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Vintage Phoenix Comic Books sells popular merchandise such as action figures and The Walking Dead comic series.
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Vintage Phoenix Comic Books sells popular merchandise such as action figures and The Walking Dead comic series.
BEAD signs, like the one seen above, hang around downtown to designate Bloomington arts-centric areas
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Starting at 7 p.m., the IU Cinema will host directors David Darg and Byrn Mooser for a two-day discussion of their international documentary films. Tonight, the Cinema will screen “Sun City Picture House” (2010) and “Baseball in the Time of Cholera” (2011). At 3 p.m. Friday, the directors will present a lecture on their experiences during filmmaking.“They’re entrepreneurial and young and great-spirited to the point where I think they’ll connect well with students,” IU Cinema Director Jon Vickers said.Thursday’s first film, “Sun City Picture House,” tells the story of Raphael Louigene, a young Haitian man with a passion for movies. The youth recruited the help of Darg and Mooser to attempt the construction of the first movie theater since Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake.“They take on subjects that we don’t see enough of on-screen,” Vickers said. “They’re exposing us to real people and real events and a point of view in Haiti we felt was worth championing.” “Baseball in the Time of Cholera,” a joint effort by both directors, juxtaposes the tale of Haiti’s first little league baseball team and a Haitian lawyer seeking action against the United Nations for a cholera epidemic. According to the IU Cinema website, the directors’ stories intersect in the struggle for survival and justice.Darg spent 10 years as a first responder and frontline contributor for Reuters, the BBC and CNN, covering wars and natural disasters in more than 30 different countries. Mooser, who opened a secondary school in Port-Au-Prince, lives and works in Haiti.The two also founded RYOT.org, a website dedicated to highlighting humanitarian projects around the world with interactive volunteering.“They’ve created a pretty unique website that not only brings relevant issues to light but also then offers what they consider solutions for anyone who wants to log in and read about certain things, but also ways for every person to take action,” Vickers said. As a result of their films and international efforts, Darg and Mooser were named on Esquire Magazine’s list of “Americans of the Year” in 2012. “All of those things combined make it a very worthwhile theater event,” Vickers said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Not sure how long you’ll be visiting? Make sure you’ve maximized your time here in Bloomington and fully experienced all the campus and city have to offer. To get you started, we’ve selected a few items from the many gems in this guide and around town.1. IU CinemaYou don’t have to drop a lot of money to see a world-class movie. IU updated and re-opened its prestigious cinema in 2011.2. IU Art MuseumThis free museum showcases some of the campus’s finest artistic treasures, including Asian, African and American art. Note: it’s closed on Mondays.3. B-Line TrailFitness nut? Take your best jogging shoes or bicycle to the B-Line Trail, a 3.1-mile stretch of recreational pathway just west of downtown.4. Assembly HallEven if you don’t have the big ticket to IU’s next basketball game, the legendary stadium is worth a visit for anyone interested in basketball history.5. Meet a legendThe IU campus features statues of storied school figures, such as jazz musician Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael and former IU President Herman B Wells.6. Kirkwood AvenueThe main strip of campus nightlife, Kirkwood has a plethora of bars, pubs and restaurants to choose from.7. Fourth StreetFans of ethnic food will enjoy the worldly cuisine of Fourth Street’s various restaurants, ranging from Thai to Vietnamese to Indian to Turkish.8. Get in touch with natureThe IU Arboretum is a pristine location to rest under some trees or beside a stream. On a thriving campus, it’s a quiet escape from the noise.9. Sample Gates photoRemember your trip to Bloomington forever by photographing a moment at IU’s Sample Gates, perhaps the most common site for photos on the campus, particularly after student graduation ceremonies.