SALON

Wednesday, Mar 28, 2012 12:00 AM UTC

The philosophy of aesthetics

An exciting new designer uses graphics as a means for critical inquiry

By

Topics: Imprint, Design,

The philosophy of aesthetics (Credit: Erin Schell)
This article originally appeared on Imprint. It's part of Print magazine's annual New Visual Artist series that profiles 20 of the most promising rising talents around the world in the fields of graphic design, advertising, illustration, digital media, photography and animation.

ImprintBy all accounts, Erin Schell was doing well. She had a good job designing book jackets for a large company. But there was one minor issue: “I found working for a corporation and having a comfortable job sort of soul crushing and meaningless,” she says. “But that’s just me.”

"America ouf of ______," 2011

In 2009, Schell left her job and began teaching at Parsons and taking philosophy classes. Last year, she entered a master’s program in political philosophy. Examining the intersection of aesthetics and philosophy has been a way for her to reassert control over what she creates. “It was about trying to have meaning and autonomy in my own work,” she says.

Age: 29
Designer/illustrator
From: Rochester, New York
Lives in: Brooklyn, New York
Website: helloerinschell.com 

Schell’s interests have converged in the Occupy movement (she has contributed illustrations to the literary journal n+1’s Occupy! gazette and recently went on a tour of Italy discussing the protests) and in the New York Times’ philosophy blog, the Stone. Her collages for the latter ― Socrates in the clouds contemplating earthly delights; carnivorous animals dangling over a moral abyss ― use graphics as a means for critical inquiry. “It’s not just empty decoration,” says Aviva Michaelov, the art director of the Times’ opinion pages and Sunday Review.

Illustrations for The New York Times blog the Stone, 2010

The depth of Schell’s work is apparent in an installation she created for a public library in Washington, D.C. In “Illuminated Memories of Tenleytown,” she gives a visual history of the changing D.C. neighborhood, drawing on three months of research and reporting. Old newspaper stories and halftone images come together in a rich assemblage of overlapping memories and histories. Mixing sharp politics with evident empathy for the people of the community, it’s exactly the kind of work Schell wants to do more of. “It’s the idea of storytelling,” she says.

“The question of: How do you foster a sense of community to shake people out of modern alienation?”

Above and below: "Illuminated Memories of Tenleytown," installation at Washington, D.C., Public LIbrary, 2011

"Illuminated Memories of Tenleytown"

Illustration for Guernica, 2011

See the other 2012 NVA winners:

  • Sang Mun
  • Erin Schell
  • Berton Hasebe
  • Drea Zlanabitnig
  • Casper Heijkenskjöld
  • Kelsey Dake
  • Jerome Corgier
  • Tracy Ma
  • Olimpia Zagnoli
  • Ryan Thacker
  • John Passafiume
  • Lisa Hedge
  • Jungyeon Roh
  • Dafi Kühne
  • Jing Wei
  • Caleb Bennett
  • Naz Sahin
  • Serifcan Ozcan
  • Brendan Griffiths
  • George Michael Brower

Copyright F+W Media Inc. 2012.

Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America’s oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.

More Justin Sullivan.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 3 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from Imprint, the fastest-growing design community on the web. Brought to you by Print magazine, America's oldest and most trusted design voice, Imprint features some of the biggest names in the industry covering visual culture from every angle. Imprint

advances and expands the design conversation, providing fresh daily content to the community (and now to salon.com!), sparking conversation, competition, criticism, and passion among its members.

Continue Reading

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations