’s students, in whatever field, will have 10 to 14 jobs by the age of 38. Lew relies on that statistic when structuring graphic design curricula, recognizing that a good education in the field must transcend content, and reach into the fast-moving, unpredictable future of the students. “As educators, we must teach adaptability and creativity.”

And the fast-moving, unpredictable future impacts more than students. Even without benefit of graphic arts education, many of the rest of us have morphed from simple consumers into amateur practitioners. An evolutionary new tool in our own

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tech toolboxes continues to intrigue, delight, and challenge us. Design software has turned us, young and old, into amateur graphic artists. In the beginning, it was called “desktop publishing.” It hooked us with simple jobs formerly left with local print shops, like composing and illustrating holiday letters, birthday cards, posters for the garden club.

Together, we eager amateurs have helped put more than one small print shop out of business. Our family knows this to be true, having owned a decades-old print shop that shut down its presses because clients chose to do their own design work.

The truth is, although we’re certainly not ready to tackle Captain Ahab and Moby Dick in iPad class, we’re far better at designing on our personal computers than in those earlier days. The average computer operator now can accomplish more complicated layouts than before, experiment with typography, add photo-edited illustrations, even design and

It is the Middle Ages, and master painter Raphael is penning a letter to the Pope, as usual on fine lambskin. A recent innovation, moveable-type printing, has been inspired by exquisite penmanship like his. Gutenberg’s printing press has the potential to change the world of communication—and as time goes on, it surely will. Perhaps Raphael has certain expectations regarding the beautifully designed and printed works those early presses will create. Perhaps he expects something profound about how we will be reflected in our communication, and what communication will say about us.

The history of graphic design is so much the history of typography that for eons it was defined by typographical styles. It was not until 1922 that the term “graphic design” was used in reference to a discipline as old as humankind, one once defined by cave drawings and now defined by terabytes and processor speed. This history, and even more the philosophy of design, interests design icon Bill Fleming of Rapid City’s Hot Pink Ink. “The field is always changing,” Fleming says. “We are always changing the tools, although the aesthetic and intent have remained constant….What constitutes the old lessons remains the same—lessons pertaining to proportion and impact of the page, and to design principle continuity.

“The intention of a good design is that it effectively conveys information, information that needs to get off the page and into the reader’s mind with as little effort as possible on the part of the reader.” Getting the message across is everything. “We usually have to convince young designers that their job is not to be decorators. They’re not making paintings to hang on the wall. They’re making things that have to work in sequence in a level of perception of low consciousness. They’ve got a tenth of a second, or no one will get the message,” he says.

The prestigious, award-winning designer has a unique background and a college degree in fine arts. He is an accomplished musician, songwriter, and painter. Asked what inspired him to enter the graphic design world, he answers with typical directness: “Money.”

Fleming first accepted a job in an advertising agency while in the midst of pursing a recording deal. The shift happened thanks to Jim Higgins, a prominent Washington, D.C., advertising creative director. Higgins first told Fleming, “It’s going to be a long time before you’re making money in the arts,” and then got him the job. Thus began Fleming’s career in design, quite a change of direction for a young man who had dreams of becoming a famous musician or “another Picasso or Van Gogh.” Fleming says it took him three or four years to learn his craft, “a humbling experience,” adding that he’s done the learning over and over and over again.

While this has been a process near and dear to his heart, in a field he deeply appreciates, Fleming feels decidedly less dear regarding aspects of both the development and the current state of design.

For example, asked if creativity is thriving or wilting in a society of amateurs now equipped with design software, Fleming makes his feelings clear. “What all of this has done is to enable anybody to lay out and publish anything they want.” In the past, he says, the overall level of creativity in society used to be “pretty invisible,” and “you had to work hard to get your bad design in front of people.”

Things are different today. We live within a broadened social aesthetic, what Fleming calls a “movement for reality—a notion that everything can be art or elevated to art level.” Stuff of the absurd, ugly stuff, whether designed at home or in a professional studio, can be “art and placed in a gallery.”

As for process, simply being able to create—in the sense of bringing something into existence—doesn’t imply being creative in the aesthetic sense. That is, just because one owns Adobe software doesn’t mean one is…good. At least not at first. “You don’t get anywhere,” the veteran designer insists, “until after the first 2,000 mistakes. And there’s a

whole lot of people working on 2,000 mistakes in a flood of horrible designs.”

For those who are adept, and successful, getting the message off the page—or off the wall or off the billboard—and into the mind inevitably is a power play. Fleming cites the power of Nazi symbols and designs in communicating Hitler’s message. A very different, and very powerful message is found in Rome.

“The Sistine Chapel is a work of design. It’s the whole story of Christianity.” (The Church, he says, is “a huge graphic design client.”)

And political campaigns are ad campaigns, their candidates fully aware of the power of design elements in winning elections.

There is no doubt about it. “A graphic designer has a powerful set of tools at his disposal,” says Fleming.

What about his own use of those tools?

Does the local designer work for anyone who knocks on Hot Pink’s door, regardless of the message to be conveyed?

“I do not.” Fleming’s personal ethic forces him to make decisions about clients and what they have to sell. This is not always a simple matter, as clients sometimes don’t know that they want to say or how to communicate it.

“It’s almost like being a business psychiatrist.

We have to work to find out who they are and who their customers are—to find out what they have that is unique.”

Although his personal preference is a position of “neutrality,” Fleming’s ethic also has expressed itself through social advocacy, including a successful attack on plans to establish a nuclear waste plant in Edgemont, South Dakota. The opposition had one million dollars for its campaign; Fleming’s team won with a creative budget of $16,000. In another campaign, he produced posters and other media for the Caesar Chavez-led United Farm Workers Union boycott of nonunion lettuce and grape growers. “It was a human rights issue,” he explains.

Fleming describes the best, most powerful aspects of his chosen field. “Art is a way that shows us how to look at ourselves. We’re watching ourselves watch ourselves,” he explains. “Art has always been about that— going through a gallery and seeing who we are. It is a modern aesthetic getting more

complicated, as are we, as a society. Art, graphic design, is a reflection of who we are as a society.”

Fleming points to Paris as being a model and wellspring of good design. “Paris has been about the liberation of human spirit in creativity—all the way back to the Middle Ages. Notre Dame was started in 1150, but stand in the back and it still looks like the future.” He finds even lettering on Parisian signs to be beautiful. “Beautifulness is a good communicator,” he believes.

“If form follows function, beautifully designed messages do their job.” A small example is the name of Fleming’s company, which came from his wife and business partner’s experience as a toy designer. Susan K. Turnbull, a noted painter, children’s book illustrator and creative director for their Rapid City design agency, works with the country’s biggest toy industry companies. Fleming says “Hot Pink” is a name people “can understand and buy into.” It has spirit and quality and, certainly, color. And it’s a lot more interesting, he notes, than “The Fleming Agency.”

By whatever name, Fleming’s agency is considered exceptional, not only in South Dakota, but also far beyond its borders. Maybe he’s earned the right to fall into one more characteristic, wistful moment. He reflects back on his roots, the Middle Ages when work was handwritten on lambskin pages, and says that the “new” moveable type failed on the artistic level. It simply couldn’t match “the beauty of the ancient, esoteric work.”

“The state of the art of graphic design has gone downhill ever since,” he sighs.

Maybe that perspective—remembering what works and what doesn’t, why we do it, and when we shouldn’t—is what makes Hot Pink so hot.

Marcia Mitchell is the former Associate Director of the American Film Institute and a local prize-winning author of non-fiction and fiction books, among many other accomplishments in the public and private sectors. She also contributes time, energy, and considerable talent to non-profit organizations in Hill City, South Dakota, and in various other locales around the world.

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What is graphic design?

By Justin Mather

According to Mr. Webster, graphic design is the art of combining text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books. A more recent definition (Wikipedia) describes it as a creative process—most often involving a client and a designer, and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form, such as printers, programmers, signmakers—to convey a specific message to a targeted audience.

Both are very accurate as far as definitions go. Graphic design is most definitely an art, skill and creative process, but those are simply just descriptive words. You could say Michelangelo was a “good painter,” or Michael Jordan was a “good basketball player,” but it doesn’t quite do them justice. So how do you describe an artform that has been and always will be amazing?

Let’s consider a couple of things: 1) Graphic design has been around for as long as anyone reading this can remember. Even though it shows no signs of being a living organism, it contains all the elements. Breathing, eating, drinking and sleeping are all characteristics of a living being. Graphic design can be used to portray all of these. With the right combination of elements, like photography, typography and color, any emotion or feeling can be expressed. And when used correctly, art in graphic design can move you to act on these feelings and emotions.

2) Although technology has molded and pushed this art form to new heights, the building blocks remain the same. You have to understand it, be amazed by it and know how to channel it.

Just because you’ve purchased a fast computer with all the latest software doesn’t mean you are a graphic designer, just as buying the best paints, brushes and canvas won’t make you a painter.

