A new exhibit titled “New Directions in Graphic Design” has opened in the Campanella Gallery in the McAfee Memorial Library.

The exhibit, which will run until March 15, features work by several faculty members from different graphic design departments around the country.

The exhibit attempts to merge the old with the new in various ways throughout the exhibit. It mixes older styles of graphic design, like letterpress, with the newer software-based design techniques.

“The old is new again,” said Jeff Smith, assistant professor of graphic design and director of the Graphic Design program. “Letterpress is not dead. It can be used less as a promotion and more for artistry.”

The term letterpress refers to the old style of print where letters were created from wood and words were actually pressed down on a page with ink.
This style is utilized by a majority of the artists in the exhibit.

“There is just the purer nature of letterpress,” Smith said. “Letterpress died out ages ago with the rise of the digital print and there’s a huge movement across the nation in art education to bring it back and it seems like the designers are the ones doing it.”

Smith said graphic design can be both a functional and producible form of art.

“This is so much different than what I teach my students to do,” Smith said.

“We learn the functionality of graphic design but what I wanted them to see was the art that is still available to us and artistic design also.”

According to Smith, this is exactly what is showcased in the different areas of the exhibit.

“There can be social commentary,” Smith said gesturing towards the section of the exhibit that mixes vintage style letterpress with entries of the urban dictionary.

The back wall is covered in letterpress art with very prominent letters and numbers presented on the page to resemble the shape they make rather than the letters they represent.

“Then you’ll see the extreme nature of what the software plus what the quality can do for us in 2015,” said Smith.

“In one of those there are 89 pictures.”

In this example the artist, Matthew Derezinski, has two pictures set in sheet metal. The combination of rustic looking architecture blended with nature gives it a more artistic and abstract feel.

In the comments next to the piece, Derezinski mentions his intention for viewers to pour their own emotions and experiences into the pieces.

“What we learn in our type classes is that words are just symbol and they’re silhouette,” said Smith. “If you remove the meaning then it’s just geometric shapes and form…the artist on the back wall also explores the layering techniques in a more fine art and graphic manner – just the over layering of shape and geometry.”

The exhibit features diverse and thought-provoking pieces and designs, according to Smith.

“It’s different, I’m not used to it,” said Curtis Collins, a junior studying Graphic Design at Park University.

“I think it’s neat that’s it’s not relying entirely on digital functionality utilizing the printmaking. Nowadays it’s just so easy to get on a computer and arrange things with software. They actually used presses to do all of this.”