It had never occurred to me that teaching is in my DNA, until recently, now that I am retired, and have the time to think. I understand there were other distant relatives of mine involved in education, but my grandfather (1865-1963) was a headmaster; his brother a music professor at a Berlin conservatory. My father (1896-1963), when returning from active military service, after WW I, shifted focus from pedagogy to psychiatry, unable to cope with the laissez-fair behavior and disinterests of students and colleagues of that time. His brother was also a dedicated teacher.

It was never in my plans to become a design educator. But my experience at Simmons, especially the Valz Project, are very important in shaping my professional life. I have used it as gauge to measure many projects at other schools. After my design-training in Hamburg and several years of working as designer, I came to Boston, joining a group of associates and forming a graphic design studio on Boylston Street. I never thought, that I would become a design instructor, ever; neither in near nor far futures. It seemed outside of my plan. Then, sometimes in the early sixties, I worked for the first time with Simmons College students. It was an amazing experience. I cherished my observations of the collaboration and commitment between teachers and learners. This experience provided the incentives, about a decade later, for me to become a design educator. I have been a practicing design educator since and for about thirty years. But it is at Simmons that I learned the true value of word-smithing, because I started with a meager vocabulary-reservoir of about three hundred words when I landed, which expanded slowly over time, but which was one of my greatest hurdles to clear. I still stumble lots of times.

Design students as well as typographers are notoriously short-changed by their programs when it comes to the elegant use of language and adherence to pragmatic language conventions and proper use of grammar. They most often were and are still trained to erroneously believe that images or icons are superior and more efficient and therefore more important than text, as MIT’s György Kepes would often posture. Designers seem to think that editors are superfluous and in the way. Instead of fostering collaborations, they seem to be in a very unhealthy and a totally unnecessary competition. (A check of catalogues of most, even of the so called “best schools”, will show courses in “visual literacy” but a dearth of courses in “communication science or courses that provide knowledge on the translation of messages into actions by the reader”. That means, design students know  a lot about constructing aesthetic images, but know extremely little about eliminating barriers between message and audience.)

I must have had the same attitude, until I came across the discussions of the Simmons “Valz Project”. It is my belief that it was the most pragmatic and eye opening learning experience in any undergraduate program of that era. It influenced my approach to teaching and I gratefully must credit Professor Valz. Over the years I worked with many Simmons alumni and have always appreciated their contributions to the success of many publications and publishing efforts.