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When he was a child in Spain, Tomás Lozano’s grandmother sang him to sleep.Now, the Bloomington resident performs the same ballads across the world. Tuesday, Lozano performed his “Hispanic Ballads” recital to an eager crowd in Ford-Crawford Hall, emphasizing the importance of folklore traditions. “I just thought it was songs,” Lozano said. “It was not until I was a teenager until I realized the songs my mom and grandma used to sing to me were ballads.”Lozano opened the evening by playing the hurdy-gurdy, a Western European instrument played by cranking a spindle against strings to create a resonating drone.“My favorite ballads were the mysterious ballads,” Lozano said. “They speak, and they say things without saying them.”His opening ballad, “La Pérdida de Alhama,” captivated the room with an escalating buzz. Lozano allowing the shrill instrument to speak for itself.“It has become a somewhat obsolete instrument,” said John McDowell, a folklore and ethnomusicology professor. “There have been revival activities with the hurdy-gurdy, but it certainly had its heyday a few hundred years ago.”Lozano’s presentation specifically introduced the crowd to romance ballads, which are traditionally sung in Spanish, Portuguese or Catalan.“Romances aren’t very well-known,” event organizer Julian Carillo said. “They have influenced many genres of popular music in Spain as well as Latin America and the southwest United States.Romance ballads were meant to be played in various settings ranging from informal storytelling, to telling the news to depicting war tales.Lozano played his favorite ballad, “Las Tres Mozuelas,” after the opening number. His mother and grandmother used to sing him the tale, which depicted a bachelor trying to win the hearts of three young girls.“They were making fun of men,” he said with a smile. According to the folktale, the three girls tricked the bachelor into buying them sweets. They promptly locked him out of their house.Many in the crowded room who understood Spanish chuckled at the ballad’s lyrics. The rest of the crowd was serenaded with flamenco guitar, a sound without language barriers.“It’s really interesting because a lot of people didn’t know about this tradition at all,” Lozano said. “But this tradition also existed in other countries like France and Germany.”Joseph Clements, an IU professor of linguistics, regularly performs music with Lozano. He said playing medieval music keeps history alive. “It’s like a language,” Clements said. “If speakers of a language die, you lose that whole cultural knowledge.” It was in the year 2013, the super-information era, when students and professors sat down to hear music revived from the 15th century. But Lozano left the audience with something to think about the art of ballads.“It’s a little bit like storytelling,” Lozano said. “A little look into the past when everyone had time to sit down and listen. We need to have quiet time — not phone time, the only thing we listen to.”
You might not have realized it, but here are four more senses that even Karen hasn’t mastered.
Keyboardist Joe DeGeorge, who plays alongside his brother Paul DeGeorge, celebrates the literature of J.K. Rowling as part of "Harry and the Potters." The band performed Thursday night at Rachael's Cafe.
Keyboardist Joe DeGeorge, who plays alongside his brother Paul DeGeorge, celebrates the literature of J.K. Rowling as part of "Harry and the Potters." The band performed Thursday night at Rachael's Cafe.
Keyboardist Joe DeGeorge, who plays alongside his brother Paul DeGeorge, celebrates the literature of J.K. Rowling as part of "Harry and the Potters." The band performed Thursday night at Rachael's Cafe.