Great tools certainly help, but true art in graphic design comes mainly from within.

Millions of words can be used to describe this artform. You don’t need to be an artist to determine if a piece is good or bad, right or wrong. You don’t have to classify or describe it, or compare it to anything else. You just have to open your eyes and look at it. Then ask yourself, “Did it do anything for me?”

Justin Mather is Director of Print Production at BBM Studios, a division of Robert Sharp & Associates, an advertising and marketing firm in Rapid City.

It happens every year: the Central States Fair needs a new theme and a rockin’ new event logo. That’s where we come in. We always approach logo design with a great deal of caution and thought. Since the Central States Fair organization logo has been a mainstay for years, visible on hats, apparel and countless other media, we try to incorporate that logo into the event logo whenever possible. If that doesn’t work, we are careful to include the organization logo into the advertising, alongside address and web information, to keep the messaging and brand awareness consistent. Images courtesy of BBM Studios / Robert Sharp & Associates.

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John Lopez Sculptures MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE IN SCRAP IRON & BRONZE www.lopez-ranch.com.

“DAKOTAH”, a lifesize hybrid metal sculpture See “DAKOTAH” in John’s new book In Fields of Iron.

To order this book mail a check for $23.00 to: John Lopez Studio • 19493 Railway Street Lemmon, SD 57638

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The Art of graphic Design

By Travis Schaunaman and Nathen Cantwell

Whether design is or is not art has been a matter of perspective ever since people first began combining images and type for posters printed lithographically in the early 1800’s.

The debate arises from dueling aspects of graphic design—it is aesthetically pleasing, yes, but its primary function is business related; graphic design visually communicates a specific message to a selected audience. Given its graphic nature and related techniques used for reproduction, pieces designed for business use often resemble art on one or even many levels. In fact, with some design, the only notable distinction separating it from fine art is its origin. While graphic design is the product of a finite business need, fine art generally is created to express an artist’s personal sensibilities.

The thought of designing an advertisement causes some to imagine a whip being brandished by a greedy organization; the graphic itself might be seen as something being created for the express purpose of benefiting the company’s bottom line. Audiences might feel manipulated, even coerced. In cases like this, such a brazen display of corporate servitude might not fit the notion of art, nor the designer that of the free-spirited artist.

Any disconnect perceived between art and design was exacerbated as the term “graphic artist” became more prevalent and inclusive; to the already-skeptical, such a term suggested that people creating corporate newsletters, operating machinery at a commercial press, and imprinting logos on golf balls felt their tasks constituted a genuine artistry. Purists with “fine art” on their minds didn’t buy it.

Thankfully, there are more and more designers who treat graphic design as something more than scaling logos or simply pasting vector paint splatters. These skilled design professionals and illustrators conquer some of the toughest challenges in business with thought-provoking design. In many circumstances, the graphics produced for a new brand, marketing material, or Web sites are created with the same processes as traditional forms of fine art.

The increasingly artistic nature of graphic design stems in part from education. Today, design courses spend as much time teaching art history and technique as they do graphics software and typesetting. Many who’ve entered the field in the last decade haven’t given a thought to whether they’re creating art. It’s become implied.

Fine art strives to push the lines of perception and to challenge a viewer’s way of thinking. Unquestionably, graphic design can, and does, do the same thing. Whether it is done for a cleverly designed brochure, an elegant logo mark, or an avant-garde poster graphic, good design is about engaging an audience’s aesthetic sensibilities—a fundamental purpose of art of any stripe.

One of America’s most influential contemporary designers, Stefan Sagmeister, pushed the envelope when he had an intern carve text into his skin with an X-acto knife, had himself photographed, and then designed a postcard using that image for an American Institute of Graphic Arts announcement. Exhibitionism? Maybe. Art? Definitely. Effective graphic design? You bet. A paying client had come to the door, looking for a postcard design, and walked away with a print-ready file produced in a design program; the client also received a thought-provoking image appropriate for the occasion. Considering all factors, this piece both defines the field and pushes the limits of graphic design—and our ideas of graphic art.

A less exhibitionistic and perhaps more accessible example is the giant “I amsterdam”

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sign, the letters of which stand taller than a man and sprawl across one hundred feet. The sign looks and feels like a sculpture and it consistently engages viewers; in fact, the sign has become an icon for the city. All day, every day, passersby climb all over the installation to have their photos shot. Interesting when we consider that this piece of art is actually “simply” a giant version of the typeset slogan used in a citywide self-promotion campaign.

The sign is at once an advertisement and art.

Europe and New York are places where art is thoroughly integrated into culture, so it’s no surprise that graphic design emerging from these places blurs the line separating art and design. Is the same happening here in the Midwest?

Production Monkeys, in Aberdeen, South Dakota, produced a logo mark for Letterpress Light (seen on page 16) that not only fit the design criteria brought by the client, but also went a step further. The two abstract L’s create a contemporary feel, hinting at the modern printing process the business uses to create inexpensive letterpress-style printed pieces.

The shape also conceals an H and an N, the initials of the owner of the company. A plan was formulated for the design before the first mouse click, with both artistic and practical agendas; the process unfolded much like an artist’s thought process, all in an effort to arrive at a finished product.

The industry also has seen a conscious push for creative expression by designers themselves, who continue striving to combine fine art and illustration with design. Indeed, 18

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by carefully selecting clients and media, some designers have joined a movement in the last decade to treat design exclusively as art.

Designers aggressively pursuing design in this fashion include poster art firms like Aesthetic Apparatus, which recently unveiled a ten-year retrospective at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and The Small Stakes, who recently released a collector coffee table book of their poster art.

Unquestionably, this type of graphic design is true art by every definition, from the intention of its creator, to the process used to produce it, to its audience’s interpretation.

These are the projects that all artists-turneddesigners look forward to being assigned.

The challenge that good designers face every day is to produce a piece that satisfies the client and effectively delivers its message.

And the great ones do both, all the while creating art.

Travis Schaunaman, creative director and principal, along with Nathen Cantwell, art director and illustrator, are the creative force behind Production Monkeys, an independent design firm located in Aberdeen. They focus on quality work, fast turnaround, and a unique and fun client experience, making them a leader in original and innovative South Dakota design.

For more information, and to view their portfolio, visit: www.productionmonkeys.com

Previous page: The Production Monkeys Letterpress Light logo that incorporates the feel of both a modern printing process and the more vintage letterpress style.

Image provided by Production Monkeys.

a pr i l 26

Opposite page, left: This icon was created for Property Management Plus by cleverly integrating the letters P and M, and adding a plus sign. Considering the type of business requiring the logo, the mark was created with a concise and ordered feel. Image provided by Production

T. noon S. MAIN S

god johnson gold standard

Monkeys.

$6

groove reflex skully knuckles pops blues rhythm band mojofilter blackat bone

Opposite page, right: The 100-foot-long “I amsterdam” sign that blurs the line between graphic design and sculpture. The portable piece is strategically placed around the city, creating endless new and exciting photo opportunities. Image by Jos van Zetten.

This page, top left: A sample invitation for the annual Marketing Architects Christmas party, which expresses the company’s desire to create a fun, branded theme.

Image provided by Production Monkeys.

Top right: A membership brochure created for South Dakotans for the Arts, inspired by the Production Monkeys’ work for the Aberdeen Area Arts Council. This piece features the artwork of Paul Peterson. Image pro-

A Chubby puppy Production

POST JAM SESSION RED ROOSTER

Left: The “Rock the Block” poster also features a unique mix of art that spans multiple genres. Image provided by Production Monkeys.

Sponsored by

Pauer Sound Quality Quick Print Shrunken Head Tattoos C-Express Production Monkeys

Print Material Created by ProductionMonkeys.com

12 HRS OF MUSIC +

vided by Production Monkeys.

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INTEGRATING FINE ART IN GRAPHIC DESIGN Handled correctly, mixing fine art and graphic design can create a piece of work that truly spans many genres of art. Production Monkeys used their on-staff illustrator and the expertise of their designers to create just that for a 2008 Mardi Gras invitation for a non-profit organization’s fundraising gala.

Here is a walk-through of the process, from conception to the final product.

• Step 1— A rough sketch and concept layout were put together to give the client an idea of what the designers were up to when they proposed a multi-part invitation with a bit of Cajun flair. At this step, sketches, design size and layout were approved, and Production Monkeys got to work.

• Step 2— Custom illustration of the featured Mardi Gras couple was simplified into a line drawing to give the piece an Art-Nouveau-like feeling.

• Step 3— Because the invite was set to print using only one color of ink, many options for color and shading were presented to make sure the final piece was exactly what the client was after.

• Step 4— With the final India Ink illustration complete, the design received its finishing touches and was printed on a heavy metallic cover. The right side of the invite was mailed to guests, with the bottom portion being an RSVP card. The left side awaited attendees at the event and was used as a donation card.

