*and any other design students who happen to stumble across this blog.
Yesterday's post from me was about connections, and about how valuable those connections (although virtual) are to me personally. But connections work both ways, and this week I find myself listed as a reference for this week's assignment for Visual Communications students at Harford Community College, Bel Air, Maryland.

So, welcome my young friends - you're very welcome here. But I do notice (from my statistics) that you're not hanging around for long. That either means that you think you have nothing to learn from someone like me, or you're out getting yourselves wasted and saving up your assigned work until the last possible moment. My first piece of advice to you is: that's not a wise strategy if you want to transition your studies into a design career.
But the best piece of advice that I can give you is to learn to love typography. It's not easy, I know - especially when you're young and hot with hormones. I thought it was the most boring thing I'd ever encountered when I was your age (except, perhaps, double-entry bookkeeping). It may have been my tutor, though - he certainly didn't have the presence (or the beard) of your Professor Kenneth Jones. Or maybe I just started out with the wrong font - Univers. The most unforgiving typeface of them all. But I stuck with it and plodded on (well, I am a Taurean) and gradually I came to like it, and eventually - after ten years or so - to love it.
And the reason you should learn to love typography - and all things type - is that, should you follow a design career, the only thing that will remain constant over the years ahead will be type. Everything else will change - and change several times over. And you will need to accommodate and make those same changes yourself. But if you love type, you'll always find a way to make that happen.
So, good luck with your studies. And don't be shy - drop me a comment and let me know what you think.
(Oh, and one last piece of advice to the student at bottom left: lose the hat.)
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