Image Essay

Sarah Olick

Sarah Olick

Ellen Lupton, Typographic Binaries, 2021

This image, from Ellen Lupton’s Typographic Binaries, questions what counts as a serif. It seems like the presence of serifs can almost be seen as a spectrum from serif to sans serif, but in categorizing typefaces, it is seen as a binary. A font is either categorized as a serif or a sans serif. Where does this leave a typeface like Optima, which has stems that flare out at the top and bottom?

It is usually categorized as a sans serif typeface, but it has characteristics of a serif typeface as well. It occupies that in-between space. Are there any variable fonts that can vary from serif to sans serif? How would those be categorized? Some typefaces have both serif and sans serif versions. How are these categorized? I have seen them listed as two separate typefaces on platforms such as Adobe Fonts. Are they two different fonts? Are they two versions of the same typeface? In my inquiry presentation, I asked “When is the thing just the thing?” This example seems to blur the line of when the thing is just the thing and when the thing is not the thing. This frustrates me but I also see the beauty in designing in the space in between.

Elizabeth Guffy, Conversation with Steven Heller, International Symbol of Access, 2021

I had never realized how different the international symbol of access is from other icons used in similar settings.

In its form, it is definitely sharper than others, which include rounded corners rather than the sharp angles included in the international symbol of access. I also had not realized that the international symbol of access was, in fact, a symbol depicting a wheelchair and not a symbol depicting a wheelchair user. I had always seen it as a person in a wheelchair. The addition of the circle for the head makes it almost unmistakable as a person (to me at least). Disabled people are more than just wheelchairs, and wheelchair users are more than just wheelchairs.

The Accessible Icon Project offers a more active symbol that centers the wheelchair user and also better fits in with the formal visual identity of other common icons.

Is a wheelchair the best option for an accessibility icon?

The majority of disabled people do not use wheelchairs.

I have heard many stories of disabled people who are rightly using accessible parking spaces being told that they must not be disabled enough to park there by complete strangers. Does this have anything to do with the fact that the symbol used to identify these parking spaces is a wheelchair? Has this symbol caused people to believe that accessible parking spaces are only intended for wheelchair users? What would be a better symbol?

The quality of being usable, largely in relation to disability.

An item, physical or digital, made by humans.

The origin of a work, who created it.

A system consisting of two parts.

Design work that results in multiple concepts.

A formal procession.

The economic theory and social construct that prioritizes the purchase of goods.

The process by which an audience member is able to read a media text in a way other than the preferred reading.

To examine through a critical and constructive lens.

The automatic selection or expectation.

A speech or piece of writing that is abusive, bitter, and/or satirical.

To make perceptible in relation to the body.

Designed with comfort and efficiency in mind.

The belief that one group of people is inherently superior to all others.

An economy in which products are props for consumer experiences.

Intended to explain, describe, or expose something.

When the designing of an artifact leads to expansion of kernel theories.

Taking advantage of an opportunity.

The quality of containing diverse elements.

Relating to discovery, learning, and/or problem-solving.

A written declaration of intentions.

Having come into existence recently.

Josh A. Halstead, Disability Theory, 2021

I thought this diagram was really interesting because it is something I can relate to. I am not deaf or hard of hearing, but I do have ADHD, and so many little things, including some of the things listed in this diagram, bother me that other people would never think of. I prefer to have captions on movies and tv shows because it helps me focus and I can sometimes miss spoken words. I prefer texting to talking on the phone in most circumstances because I can read over the message to make sure I get the right information. While the other situations listed in this diagram do not apply to me, I am sure I could think of many travel instances that give me ADHD rage. One in particular is at the bag drop. Sometimes it can be hard for me to know when exactly I should go up to the counter. I might be so focused on one agent that I may miss another agent calling me over. I may see people leaving the counter, so I go up before I’m called. I have actually gotten laughed at to my face for going up to the counter before I was called and standing in the wrong place while waiting. ADHD impacts the way I experience the world in so many ways. So much of our world was unintentionally created for neurotypical people, and it can be difficult to navigate when you don’t fit into the category the world expects.

