Graphic Design

Graphic design is so ubiquitous in our lives that most of it falls below the threshold of conscious attention. If you look around where you are right now, you can probably find hundreds of carefully considered graphic images: newspapers, cereal boxes, postage stamps, magazines, books, maps, road signs, billboards, corporate logos, television commercials, videos, posters, computer screens, clock faces. Most likely, the people who find their way to the IBM Gallery of Science and Art here to see the exhibition "Graphic Design in America: A Visual Language History" will encounter more graphic images on the way than they will see inside.

Room A102 at Methacton High lacks the telltale signs of a traditional art classroom: the clutter of easels and charcoal and pencils, the oils and canvases, and watercolors and paper. Instead, students sit in sleek maroon chairs, carefully clicking away on their large computer monitors, each with an imposing tower for a hard drive. The only hints that this is an art classroom are the computer-generated graphics on the walls - portraits, photomosaics, and package designs. Teacher Layla Lyons explains to her class how to set up a photomosiac using Adobe Illustrator software.

Frank Nofer, 71, of Spring Mill, a celebrated graphic artist and watercolorist who designed a Philadelphia logo for the American Bicentennial, died Thursday at Keystone House in Wyndmoor. His representational watercolors are included in prominent private and corporate collections. In 1995, the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College honored him with a one-man retrospective exhibition. For 25 years, Mr. Nofer operated a graphic-design studio in the Old City section of Philadelphia, where he did advertising for pharmaceutical companies and amassed many awards.

When the shuttle Atlantis roared toward space Friday morning, more than 200 hearts soared with it at Drexel University's College of Engineering in honor of Christopher Ferguson, the shuttle commander and a graduate of the university. As the launch countdown ended at 11:29, a loud cheer erupted in the lobby of the Bossone Research Center at 32d and Market Streets, where about 200 students and staff gathered for a viewing party for the 135th and final launch of the space shuttle program.

Milton Glaser burst on the American consciousness in the middle 1960s, during the last days of the New York Herald Tribune. Clay Felker, editor of the Trib's Sunday magazine, New York, used Glaser's striking graphic design skills to set off a new concept for newspaper supplements aimed at helping readers cope with the rising frustrations of urban living while maximizing its diminishing attractions. When the Trib folded in 1966, Felker and Glaser headed the team that by the spring of 1968 had converted the concept into the independent weekly New York magazine, a wildly successful enterprise from the start, due in no small part to Glaser's eye-inviting graphics.

Russ Rollins doesn't find inspiration in strip malls. His mind and his camera take him back to a time before parking lots. A time before Pizza Huts. A time when buildings were built to last and houses and offices were works of art. A Bucks County photographer, painter and writer, Rollins, 50, of Newtown Township, said his latest project was an attempt to preserve the "pleasant and humane environment" of Newtown Borough's past. "People here are throwing up houses left and right," he said.

Joanne Lennon is a Middletown Township graphic artist who also knows her local history. It was a combination of these abilities, she contends, that helped her design the winning entry in a logo contest sponsored recently by the Delaware County Bicentennial Commission. The commission has been established by the Delaware County Council to plan a schedule of year-long activities marking the county's 200th birthday. The logo contest, according to commission member I. Frank Lees, is one of the celebration's initial activities.

It may be the original prenuptial agreement. For thousands of years, Jews have entered into a marriage contract called a ketubah, a written agreement specifying the financial obligations of a husband to his wife in the event of a divorce. Rabbi Eitan Weiner-Kaplow, a Bensalem resident, has used his religious background to update this contract, making it more appealing to today's liberal Jews. He has used his training in Hebrew calligraphy and graphic design to turn the paper or parchment into a work of art. "The original ketubah was a transfer of responsibility," said Rabbi Weiner-Kaplow, who serves at the Kol Emet Synagogue in Yardley.

Robert Ernest Long, 56, who founded and owned a graphic design company and was an active member of the United Church of Christ, died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Ambler. Mr. Long was born in Lewiston and raised in Fairless Hills, where he graduated from Pennsbury High School in 1959. He served in the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier Enterprise from 1962 to 1965 and was stationed in Newport News, Va. Mr. Long earned a degree from the Hussian School of Art in 1970 and lived in Lansdale for three years before moving to Ambler in 1974.

A decade ago, when Christine Johnston was a high-powered global brand manager at Pricewaterhouse- Coopers and Martin Duffy was creative director at the Philly ad agency 160over90, they had little idea they would be spending their coming years wrangling unruly preschool-age boys on photo shoots. "It's like working with drunk old men," Duffy joked. But it's worth the hard work - and the occasional bribe - to capture perfect promotional images for the couple's Wonderboy Clothing line.