Travis Schaunaman and Nathan Cantwell

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Sarah Carlson, associate creative director for TDG Communications in Deadwood, says the foundation of her design work is best explained by Degas’s quote: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” In considering how fine art can be used in design, she offered samples from promotional materials she produced for the Historic Homestake Opera House in Lead. She sits on the board for the nonprofit organization, a 1914 theater known for showcasing dance and drama.

In 1984, a fire gutted the building, leaving scorch marks that scarred large hand-painted murals that had circled the theater’s ceiling.

In creating brochures, publications, posters and mail pieces for the 2010 season, Carlson chose to “photograph and use as art elements features of the interior walls of the theater, including the scorch marks and old paint.”

Despite how badly the building was burned, she says it is still beautiful, even through its restoration process. “You get a feel for what the intricate plasterwork must have been like,” she says. “I hoped to create a tangible feeling in the design. I shot photos of the pieces of the plasterwork and created elements to use throughout all the promotional materials. Pieces of burned structure worked like fine art for these materials.”— KDS

beyond words: designing the look of a Book I am south dakota By Toby Brusseau

It all started with an idea: I wanted to make a book combining photo essays with the written word. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I ended up taking a crash course in one of the most important aspects of creating a book—a course that holds the potential to either make or break the project. Book Design 101.

Since I Am South Dakota would profile 10 unique South Dakotans, and feature their amazing hobbies and/or jobs, I realized a potential layout nightmare. We’ve all seen overdesigned books, consisting of a haphazard mélange of pictures and words, resulting in what some refer to as art, and I refer to as garbled. For I Am South Dakota, I wanted the art to shine through in the simplicity of each photo on the page. Let it speak for itself.

I realized I needed professional assistance, so I collaborated with Savannah Tranchell, a talented designer with the Rapid City Journal. We decided to think “real estate.” Lots of space. No over-crowding. We wanted selected photos to breathe on the 6 x 9 pages.

But first we started with the cover, which required special consideration. On average, people look at a book cover for seven seconds.

Let me repeat that: Seven seconds. That’s not a lot of time to win your readers over. You’d better have one amazing photo. I had 400.

I had taken portraits of people from all over South Dakota, including my 10 stars.

Leaning toward a bright cover that would attract the eye with color and pattern, we chose 300 photos with which Savannah created a colorful collage. We then highlighted the people featured in the stories by placing a white border around their portraits, allowing them to stand out from the rest.

For the interior pages, I elected something different: a clean, straightforward design.

With the help of photo editors Ryan Soderlin and Kristina Barker, we narrowed down the number of interior photos to 103. Then we started each chapter with a large portrait of the featured person, followed by supporting photos interspersed throughout the story.

We attempted to have photo placement correspond with the appropriate portion of the story, so the reader could have a visual image of what was happening in the text.

Speaking of text, I learned how important font selection is to book design. We wanted to choose something that would complement the content, look alluring to the eye, and hold the reader’s attention. Also, using a font size that was too large might be distracting; too small, potentially difficult to read.

And to attract the reader’s attention, we changed and enlarged the font for especially

noteworthy quotes, and then placed them next to photos that seemed particularly eyecatching. We hoped that if a person picked up the book and only leafed through it for a few seconds, these quotes would pop with something funny or meaningful. In turn, presumably this would prompt more page turning, or perhaps even a purchase.

After the final design and layout were completed, the files were sent to the press, proofs were created to identify and correct any errors, and the finished product was sent to my doorstep for distribution.

What had started as an idea—content— had become an exercise in how to best present the content so that others could first be attracted to it, and then read and enjoy it. I learned that making a book requires the expertise of professionals who can take my words and photos and do things to them.

Format them, arrange them, edit them, size them, even cut them out entirely. The process can be difficult and, at times, frustrating, but ultimately it was very rewarding. A solid, clean design is always in style—and is more likely to stand the test of time.

Find Brusseau’s book at www.iamsouthdakota.net or www.tobybrusseau.com. Above: Book spread provided by the author.

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the Art of Business

Make yourself unc by ted hereen

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ncomfortable

Y

You learn to enjoy the awkward silences. Savoring the nervous shuffles of feet, business papers, odd sounds that people make with their mouths when they’re not paying attention to what their mouths sound like, long drawn-out sentences bravely captained by those who aren’t really sure what they’re supposed to say—at some point in your career you begin to love these moments, because it is in these moments, these uncomfortable moments, that game-changing ideas are born. That is, if you have the stomach for them.

Most artist-types deal with this sort of thing all of the time, whether they realize it or not.

I’m referring to the mystical span of minutes that follows a creative presentation, minutes that feel more like hours while the boss or the buyer or whoever it is who gets to decide, decides. It’s like a Bermuda Triangle for great ideas. Big ones float in there all pretty, mounted on boards, the sun glinting off their glossy finishes and everything, and then—I don’t know—maybe massive rogue waves or sharks or rogue sharks swallow them up and they’re never heard from again.

So what happens? Why do some of the brightest ideas in communication art and graphic design go missing? Nobody knows, but I have a theory.

I tend to think that it’s because in these awkward moments, many artists lose their nerve.

They can’t stand the discomfort of not knowing what someone is really thinking, and in that moment of not knowing, they are swept out to sea by Doubt. Instead of giving their client a little space to absorb and ponder, they talk themselves out of their brave, creative, unique idea, and in turn they lose a chance at doing something special.

Then again, show me a client who hasn’t killed a big idea or two thanks to a dose of discomfort and I’ll stop writing about creativity—and instead, I’ll answer the whole Bermuda Triangle mystery in the next five hundred words. Or better yet, the Cosmos-Mystery-Area mystery. The point is, nobody knows. The collaborative creative process between an artist and a client is full of wonder, and most of the time, pain.

So, if its only going to cause you discomfort, why go through with it in the first place? It’s a fair question. Why work with a graphic designer? For starters, and this comes from a far greater business authority than I, a good graphic designer can make you rich. Good graphic design pays off, and most average people—sorry, but it’s true—simply can’t make it on their laptops.

If this sounds like something you might pick up on Madison Avenue, then I’m hitting home. I just watched the movie trailer for the Wall Street sequel and I think Gordon Gecko said that same thing, almost verbatim. Or was it Charlie Sheen? I guess it doesn’t matter; the point is that a good graphic designer, or better yet, a good creative firm with graphic designers and copywriters working together, can make your business sing in ways you never thought possible. You pay them to learn the ins and outs of what you do. They’ll study the features and benefits of your business. They’ll work to understand your objectives and target audience. And if all goes well, they’ll walk into that conference room and fearlessly deliver massive ideas that communicate, tell your story, inspire, and line your pockets with enough money to buy majority stock in Teldar Paper.

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Of course, this only happens when you choose the right graphic designer. And how are you supposed to do that?

Aberdeen native Mary Groth knows all about the collaborative process between an artist and a client. “If they’ve seen your work, and they really like your work, you’re that much more assured that you can do something that will satisfy them,” she said in a conversation we shared outside of her fine arts studio in Sioux Falls. “I don’t want to get involved in any kind of a project where 24

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I’m always wondering if they have any idea of what they’re going to get, and have no assurance that they’re going to like it. So I always show them work, previous work. If they haven’t seen anything of mine, I take them through my portfolio. If they want something that has portraiture in it, I’ll get out a lot of samples that have portraiture. I try to show them examples.”

Inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1995 as artist of the year, Groth makes her living selling original works of art

as well as doing commissioned pieces for a wide range of clients. Though Groth is a fine artist and not a graphic designer, her understanding of the creative process is vast.

“Do you ever get to a point where you feel that the client just doesn’t get it, and you’re not going to please them?” I asked.

“I find that I can usually resolve those things,” Groth explained. “You know, when I do commission work I sometimes think of myself as an illustrator. If I’m getting farther from the core of my own style, I then move into my illustrator mode, because as an illustrator, my job becomes to interpret (the client’s) idea . I try to find a way to do what I do, but I will tweak it and change it...to make the client happy.”

Groth explained that regardless of the type of project she’s working on, her main objective is always to deliver a successful piece of art. As you know if you’ve ever wandered around in a gallery, a quality work of art might communicate one hundred different ideas to one hundred different viewers, but it isn’t a Mary Groth until it meets her personal artistic vision. This highlights a key difference between the creative process of a fine artist, and that of a graphic designer.

Eva Hofer has been working as a graphic designer for the past 20 years. She is currently the Senior Art Director at Fresh Produce Inc., an advertising agency based in Sioux Falls. Hofer believes that the most challenging part of the creative process is in knowing that there are hundreds of solutions for each visual problem. Her objective is to create one solution that successfully communicates, thus achieving the client’s objectives.

In the business of advertising and communication arts, a piece is successful when it sends the right message, tells the right story, and evokes a certain type of feeling or reaction. This gets to the very heart of the pain.

It’s not about what you, as a client or a designer, “like”; it’s not about making an Eva Hofer; it’s about what the design communicates. To the audience who lines your pockets.

