The Learners: A Novel (No Series)
Page 5
Kiddies, what makes good design is good clients. It’s as simple as that. Look at CBS—the eye. Genius. But Frank Stanton, the head of the network, deserves as much credit as Bill Golden, who actually designed it. If the sumvabitch paying the bills isn’t on your bus, you ain’t going anywhere. But if he really lets you drive, you can gun it to the moon.
Dick Stankey gave Sketch the keys, went to the rear of the coach, sat back with a delighted grin, and—buffeted by the roar of the engine—gleefully crunched.
And spat. To the moon.
“When did Sketch make partner?” I don’t know why I asked it.
Tip was on his second scotch at Mory’s. A Friday lunch. “That’s a funny story, actually. Classic Mimi. I once got it out of Preston at a breakfast meeting. You know,” he leaned in, “here’s the thing: the Meems occasionally betrays moments of lucidity that are positively frightening. Sketch was last to make partner and yet his name is ahead of the other two. Now, why do you suppose, that is?”
“I dunno. Because he has the most talent?”
“Oh, right. As if that would cross what’s left of her mind in a million years. No, here it is: Mimi said she wanted Spear’s name first, and I quote: ‘So it sounds like we have a point,’ unquote. Now, as atomically idiotic as that may seem, you have to admit: the ring of ‘Spear, Rakoff and Ware’ just somehow works. Right? Scary.”
And we took that particular ball and ran with it, waging an informal, open-ended contest to see who could mangle our firm’s good name in the most supreme fashion. It started the morning Tip picked up a call from the main desk when Preechy was out on an errand and no one else was within earshot (except me, of course). He intoned, in a dead-on imitation of her:
“Dear, Slack Off Your Cares. May I help you?”
Which led to my rough sketch for the New Haven Hospital Annex brochure that I sent to Tip via inter-office dispatch, with the headline: “Severe Lacking of Care.”
It all became about context. A discreet note on the kitchen pantry’s bulletin board: “Sneer, Crack-up and Stare. How may I deflect you?”
From there, anything went. Bored, I’d dial Tip in the middle of the afternoon: “Hello, I’m calling from Smear Lacquer on Chair.”
Pasted over a Food Clown circular, shoved into my mail slot: “We’re…hacking up pears!”
My proposed Bubble-Soap Shampoo campaign slogan: “Rear back from her hair!”
A Sunbeam Bakery meeting’s minutes subject heading: “Mere rack of eclairs.”
On an internal memo for Preston’s seventieth birthday: “Queer attack over there!”
A business card for Closter’s Driving School, shoved under the door, the title crossed out and replaced with: “Veer, back up and dare!”
But I got the best one, as Preston passed me and Tip in the hall one day, doing what Tip called the Muffle Shuffle—eyes clenched and lips moving wordlessly as he staggered along, groping for the right word. And it was so obvious. I stage-whispered into Tip’s ear:
“Sheer, wracking despair.”
And just then he happened to stick his head into Nicky’s office, and asked, with desperate, laconic impatience: “Is it lunchtime yet?”
It was nine thirty.
And then came that day of days, which yielded the first ad I ever designed entirely by myself. June 20th, a Tuesday afternoon, close to three. Sketchy was out on a printing-press check and Miss Preech forwarded the call to me.
“Hello?”
Of course, I’ve thought about that day a lot. Because of what eventually happened. But I’ve never felt it could have gone any differently—if Sketch hadn’t been away from the office, say, or if the call came when I was out at lunch. That wouldn’t have changed anything. I’m really no great believer in “destiny,” and yet I know this job would have found its way to me, regardless of the circumstances. It was inevitable.
“I’d like to place an ad in the Register.” A man’s voice, deep. “They told me to contact your firm.” We were the New Haven Register’s largest subcontractor for advertising. Well, okay, the only one. They were always lobbing little jobs at us—the ones their staff (of two) didn’t have time for.
“Right.” I reached for a job ticket and a fresh piece of carbon paper. “What kind of ad?”
“We need to recruit people for an experiment.”
“I see. What do you want it to say?”
He explained. For what seemed like half an hour.
This was a lot of information. Me: “Hmmm. Is it a full page?”
“Oh, heavens no. We couldn’t afford that. An eighth of a page, to run daily. That’s what we can afford.”
An eighth of a page. Insane. “Wow. That won’t be easy.”
“Can you make it fit?”
Can I make it fit? Sigh.
That is a question that begs a brief typographic digression (sorry).
Typography is truly the invisible art of the last one hundred years, even though it is in plain sight, everywhere. Most graphic design students learn this right away, but we also discover just as quickly that we’re in the vast minority. It all becomes distressingly clear once we leave the rarified halls of learning, enter the steaming ranks of the working learned, and show them classic typefaces, correct letter spacing, proper line leading, and exacting proportions.
And they don’t give a damn.
“I can’t read it.”
“Make it bigger.”
“Make it smaller.”
“It’s too precious.”
“It’s too bold.”
“It’s too plain.”
“It all has to go on one page. Make it sing!”
“Cut some of the copy? You’re joking.”
