Tomorrow evening at the Bumble and Bumble auditorium, Barbara Glauber will be dishing on many design-related tid-bits unique to her experience as an imaginative, versatile designer. We were able to catch up with Barbara—principal of Heavy Meta, Yale design professor, and mom—for a quick interview in the midst of a hectic schedule. Behold, a preview of an evening that is sure to be as animated and awesome as it is investigative!
How did you get to be involved in founding The Smoking Gun?
In 1997, my husband, Bill Bastone, asked me to design a website so he could post documents plucked from the huge collection he’d amassed working as an investigative journalist for the Village Voice. “No one will care,” I said, hoping to avoid unpaid labor. I eventually caved, whipped up a mediocre design, and now when someone writes about the site and reproduces the home page, I wince. Unfortunately, it’s been seen by a gazillion more eyeballs than will ever see any of my other work.
Did you ever have a vested interest in celebrity dirt?
Celebrities schmelebrities. It’s satisfying when The Smoking Gun can knock them off their pedestals or turn their mugshots into temporary tattoos.
You’ve worked on self-initiated projects, directly with clients, and as a consultant to some of the largest branding and advertising firms. What common thread runs through all of these relationships?
You need the same set of conceptual, analytical, and formal skills for each of those situations, but the way you navigate the process is quite different. In advertising, your observations and creative strategies are presented as rational, objective truths, while in work for cultural institutions, your concept can be seen as a subjective, personal interpretation. Coming up with constraints for self-initiated projects is paralyzing, which is why, aside from a personal allergy to self-promotion, I still don’t have a real website or business cards. However, when it fills a non-negotiable need, like producing the annual Smoking Gun holiday gift, I only have to answer to my own standards and it is deeply satisfying.
You’re a principal of Heavy Meta and a mom—how do these two roles jive together? What have you learned in one that helped the other?
Patience! Since I have very little time to spare, I’ve become a much more efficient designer. In order to simplify my design practice when my son was very small, I limited it to media and project types we had previously explored, and focused on finding long-term projects that were easier to manage, like book design. This also addressed the interests of Beverly Joel, the talented and book-hungry designer who worked with me at the time.
I am always on the lookout for opportunities to collaborate with my son on design projects, whether it is translating his first words into icons, making a book documenting his classmates’ collections of 100 objects, or creating iron on t-shirt graphics.
What does your role as a design educator bring to your professional practice (and vice versa)?
Teaching is a constructive outlet for my deep, nerdy passion for graphic design. The classroom is a place for me to attempt to articulate the many things I love about visual culture, form-making, and conceptual strategies. Highbrow and low, we engage in passionate conversations about modernism, vernacular dialects, or the best way to render a pile of poop. Designing assignments is like constructing a box for students to think in and, when it works out well, it’s deeply rewarding.
And it may be cliche to say, but I am always inspired by my students.
Give us a little taste of Polylithic Graphiphilia and Other Strategery.
It doesn’t taste like chicken!
Barbara’s talk is sold out at the moment, but those of you aching to get in might do so through on-site registration. Seats are first-come-first-served, so come early!
Tuesday 6 May 2008 6:30–8:00PM
Bumble and bumble, 3rd floor auditorium
415 West 13th Street Between Ninth Avenue & Washington St.