If you want to successfully collaborate with a graphic designer, prepare to embrace the discomfort now. Allow the graphic designer to push you, understanding that the push comes from professional experience, and the push is necessary to develop a compelling piece that will evoke the right response. If you’re a graphic designer, get used to the idea that you’re going to have to do some pushing, which can sting from time to time, but if you prepare clients for it early in the process, and they understand what they’re getting themselves into, the sting can actually be… fun.

So, hopefully, you’re less confused now than you were before. But if you’re not, if all of that Cosmos-Mystery-Area talk turned your world upside-down, allow me to give you my slicked-back-hair-charlie-sheen-powersuit-“why say it in 1,000 when you can say it 10”-elevator-speech: If the creative process doesn’t make you uncomfortable—then you’re not doing it right. Okay, it was more like 14 words, but you get the idea.

Ted Heeren is Creative Director and Coowner of Fresh Produce, an advertising agency based in Sioux Falls, as well as Creator and Producer of The Rock Garden Tour, a weekly rock and roll gardening show heard statewide on South Dakota Public Broadcasting.

Previous page: One image from Neighborhood Dental’s marketing campaign. The company set the tone for its brand, and the Fresh Produce Advertising Agency created “light, funky, and fun” ads that are used online, in print media, and on location in the dental offices.

Opposite page, top left and right: This Sioux River Folk Festival ad campaign works from an organic feel inspired by “nature, rural life, and traditional music.”

These folk fest posters were intended to feel artistic and imaginative.

Opposite page, bottom left: An image created by Mary Groth for a print campaign developed by Fresh Produce for a specialty hospital.This image is not a logo, but instead an original illustration by a regional artist. The piece is designed to communicate comfort, compassion, and caring, in an original way.

This page: A Fresh Produce campaign developed for North Central Insurance, a client looking to “shake things up a bit.” This billboard design features some playful illustrations contrasted by a straight-forward headline. The agency also developed some direct mailers that featured an illustrated duck, a caveman, a lizard, as well as a gecko-cave-duck.

Illustrations provided by Fresh Produce.

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making John Lopez unc by kristin donnan standard

This magazine is a work of graphic design, and its design is created by Ray Berberich and Jessica Simons. This team also designs other publications, one of which provides a peek into the art of “making yourself—and your client— uncomfortable” (p. 22).

The task: Sculptor John Lopez, who for years has offered calendars featuring his artwork, wanted to produce a comprehensive book called In Fields of Iron. He arrived in our office with a mocked-up version of the project, complete with (excellent) photos he had taken and detailed captions. In his collaboration with Art of the Hills, he expected to become somewhat uncomfortable. “I had gotten used to doing things the same way, and I wanted to change it up. I wanted somebody else’s perspective, but that’s where you have to let the designers do their thing. That was hard for me to do,” he said.

One might expect that since John has a background in graphics, the design process might be streamlined. One expert talking to another. Shop talk.

That isn’t what happened. “Design is a creative process that sometimes is tough for the average client to relate to, even if they’re artistic in other ways,” Ray explained. “But John’s background probably made it even tougher, because our conversations then could seem like more of a critique of his style than just advice to a client.”

“I’m so used to doing everything myself, personally,” John says. “That was my challenge. Usually I just do everything my own way, and now I was asking for help.” Plus, John has a lifetime of experience listening to his buyers—and he knows what they like best, what they focus on in his unique hybrid metal artwork. “I had each detail in my mind, wanting to show this little thing, that little boy, that little wrench. I knew what people 26

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usually notice in my work, I hear them talk about it, and I came in thinking that’s what I wanted in the book.”

All those little wrenches add up to a lot of pictures—and a lot of pages. Figuring out the balance between content and budget provided one of this project’s moments of discomfort. More pages cost money, and John had a limit. Ray had a limit, too—for how full to make those pages. “White space in any book helps the eye travel through the pages.

Your eye needs downtime,” Ray said. “Like in music, there’s highs and lows; you can’t listen to the same tone all the time. In a book, you want those visual shifts. White space helps the overall project ‘read’ better to the eye.”

By definition, Ray and Jessica therefore leaned toward fewer images to make each statement, and John leaned toward more detail. He wanted his patrons to be able to enjoy all those favored little farm implements.

In the end what made the book better was compromise. “I think we could have used even more white space, but we compromised between his initial vision and our recommendations,” Jessica said. “What usually separates the client from the designer is emotion—it’s not going to hurt our feelings if someone decides something we don’t recommend.”

“You do have to get past the discomfort,” John said. “You have the sweat on the brow and you ask, ‘should I fight for this?’—but it’s not as hard as you think. Ray had a vision and I had one, and you battle it out. But in the long run it made the book better.”

“Maybe John saw our back-and-forth as a conflict, and I saw it as getting through the design process,” Ray said. “This is how it goes. You throw something out and we throw something out—and ultimately if the author says ‘this is how it’s going to be,’ then that’s it.

That’s how it’s going to be.”

ncomfortable “They saved the book from looking like my calendar,” John concluded. “That’s why I wanted someone else to do it. And I don’t think I would ever do another one myself. I have ideas, and I am the artist, but I think it’s important that somebody else tells the story.”

Next time John says he will save himself some of the discomfort. “I’ve learned to say what I’m thinking in a nice way. You’re working with professionals, and you have to put

out there what you want, or you’re not going to get what you want,” John reflects. And then he reflects for a moment more. “Yeah, next time I’m going to come in with guns a’blazin’.”

John’s book, In Fields of Iron, is on sale through his website, www.lopez-ranch.com, at Dakota Nature & Art Gallery in Hill City, and from the bed of his pick-up.

Below: Two spreads from John Lopez’s book, In Fields of Iron. These pages illustrate how the artist and designers collaborated successfully on the design. The process was easy for the top spread, on which everyone agreed immediately. However, in the bottom one, John preferred photos with more traditional side views, whereas Ray preferred more dynamic shots. John compromised, especially because these photos included less distracting backgrounds, allowing the viewer to focus on the artwork. No guns blazed, and no designers were harmed in the creation of these pages.

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Branding madness

by Jason Alley

A

Above: A poster series created by the Message marketing and communications firm for Reddmen, “a garage rock, power-pop band” from Rapid City, South Dakota, who have been featured on television, national radio, and in print publications. Images provided by Message.

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American Movie Classics, the cable network known as AMC, has pulled back the curtain on what goes on in an advertising agency. Not because it created an award-winning ad campaign, but rather by reintroducing Madison Avenue to America via the industry’s golden age, the 1960s. Mad Men also has launched everything from social media blogs and interactive casting calls for the show to an iPhone app designed to tap into popular vintage cocktails—one of the tools of the fictional trade. And, well, the notso-fictional one, too.

The show’s popularity reminds me of why I love going to the occasional cocktail party.

Now, when someone lights a cigarette, and asks, “What do you do?”, all I have to say is, “Advertising.” More often than not, this answer elicits a string of non-related follow-up questions: Do you still drink and have affairs

and plot to stab others in the back? “Why, yes, of course,” I say with a wink that says otherwise.

Rarely do my dinner companions engage in deeper conversation regarding design or social media or public relations or brands. I’m fairly certain it’s because most folks believe that Don Draper’s perfect coif is the beginning and end of any ad-related topic. Back to the dinner party conversation. It usually goes something like this. Everyone has seen an ad, right? (Collective nod.) We all know a good ad when we see one, yes? (Assorted yawns.)

All right, what do you say we just skip over the whole branding talk? (Glazed eyes.) End of conversation. Pass the crème brûlée.

Simply put, it can be difficult to explain branding in terms that anyone can understand. And no matter how well you define it, the sound of Don Draper striking another

match will likely sound, ahem, sexier. Certainly much sexier than the definition found on Google: “Branding is a traditional advertising method used to elicit latent response from a target based on cumulative impressions and positive reinforcement.”

Accurate, yes, but if it’s that complicated to read, not many will want to do what it takes to apply those principles to their business. Particularly, when you add in the many forms branding can take. Personal, Business, Cause and Spirit, to name a few. So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s boil it down to its essence: A brand is the sum of everything you do. This includes anything or anyone that comes into contact with the consumer on your behalf.

Branding is the packaging on your product; it’s the way you answer your phone; it’s the clothes you wear; the search function on your Web site; the wording on your performance reviews; the shape of your business card; and using Franklin Gothic typeface in your ads. Basically; it’s everything beneath the surface that supports your messaging.

To put this in perspective, let’s consider a few variables in a typical purchase decision: price, packaging, perceived value, color/ shape, shelf placement, celebrity endorsement, product features, distribution, wordof-mouth, consumer reports, promotions and incentives, and values-lifestyle match.

Obviously, branding cannot carry the entire burden of sales. However, what branding can do is even better. Branding can set the stage for selling, by starting a relationship between your business and the consumer. As any salesperson worth his or her salt will tell you, sales are always built upon relationships, and your

brand is like the wintergreen breath mints that you almost always forget.