Keyboardist Joe DeGeorge, who plays alongside his brother Paul DeGeorge, celebrates the literature of J.K. Rowling as part of "Harry and the Potters." The band performed Thursday night at Rachael's Cafe.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The show must go on. Sometimes.Before The Lowdown stand-up club took the stage Tuesday at the Collins Living-Learning Center, comedians expressed heavy doubts about performing for their scant audience.“If we get to 10 people, we do the show,” comic Tom Brady said.“How about five?” regional touring act Ben Moore asked.“Not four,” Brady replied.Stand-up comedy, which regularly draws large audiences around Bloomington at venues like the Comedy Attic or the Indiana Memorial Union, sometimes experiences down nights. Tuesday was one of those nights.When The Lowdown was slated to take the stage at 8 p.m. Tuesday, five people were seated in the Collins coffeehouse. Four of them were reading.“We got a comedy show soon,” Moore mockingly said to the group. “Get ready to laugh, everybody.” There was no reply.Despite the low turnout the comedians waited for more audience members, extending their scheduled start time indefinitely. To pass the time, some made jokes about the flyers on the Collins LLC bulletin boards.“How do you guys feel that this mask-making workshop will be better attended than this show?” host Josh Cocks said.The comedians, who stood in a circle and paced around the hallway, reflected on past nights where limited audiences created memorable sets.“Nobody came, but we still did the show for three super-drunk people who yelled at us the whole time,” Brady said of a recent trip to the Tin Roof bar in Cincinnati, trying to convince the group to continue with the evening’s show.The longer the wait dragged on, the heavier the mood in the room became.Jordan Mather-Licht, a freshman who recently started doing stand-up with The Lowdown, stood quietly and checked his phone for the time. One comedian stepped out for a cigarette. Another peered through their notebook of prepared comedy material one more time.At 8:13 p.m., the comedians cleared their throats and entered the room. As Cocks grabbed the microphone in the silent room, he welcomed the humble audience by slowly dive-rolling across the stage and addressing the tense situation immediately.“Everybody here is a comic, or studying or in the second row,” he said.Some tense chuckles ensued. Companions in times of laughter and silence, the entire group of comics scheduled to perform sat in silence to hear each other’s sets. Cocks was trying out new material as well as jokes his brethren, who spend countless hours backstage with him, had heard to the point of memorization. This is the reality of stand-up comedy.The jokes ranged from Cocks’ 2:30 a.m. sobriety test in Cincinnati, to his obsession with fast food and his thoughts on “crazy people.”After mid-energy delivery to a low-energy crowd, Cocks abruptly ended his set.“So that’s all I’m gonna do,” he said with a smile on his face.The audience of snarky comedians also scheduled to take the stage replied with a joke of their own. They met Cocks’ stoic set dismissal with a large round of applause, keeping him on the stage so he couldn’t leave, a tongue-in-cheek reply to the evening’s circumstances.The second comedian, Karl Spaeth, wound up standing next to Cocks before the applause fully ended.“Your next comedian is standing right next to me,” Cocks said. “Karl Spaeth.”Though not quite an anomaly in the comedy world, the “off-night” happens regularly enough to keep comedians appreciative of large audiences when they do come.“Even a bad open mic, if you try hard enough, will work out,” Moore said.“If the stars align...and there’s no pressure to do well,” Brady added.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Silence is golden.When the Taylor 2 dance ensemble took the stage Friday night at the IU Auditorium, the troupe showcased decades of choreography from famed dance maker Paul Taylor.The bodies did all the talking. “It was wonderful to have a large audience,” Rehearsal Director Ruth Andrien said of the Bloomington crowd. “The larger house really charges the dancers on.”The Taylor 2 dancers performed in front of minimalist backdrops that varied between shades of pastel blue and seductive red lighting. Their use of costumes and varied movements told the tales of Taylor’s dances.The first act of the night was Taylor’s “Aureole,” written early in his career in 1962. A foundational piece, the dancers wore white sheer and performed with extended arm movements to George Frideric Handel’s classical music.