To them, it’s just words, but to us, to graphic designers, it’s type. We’ve learned to look at it a whole other way. Notice I said “look” instead of “read.” Once again, Form and Content take center field—will they strangle each other? Will they get married? Will they at least hold hands?
This is the eternal typographic conundrum. What most people don’t understand is that typography is the use of language that in itself is its own language— one that can take a lifetime to learn and perfect, and that few ever do. Put simply: The Content is, of course, what the words say, the Form is what they look like. But alas, it’s rarely as clear cut as that. Before the advent of what was called Commercial Art this was less of an issue than it is now, but as we find ourselves thick into the age of the visual dispatch, there is no turning back. It’s not just about what you’re saying anymore, it’s how you’re saying it. In the wrong hands, mixed messages abound. Suppose you have something important to convey to a loved one:
I hate you.
This misrepresents your sentiment. As opposed to:
I hate you.
Right? And yet, this same design solution would not be wanted in a report from your personal physician:
The test results are in:
You have inoperable
cancer!!
Now let’s try solicitation, as we constantly apply it in the ad trade. This can get tricky. Like so:
PLEASE TOUCH ME.
Whoops! Creepy, creepy. I don’t think so. Which brings us back to:
Please touch me.
You see? Endless possibilities. And pitfalls.
Now, let’s apply this to practical use, namely to the newspaper advertisement I was commissioned to design in the summer of 1961. The client placed the order by phone, which can complicate the choosing of typefaces, but luckily in this case that was one aspect of the job about which—surprise!—he couldn’t have cared less. Brief recap:
“Hello. I’d like to place an advertisement in the Register, please.”
“Yessir. What kind of ad?”
“It’s for the Yale Department of Psychology. We’re conducting an experiment and we’d like to solicit volunteers from the community.”
“I see. What do you want the ad to say?”
He went on. And on. Finally:
“Oh, heavens no. We couldn’t afford that. We checked the rates—this would be less than a quarter page. An eighth, I believe.”
Impossible. Are you out of your goddamn mind? You’re not supposed to be, Mr. Yale Psychology Department. “Less than a quarter page, with all this copy? Can you cut any of it?”
“Well, no.”
Did he have any idea what he was asking? Of course not. They never do. “Right. Uh, this will be a little tricky. Let me spec this out. I could show it to you tomorrow afternoon.”
“That…won’t be necessary. Just run it. Today if you can. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Really?” Now that was odd. They’re usually like vultures.
“Yes, just make all the information as big as possible.”
As I eventually learned, over time, they all say that. ALL OF THEM.
“Okay, will do.”
“Thanks.”
So, here is the final ad, as it ran, with several notations: First, note that there are no less than eleven different kinds of information to be considered, in a space that is 3 3/4 inches wide x 6 inches tall. Even so, only three typeface “families” are used (Trade Gothic, Bodoni, and Baskerville), each with its own set of variations to provide enough typographical “color” without appearing busy or jammed. In order to maintain proper proportions, some of the type must be reduced to 7 points, widely regarded as the absolute minimal for legibility (a theory with which those over fifty years of age may strenuously disagree).
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT1
WE WILL PAY YOU $4.00 FOR ONE HOUR OF YOUR TIME.2
Persons needed for a study of memory.3
We will pay 500 New Haven men to help us complete a scientific study of memory and learning. The study is being done at Yale University.4
Each person who participates will be paid $4.00 (plus 50¢ carfare) for approximately 1 hour’s time. We need you for only 1 hour. There are no further obligations. You may choose the time you would like to come (evenings, weekdays, or weekends).
NO SPECIAL TRAINING, EDUCATION, OR EXPERIENCE IS NEEDED. WE WANT:5, 6.
Factory Workers
City Employees
Laborers
Barbers
Businessmen
Clerks
Professional People
Telephone Workers
Construction Workers
Salespeople
White-collar Workers
Others
ALL PERSONS MUST BE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 20 AND 50. HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS CANNOT BE USED.
If you meet these qualifications, fill out the coupon below and mail it now to Professor Stanley Milgram, Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven. You will be notified later of the specific time and place of the study. We reserve the right to decline any application.
You will be paid $4.00 (plus 50¢ carfare) as soon as you arrive at the laboratory.7, 8.
TO: PROF. STANLEY MILGRAM, DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CONN.
I want to take part in this study of memory and learning. I am between the ages of 20 and 50. I will be paid $4.00 (plus 50¢ carfare) if I participate.9, 10.
NAME (PLEASE PRINT)……………………….
ADDRESS……………………………………..
TELEPHONE NO.…………………….. BEST TIME TO CALL………………………………
AGE………. OCCUPATION…………………..
I CAN COME: WEEKDAYS………. EVENINGS………. WEEKENDS………………11
The ad had been running every day now for three weeks, and no order to stop it—by far the longest life of anything I’d worked on. Shamelessly, I’d hunt it down each morning in the Register like a parent looking for his child on the crowded stage of a kindergarten play. Where was it? Next to the Red Sox scores? Above the movie listings? Below Dear Abby? No…there it is, by the horoscopes! Yoo-hoo! Daaaarling!