Robert Stephen Milnazik, 81, of Wayne, a graphic designer and artist, died Sunday, Jan. 22, at Paoli Memorial Hospital of head trauma from a fall at home. Mr. Milnazik established a design studio in 1954 in Center City. "It was the days portrayed in the television show Mad Men , when the advertising world was flourishing," said his son, William, "and he worked with major movers and shakers in the industry. " Mr. Milnazik serviced accounts for N.W. Ayer & Son advertising agency and did design work for individual clients such as Publicker Industries, a producer of whiskey, and Rohm & Haas Co. He designed and illustrated menus for restaurants such as the Green Tulip Room at the Plaza hotel in New York City.

When the shuttle Atlantis roared toward space Friday morning, more than 200 hearts soared with it at Drexel University's College of Engineering in honor of Christopher Ferguson, the shuttle commander and a graduate of the university. As the launch countdown ended at 11:29, a loud cheer erupted in the lobby of the Bossone Research Center at 32d and Market Streets, where about 200 students and staff gathered for a viewing party for the 135th and final launch of the space shuttle program.

A decade ago, when Christine Johnston was a high-powered global brand manager at Pricewaterhouse- Coopers and Martin Duffy was creative director at the Philly ad agency 160over90, they had little idea they would be spending their coming years wrangling unruly preschool-age boys on photo shoots. "It's like working with drunk old men," Duffy joked. But it's worth the hard work - and the occasional bribe - to capture perfect promotional images for the couple's Wonderboy Clothing line.

DesignPhiladelphia 2009, described as the largest national show of its kind, is focusing its fifth annual show on issues such as environmental sustainability, urban development, and social responsibility - hot topics this year. The annual citywide celebration, which continues through Tuesday, presents exhibits, workshops, studio tours, lectures, and runway shows showcasing all aspects of design, ranging from architecture, product, and interior design to fashion, textile, and graphic design.

William C. Diesinger Jr., 83, of Wayne, a graphic designer who created the logo for Lord & Taylor, and a residential contractor, died Sunday of pancreatic and lung cancer at Wayne Center Nursing Home. A native of Conshohocken, Mr. Diesinger dropped out of Norristown High School at 17 to join the Navy during World War II. He served aboard the destroyer USS Mackenzie in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. After his discharge, he earned a high school diploma at Brown Preparatory School in Philadelphia and attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. After graduating, he remained in New York and worked as an artist for an advertising company.

Dick Jones, 78, of Gladwyne, a prominent graphic designer who volunteered his talents to his community, died June 11 from a head injury at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. He had fallen June 4 while attending the annual meeting of the Rhode Island School of Design Alumni Council. Mr. Jones retired in 1992 after a 40-year-career but continued to design, his wife, Christine Guarino Jones said. He edited and was creative director of The First 300: The Amazing and Rich History of Lower Merion, published in 2000; designed promotional material for Philadelphia Hospitality; designed newsletters and graphics for ElderNet of Lower Merion/Narberth; and designed material for the Lower Merion Historical Society and Gladwyne Free Library.

Unlike most furniture designers, Douglas Homer doesn't have an industrial-design degree, he's not an architect, and he didn't enter the field via a career in interior decoration. Instead, he spent two decades doing corporate imaging, devising logos and masterminding ad campaigns, before shuttering his eight-person Lancaster firm, HomerCreative, three years ago to launch a furniture venture. He may not have known a cabriolet from a camelback, or wenge wood from ipe, but one thing Homer possessed was a talent for connecting with the public.

Watching the elegant carriages pulled by teams of majestic horses that gather at St. David's Church before heading to the Devon Horse Show grounds has been an annual tradition for artist Elise Phillips. "There's something about them coming at you, the jiggling of the harnesses, the thundering of the hooves, the strength and power of the horses," Phillips said. "It's a bygone era. " Phillips strives to capture those old-time traditions in her oil paintings, whether she is focusing on the carriages at Devon or foxhunting in Unionville.

Joseph M. Kramer, 82, a renowned Center City graphic designer and award-winning independent filmmaker, died Sept. 1 of pneumonia at Pennsylvania Hospital. After graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1939, Mr. Kramer studied at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art, now part of the University of the Arts, until being drafted during World War II. While serving with the Army Air Corps as a radio operator in India, which he called "the middle of nowhere," he broke the tedium by turning out cartoons for Yank magazine.

This is one in an occasional series of profiles of local chefs and restaurant owners. Veal Vincenzo. I wondered how I - a Jew, animal-rights activist, and former macrobiotic devotee - ended up loving the mixture of prosciutto, cheese and veal served at Christine's. When cooking for the likes of former President Clinton, as chef Pamela Nicholas has, that's the kind of power over food you've got to have. The 34-year-old who worked at the United Nations and the American Museum of Natural History runs the kitchen at Christine's, a BYO that bills itself as gourmet Italian continental.