Midterm

The event I chose was “Doc Leslie: Graphic Design Influencer with Virginia Bartow”. The reason I chose this event is that it fits to my schedule. But other than that, I was kind of wonder who Doc Leslie was because I’ve never heard this name before. The event took place at The Cooper Union. It was introduced by the Book Cataloger at the New York Public Library whose name is Virginia Bartow.

Virginia Bartow started the presentation by talking about her experience of working as the Book Cataloger at the New York Public Library and how she first knew about Doc Leslie. In twenty years ago, there was a gift accepted by the New York Public Library. Virginia Bartow had no idea what it was. She opened it and found out that it was a monogram for a name. And she also found out that it was an event with the initial of the Boston Public Library. Then she saw Doc Leslie and the other’s signatures on the guest list. She was interested of those names. And she wanted to know more about those names. That was how she knew about Doc Leslie.

What impressed me the most was what Virginia Bartow said that Doc Leslie was a person who brought people together from all over the world. He brought people in hand lettering and calligraphy into the printing world. He brought young people together into a shop, gave them equipment, supplies and money to create something new. He also changed the way people thought about layouts in design for advertising.

Later Virginia Bartow played a voice recording of Doc Leslie’s interview with the publisher of AB Bookman’s Weekly. The voice recording was the main content of this event. It took like one and half hour. In the interview, Doc Leslie talked about his life and how he became an influencer in design field. Doc Leslie met his wife Dr. Sarah in Baltimore in 1918. They got married six months later. Sarah was a window before married to Doc Lesile. He found the composing room with Sol Cantor. They brought people in production together with people in art design. Along with the recording, there was slide show of works published by the composing room. They published the Production Manager magazine and the Art Director magazine. But after World War II, they no longer publish this two magazines. Then they started selling ink and paper in New York City. And they made a great success.

After the Voice recording. Virginia Bartow made the conclusion and asked if anyone has any questions or wants to say something. There were three elders raised their hands. They all knew about Doc Leslie. One of them was co-worker with Doc Leslie. One said her father used to work with Doc Leslie. And one said Doc Leslie gave him his first job. What I heard in common of what they said was that Doc Leslie was a really kind person. He didn’t care about money. He gave money to young people to make new stuffs. He contributed a lot in the design field. That makes me respect him a lot.

At the end, I tried to introduce myself to Virginia Bartow. But she seemed too busy. I couldn’t get a chance to talk to her. What I learn the most from this event is the spirit of Doc Leslie. He gave a lot of opportunities to many designers and people in the design field. I also learned that sometimes a design is not just about the designer. There were people behind that we don’t know. I am not sure how this event can help me in my future career. But I learned that When you really like something, you should to devote yourself in it and contribute as much as you can.