Rob Giampietro & Rudy VanderLans, Default Systems in Graphic Design, 2003 / Wikipedia, Inverted Pyramid (journalism) / Sarah Olick, Biography (version 1), 2021

The first image of this group of three is of the structure of a feature article without content, showing that articles often take a so-called default form. I think having a default form as a starting point can help outline the expectations for an article, and once that default form is learned, the rules can be broken. For my high school newspaper, I learned the inverted pyramid structure for writing an article. I like knowing the expectations of a project before getting started. For the first project in studio last year, I felt like I didn’t know the expectations, so I took the assignment directions extremely literally. I ended up with a poster that was nowhere near the quality of the posters the rest of my classmates presented.

I was embarrassed and felt like maybe I didn’t deserve to be here after presenting that project. If I had known what was expected of me, rather than just being told the very very basic requirements of the project, I would have been in a much better place. This year, I pointed a few first year students to the biography posters that are hanging in the studio, so they wouldn’t end up in the place I was in at the beginning of last year.

Frank Chimero, What Screens Want, 2013 / Sarah Olick, Undergrad Digital Design, 2019

I was first exposed to skeuomorphic elements in an undergrad digital design class where we were tasked with creating our own skeuomorphic element. I created a button that actually looks like a button that would be sewn on clothes. I think the concept goes along with my idea of “what if the thing is just the thing?.” What if the place you put files you want to get rid of looks like the place you put physical objects you want to get rid of?

What does moving away from elements like this mean?

Does it mean anything? What about icons that are based on things that are no longer relevant (like the save icon often being a floppy disc)? I’ve seen people question whether emojis are getting too real or if there are emojis for too many things. I like having an accessible way to describe things in pictures and I wonder what would change if emojis weren’t designed in a skeuomorphic way. Certain skeuomorphic elements aren’t what most people would consider aesthetically pleasing, but do they make our technology more accessible.

Sarah Olick, Remix, 2022

As you can probably guess from what I’ve written so far, my own work tends to lack much deeper meaning and I tend to take assignments very literally. For the Remix project in studio, I was assigned to create a project combining genealogy and watercolor painting, since those were two things that interested me during the week when Nick sent out that survey. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to combine these two completely unrelated things. I eventually landed on printing some old family photos on transparency paper, then loosely tracing them with watercolor over a lightbox, then layering them in a photo album. When my virtual critic asked why I did this, I said “because I was assigned to create a project combining genealogy and watercolor painting.” He was not happy with that answer. He wanted to know what the deeper meaning of the project was and why (as in a theoretical why) I did what I did. I honestly don’t know why except for that was what popped into my head as to what to do for this project. I mean, I guess I can say I put them in a photo album because that’s where old family photos are typically found, but, again, that isn’t very deep. He couldn’t seem to accept that there really wasn’t a deeper meaning to this project, and this really frustrated me. I felt like I was being invalidated. Sometimes the photo album is just that, a photo album, and nothing more. I then made Riso prints of the watercolors, because I wanted to.

Sarah Olick, 50 Questions, 2022

50 Questions (or 52 Questions in my case) is another project where I created something based on what popped into my mind, and, again, there really isn’t a deeper meaning to the form. When we were told to make a “poster” for 50 Questions that did not actually have to be a poster, I somehow didn’t take this so literally as to just go and make a poster, but thought, “what can I make 50 of?” Playing cards, the answer was playing cards. Playing cards come as a set of 52 (or 54 if including jokers, which I didn’t). I already had way more than 50 questions, so doing 52 rather than 50 was not going to be an issue. I found that I loved working in this form, simply because I enjoyed it. I like somewhat repetitive projects. This project brought me joy, and I think it brought my classmates joy as well. They were all sorting cards and making houses of cards while I presented the deck in class. They seemed to be having quite a bit of fun. Often joy is more than enough of a reason to do something or make something.

The policies put in place by a powerful state, nation, or group of people in order to maintain and extend power.

The quality of being neutral.

Relating to a new trend in the arts.

Considered to be the standard or the majority condition.

An extensive or complete collection.

