Beginnings

This past week, I've been immersed in the UCDA history with a little project I've been doing. Interesting history, to be certain. We were started because Lee Kline, from Illinois State, decided it was time we had something for university designers, as there just wasn't anything out there for us at that time. I won't repeat the rest of the history, which you can read here.

Boy, the early days must have been something. They had impressive programming at these events, to be certain, (Milton Glaser? Saul Bass? Margo Chase?) but even more so than the programming, it is clear that the chance to get together was vital. When you talk to Lee, and you can this year, he'll tell you it was an opportunity to drink beer and commiserate. Someone who attended those early days told me "It was kind of their Woodstock every year." It's clear as you go through the old letters and pictures that deep, important friendships were made, and are still made, through UCDA. I meet so many of you that work in offices as the sole designer. Especially for you, UCDA can give you colleagues. I see it on the listserv (really? 40+ messages of road songs, people?) and on Twitter all the time. You support each other and that's what we're supposed to be all about.

To me, the heart of this organization is summed up in this membership brochure from 1977. Here's the intro: "You say the publications editor in your department thinks design is something you cut out of a clip art book? That the dean considers $300 for 5,000 copies of a full color three-panel brochure "absolutely outrageous" and suggests you use the mimeo machine in the future? That your budget's been cut back so far you're having your department secretary fill old magic markers with food coloring you bought with your own money? And that your last request for a creative project was to have the college catalog (with a return reply card) reprinted on the inside of a matchbook flap? Well, take heart friend. The University and College Designers Association is here.

"We can't do much about the publications editor's attitude, the dean's tightfistedness, your budget problems, or the never-ending series of ridiculous publication design request you'll get.

"But we can get you together with other designers from across the country who've already faced -- and handled -- problems like your, and who can tell you how they've coped. With designers who've had their share of successes and failures and would like to share success formulas, and the funny failure stories, with you."

If that doesn't sum up, 33 years later, who we are trying to be, I don't know what does.

The other thing that hit me as I sifted through the more than 1,000 names of speakers over the past 40 years, is the caliber of the speakers. To add to Milton, Saul and Margo, there are other impressive names that jumped out at me, including: Charles Spencer Anderson, Steven Heller, Didi Katoni (the very first speaker I ever heard at a UCDA event), Annie Leibowitz, our good friends Brenda Foster and Domenica Genovese from GCF, D.J. Stout (twice). And right next to those names, more than a few of our own: John Krider (Washington University), McRay Magleby (Brigham Young), Amy Charron (Oregon State), Bob Winward (currently Utah State), Tom Hope (Univ. of Central Florida) and Amanda Fetterly (Univ of British Columbia). It's a wonderful meld, isn't it? A mix of the well-known commercial world along with our peers, teaching each other what we've learned.

So as the conference nears, I am excited to see all of you: from our founding members Lee Kline and Bud Deihl, to our very newest members. And I'm just as excited to see Matt Banbrough from Utah Valley University as I am the NBA in-house events team.