Ed Fella: AIGA '07 Medalist—Introduction
—Scott Santoro
This is a transcript of the introduction made for AIGA Medalist, Ed Fella, during the AIGA’s Gala at Chelsea Piers on September 24, 2007
Ed Fella called a few months ago to ask if I could introduce him tonight...and I said I’d be honored...and as we talked I likened the award to him marrying the AIGA, with me as a kind of best man. Well, I think that triggered something because Ed ended the call with: “Just don’t say anything to embarrass me.”
And as he hung up I could hear his wife Lucy in the background yell, “Oh, Ed!”
Ed, I would never embarrass you. You’re my friend and mentor, as you are to many designers in the field. And besides, how do you embarrass a self-professed anti-master who likes to say that he gets everything exactly wrong.
It’s been 20 years since first meeting Ed. I was a student applicant visiting Cranbrook Academy of Art’s graduate design program, and was supposed to see a first year student in the corner studio to show me around; and there I found Ed, in Birkenstocks, working away on a school assignment. His drafting table was at a sharp angle, arms flailing, cutting together leftover stat paper, with projects on the wall that I didn’t understand...and to be honest, my first thought was “This guy must be a teacher here. He’s too old to be a student.”
But after only of few minutes I realized I was wrong. Ed was the most curious, young-at-heart design student I’d ever met. After working for 30 years, he actually went to night school to get the college degree he needed to attend Cranbrook.
And it was great to have him as a classmate. He knew all the techniques from the field... PLUS, he’d been reading critical theory the entire time—so he was ready to mess around.
But messing around gave him a bad rap at first—like in his hometown of Detroit where at a chapter event someone in the audience yelled “that stuff by Fella looks like it came right out of the garbage pail.” And Ed stood up, and fearlessly said, “It did.”
That’s why his students are so influenced by him—because he sets an example for inventive work, and is ready to defend it.
Another example, here in NY at a chapter event called Obsessive-Cumpulsive Design where we set up Ed and Massimo like roomies in The Odd Couple. And a student asked the question: Who is your greatest influence. Massimo answered: My greatest influence is Mies—completely understandable, refined, beautiful, Modern. And Ed, being the Postmodern half of the pair, answered, “Me.”
And as Massimo slowly turned, Ed, ever-the-teacher, carefully explained: He reinterprets, and recontextualizes his influences to the point where the answer has to be himself.
Okay, so before we cut the cake...one more Fella-ism:
Earlier this year we’re walking down Lafayette Street between Great Jones and Bond, or in fine art geography—between Robert Rauschenberg’s building and Chuck Close’s loft.
Because of construction, pedestrians were in single-file alongside a wall of sniped and peeling posters. I’m behind Ed, deep into a good discussion about conceptual thinking (I think)...And I was hoping that we’d see Chuck Close on the corner. He might overhear us, add something—and then we could tell him, oh yeah, we’re graphic designers.
And just as I’m imaging this, Ed’s arm shoots out sideways toward the wall. And in a matter of seconds he’s managed to pick off a tiny piece of whatever it was, texture, type, image...and insert it into his shoulder bag. To Ed it was like gold leaf, and most likely got built into a composition that reads and means something beautifully bizarre.
In that moment, Ed’s arm bridged a connection the art world, proving as other design greats have done in their own way, that it’s possible for a designer to BRING IT ALL IN to the work we do.
Ed, to me, and to a lot of people out there, you’re a neighbor next door who just happens to show us his stuff, and we can’t help but think—this is fucking brilliant.
Thank you AIGA for extending the boundaries to include designers like Ed Fella.
And Ed, thank you for being one of us.
