Ed Fella's conference

Ed Fella

Past and

Future

ConferenceNew York City22/02/2013

Bio

Born in 1938 in Michigan, Edward Fella began studying commer-cial art at Cass Technical High School, Detroit. He then spent 30 years working as a commercial artist for various Detroit agencies, mainly for auto-industry clients. In 1985, aged 47, Fella started a Master of Fine Arts at Cranbrook (in Bloomfield Hills, near Detroit), quitting commercial art for good in order to focus on its own creative work. Since graduating, he has taught graphic design at CalArts, where his enthusiasm for imperfect forms and semiotics informed a whole generation of graphic designers including Lor-raine Wild, Katherine McCoy, Jeffery Keedy, P. Scott Makela, Barry Deck and Elliott Earls. Now over 70 years old, Edward Fella continues to work (“I'm still running”, as he likes to say) and is one of the graphic-design authors who best epitomise American postmodernism. His hybridising of materials, forms, colours and topics, and the ease with which he moves between media, lend his art an originality and depth that will leave an enduring impression on the history of graphic design. His output spans an exceptionally wide range of techniques and sensibilities: flyers, illustrations, photographs, lettering, collages… Fella's work, in its ability to deconstruct America's landscape and vernacular letterforms, bears witness to a whole swathe of his country's popular culture.

Bio

Achivements

Ed or Edward Fella is an artist, graphic designer, and educator. He had an influence on contemporary typography. Born in Detroit in 1938, he practiced as a commercial artist at Detroit's top advertis-ing agencies for 30 years before entering a graduate program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1985 at the age of 48. There, he applied his skills of illustration to the formal nature of typography and created mutations that have become models of resistance to the prescribed conventions of graphic design. In 1987, he received an MFA in Design.He has devoted his time to teaching at the California Institute for the Arts and at the same time used his own unique self-published work in many design publications and anthologies. As a faculty, Fella influences new generations of designers, especially his stu-dents, putting personality and form to the environments of digital and print.As a graphic designer whose work echoed Dada, Futurism, Surreal-ism, Edward Fella has been known for *OutWest font, FellaParts font *Book, "Edward Fella: Letters on America, Photographs and Letter-ing" *poster etc.

Achivements

About

OutWest:

Drawn by hand using the fifteen degree ellipse on an architec-tural template. The full name given to this design, “Out West on a Fifteen Degree Ellipse,” evokes the rational yet organic, as well as Western qualities.

Edward Fella: Letters on America, Photographs and Lettering: a collection of Fella’s own Polariods of other peoples’ hand drawn signs and graphic minutiae seen and recorded while traveling across America. It is his first book recently published. The pho-tographs collected in this book are the records of his vernacular lettering and composition which are combined and juxaposed in his idiosyncratic style.

About

Works

"I am interested in graphic design as art”. "This is a kind of art practice that uses forms that come out of graphic design, decorative illustration, and lettering, all mixed together-forms that come out of Twentieth Century art, out of Miró and Picasso-all of it has a genealogy and a certain look-in the same way that artists today use comic books and graphic novels. I was an illustrator, so you see endless styles popping in and out of the books. The drawings are an unconscious discharge of all the styles and forms that I used as a commercial artist for 30 years-that was my profession-I did it every single day. So, my unconscious has all this stuff in it, and now, because I don't have to make meaning anymore, I can just use the techniques, like a machine that has long ago stopped making widgets, but the machine is still running. I'm still making stuff. I love the craft of it-of carefully making some little thing... “

Ed Fella

November 2nd / All Souls Day

November 3rd / Todays Post(s)

Current black and white sketch book: 2 decora-tive and 2 cartoon drawings.

November 5th / Today Post(s)

Collages “Potential Graphic Design for Bygone Eras:” 18th century, late 19th century, and mid 20th century.

Election Day /November 7th / Todays Post(s)

In 1960 I parked my car (yes, a very hot 1957 Corvette) behind my old middle school on the east side of Detroit and waited for John Kennedy (he was campaigning for the presidency against Richard Nixon) to pass in a motorcade. I had my camera ready for a picture as the open car came driving by and because it was a reflex camera I had to look down into the viewfinder. As the car came up I quickly snapped for my one time chance. I want home and developed a contact sheet and found to my dismay that I was a moment to soon and missed the shot. 52 years later I found them stored in my garage and here they are now, juxtaposed to look like those so cool old automotive history photographs.

November 18th / Todays Post(s)

CalArts Graphic Design Program: Gradu-ate students and faculty retreat in 29 Palms, California. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 2012. Various souvenirs: traf-fic lights, lectures, landscapes, visits to local wonders.

November 19th / Todays Post(s)

The latest issue of Paper Magazine, November 2012, is filled with art and arty things and is designed by my daughter, Andrea Fella, which (who) makes it especially artful. Look for it at select news stands and add yourself to it’s select purveyors. Unpaid, unsolic-ited, and unabashed announcements ! And a second hit for this month… Collage by Annamarie Fella, San Luis Obispo, California High School math teacher and moon-lighting illustrator.

November 20th / Thanksgiving Week

A 1976 illustration used for a full page news paper advertisement for a no longer remembered content or client. In any case, don’t eat too much turkey, like this bottomless blog, it might just put you to sleep !On the other hand, this full plate will be long remembered, thanks to Nathan and Annamarie !

November 26th / Todays Post(s)

Roadside sign drawings and collage

“From an historical perspective, seeing design as a whole field of professional practice, as a continuum from high to low – high being the academic and low being the vernacular or the naïve – everything is valid at some point.” Edward Fella