“The first one didn’t impress me quite as much,” 13-year-old ballet dancer and audience member Sarah Bredemeyer said. “I felt like I was getting set up for something not-that-great, but it kept getting progressively better.”As the evening progressed through Taylor’s second act “Images” (1977) and third act “Piazzola Caldera,” (1997) the scenes became more colorful and vibrant, utilizing flamboyant costumes and romantic tension. “I especially liked the second part because it felt like it was building up to something amazing,” attendee Zoe Layton said. “I love the build-up.”“Images” illustrated the Minoan period of Greek society with bright dresses and spiritual dance themes. Some of the troupe’s dancers said they had a difficult time capturing the essence of the scene.“When I learned it, I did everything correctly,” troupe performer Christina Lynch Markham said. “And when Paul saw it, he said ‘you need to be hallucinating.’”Markham’s dance character was designed to portray mental unrest.“I’m actually hitting myself,” Markham said. “It’s about being ritualistic and abusing myself.”When Taylor constructs dance routines for his company, his methodology and technique can be secretive, Andrien said. Taylor often brings a sculpture into the studio for inspiration.“He does a lot of research but never talks about it,” Andrien said.Taylor 2, which tours the world as a six-member representation of Taylor’s primary company, faces the struggle of travel interfering with new routines. At any given point, the troupe hits the road with up to 15 dances in its repertoire. Dancers are given DVDs with videos of choreography to memorize. “We only have one week to learn the entire piece, so you have to remember everything,” troupe performer Rei Akazawa said. The troupe’s efforts were met with applause after every movement, sometimes meriting an outburst of clapping after an impressive move. Andrien said she attributes the skills of the troupe’s dancers to direct inspiration.“His really great dancers come from really great music,” she said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Iraq War came to a rhetorical end Monday night inside Sweeney Hall.Composer Jie-Sun Lim, who earned her Ph.D. in composition from IU in 1990, returned to give a lecture to Jacobs School of Music students and faculty.“I am very pleased to be back in 23 years,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about theory or background. I just want to talk about inspiration I got.”Lim, who shared compositions from across her career, captured the audience with her soft voice. She played video clips and audio files of her symphonic constructions. Her group of peons sat in quiet, stoic observation.Some nodded their heads to the rhythm of the music. Others jotted in notebooks of lined music staffs. One student traced the air with his hand.The former Fulbright Research Scholar discussed how she took an idea, such as Iraq War violence, and translated her thoughts on the subject into an abstract musical composition. Lim said her 2008 piece “Gayageum Concerto,” which begins violently and ends in harmony, expresses her desires for “universal sympathy” in the turmoil-ridden Middle East. She said the piece sought a possibility to find reconciliation and harmony between cultures.The meaning of the piece culminated with a trip to Israel, she said.“At that time, I was very happy to be in Israel,” Lim said. “I was hesitant, but decided to go there, because it might have been the perfect time for the piece.”The 18-minute video of its performance merited a raucous applause from the audience. “This is the turning point in my musical language,” she said. “After this point, I became free.”Other pieces in Lim’s lecture included “Shadow of Shadow,” a work inspired by repurposed, dead tree stumps, and “A Poem About Spring,” a piano solo written to be extremely challenging for its performer.A five-minute video of the solo’s performance left some of the audience in awe. A few students shook their heads and sighed as the pianist pounded away at rapid speed.Someone near the front exclaimed “Wow!” as the solo came to a close. Lim wrote “A Poem About Spring” for the 2008 Seoul International Music Competition and said she was surprised when many of the judges described her music as European.“I never thought my music was European or American or Korean because I always thought my music was my own,” she said. Don Freund, a Jacobs School composition professor and department chairman, introduced Lim to the group of about 50 in attendance. “A lot of things are going on in contemporary music today,” he said. “The composers who had been much more rigorous, austere and abstract are kind of finding their soul. This is just another example. She’s beautifully captured that.”
