Oh dearest VCU, we have lost another Knight.

Above: Erik Brandt, Un petit lapin pour Ben. (2011)

Who are we without our teachers?
Word reached us this morning that VCU Professor Ben Day had passed away on June 14, 2011 in Boston, MA. Thousands of graphic design students and educators will know him as one of the co-authors of the seminal American typographic education publication, the so-called Carter, Day, Meggs book, Typographic Design: Form and Communication. The image above may be familiar to some, and it is based on a matrix study I made for Ben during my time as an MFA Candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University.

All I have left is my work for you, Ben.

Above: The initial matrix idea I developed. Rapidograph and Letraset on trace. Ben always asked us to work within limitation and to strive for flexible yet fastidious experiments. This is not to say, he did not welcome chaos and surprise.

Above: Erik Brandt for Ben Day. Zirkel, Fall 1997. A project completed for Ben while I was a graduate student at VCU, photocopied washers and wood on vellum. Color applied by hand with pencil. The type was also traced by hand. Old school days, as Akira would have said.

For undergraduate and graduate students alike, Ben was a consummate professor and educator, a master of form. I’ll never forget sitting in on a Type I class he was teaching, having just taken over my first in the Fall of 1998. I walked into a classroom where Ben had already prepared the lesson for the day on the chalkboard, upon which he had drawn, by hand, in chalk, an overview of the Univers type family. Perfectly rendered.

Beyond style or simple technique, Ben taught the value, the allure of limitation.
These animations show a project determined by the words you see, though I added, with no small amount of emotion, solidarity.

Above: Another view of my Zirkel project for Ben. Ben now joins Phil Meggs and Akira Ouchi in our fondest memories. Who are we without those who taught us? How will we, how can we, carry their legacy, their skill, their mastery? I am at a loss to answer these questions, I only know one way forward.

We must be students as long as we can, in their comforting shadows, and humbly aspire to carry on their work in some small way.

I took careful notes, Ben.

Above: Erik Brandt, Un petit lapin pour Ben. (2011)