“Quit studying and start living”
Prof. Jay Rutherford @ Designerds 2016

Bozen will turn into a design Mecca. This will happen on October, 14th 2016 on the occasion of the 1st international and interdisciplinary design conference “Designerds“. The presence of the following man is required: Jay Rutherford, also known as The Pensionista. Let’s find out who he is…

Jay Rutherford, please send us some photos of you. 

Coverpicture: One of my newer guitars.  

Six years old. My first guitar

Grade 10, such a nerd. 

1969, too cool for school. 

Jim Morrison, watch out. 

Eastern Canada’s young type designer, 1989. 

Just starting out in Weimar, 1994. 

One of my Bolzano students, Hannes Pasqualini, captured me quite well, I would say. 

Breaking extra bad. 

Chilled out pup. 

Now some questions: How can we make South Tyrol into a design Mecca? 

Jay Rutherford: Keep making great things! The art & design faculty at the Freie Universität turns out excellent graduates, as well as a number of good people who didn’t study there. 

What would you create if you were left alone in a room with just a black chalk, a flower and some sand and honey?

A cake.  

What is your main advice to students?

Quit studying and start living. No, I mean read Hans-Peter Willberg’s book “Lesetypografie”. And don’t just leaf through it, really read it. 

JAY RUTHERFORD, Visual communication, Typography, Canada/Germany
Canadian-born independent designer, teaching visual communications at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany. Specalized in typography, corporate- and information design, known for his collaboration on type design projects with Erik Spiekermann. A frequent speaker at conferences such as ATypI and TypeCon, and juror at international design competitions. 
uni-weimar.de, typecamp.org

On becoming a nerd
Where do nerds come from? What is it about their upbringing, or perhaps genetic makeup, that makes them nerds? Is nerdness a good thing or a bad thing? How do we avoid turning our children into nerds? Or how can we ensure that they become nerds? In this talk I would like to reveal the development of a particular nerd over several decades, how he became a nerd, what happened as he grew up, and what he’s doing now. Language topic: German, English
designerds.it

Photos by Jay Rutherford