Week 9 -Outside of Class

Off Campus Event

* Since I was unable to attend the Alumni Weekend, I attended a second Off-Campus Event*

House Industries: Speaker-Ken Barber
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later

Friday, March 27 at 7:00 pm. York College of Pennsylvania Weinstock Hall, Willman Business Center.

York College was lucky enough to have Ken Barber speak on behalf of the Design Department. Ken is a graphic designer from House Industries located in Delaware. He focused his entire lecturer on "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later". He went over the true gospel that House Industries follows. During Ken's presentation he went over more what House Industries has done since they started their business and only a little bit of his part in the projects. Ken started off without having any true formal training in college but through his experiences he has learned about lettering and typography. Throughout the presentation he discussed how House Industries would just dive in and create their branding for a company and follow by asking questions. 

One of the major groups that House Industries worked with was Custom Papers Group. During House Industries process of creating their branding, they were very inspired by fonts, typography from the 90's, which prompted them to design a retro/psychedelic look. By incorporating this style this had the power to tell a story. This esthetic followed through for the other designs that they created for other companies. In the process to create theses design House Industries would get their hands dirty by sketching and drawing ideas first and recording the process through imagery and video, before finalizing an idea. From their designs they would create custom fonts. They believe that designers should use typefaces right off the web because they aren't original and anyone can use it. 

Ken Barber went through the company process for a few companies. One of the clients they had was Suzanne Roberts Theatre on Broad Street. One of the unique things about this client was they used Suzanne Roberts handwriting and modified it slightly in order to create the logo installation. Another client they worked with was Jimmy Kimmel live late night. Jimmy Kimmel was already a fan of House Industries, and asked if they would create a branding logo for him. The logo that is used on ABC today is House Industries creation. This personally opened my eyes by how famous their work is. They worked with a variety of different companies. By doing this they made lots of connections through making friends. House Industries prefers to use the word connections instead of networking because they feel like they are just trying to use someone for their resources but not create true friendship out of their business deal. 

Overall I thought this presentation was very inspirational. I enjoyed all the different examples that Ken showed. With each example they showed the process and culture that was created with each client. They make all of their designs unique and personable to the client. After the presentation it got me very motivated to want to sketch and create my own lettering but it gets fairly difficult when time gets the best of me and its difficult to make extra time for free sketching.