I’d clip its entire host page, fold it in fours, and add it to the growing stack next to my tool tray. In case I needed them for reference, to study how it looked in the context of the other ads next to it. At least that’s what I told myself.
Ridiculous. It was just a dumb solicitation, a type-heavy, glorified want ad. Forget it. Let it go.
And for a while, I did.
“So, what you’re telling me is, you lost my rhinoceros head. Is that what you’re telling me?”
By the beginning of July things were going pretty well, so I guess it was inevitable: Himillsy Dodd chose then to come back into my life. In her own special way.
“You said importing it through you guys would be no problem. That’s a three-hundred-dollar rhinoceros head, pal. They don’t grow on trees.”
Now, some of you might be wondering why I haven’t mentioned her before. There are many reasons, but for those who are unfamiliar—she takes over whenever she’s involved. Or, as she once put it (muttered in sotted distaste at a Phi Delt mixer back at school): “I am the corpse at every wedding, I am the bride at every funeral.” And this was to be no exception.
“Three centuries, buddy. Cough him up.”
We’d met my freshman year at State. She was a junior. I was captivated. And she was, too—at least that’s what she led me to believe. Together we went through an art school bootcamp the likes of which neither of us expected, and we came out of it booted—me out of every preconception about art and design that I ever had, and she from sanity (and the school) altogether. Our parting was not an easy or coherent one, chiefly because of what I’d perceived, over the phone, to be her total nervous breakdown. Which I admit I played a part in, however unwittingly. For Himillsy, living dangerously was the only way to live. And me, I’m practically a crossing guard. More than once I’d spoiled her fun, rescuing her from something she didn’t want to be saved from. And who is ever forgiven for that? I was her unwanted conscience, the Jiminy Cricket to her Pinocchio, forever doing her good turns. For that alone I suppose she had every right to hate me.
Then nothing, no contact for the next three years. But she was never far from my thoughts, from the moment of our first meeting.
“What do you mean, ‘We know where it is’? I know what that means: On Earth. Somewhere between here and the tiny Republic of Togo. Jesus.”
Here’s what I did know, long before I ever came to Connecticut: Himillsy had grown up just twenty minutes away, in Guilford, and her family still lived there (they were listed). I’d mused that with any luck she might even be still living with them. And I had an eye on getting in touch once I got my feet on the ground, as it were. Once I got the nerve.
And now the nerve had gotten me.
“Enough of you. Where’s your supervis—” She turned, and finally saw me, standing in the checkout line of the campus Art Depot, clutching six jars of fluorescent egg tempera to my chest on a summer Saturday afternoon. Neither of us could believe it. Our eyes met, vaporizing three years in three seconds. “Oh. My. God.” Her face hadn’t changed—Betty Boop meets cute with the Dragon Lady. Ditto her figure, size zero in a sleeveless linen cocktail dress the color of dried mustard. A tiara of Ray-Bans perched over her forehead. Mascara applied with a trowel and a quivering hand.
“Uh—” I replied, a reflex.
“Since when,” she started, staggering toward me, her eyes dark with horrified concern, “have you been painting with fluorescent colors?”
“Since when,” I countered, leaving the queue, “do you have a rhinoceros head?”
“I don’t have it. Haven’t you been paying attention? The simpletons in charge of this salvage sale have lost it.” She clicked her tongue in disgust. “Can you imagine? It’s the size of a large dwarf and weighs two hundred pounds. It’s like losing the front end of a DeSoto.”
The manager eased toward her, cautiously. “Ma’am, I…I keep telling you, it’s not lost. It’s being held in Customs.”
Oh, I thought,
you poor man. You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with.
“Customs? What, are they waiting for the rest of it to show up?”
“Miss Dodd,” I said, calmly, “science has shown us that the severed rhinoceros head is the breeding ground of choice for the notorious and deadly tsetse fly. One nostril alone could comfortably house an entire colony. Surely this would be of grave concern to our government.”
The manager gaped at me, desperate with gratitude for any explanation, however untenable. “Yes! That’s it exactly.”
She shouldered her slate Chanel purse and smoothed her ebony Lulu helmet of hair. “You were always like that,” she sneered at me. “Always.”
“What, right?”
“No. Infuriating.” Her scowl melted into a sly grin and she made for the door, pausing to address the manager. “I’ll be back in a week and that head had better be here. Or I’ll have yours.” And, jerking her lovely head in my direction, out she went.
I hastily abandoned the paint jars to the nearest shelf and followed. As I did in the old days.
My whole body was smiling. Himillsy, you’re here.
You’re really here.
The proprietors of Pepe’s Pizza on Wooster Street boldly claim that they, and only they, originated this most ubiquitous of delectations here in the United States, and more specifically, in New Haven. Which may or may not be true, but this much is indisputable: they are not open for lunch. Dinner only, the bastards.
So Himillsy suggested (proclaimed, actually) that we go to Modern Apizza (pronounce “Abeetz”), their biggest rival in town for the crust crown. They start serving at noon.