News
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- 08.Mar.13
- The Blunt Conference
I am co-organizer of the AIGA Design Education conference Blunt: Explicit and Graphic Design Criticism Now, to be held at Old Dominion University April 12–14, 2013. My co-conspirators Ivanete Blanco, David Cabianca, Jiwon Lee, and Jason Tselentis. The conference’s focus is on criticism and critical writing in and about graphic design. Presentations will be in [...]
Writing
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- 27.Jan.13
- Transmission (Part 2)
Eight years later, the revision still stings logo connoisseurs. In “How to Ruin a Great Design” in the March 13, 2011 New York Times, design critic Alice Rawsthorn categorized it as a “crime against design.” “…UPS did this by replacing the wonderful “present” logo designed by Paul Rand in 1961, with a dispiritingly bland version [...]
Published
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- 12.Mar.12
- Étapes numéro deux cent
I am one of the 200 “voix pour le design graphique” included in the 200th issue of the French design magazine étapes. The special issue presents the comments of designers, collectors, curators, festival organizers, teachers, and critics on aspects of the state of contemporary graphic design. I was asked to respond to a brief questionnaire [...]
Projects
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- 29.Jul.12
- To Arrive Where We Started
I designed the materials for To Arrive Where We Started, a curatorial project by Peter Eudenbach that recently opened at the Redwood Library & Athenaeum in Newport, Rhode Island. My work included a 24 x 36 poster, paper and metal signage, and a 10 x 30 hexa-fold 2-color brochure/map that guides visitors through and articulates [...]
Ephemera
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- 21.Jan.13
- Three Holiday Cards
Another year, another batch of holiday cards. As always, it’s good to have creative friends. Here’s three gifts that made my mailbox sing last month. John McVey wrung more joy out of a typewriter an a stylish serif. Above is the front, here is the inside spread: and the front and back spread out: Nikki [...]
About
Ephemeral States is the site of Kenneth FitzGerald, artist, educator, and writer. As a writer, I'm the author of Volume: Writings on Graphic Design, Music, Art, and Culture, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. I produced The News of the Whirled, a novel in the form of 4-issue limited-edition magazine that received awards for excellence from the American Center for Design and AIGA, and is in the collection of Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota. As an artist, my work is included in public and private collections primarily in New England and New York, with numerous artist books in the Franklin Furnace/Museum of Modern Art/Artists Books collection. I received my MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and am currently a Professor of Art at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Hear me, hear me
To listen to an interview with me on Design Matters with Debbie Millman from March 17, 2006, click here.
Portrait by Mark Andresen.