Zen
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On a campus with more than 42,000 students, your bedroom is often the best escape from other people.Why not make it a place of refreshment?During winter break, I transformed my messy bedroom into what I call a “Zen Room.” I used to throw all my belongings on the bedroom floor, but now my room is a place of relaxation.Creating a special place to relax — as crazy as the idea sounds in our stay-busy world — can be an easy step to a successful semester.Here are some tips to create your own Zen Room:The floorYou walk on it. Crumbs fall on it. Lost pennies and old receipts call it home.Not anymore.Get everything off the floor. Hang your coat and designate a spot for your backpack. Clean up trash and vacuum as often as necessary. You’ll be surprised just how much room you’ll have for activities.Keep the shoes out — no need to keep dragging in dirt. Walk around barefoot, if that’s your thing. It helps your bedroom feel like anything but another office or classroom.Less is more Odds are your desk is cluttered with things you think are essential enough to keep at arm’s reach at all times. How often do you really grasp for the orange highlighter that stopped working months ago? Keep your desk, dresser and side tables as clear as possible. Make room for a beverage and your work materials.Any more than one desk toy quickly becomes a plethora of knickknacks simply taking up space.Decorations are greatAre you defined by a towering pile of laundry? I didn’t think so.Hang up posters of your favorite things but show off your neat side. Make sure everything is even and no tape can be seen. Let colorful pictures offset your plain white drywall.Music players and scented candles can keep your room an ideal, pleasant escape, but blow out the candles before leaving. You don’t want your Zen Room to become a Zen Pile of Ashes.Easy on the electronicsMost students I know suffer from electronic insomnia. They can sleep just fine, but they’re too occupied with scrolling around on Tumblr until 2:30 a.m. to doze off.Eliminate the problem and keep a no-laptop-in-bed policy. Make a pledge to charge your phone outside the bedroom. You have enough technology in your life.Play the partA well-cleaned room means nothing if you continue living with messy habits. If you use something, put it back in its rightful place. Develop a habit of doing chores and picking up as soon as possible, never “maybe later.”Once the semester has thrown everyone into panic mode, turning the Indiana Memorial Union, Starbucks and Herman B Wells Library into packed houses, you’ll utilize your room as a special resource to which you can gladly escape. Ahhhhhh.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The best way to combat scary student loans and approach the graduate life with success is proper budgeting now.According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the average United States student graduates with $27,000 in debt. Also, 63 percent of Indiana students are estimated to graduate with student loan debt.It sounds like you’ll need every bit of help you can find.Based on the experiences and expenses of this ready-to-graduate senior, I have a few tips on how to budget your rent, utility and grocery money to graduate like a fiscal expert.Housing and rentThis is the big one. Thrifty students living in a large house can pay as little as $300 per month if the rent is split, but introverts who need privacy often have to bite the bullet for $600 for only one bedroom. Luxury apartments can be even pricier ($700+).Most students pay about $500/month to call Bloomington home, but additional costs, such as city parking passes ($25), can add up.UtilitiesUtilities are the silent killer of a student’s budget. Costs like electricity and heat are given needs, but they’re not appreciated as much until the dead of winter, when it’s often hard to resist cranking the thermostat. Utility bills vary widely on use, but the following are relative averages:HeatCan be as little as $1 a month, can be as egregious as $200/month. Regulate yourself wisely. (Yearly average: $35/month)ElectricitySame goes. Turn off the lights before you leave and notice a big difference in your wallet. (Yearly average: $20/month)InternetMany providers like AT&T and Comcast offer low internet rates of $25/month, but the prices tend to skyrocket after the first year. Be wary of this change to avoid a higher rate. (Yearly average: $30/month)Trash and waterMost apartment complexes will take care of this for students, but it’s literally a cheap trick. Trash-bag stickers for the City of Bloomington are $2 each, and unless you’re taking hour-long showers, most water bills will be $15/resident. (Yearly average: $21/month)PhoneIf you’re a college student with a landline phone, you’re insane. However, almost every IU student carries a phone (ask your professors for proof). Popular alternatives are “unlimited plans,” which can now be found for as cheap as $30/month. (Yearly average: $50/month)GroceriesOh, Lord, do students love to eat. Savvy students can thrive on economic grocery purchases at $20/week, but those who enjoy food with fervor or special snacks will need a more expensive purchase. Don’t forget about alcohol. (Yearly average: $80-$200/month)InsuranceMany IU students do need to cover their own insurances. Rates are as subjective as your driving history and current health record, so this section gets a handy-dandy asterisk. Stay healthy, kids. (Yearly average: $100/month*)CoffeeAw, yes! The lifeblood of any studious Hoosier is a cup of brew. It’s cheaper to invest in a simple coffee maker and to-go cups ($6/year), but the majority of us will inevitably purchase hundreds of cups around town each year. And some of us prefer expensive lattes to simple coffees. Say the average person drinks 100 cups of coffee per year, at $2.50 per cup, and that’s $250 per year. Woof. (Yearly average: $20-$30/month, merely $5/month if brewed at home) But some people manage to get a skinny, super-mocha, low-fat, mixed-whip something every day for $5 or more.ExtrasHere’s where it all adds up. Maybe you want to see those beloved Hoosier basketball games ($270/season tickets). Maybe you want to ride around town on a fresh bicycle ($100-$450+). And some of you will choose to purchase books each semester ($200 average). A reasonable budgeting effort is to spend no more than $150/month on fancy new things ($5/day).