In less complicated times, brands were simply used to identify cattle. In English lexicon, the word “brand” originally meant anything hot, like a burning stick. By the Middle Ages, it became common practice to burn marks into livestock to identify the owner. In the process, a proliferation of brands emerged, making it necessary to record them in books that local ranchers could carry in their back pocket. Laws were passed requiring registration of brands and the inspection of cattle driven through various territories. Penalties were often imposed on those who failed to obtain a bill of sale with the corresponding brands of the animals purchased.

Today’s media landscape would be much easier to sort out with a brand book that fits nicely in a jeans pocket. Instead, magazines have branched into hundreds of specialty titles. TV and radio have grown to hundreds of channels each. And the Internet has become a huge, potentially overwhelming source for news, music and entertainment. As a result, media outlets have been forced to focus on a niche like a laser. Whether it’s Mad Men, NPR, The Wall Street Journal or XM Radio, much of today’s media content is keenly tailored for a well-researched and narrow market.

Media has been splintered, and there’s no going back. Is this a good thing as it applies to brands?

My guess is that most consumers would say that it undoubtedly is—there are better options, custom-fit to varied lifestyles.

And most advertisers would say that it undoubtedly is not—it’s simply harder and harder to truly connect with potential

consumers who are fine-tuning their radar against the constant barrage of messaging.

So, what is a business to do in this rapidly-changing-highly-evolved-trickedout world? It must devote time and effort to better defining a successful brand as it pertains to its target audience. Despite all the changes, nearly every medium still has its merits. Rather than trying to use them all, which is what advertisers used to do, businesses need to do what the media have done. They need to focus. The days of a company’s being all things to all people are over. Those responsible for branding need to understand—truly and deeply understand—whom they are trying to reach. Then they must craft a compelling—truly compelling—messaging platform to touch those people.

So, what’s your brand? If you’re like many small business owners, you don’t have one.

That’s okay. You’re in the majority. Most people don’t expect you to have one. Instead, they expect you to just fade away into obscurity. Your job now is to find out who you really are. Think of what embodies your work, something you can stick to. Then find out what you’ll need to do to make it a reality—perhaps that means connecting with a local ad agency or design firm. And if you are truly seeking a Mad Men-like experience, consider hashing it out over a three-martini lunch.

Jason Alley is principal of Message, a fullservice marketing and communications firm in Rapid City, South Dakota. Check out other adrelated musings at www.yourmessengers.wordpress.com.

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Four unique prehistoric and historic collections and our new planetarium programming allow you and your children to actually see, hear, and touch history.

The Journey Museum takes your family on an incredible trek through time and space, from the formation of the mystical Black Hills over 2.5 billion years ago to the continuing saga of the Western frontier; and now to the far reaches of space in our digital universe theater.

222 New York Street Rapid City, SD 57701 605.394.6923 www.journeymuseum.org

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BRANDING COMPANIES Production Monkeys, a design firm in Aberdeen, specializes in brand development for small businesses and groups. They report that, “most of the entities we help with brand development currently have either no current identity or one that has been poorly designed and inconsistently used.”

Travis Schaunaman and Nathan Cantwell, the creative force behind the firm, explain that when a new branding client comes to the door, “we thoroughly interview them. We dig into everything from how they want to be perceived all the way down to their least favorite color—so by the time we design a logo, we’ve figured out what makes them tick.”

The team factors in elements like which industry the client is in, the personality of the business, its competitive advantage, and even its competition’s graphical approach. Considering these factors allows the firm to design something that will effectively convey the client’s business. Importantly, they also take into account personal preferences of the decision makers, “so things like color or font don’t derail the design process.”

“Any time you’re dealing with so many factors, you’ve got a balancing act on your hands,” the team explains. “We are confident that we can create a logo that represents a business well. Still, personal tastes can be unpredictable.” They note that special challenges can arise if a client wants to inject an image, color or visual metaphor that actually is not graphically suitable for the project they’re trying to create.

Production Monkeys has created several companies’ logos that assisted with branding efforts. In examples shown here, they even provided logo revisions, illustrating how branding concepts change over time. —KDS Right: Paired “after (top) and before (bottom)” logos created and provided by Production Monkeys.

Before

Before

First: Following “decades of inactivity,” the Aberdeen Area Community Foundation graphically represented its rejuvenating “second wind.” Second: The Aberdeen Area Arts Council chose an updated logo with a handdrawn font and multiple colors representing different genres of art.

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BRANDING COMMUNITIES “We have something for everyone” is not interesting. Because of generic approaches, Brooks says that 97 percent of community-based advertising is ineffective.

It’s probably no surprise that a niche market has developed for specialists who brand companies or causes or whatever.

Alongside that niche is the über-specialty of community branding. Here, experts travel to communities to identify particular characteristics that will draw visitors, new residents, and economic flow. For example, community branding is what allows us to immediately form a mental picture of Santa Fe, New Mexico, even if we have never been there. This association is otherwise known as laying cash on the barrel-head in Santa Fe’s local economy.

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Roger Brooks is one such expert, and he has visited South Dakota on a few occasions to consult on branding issues for our communities. His Seattle-based company, Destination Development, teaches communities how to think differently. They learn how to look at what they see each day in a new light— from the perspective of people the community would like to attract. Not only do they learn to identify their ideal “audience,” but also their own unique “draw”; Brooks labels the latter as “the art of differentiation.”

After attending some of his lectures, and reviewing his company’s booklet, called

“The Art of Branding a Community,” we have distilled some of his primary clues to the puzzle:

IN GENERAL: Branding creates a marketing tool that draws people into the community, thus making it a “destination.”

Destinations have identified what they offer visitors that those same visitors cannot experience elsewhere, within about 300 miles.

The only way to “stand out in the crowd” is to specialize.

There are two primary ways to specialize: be either “different” or “the best”—and different is more successful. “The best” suggests never-ending competition with someone else; different puts you in a class by yourself.

For example, Brooks identifies 425 counties in the 11 Western states; 380 of them promote “outdoor recreation” as a primary draw.

Look deeper than the obvious.

Keep your eye on the “lure,” the primary reason people will visit; “diversions,” which are found anywhere, support the lure. Visitors will buy gas, stay in hotels, eat food, and visit attractions during their visit.

The lure cannot succeed without diversions.

Customers with an outside perception of your community—not community focus groups—determine the best brands. Brooks says successful branding is not a public process, and is not based on sentiment, memberships, political clout, or trying to make everyone happy.

Successful branding requires that the community and its essential organizations must agree on and actively support the brand,

the advertising approach, and the plan of executing it.

A BRAND IS • Experiential and specific—for example, Las Vegas is America’s Adult Playground.

You must be able to do, feel, and experience the brand.

• What OTHERS think of your community, not what YOU think of your community.

• Built on word of mouth. A community cannot shout its wonderfulness from the rooftops; others have to glean the perception from elsewhere.

• Reinforced with advertising.

• Built on being known for something, whether a niche (Battle Creek, Michigan is the competitive biking capital of the Midwest), or a service or fact (Hershey, Pennsylvania is chocolate).

A BRAND IS NOT • Slogans and logos; these are used to promote the brand.

• Geography (unless the community includes a feature beyond compare).

• A gateway to somewhere else.

• An icon, like the Space Needle in Seattle.

Visitors stop to view the Space Needle, an attraction, but that is not why they travel to the city.

Once a brand is created, marketing and action plans determine the best methods to assure success. For example, locals must be educated as to the difference between the lure and diversions, the icon, amenities, ambiance, and other features including an historic

downtown. A “brand development committee” can work with community stakeholders and experts to execute the plan.

Community branding is a science, of sorts.

Specialists exist because it is difficult for community members to distill their place’s specialties while eliminating emotion from the process. It is even more difficult to, as Brooks suggests, eliminate much of the population from the branding evaluation and decisionmaking in the first place. Especially in small towns, it’s hard for community members to get away from the idea of “making everyone happy.”

When branding works, it works because the idea is fresh and interesting—and because people travel to the destination to experience it. Try asking people in your region what comes to mind when they think of your community. If many people tell you the same thing—even if this “thing” doesn’t at first resonate with your own community members—you might be onto something.

If people are driving to your cornfield to play baseball, then you’d better decide to have the best baseball field ever. Pronto. —KDS Opposite page: A photo of Paramount Plaza, located at New York’s 51st Street and Broadway, facing Times Square. Branding and signage projects for this building, a “micro-community,” fell into the Visual Communications Plan designed and implemented by Ray Berberich, who was then working with Cincinnati’s FRCH Design.

The project was so successful that previously-unoccupied storefronts were snapped up by eager tenants.

Below: A composite of Hill City, South Dakota’s Main Street, which was used by the Design:South Dakota team to consider branding and design improvements.

Photos on these pages courtesy of Ray Berberich.

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Photo by Ray Berberich

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Sign language

by Janna Emmel

I

In big cities and small towns, city planners, business owners and the public battle over signs: how many, how big, how tall, how temporary, and should they flash, flutter, whirl or animate. The fuzzy fine lines being debated are the rules that will satisfy commercial demands and the public good.

