The Rest Is Digital History | Part 5: Spirit, Mind, and Body
A Collection of Stories About How I Got Here
Only a few schools had core academic programs in computer graphics or graphic design. Most offered a digital design minor as part of a computer science major, but I knew that I didn’t want to be a programmer. Well-known institutions like the School of Visual Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design required a portfolio of 10–12 finished works as part of the application. However, I didn’t have much to show when I started looking at schools, limiting my academic options. I don’t think I would’ve gotten in with drawings of green pipes and fireball-spitting piranha plants. So, I set the radius of my college search to a three-hour car ride from home.
LaSalle University, Fairleigh Dickinson, and Bridgeport University were among the first schools I considered until my mom found Springfield College in Massachusetts. Springfield was the only school with a core computer graphics program, and it didn’t require a pre-existing portfolio. Plus, it was only two hours from home, and its visual arts program gave students a foundation in fine art.
It rained both times I visited Springfield’s campus, but the weather didn’t impact how I felt about the school. The director of the Visual Arts Center sold me on its academic program, so I decided to enroll.
Since I was already familiar with Adobe and Macromedia software, HTML, and CSS, I had a leg up coming in as a freshman. I thought I lacked drawing skills, but I realized whatever artistic inclination I had as a child was still there. Knowing how competitive and cutthroat the design industry was, I decided not to stick to one academic track. Our program’s counselor recommended art students choose between 3D animation, graphic design, or web design. Instead, I took classes in all three disciplines — as many as I could — and continued to work outside of the classroom. Now at age 40, I’m glad I did.
My floormates became the subject of satirical cartoons, and I landed paid freelance work from DJs and music producers. I had a radio show in college and dabbled in music, which put eyes on my web design skills. Electronic music made a resurgence in the early 2000s, picking up where Technotronic and C+C Music Factory left off in the early 90s. In exchange for my design services, a couple of DJs mailed promotional CDs they didn’t want from record companies as payment which gave me material for my radio show. I was the only disc jockey on WSCB 89.8 that played dance music — ATB, Darude, Lasgo, and anything remixed by Hex Hector or Thunderpuss, to be more specific. The station’s format was alternative rock, not surprising for Western Massachusetts.
Just before the horrible events of 9/11, I came across two flyers posted around campus that advertised design competitions for the college’s mascot costume and radio station logo. The mascot contest offered a DVD player as the prize, so I took one of each flyer back to my dorm room and devised a strategy to enter both competitions with the same design concept.
One lazy fall afternoon — when my class load was light — I laid out my Staedtler pencils and started sketching concepts for what I thought the college’s mascot should look like. The contest required not much more than a gender-neutral lion, but I spent three hours sketching concepts with gold and maroon fur and the lion’s head at different angles. Not even the faint jeers from guys playing frisbee on my dorm’s front lawn broke my concentration. I even spent extra time sketching the mascot wearing a sports jersey and sitting on bleachers in a sports arena to give a sense of its environment.
With zero expectations, I walked over to the now-torn-down Woods Hall, where the student activities center lived, and handed my drawings to the student activities office, excited by the submission. Later that week, I worked on the radio station logo, which mirrored the concepts for the mascot, but was digitized in Adobe Illustrator and sent via email.
Then the planes hit the World Trade Center.
I had long forgotten about the contests to mourn with the rest of the world. I had just been at the World Trade Center a few weeks prior with Hunter, who lived across the hall from me during freshman year. Watching the terrorist attack unfold was a dizzying experience, to say the least.
Once I hit the spring semester of my sophomore year in 2002, I received back-to-back phone calls informing me that I had won both contests. Whoever it was on the phone couldn’t believe the quality of the drawings I submitted for the school’s mascot. He told me that mascot was scheduled for manufacturing over the summer, and its unveiling would occur at a homecoming football game in the fall — several months away. And so I waited patiently… all summer long.
I was in jitters about returning to school that fall. I had mixed emotions anticipating homecoming weekend. I wasn’t sure if the mascot would look right or if the student body would reject it in jest. My mind spun over all the ways how the reveal could turn out. There was a lot of hype around campus, and I’m not too fond of attention, so I asked a few friends to come with me so I wouldn’t have to deal with any disappointment alone.
A student MC hyped up the crowd moments before the mascot came running out. Students screamed, and whistles blew. I couldn’t bear to watch the reveal, so I hung my head. The next thing I remember, one of my friends said, “It looks exactly like you drew it!” He was right. I looked up, and there it was. Spirit, as the mascot is now called, came running out in full maroon fur and a football jersey. I don’t even remember hearing the crowd cheering.
The Rest is Digital History is a collection of essays about my path to becoming a designer. Continue reading…
Part I: Stepping Online
Part II: I’ve Got Mail
Part III: An Iron Fist to the Jaw
Part IV: The Digital Brick Road
Part V: Spirit, Mind, and Body
Part VI: Game Over, Continue?