A theoretical framework.

The quality of functioning outside of the norm.

The restriction of those in subordinate positions by those in power.

The quality of displaying opposing properties or extremes.

Relating to a rethinking of modern norms and cultural assumptions.

A theory relating to the critique of the structures of social relations.

A method or forum in which people can voice their opinions.

Writing that documents events.

Overly agreeable or sentimental.

Seemingly unrelated theories that are used to construct more comprehensive theories.

Exaggerated trust in scientific methods and theories.

Improving the wellbeing of all individuals in a society.

Relating to the combination of social and cultural factors.

Relating to language and syntax.

The process of defining elements in a system.

Easy to use and understand.

The action of increasing price or value by a government or organization.

Sarah Olick, Arts and the Community, 2022

This is a tiny, unreadable, purple book I made in my nonCFA class, Arts and the Community. The class is on community arts initiatives and, last week, the professor made the point that we hadn’t actually made any art in this class, gave us a bunch of art supplies, and let us go wild with a very loose prompt of “a mind map book.” Without even thinking about it, I started cutting up pages of an old book that she put in the pile of supplies and collecting every random purple item I could find: purple paper, purple thread, purple wooden hexagons, purple buttons, purple images from magazines, purple colored pencils, purple watercolor paint, and more. I got really positive feedback from my classmates. Greg, the 60-somethingyear-old classically trained painter said it was beautiful.

Sometimes the book is just purple.

Sarah Olick, Independence + Authorship, 2022

Somehow I ended up placing meaning into forms in a project that gets to the probable reason as to why I don’t often find deeper meaning in things. As I said earlier, I have ADHD, and it impacts how I see the world and what I am able to focus on. ADHD isn’t exactly a lack of focus, but more an inability to regulate focus. So often, if something doesn’t explicitly capture my attention, I won’t be able to dive into the deeper meaning of it. It will just be what it is. That being said, somehow, there is a meaning to the form of the four books on my experience with ADHD that I created last semester. Starting in the top left with a book on hypersensitivity. I created stickers describing seemingly trivial sensory experiences that make me incredibly uncomfortable. I then photographed the stickers in the environment that would cause that specific sensory issue and put the image and sticker side by side in the book. I wanted the stickers to be callouts to what I experience, so maybe someone without ADHD would notice the things I notice unprompted. The book on the top right is on overwhelm, which I explained through doing the dishes. The tasks pile up in the book like the dishes pile up in the kitchen sink. The book on the bottom left is on hyperfocus. I often focus deeply on tasks that maybe aren’t the tasks I really need to be doing. Here the hyperfocus is printed on transparency and obscures the task on the page below, just like how my hyperfocuses will sometimes obscure the tasks I really need to be doing. The last book, on the bottom right, is on inattention. This book has images of careless errors I’ve made in my work and has stickers calling out what I should have noticed but didn’t. Here, the stickers make the errors more noticeable than they originally were to me. I find it ironic that the one project where I really put meaning into my work is the one project that is about the reason I often don’t put meaning into my work.

Sarah Olick, Design Theory II, 2022

To finish this essay, I wanted to create an image that brought together elements of the other nine images I have included in this essay. I’ve always struggled to write conclusions, but this visual element seemed to make more sense to me than just about any conclusion I’ve ever written, so I’m just going to explain the image and its connection to the other included images instead of writing a typical conclusion to this essay. I started with a quote from Josh A. Halstead’s article, “Disability Theory” (image 3), “When did chal­lenging the norm become a problem? And what does it mean to be normal to begin with?” Then, I selected one typeface that is known for being extremely legible (Lexend) and one typeface that is completely unreadable (Elido Ornaments) and used the blend tool in Adobe Illustrator to show 40 steps between each glyph. This brought forward a few questions that relate to the other images in this essay: In relation to image 1: When does a typeface begin to fit into a category? In relation to images 2 and 5: When does a shape become recognizable? In relation to image 4: What are the expectations of a typeface? In relation to images 6, 7, and 8: Do we have to have a reason for what we make?

And finally, in relation to image 9: When does something begin to mean something?