Call me a negative cynic, but what impact does Cranbrook have in the profession of graphic design today, if any? A lot of references are made to the Golden Age of the McCoy era, but even this is somewhat misplaced. The period that is taken to symbolically represent Cranbrook is actually rather narrow in scope. And is usually associated with a small number of personalities that are well resepected practioners and educators. But there were a lot of people that the McCoys taught prior to that that don’t fall under the umbrella of what is taken to mean “Cranbrook Design.”

My experience (in New York) has been that Art Directors would see Cranbrook on my resume and NOT want me to come in for an interview. And when I did come in, I was quite literally told that Cranbrook designers are prima donnas who can’t work with teams, or that my work had no content.

Visual practice aside, what about an educational impact? Is there a significant impact that Cranbrook alumnae are making in education (I am referencing Fella, Wild, Keedy, Venezky, Earls, Makela, Haycock… et al.)? My experience here too, has been that Cranbrook scares off a lot of university programs because they see art and not “service” (ie., corporate identities, lecture series posters, book jackets, et al.). Perhaps the CalArts faculty could only have achieved what they have because they had a critical mass of people who shared similar experiences. And oddly enough, the students taught by them don’t seem to have a problem practicing (I am being ironic here. I don’t think many faculty seem to make this connection.)