Throw in the right to free speech and the concept of aesthetics, and you get a kettle of ingredients that feed lively discussions up and down Main Street.

If graphic design is an artform, then signs are the most public of all artforms. They are a necessary and often beneficial component to a town or landscape. They play an everyday role in our lives and affect our experiences, perhaps influence our decisions, as we move through places and spaces. Signs create an impression; they brand our hometowns or businesses. George Lim, a professor of Environmental Graphic Design at the University of Colorado, and Creative Director of Jacobs Environmental Graphic Design Group, describes signs as “the voice of a city.”

Finding Our Way We spend our days moving from point A to point B. If we are familiar with a city, park or museum, we have made a mental map that we’re following based on our experience.

If we are in unfamiliar territory, we are seeking cues and clues to inform our journey and reach our destination. Whether we get lost, confused or frustrated along the way is the purview of wayfinding professionals, those little-known designers who genuinely care if Waldo can find the public bathroom. These specialists can reduce confusion and stress on

busy city streets, and yes, even prevent accidents. Whether in crowded airports, hospitals, urban centers or mid-American byways, signs are often the tools used by wayfinding specialists. Signs show the way. Signs move us through our environment. How well they do the job—and whether the experience is positive—is what separates good design from bad design or no design at all.

Urban planner Kevin Lynch, who coined the term “wayfinding” in his 1960 landmark book, Image of the City, said this: “Let the mishap of disorientation once occur, and the sense of anxiety and even terror that accompanies it reveals how closely it is linked to our sense of balance and well-being.” Not to mention how getting lost can make us feel downright stupid.

Hill City wayfinding professional Ray Berberich of Berberich Design, and the art director of this publication, always emphasizes that the end-user—us—is the most important consideration in any design. Berberich, working in three dimensions, uses a visual language of color, typography, images and symbols, to convey concrete information that directs and informs us.

He explains, “Whether designing for a city, a business, or for a product, I need to understand the culture and the environment in order to design well. I research and interview people and generally assimilate, albeit temporarily, into the culture. This inspires a design language of colors, fonts and overall character that is, hopefully, unique to that client.” George Lim calls this necessary step, “a study of social anthropology,” in which a designer must get to know the people,

attractions and businesses in the community before he picks up his pencil. He must have a solid understanding of where they’ve been and in what direction they’re growing.

If signs are the “voice of a city,” then the designer’s job is first to learn that city’s “dialect.” The designer must communicate to the residents and visitors of the area using familiar symbols, words, colors—the designer must learn and then “speak” in someone else’s language.

Part of the challenge of creating effective signage is also to place that language in the greater context of place—it’s a matter of harmony. Berberich’s says he seeks to balance a sign’s message and its intent (“buy burgers over there!”) with respect for the look and feel of surrounding architecture and environment (“and enjoy your stay in our town in the beautiful Black Hills”). Lim calls this essential process “aesthetic functionality.”

Planning is key to aesthetic functionality. No matter if you are a city that’s helping visitors and residents find their way or a business trying to attract a consumer, a common mistake, says Lim, is to add sign after sign, thinking that more information is better. In fact, this “visual clutter” can have a negative impact—it’s like shouting. “Nine out of ten times when we do an assessment of a town’s sign system, we recommend that signs should come down,” says the Denver designer. “It’s the biggest mistake a town can make, because it distracts from the functionality of the environment.”

Finding a “perfect pitch” in the voice of a community’s signage becomes a key element in how a community defines the experience Fall2010

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Previous page: A vintage Rapid City sign recalling the time when it took “specialized craftspeople” to produce each sign by hand.. This sign can be seen at the Rapid City Laundry and Dry Cleaners at 312 Main Street.

This page: Wayfinding and graphics for the Great American Ballpark, the home of the Cincinnati Reds. Ray Berberich developed a cohesive system that not only helps people navigate the park, but also utilizes graphical elements that tie together color, shape, theme, and design.

Opposite page: Examples of Northern Kentucky University,’s comprehensive wayfinding system, where signage integrates the school’s logo with a clean presentation and directional information.

Images provided by Ray Berberich.

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and image it really wants to project. Yes, standing on every corner of that very big intersection where environmental designers work are pedestrians—people like us.

Environmental design is all about psychology and how people perceive and experience the space they’re in. Indeed, environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field with graduate programs and research that informs television programs and commercials, Web site development, architecture, design and urban planning. Research centers on what gets people’s attention; what distracts and/ or what motivates them; how people perceive and create internal maps; how environments cause stress, whether through uncertainty or stimulus overload; and how people seek out preferred environments, those that “make sense” and are engaging.

Again, the fuzzy fine line: with all of those factors, how do we balance the needs of the public, with the commercialization of someone’s “hometown,” with the aim of business owners to attract customers who ultimately pay the taxes that help a town thrive? And with the perceptions of hundreds, thousands, or even more people who know what “sounds good” to them, how do we learn to recognize perfect pitch? Call in the Environmental Graphic Designers!

Lim suggests that environmental graphic designers are really problem solvers, that their expertise would be helpful in those planning stages when politicians, city planners, engineers and architects begin a project.

“Environmental graphic designers,” he says, “can help communities focus on the bigger picture, their image, the experience they’re

trying to project, and help communities move toward consensus and enthusiasm for development rather than dispute.” He stresses, “Always reach for consensus.”

Reading the Signs One apparent item of consensus: that the craft called sign-making has changed. Highly specialized craftspeople—painters, woodworkers and engravers—once dominated the sign-making field. Now, many signs are crafted by anyone with desktop publishing skills and, since the 1990’s, access to large-format inkjet printers that can create vinyl signs for in-store displays, billboards, banners, vehicles, and even entire sides of buildings. Berberich advises, “Restraint is a good thing. Technology has made it easy to create fast, cheap signs.

Anheuser-Busch and its distributors, for example, can afford to give these banners away with specialized messages tailored to their customer. Living in an area where tourism drives the economy, I find these vinyl signs to be pervasive. They add visual clutter and detract from the natural beauty of the region.”

City planners, businesses, and sign makers today must also consider the public’s penchant for using personal electronics. Whether with dashboard GPS or applications on their iPhone, the public literally is planning and mapping its way using personal devices. This summer the National Park Service requested proposals for an interactive wayfinding application for the National Mall that can be used on Apple’s iPhone and iPad, and on Google’s operating systems. Digital wayfinding using kiosks and touchscreens are finding their way into large facilities

like hospitals and in public centers both in and out of doors. Digital signage, whether on billboards or in-store displays, are also proliferating, and are beginning to converge with mobile electronic devices. Digital signs now invite passersby to text or call a certain code and receive information and coupons for a product on their cell phones.

Lim cites the positive: that as technology advances, designers have more opportunities to experiment more easily with new ideas.

Yet he is quick to question, “Just because we can, should we?” “Not everyone will approach a sign with iPad in hand, nor will everyone want to use a digital kiosk. And not every environment is fitting for an electronic sign or digital screen, no matter how advanced or ‘picture perfect’ the technology,” he explains.

“Should we?” is a question that Lim and other environmental graphic designers embrace as part of their job. When it comes to signs, it’s a question every community must embrace, as well.

Janna Emmel owns an art gallery on Hill City’s Main Street, and as President of the Hill City Arts Council was part of the team that organized the Design: Hill City and Architecture symposia in 2009 and 2010, among countless other community events. Her nine-year term, which has come to an end, has assisted Hill City in becoming a statewide model for arts and culture. Thanks, Janna. Don’t you dare move away.

Finding Our Voice—One Community and its Visual Language Since most signs cannot be “turned off,” their voices are constant; residents who live in communities across the country are evaluating what they want their signs to “say.” One such community is Hill City, South Dakota. The Black Hills town has been a “planning guinea pig” in the region for some time, and signage has been one of its many focal points.

How signage impacts the visual landscape has been on Hill City’s agenda for more than a decade. Learning the relevant “visual language” was a task assigned to a city-appointed group of business owners who began by interviewing representatives of other communities that had already gone through the process. The mission was to: 1) understand the subject and how signs affect commerce and cities; and 2) research what had been tried by others—to understand what lessons they’d learned. The group, which represented the middle ground, rather than what was perceived to be the “extreme” on either side of the issue, met weekly for months to nail down all the details for on-premise and off-premise signs.

Although the committee made recommendations to the city, the process of creating actual ordinances did not happen automatically. Further changes to the recommendations occurred—and ten years later, signs are back on Hill City’s list of Things To Do. Berberich, who did not live in South Dakota during the first round of talks, has been sitting in on the recent public hearings in Hill City.

Here, planning and zoning appointees meet with citizens to discuss potential changes to the town’s sign ordinances. One of Berberich’s primary points addressed the “shouting” of permanent signs. “There are ways to eliminate the number—and therefore, the perceived clutter—of offpremise signs, and replace them with eye-catching, attractive, and organized signage that not only does the same job, but also is less costly to business owners,” he explained. fall2010

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Above: Examples of what signage experts call “visual clutter,” which often overwhelms passersby. However, even in this situation, successful logos can still stand out.

