Artist’s Statement: As a graphic designer and artist, as a writer and teacher, I am really an assembler. I arrange, re-order, emphasize, cut and add images and words. I assemble words into narratives, edit video and create graphics stitched together over time. I draw, digitize, rework in digital space, and set everything moving over time. Years ago, when the program Flash came along, I became deeply interested in images and typography in motion, and in coding interactive design as a way of making meaningful communication for clients. It was then that I began time-based artistic experiments by generating images randomly into compositions. This sense of experimentation has flowed in recent years into working with AfterEffects on short video-poem films, collaborating with established and new poets.
For my own personal or collaborative creative work, I am always trying to lose a sense of control, to move beyond the expected visuals and to not overthink the final results, to leave some of the process evident, the rough edges. I agree with the graphic designer Paul Rand when he said, “To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit: it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.”
Dave Richardson is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Eastern Illinois University, in Charleston, Illinois, USA, where he teaches interactive and motion design in the Art Department. His MFA is from Indiana University, Bloomington, and his print and motion design work have been exhibited in solo and group shows across the United States and internationally. He divides his creative work between personal literary projects and client-based graphic design. His site is rockyhillstudio.com
