Imperialism Update! (1)

The first publication I ever "designed" was The Imperialism Update, a newsletter I created for a college Model United Nations Class. My comrades from the Eastern Bloc and I (representing the nation of Czech when it still had its Slovakia attached) used it as a weekly broadside against... well... everyone else. Printed on heavy bright red stock--natch!--the articles had to be typed (as in on a typewriter); images were photocopied then cut-and-paste. The headlines were blocky, all-cap Helvetica; each letter painstakingly rubbed off dry transfer sheets. This little newsletter (four pages, both sides of a folded 11" x 17" sheet) could take days to layout. The headlines were never straight. The photos (usually of the snarling instructor, who roleplayed Albania) and cartoons (typically lampooning the United States) were always too dark on that ink-sucking red paper. The Imperialism Update violated every rule of good graphic design.

But it was my first. My first design. My first creative collaboration that ended with something in print. It was sardonic. It was red. It kept me up late at night, laughing with friends as we tried to find fresh insults to print about Albania. Of everything I've ever designed, it is my favorite.