Photos by Ray Berberich.

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When he suggested that these off-premise signs—advertisements posted on land in a different location from the advertised business itself—could be replaced by wayfinding signs, Berberich met more than one blank stare. He describes his work as the crossroads of graphic design, branding, architecture and industrial design, and zoning ordinances. But still, most people have never heard of “wayfinding” as a business, or a need.

Recently, Berberich was joined in this conversation by other environmental graphic designers—architects and wayfinding specialists and city planners who came to Hill City for an intensive three-day assessment and planning session in late 2009, and then again for a one-day workshop in April 2010.

The public, too, addressed the oft-discussed topic of signage, and took part in the design team’s initial “anthropology study” in which team members researched, listened to, and “visually audited” the town.

Town residents and business owners told the designers that they valued the setting of Hill City, the beauty of the Black Hills, and the quaintness of their small town. With summer tourism the number-one industry for the Black Hills, Hill City business owners and residents hope for a town that can retain its quaintness and still support year-round profits and jobs. From an environmental graphic design perspective, the professionals reinforced the importance of those values and

goals, encouraging the town to build on its vision for the community.

The designers who participated in the community sessions outlined standards of how, when, and where to take the easiest and most effective action with signs. For example, if a town seeks year-round permanence in its commerce, the group recommended that signage should not appear temporary—in its materials, for example—or be aimed solely at the tourist. To make the town more quaint and unique and to help visitors feel like they “belong,” the number of off-premise, touristoriented signs should decrease, the height of signs should not exceed the architecture, and the beauty of the environment should be brought down into the town with trees and greenery. The designers suggested wayfinding signs to unite the town with the popular and scenic Mickelson Trail, which runs the length of the Black Hills, and through Hill City. All of their suggestions grew from the ten foundational principles established by the American Institute of Architects for designing livable communities. Principles like: build vibrant public spaces; conserve landscapes; and design on a human scale, otherwise known as creating pedestrian-friendly communities.

That’s what the experts defined as “perfect pitch” for one rural community. Integrating their suggestions into the landscape will require community engagement—and perhaps a few more voice lessons.

RON BACKER www.sdartists.net • 760-636-0404

“Yesterday’s Happenings with Today’s Imagination”™

Green Ink Gallery & Studios

Ron Backer brings South Dakota’s legacy to life.

Mary Wipf & Mark Zimmerman contemporary landscape & botanical art

paintings, drawings & collage original relief & intaglio prints exquisite marbled silk & paper

Hisega Lodge 24” x 36” oil

Original can be seen at Hisega Lodge.

◆Minutes from Mount Rushmore ◆Intimate Accomodations◆Eclectic Decor

605.342.2552

info@grmountain.com www.greeninkgalleryandstudios.com

Original can be seen at the State Game Lodge.

Bed & Breakfast w w w. e r b a n d b. c o m

artists:

Lindy Buzzes the Summer White House 22” x 28” oil

ELK RIDGE

by appointment

1-605-574-2320

12741 Matthew Court Keystone, SD 57751

Jean Selvy-Wyss, Rapid City, S.D. “Red Moon Rising”, Tapestry, 11” x 11”

FEATURED ARTISTS DICK TERMES

DORIS RUDEL

STEVE BABBITT

JEAN SELVY-WYSS

DON MONTILEAUX

LYNDA K. CLARK

211 Founders Park Drive, Rapid City, SD 57701 Phone: (605) 791-4556 FAX: (605) 342-8038 Email: lynda.heronsflight@midconetwork.net www.heronsflightstudio.com

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PROUDLY FEATURING

LOCAL BLACK HILLS ARTISTS

Bronze Sculptures Artisan Jewelry Original Paintings Flame-work Glass Wearable Art Pottery Books Photography

( 605 ) 574 - 2868 216 Main Street, Hill City www.dakotanatureandart.com

IT’S ONLY NATURAL

To want the best

AT BES LIGHTING WE ARE EXPERT IN ONE THING…LIGHTING. OUR EXPERIENCED LIGHTING CONSULTANTS ARE TRAINED AND PREPARED TO ADVISE YOU WHETHER YOU ARE BUILDING, REMODELING OR JUST LOOKING FOR ACCESSORIES. WHAT’S MORE…YOU’LL SAVE MONEY WITH OUR EVERYDAY LOW PRICING…

Tuscany Square 3rd & Omaha T. 605.348.3393 MON-FRI, 9:00AM-5:30PM, SAT, 10:00AM-3:00PM

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Art of the Hills

Artist Directory

For information about advertising in the Artist Directory, please visit www.artofthehills.com.

Anna Achtziger

Deborah Casey

In my passion for designing jewelry, I pay great attention to detail, color, and texture, working to create a look that is stylish and artistic. I focus on making distinctive, eye-catching pieces made from the highest-quality materials, with inspiration derived from the intricate designs and colors found in nature. My work can be seen in SD at: Spearfish Center for the Arts in Spearfish; Blue Dog Galleries, Lead; Reflections of Dakota, Rapid City; and Dakota Nature and Art, Hill City. In WY: Herizon Fine Art in Jackson Hole; www.avacenter.org.

In AZ: Pinetop Contemporary Art, Pinetop.

The essence of an individual’s spirit and body is seen by observing their manner, emotion, and way of life. Casey’s figurative sculptures recreate the essence of her subjects, by capturing the energy unique to each individual. This energy sparks the life seen in her sculptures.

Her “untrained” sculpting style exhibits raw, sympathetic emotion and subtle nuances.

alexannacreations@gmail.com

Casey’s newest commissioned piece, entitled “His View from the Top” is of a Colorado professor, preacher, and advocate, and typifies his viewpoint. It is currently on display in a private collection high atop a Colorado mountain.

PO Box 469, Hill City, SD 57745 • 605-574-2145 • dmarxcasey@q.com

Nancy Bowman

Jerry Green

Cacophony This etching is 18” X 18” on copper plate. Ink hand ground and image printed by the artist, Nancy K Bowman. Crows’ conversations remind me of orchestras’ pre-concert tuning and practice. I glean inspiration from the Black Hills and prairie lands of grand blue skies, intersecting flowing land forms, diverse life forms and their influences. Other media include oils, pastels, watercolor, and jewelry. Commissions are welcome.

The Black Hills-whether shrouded in mysterious cloaking fog, blanketed by a layer of quieting snow, or dancing with spring wildflowersare the enduring source of inspiration, and sometimes the palette, for my work. The lathe provides the means of exploration into the many layers and complexities of the wood that I turn. My goal is to craft a form pleasing to both the eye and hand, while challenging my skill and creativity with each new piece. Mastering the lathe is not an easy task. But the journey there is infinitely compelling.

www.artitsoftheblackhills.org and Blue Dog Gallery, Lead, SD

605.673.3404 • www.bearrockwoodwork.com

Jacque Callis

Bonnie Halsey-Dutton

Living in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota, Jacque has been weaving for more than 20 years. Her original handwoven creations include rugs (wool or recycled denim), scarves (silk, chenille and tencel), table linens (cotton and linen), and baby blankets (so soft you have to touch to believe). Jacque’s creations can be purchased from her current stock or she can design one personally for you. Check out her website to see photos of her work and find out more about the weaving process.

• Striking artwork honoring stories and exploring mankind’s connection to the past.

• Cultural and personal symbols threaded throughout.

• As our ancestors did, looking to the earth for balance.

• Imagery inspired by local petroglyph rock carvings as symbolic human links to the earth.

• Reflecting the world’s growing awareness of the ecological impact of our lifestyle.

calliscreationsweaving.com • calliscreations@q.com • 605-574-4048

www.bonniehalseydutton.com • 3214 Whitetail Lane, Spearfish, SD • 605-722-3594 • Pictured: “Petroglyph Symbology” 11x32” Watercolor & Gouache on paper 2009.

Karen Carlson

Karla Harnois

Crafted from multiple prints of the same image, three-dimensional paper tole is an art form that emerged shortly after the printing press made standardized illustrations available to artisans. Using several identical prints, medieval artisans created a new kind of paper art.

They cut pieces from each print, then shaped, layered and reassembled the pieces into an amazing, seemingly magical three-dimensional image. Building upon this magical beginning, I specialize in paper tole fairy pictures, but I also have floral, landscape, and wildlife pictures available at ArtForms Gallery in Hill City.

My inspiration for my work comes from nature. I prefer to paint flowers because I like their softness against the hardness of the world. I feel that completed paintings give me a great sense of accomplishment.

When I finish a painting, I have created part of myself, which gives me great fulfillment and pride. I feel my paintings are a unique treasure all their own. The road to getting to this point in my career at times has been a struggle, due to my Cerebral Palsy. However, 33 years ago I learned to hold a paintbrush in my mouth, with the help of an adaptive mouthpiece. I use neck muscles to move the brush on the canvas.

