Tag Archives: Lettering

Young Love: Honoring Doyald Young’s Legacy

Doyald Young was one of Art Center’s toughest—but most beloved—instructors, one the greatest letterform designers of all time, and a cherished friend and mentor to many.

Celebrate his life and legacy with us this Sunday, April 10, at Young Love, a day of workshops held in his honor and an evening of memories and stories.

To celebrate Young’s work, prominent designers and Art Center instructors will help you learn to draw beautiful curves and letterforms. Join Jill Belle, Stefan G. Bucher, Nils Lindstrom, Ramone Munoz, Chesley Nassaney and Bumsuk Lim for a series of hands-on workshops creating luscious curves in homage to Young. Workshops will be from 1 to 4 p.m. and held in the cafeteria and nearby classrooms. Visit www.35k.com/younglove/workshops.gif for updates to the workshop schedule later in the week.

Then, in the evening, join friends and colleagues of Young for an exhibition of the day’s work and a reception from 5 to 6 p.m. Following the reception will be a screening of the new documentary, Doyald Young, Type Designer directed by Scott Erickson and produced by Lynda.com. Following the documentary, Young’s friends and colleagues will share a few of their favorite memories of this great man.

RSVP to Young Love by emailing events@artcenter.edu. Please indicate whether you’ll be attending the workshops, reception, or both. Visit www.35k.com/younglove/workshops.gif for updates to the workshop schedule, descriptions and preparation.

In the meantime, enjoy the clip from Doyald Young, Type Designer below.

Young Love: A Day of Drawing Beautiful Curves
and Telling Stories in Memory of Doyald Young
Sunday, April 10, 1-8 p.m.
Art Center Hillside Campus
RSVP: events@artcenter.edu

Art Center Honors Doyald Young

This is turning out to be quite a week for Doyald Young.

Tomorrow night he’ll be honored at a special Art Center reception (RSVPs required) with a screening of Doyald Young, Logotype Designer, a new documentary about Young by lynda.com.

Photo by Louise Sandhaus

At Saturday’s commencement ceremony, he will receive Art Center’s Alumnus of the Year Award for his dedicated work as an educator and lifetime of legendary work in typography, logotypes and alphabets. At Saturday’s commencement, he’ll receive an honorary degree from Art Center, where he studied Advertising in the ’50s, and where he has taught lettering and logotype design in the Graphic Design Department for decades.

We caught up with Young this week to talk to him about Art Center, his thoughts on teaching and those things computers can’t do.

Dotted Line: Congratulations on the alumni award and honorary degree.
Doyald Young: Thank you! I’m honored and thankful for such honors. I am an amalgam of the people I’ve known whose ideas have permeated my being. I’m blessed—so many people have kindly befriended me. I often wonder, “How do I repay them?”

I believe that teaching and writing books about what I do is a form of payback. Both of which I continue to do, and will, as long as I am able. A priori, how could I not be deeply touched with the awards I’ve received? I’m humbled that Art Center has allowed me to teach these many years, and blessed that I receive support from my fellow teachers and staff.

Dotted Line: What has Art Center meant to you?
Young: Art Center has been one of the great forces of my life. I learned, most importantly, that our first efforts are just that. They need refinement. A good job is done over and over, and oftentimes is changed again and again when marketing forces or creative directors change their minds. Final art does not emerge full-blown. I make my living making changes.

At Art Center, I learned professionalism, punctuality, and above all, how to continue my skills and burnish my talent. And a mentor of mine, Henry Dreyfuss, taught me the value of a thank-you note.

Dotted Line: You’ve said that you are an educator first, and a designer second.
Young: It’s true. When I was a student in Mort Leach’s class, he noticed fellow students coming to me for help on their projects. They came to me voluntarily, and I found that I enjoyed helping them. Mort later asked me to become his teaching assistant.

Teaching requires patience. I firmly believe that if you have the gift of teaching, you must pass it on. As Woodrow Wilson said, “You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

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