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Oppa co-op style.Demonstrators from the Trained Eye Arts Center in Bloomington performed a flash mob at about noon Monday at the Indiana Memorial Union.The participants performed their own rendition of Psy’s “Gangnam Style,” the most-watched YouTube video to date with more than 1.1 billion views.The flash mob was the ceremonial start to a week of free community lectures and classes sponsored by the Trained Eye Arts Center. The studio is located at 615 N. Fairview St. The group had seminars about studio photography and entrepreneurship basics on Monday and will offer an East Coast swing dancing lesson from 5 to 7 p.m. and a painting class from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday. On Friday, a WordPress website portfolio session from 5 to 7 p.m. and an improvisational acting class from 7 to 9 p.m. will conclude the week. All of the classes and sessions by the Trained Eye Arts Center this week are free, and those interested in attending or in need of more information should visited TrainedEyeArts.com.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wendy Pressley-Jacobs describes her landlord as a “patron of the arts.”The Chicago-based design specialist, who graduated from IU in 1975 with a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design, presented “When Vision Acts: Thoughtful Communications” at the School of Fine Arts on Friday.Pressley-Jacobs’ design firm, Pressley Johnson Design, was founded in 1985. She said she aimed to enlighten students with her over 25 years of professional experience.“Vision, without action, is just a nice idea,” she said.Pressley-Jacobs articulated how professional design has changed since she entered the field decades ago. Today, 40 percent of the design industry revolves around websites and interactive marketing. Fifteen years ago, zero percent of design work revolved around them, she said.“People need to market,” Pressley-Jacobs said. “They need to let people know what they’re doing, and that’s where they’re spending their money.”Despite the changing times, Pressley-Jacobs said the graphic design and publishing industries will still thrive if talented individuals are present.“We hire the best talent we can find, and then we let that talent get used,” she said. “In the last four years, the economy was tough. Really tough. But it’s getting better, and that’s what we like to see.”Pressley-Jacobs said she recommends students should keep trying to change the status quo of design. Her most notable example was work commissioned by Evanston, Ill., a city in need of a new look and various logos.“Our world today is so sick and full of stock photos,” she said.Interestingly, Pressley-Jacobs and her company recommended the city use hand-drawn logos. The results were a tremendous hit, since they reflected Evanston’s citizen identity as creative and intelligent, she said.“That’s why brainstorming is good,” Pressley-Jacobs said. “Because you feed off each other.”Jenny El-Shamy, a senior lecturer of graphic design at the School of Fine Arts, said she felt IU students could benefit from Pressley-Jacob’s real-world experience as an IU graduate.“I’m the one who invited her and brought her,” El-Shamy said. “I’ve been an admirer of her work for many, many years, and I thought it would be great to come and have her share her experiences.”Ian Meares, a visiting faculty member and ceramics teacher, said his students could learn from Pressley-Jacob’s thoughts on design and the visual element.“There are some things that are best left to the visual medium and never said,” Meares said. “Things don’t need to be so literal. They can have soft beginnings and very full realizations that carry impacts beyond language.”Some of these visual campaigns can have unforeseen errors in communication, Pressley-Jacobs said.When the American Library Association teamed with Pressley Johnson Design for Banned Books Week, the design company presented books with “BANNED” and “FORBIDDEN” scrawled across the pages in bright red.