Will and determination work!

605-574-2237 • Box 957 Hill City, SD 57745 • www.artforms.smugmug.com

605-334-4220 • karalh@sio.midco.net • 3600 S. Duluth Sioux Falls, SD

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ARTIST DIRECTORY

Shirley Jane Hobbs

Dorothy Snowden

Signature Member Artists of the Black Hills~Capturing the Spirit of the Black Hills on Silk

Horses in action are a favorite subject for Dorothy, who works in oils and pastels. Depicted here is a detail of “Bred to Run”, an oil painting currently on display at the Rapid City Regional Airport. She is a signature member of the Artists of the Black Hills and participates annually in Custer State Park’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Her original works are available through Spearfish Arts Center Gallery, Reflections of South Dakota Gallery, Rapid City, and Jon Crane Gallery, Hill City.

Shown at: Dakota Nature and Art in Hill City The Gallery of the Spearfish Arts Center Prairie Edge in Rapid City Studio at 207 Pine Ave. in Hill City Offering silk painting classes

www.dsnowden.com.

605-673-1821 • www.landscapesinsilk.com

Dick Kettlewell

Grant Standard

Dick Kettlewell has been a professional photographer for 28 years, having worked as a photojournalist and a nature photographer while earning numerous awards in both fields.

Grant’s passion for bronze sculpture has been the main expression in his artistic and professional life for 20 years. His subject matter has long been inspired by his spiritual experiences and his heritage; Celtic and Native American themes are evident in many of his pieces. Many of his latest sculptures are bronze, stainless, and copper wall hangings of various dimensions, which are available at Dakota Nature & Art in Hill City and Prairie Edge in Rapid City, SD. Please call or check his website for a complete selection, including his newest work.

In addition to publishing his nature images in other well-known publications such as the Smithsonian Magazine, the Discovery Magazine, the Natural History Magazine, etc., Kettlewell has also published two books about the wildlife and landscapes of the region entitled Black Hills Impressions and South Dakota Wildlife Impressions. Both are produced by Far Country Press and are available in major bookstores such as Borders and on the Amazon network.

605-574-3200 • www.standardmetalworks.com

(605)255-5919 • lamejohnny@gmail.com • springcreekchronicles.com

Mary Jo Marcy

BJ Stych

Mary Jo Marcy’s Artwork has always been inspired by the natural beauty and spirituality of the Black Hills area. Her pottery, sculpture and jewelry, reflect this as well as the use of Angelica leaves that grow at her home. Her paintings create a visual feast as well as give the viewer some of the spiritual energy from the Hills.

Her art can be purchased at ArtForms Gallery, Old World Plaza, Hill City. Special arrangements can be made to visit the Artist’s studio-gallery at Elk Park Antiques & Art.

Always, I want my paintings to “come alive”. Have heart. Because the outdoors is ever changing, and magnificently alive, I can find endless inspiration there.

605-673-3365

To capture that “aliveness”, I paint in watercolor and have been using a variety of media to add texture and depth to the vivid colors. The most striking images capture our attention from a distance and invite us to look closer into the extravagant details.

The aim, however, is never the mere facts, but the soul of the scene. I am honored when people respond with their hearts.

605-673-3627 • bjswc@gwtc.net • PO Box 4034, Custer, SD 57745

Anita Paige

Sandy Swallow

Wire wrapping is one of the oldest techniques for making jewelry by hand, with some examples in museums dating back to thousands of years BC. Anita has used this ancient technique to create beautiful pendants, rings, bracelets and earrings. Her designs feature gemstones cut and polished by other artisans, although she fuses her own glass cabochons. She uses gold-filled and sterling silver square wire. There is no solder, heat or glue - “it‘s just the wire holding on for dear life.”

Her work can be found at ArtForms Gallery in Hill City and A Walk in the Woods in Custer.

Sandy Swallow, an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation has art collectors that display her work from the Pine Ridge COC all the way to the White House in WDC with many pieces going to European collectors.

605-355-9208 • http://wonderfulwire.madeinsouthdakota.com • RC, SD

Sandy is well known for her Hand Pulled Block Prints. They are a limited edition; no two pieces are the same. This unique process allows her to use many vivid colors to portray her images from her culture and heritage. www.sandyswallowgallery.com • (605)641-2950.

Susan Scheirbeck

Lynn Thorpe

Contemporary and craftsman styled stained glass with quality lead came and reinforced fabrications. A well designed window can enhance a home or business interior by controlling light, hide a poor view, or add a new dynamic. I’ve also done custom glass panels for kitchen cabinets and side light panels at doorways. Please don’t hesitate to make an appointment to visit Studio 207, my home gallery, in Hill City. Small to medium sized works can be seen at Dakota Nature & Art Gallery in Hill City.

Distinctive large scale landscapes. Composed from observed landscape forms, these works are constructed in the studio with an idea in mind. Rich but subtle color, blended brushwork, and often starkly simplified forms emphasize the ideas behind the work and evoke the huge space and elemental silence of the great plains.

Represented by Warriors Work/BenWest Gallery in Hill City, SD. www.lynnthorpe.com. • 605.390.3628

605-574-4777 • susan@rapidnet.com • 207 Pine Ave. Hill City, SD

ARTIST DIRECTORY

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Perspective with greg geiger Greg Geiger is a visual artist who has been painting, creating mixed media, shooting photography, and working as a graphic designer for more than 25 years—right here in South Dakota. “My dad is an architect and my mom an artist and framer, so I kind of ran in an art crowd from the beginning,” he said. By the time he asked to “take out the trash” at the Fleming Severson ad agency in the early 1980s, he was already hooked. Bill Fleming employed him in an age before computers, and enlisted Geiger to do “all the old-school stuff, keylining, cutting rubylith and amberlith, ‘spec’ing’ type, working on layouts, drawing illustrations.” Geiger continued working in the field during summers off from college as a freelancer, and never looked back.

As a downtown Rapid City business owner, Geiger has occupied prime territory—and has kept his finger on the pulse of the area’s graphic design needs. “When people come to you as a graphic designer, you’re talking to people as they’re starting a business. You’re learning about that company and figuring out who the competition is, the type of industry they’re entering, how to be noticed in that crowd, all those different things.” Below is a smattering of logos Geiger has created from his perch. We’re sure you’ll recognize them—and appreciate the variety of contributions one good graphic designer can make to a community. You can see more of Geiger’s work at www.geigerstudos.com.

1. Caffe Amore 2. KSKY 95.1FM - Haugo Broadcasting 3. Highmark Federal Credit Union 4. PinkNProud Ride4Women 5. Black Hills Best Snacks 6. Pool & Spa Center / Rapid City, SD, Spearfish, SD, & Chadron, NE 7. Bison Legacy / Cody, WY 8. Spring Creek United Methodist Church 9. KSLT 107.3FM 10. ACME Bicycles 11. Black Hills Harley-Davidson

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12.VA Black Hills Health Care System / Fort Meade, SD, & Hot Springs, SD 13. Welcome Tabs 14. Kjerstad Habitat 15. Dakota Choral Union 16. Noah’s Ark Animal Hospital 17. Black Hills Coffee Co. 18. The Forks at Remington Ranch 19. Granite Sports 20. Prairie Berry Winery 21. Stamper Black Hills Gold Jewelry 22. Hill City Harley-Davidson

23. Pink Slip wine label - Prairie Berry 24. French Cleaners 25. Meyer Orthodontics 26. Prugh Design 27. Kevin Eilbeck Photography 28. Golden West Technologies / Rapid City, SD, & Gillette, WY 29. Geiger Architecture 30. Independent Cycle 31. Magic Moments Bridal Wear 32. Freestylle * All businesses located in Rapid City, SD, unless noted.

"Sweet Anticipation" - Image size 18" x 12", Jon’s 200th Print

"Garden Party" - Image size 9" x 12.5"

Purchase of this print includes a personal note from Jon and a commemorative plaque for framing

Jon Crane Watercolors “Art That Takes You Home”™

w w w. j o n c r a n e w a t e r c o l o r s . c o m

High Plains Gallery 621 Main St. Spearfish 605-642-3051

Jon Crane Gallery 256 Main St. Hill City 605-574-4440

Perfect Hanging Gallery Wall Drug 1800 Haines Ave. 510 Main St. Rapid City Wall 605-348-7761 605-279-2175

PAINT A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR YOUR GROWING BUSINESS

WE CAN HELP

Prairie Berry Winery

Art of the Hills Magazine

Black Hills Bronze

When we help grow our local businesses, we build a stronger, more prosperous community. IF YOU’RE READY TO GROW, CONTACT US

www.move2hillcity.com • 605-574-2368 • hcacoc@hills.net MIDWEST LIVING MAGAZINE - Hill City, South Dakota ranked 23rd in the 100 Best Small Town Getaways

Fall2010

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