1992 : my first real graphic design

This is my first real graphic design. 1992, Penn State.

The assignment was a stamp for every season. I chose shoes. Each one hand drawn and cut with an X-Acto blade. No computers.

I'm posting it not because it is good, but because I remember clearly loving how much I learned from that assignment.

The learning, the process. The work. I couldn't love it more. Not just starting with something “good.”

After graduating Penn State, my professor at Tyler told me my orange juice carton sucked - start over.

I said thank you. I meant it.

That was paul sheriff's packaging class, and I started fresh, grateful — because getting told the truth was the entire reason I was in the room.

Years later, Paul and I taught together at Tyler, and I told him the story. He asked what my concept had been. I remembered exactly, of course. He said, "wait — that was a great idea."

But I never cared that he'd killed it. I wasn't wounded. I was so happy to be learning; being wrong was not the point.

I think about that constantly now, because times are different.

Many great students want more, then they come back with something better. Then there's a handful who hear a critique and say, "well, I like it how it is.”

That one stops me every time. Design either works or it doesn't. "I like it" isn't an argument. But most importantly, how did we not provide them with the desire to learn? It makes me sad.

I watched with an outside vendor, genuinely bright but making normal mistakes for someone inexperienced in business. There was zero interest to hear about these mistakes or to learn... only to defend.

I do not need to teach; in business, I’d rather not teach; I want to learn. Desperately. Like we all did.

No amount of intelligence substitutes for experience. And nothing substitutes for the humility to know you don't have it and need to learn it.

My first job was with Judy Munroe – tough in a way I don't think kids now could even imagine. No warm-up round, no cushion. I'm deeply sensitive but I grew thick skin fast. And I’m grateful to her every single day. How lucky am I to have had such honest - and often harsh - criticism to learn from - and from a great?!

This isn't an old-designer complaint. I collab constantly with Amanda Andreucci, my former student, and the teaching runs both directions. I have also brought in Sophia Katz (a college student) and Niely Gatto (my former student). I just love it - there is always something to learn from each of them.

So my question isn't "what's wrong with many of these kids?”

It’s: "what did we do, how did it get this way?"

Somewhere between the critiques of the 1990s and those of the 2020s, things got rewired: now high praise first, then maybe a gentle comment. We didn't make it clear that our professional input willI help them grow. That's not a character flaw. That's something we built.

"It's through mistakes that you actually can grow. You have to get bad in order to get good." — Paula Scher