“We didn’t want to damage books,” she said. “The interesting thing is this was a huge hit. The T-shirts sold out.”The banned-book campaign took place from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, just weeks before the 2012 presidential election. The juxtaposition of the word “FORBIDDEN” against book spines led to some confusion.“Is the ALA ‘for Biden?’” Pressley-Jacobs said with a chuckle, alluding to the Democratic vice president re-elect.However, Pressley-Jacobs and her company took the incident with stride, as it focused more eyes upon what she and her company were doing in the design world. “Any conversation about what you do is good,” she said.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wendy Pressley-Jacobs describes her landlord as a “patron of the arts.”The Chicago-based design specialist, who graduated with a BFA in graphic design from IU in 1975, presented “When Vision Acts: Thoughtful Communications” at the School of Fine Arts on Friday.Pressley-Jacobs’ design firm, Pressley Johnson Design, was founded in 1985. Her return to Bloomington aimed to enlighten students on over 25 years of professional experience.“Vision, without action, is just a nice idea,” she said.Pressley-Jacobs articulated how professional design has changed since she entered the field decades ago. Today, 40 percent of the design industry revolves around websites and interactive marketing. Fifteen years ago, zero percent of design work revolved around them, she said.“People need to market,” Pressley-Jacobs said. “They need to let people know what they’re doing, and that’s where they’re spending their money.”Despite the changing times, Pressley-Jacobs said the graphic design and publishing industries will still thrive if talented individuals are present.“We hire the best talent we can find, and then we let that talent get used,” she said. “In the last four years, the economy was tough. Really tough. But it’s getting better and that’s what we like to see.”Pressley-Jacobs recommended students should keep trying to change the status quo of design. Her most notable example was work commissioned by Evanston, Ill., a city in want of a new look and various logos.“Our world today is so sick and full of stock photos,” she said.A curious decision at first, Pressley-Jacobs and company recommended the city use hand-drawn logos. The results were a tremendous hit, reflecting Evanston’s citizen identity as creative and intelligent, she said.“That’s why brainstorming is good,” Pressley-Jacobs said. “Because you feed off each other.”Jenny El-Shamy, a senior lecturer of graphic design at the School of Fine Arts, said she felt IU students could benefit from Pressley-Jacob’s real-world experience as an IU grad.“I’m the one who invited her and brought her,” El-Shamy said. “I’ve been an admirer of her work for many, many years and I thought it would be great to come and have her share her experiences.”Ian Meares, a visiting faculty member and ceramics teacher, said his students could learn from Pressley’s thoughts on design and the visual element.“There are some things that are best left to the visual medium and never said,” Meares said. “Things don’t need to be so literal. They can have soft beginnings and very full realizations that carry impacts beyond language.”Some of these visual campaigns can have unforeseen errors in communication, Pressley-Jacobs said.When the American Library Association teamed up with Pressley Johnson Design for Banned Books Week, the design company presented books with “BANNED” and “FORBIDDEN” scrawled across the pages in bright red.“We didn’t want to damage books,” she said. “The interesting thing is this was a huge hit. The T-shirts sold out.”The banned-book campaign took place from Sept. 30 to Oct. 6, just weeks before the 2012 presidential election. The juxtaposition of the word “FORBIDDEN” against book spines led to some confusion.“Is the ALA ‘for Biden?’” Pressley-Jacobs said with a chuckle, alluding to the Democratic vice president re-elect.However, Pressley-Jacobs and her company took the incident with stride, as it only focused more eyes around what she and her company were doing in the design world.“Any conversation about what you do is good,” she said.
Percussion enthusiast Tom Berich demonstrates the "pan around the neck" drum Monday at the Monroe County Public Library.