RIP Walker Edmiston (1926-2007)

Enik. The Sleestak in lamé.

From CNN.com:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Walker Edmiston, an actor who was the voice of many cartoon and puppet characters, including Ernie the Keebler elf in TV commercials, has died. He was 81.

Edmiston died of complications from cancer at his home in Woodland Hills February 15, said his daughter, Erin Edmiston. He worked until becoming ill in January, she said.

Edmiston was born February 6, 1926, in St. Louis, Missouri, and moved to Los Angeles in 1947.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Edmiston had a children's show on local television, "The Walker Edmiston Show," which featured his own puppets, including Kingsley the Lion and Ravenswood the Buzzard.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he voiced many characters on shows created by Sid and Marty Krofft, including Dr. Blinkey and Orson the Vulture on "H.R. Pufnstuf" and Sparky the Firefly on "Bugaloos."

Edmiston also had acting roles in episodes of such TV series as "Gunsmoke," "Mission: Impossible" and "The Dukes of Hazzard," and performed for nearly 20 years on "Adventures in Odyssey," a radio series produced by the nonprofit group Focus on the Family.

My autobiography

I'm not quite sure why I'm posting this. For my Art Criticism class, I was required to write a short autobiography in the style of Giorgio Vasari. I don't know if it was sufficiently flowery to qualify for "Vasari style" points, but it sufficed. Also, it's slightly untrue. Those of you who know me well or who were there for certain events mentioned below know this. Just go with it. It was easier to embellish than to go into the real details.

Anyway, here goes.....

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In the city of Omaha on the plains of Nebraska, a red-haired boy was born to Mom and Dad Sasquatch in 1968. This year marked a tumultuous time in the United States, and the proud parents wondered what kind of world was waiting to receive their child.

As a somewhat precocious gradeschooler, I dabbled in finger painting and macaroni art, even having my work put up on the bulletin board, to my eternal delight. Even at that tender age, though, I was not sufficiently foolish to believe that my art was necessarily better than that of my schoolmates. However, my art was good enough. Good enough was to become my rallying cry in the realm of the visual arts for a large part of my career.

Throughout my formative years, I learned about art theory--the color wheel, perspective, etc. While objectively I grasped the concepts, I was never able to execute any works that were truly great. They were good enough.

It wasn't until I received an undergraduate degree in political science and Spanish that my visual tides began to turn. In 1989, I used a Macintosh computer for the first time. From the moment I saw black pixels on a white field, I was smitten. Thanks to the geniuses at Xerox PARC and the questionably acquisitive nature of Messrs. Jobs and Wozniak, life would forever change for me.

After graduation, I didn't know how to tell my parents that I longed for a career in the applied arts. Instead, I continued my formal education in the stream I'd started, procuring a Master's degree in international policy studies. During the pursuit of this degree, I produced beautiful presentations and elegantly formatted research papers. They were better than good enough, but unnecessarily so.

Once I struck out to the East Coast to apply my newly-acquired degree, I realized that I had no network of contacts. So I temped, going from one dreary job to the next. One day in September 1993, my luck changed. The World Bank needed someone who knew how to use a Macintosh. From that day forward, I never looked back. I began teaching myself graphic design, not wanting to be a much-maligned "designer via software purchase." No, I devoured concept after concept--layout and typography, duotones and TIFFs--everything I could pour into my head. Finally, after 13 years I felt I had taught myself as much as I could (and, more importantly, had paid off my earlier student loans). It was time to pursue the degree I really wanted in the first place--a Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design.

Applying to and being accepted by the Savannah College of Art and Design in the Spring of 2006 changed my life yet again. No longer did I have any annoying free time. Instead, I spent my nights and weekends studying, filling my brain to capacity with subjects ranging from the cave paintings at Lascaux to digital art installations.

The circle is not yet complete, and I have seven more quarters to undergo before receiving my MFA. Hopes are high, though, now that good enough is no longer good enough.

Creativity is not a faucet

I've probably ranted about this before, but I'm moved to do it again. Last week I received a request from a colleague (one for whom I don't work) to design some cover comps for a book he's written. He's already working with our External Affairs department, and they have already hired a designer. The problem is that the covers this designer has prepared are—to be kind—suboptimal.

If I were this guy, I would simply go back to External Affairs and then have them contact the designer they hired. Hopefully after a couple of iterations, provided my colleague has adequately explained what he's after, everything will be just fine. However, just because you're working with an external designer and you're unhappy doesn't mean that suddenly I'll hop to it. There was no warning, no meeting, no nothing. Just "I have this cover I'm unhappy with and would like you to come up with a version we like within the next four hours."

That kind of request/demand, aside from being unrealistic, is incredibly disrespectful, both of me and the creative process.

Creativity is not like some sort of faucet that can be turned on and off at will. Coming up with an effective design of anything requires inquiry, research, and time. I usually get cursory exposure to the first item and then never see the other two. For that reason my clients get what I like to call "lowest common denominator" design. It's good enough. Sometimes if I'm lucky enough to feel inspired in the confines of their often unrealistic timeframes, I'll come up with a piece I would actually include in my portfolio. More often than not, though, I don't. I prepare a piece that keeps them sufficiently happy and away from my door.

That's not how I'd like it to work. What I would really like would be to develop and implement an integrated branding and identity system for my group. A system that would tell the outside world that our products and services consist of high quality and a high level of design. This requires buy-in from the higher-ups, buy-in that I am unlikely to receive. I've been in meetings where I've been discussing an aesthetic and/or functional part of a design solution only to hear one of the management team openly scoff at my point. That is a discouraging response, but it wouldn't be the first time I've heard it or something like it.

Design is not valued by my clients to the degree it ought to be. Rather, it's an afterthought. Instead of incorporating the designer in the development of the product from the outset, the branding and overall presentation is the last item on my clients' agendae. Hence their tendency to bring me into the process close to the implementation date, which does not allow for a full exploration or treatment of their product's design requirements. It's incredibly frustrating.

Not more than a few days go by when I don't hear words to the effect of: "Your job must be fun. You get to work with pictures all day." Would that that were the case. O, would that it were. That's not to say that I hate my job. I love design, but I get annoyed when it's not given the respect or consideration it's due.

I have a few colleagues who read this blog. They may or may not recognize themselves here. If they do, maybe that will be a useful thing all the way around. Perhaps it will result in some awareness of the requirements of the creative process. It would benefit everyone involved. Everyone. Even them.