The GDAD Interview series aims to explore the award-winning graphic design and advertising faculty. Each interview reveals the history of the teacher, the classes they teach, if they're working on any special group projects, and their perspective on creativity, learning, and art.
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| Photographer: Roza Gazarian |
Kevin O'Callaghan is an iconic three-dimensional designer and instructor at SVA. His clients include MTV, Nickelodeon, Warner Brothers Records, and ABC Pictures. Joey Cofone, a student in the graphic design program, spoke with him about why he chose chess, how he inspires his students, and what he expects them to get from his class.
The SVA Chess exhibit has been put together by Kevin O'Callaghan's well renown three-dimensional design class. Students spent a semester conceptualizing, sketching, and building their pieces. The exhibit was shown at the School of Visual Arts main building, 209 E. 23rd St.
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Joey Cofone: For your third year class project, why did you choose a chess set?
Kevin O'Callaghan: Chess has always intrigued me because of the fact that there's a hierarchy. It's a little war—it's kind of violent. As a kid I was very into conflict. There are these pawns up in the front and they take all the abuse, the king is kind of back there, safe. I wanted to explore the concept of hierarchy in the form of other objects. Basically, if you were making a giant chess set out of automobiles, the pawns would be Yugos (don't know what a Yugo is, you gotta see this), the kings would be Rolls Royces.
JC: Every piece in the show is pretty amazing, and I don't know, maybe you're hiding the bad ones [laughs], but every single piece is excellent. How do you get such high quality work from your students.?
KO: Right, they're all good. If you look real closely you'll see the craft is better on some than others, but in my class we deal with the problem conceptually first. The craft is something that just kind of comes along as the year goes on, some people excel better than others, but I don't look at that. I look at the solutions conceptually.
JC: They're all pretty creative and unique. How do you get your students to push the concepts so well?
KO: They're all pretty different from each other, which always amazes me, because with thirty-something students you'd think there would be some overlap. I think the key to my class is that we work as a group. So when they bring in sketches, we put them up on the wall and critique them as a class. It isn't just me passing judgment. I have a say in it, of course, because I'm the instructor, but it's important that we work together. We all vote on each student's project. It's a good example of what life is about, to be out there in the real world without much of a say about what you have to produce. As a good designer we have to deal with the hand that we're dealt.
JC: Are there any rules to your projects? I see that some of the chess boards aren't functional pieces; does this matter to you?
KO: Not functional in what respect?
JC: As in you can't play chess with some as easily, if at all, as you can with others.
KO: It's nice if the pieces are functional, but it isn't mandatory. These are designers, not engineers, and I always stress that. The concept is the most important aspect of the project, and construction facilitates it. The underlying theme of my class is product design. As far as actually functioning correctly, product designers don't necessarily have to produce something that's been engineered. Concept is first, building is second, and engineering is third.
JC: Okay, that makes sense. They're pieces of art.
KO: All of my projects are geared toward letting students find a solution from many directions, whether they're into illustration, set design, package design, and so on. It's about finding your niche and going in that direction. Then you can make decisions, find out what you what to do in your life. These decisions develop through working on these assignments, if that makes sense.
JC: It does; it's about how we can find solutions that express ourselves and our preferences, and still solve the problem.
KO: Right. Exactly. And that makes for a better designer, in general, if you can go in your own direction within the restrictions of the problem. My mission is to help students find their direction. I find that a lot of students haven't decided a direction by their third year, and I try to solidify that.
JC: It looks like you're doing just that. Thanks, Kevin.
KO: You're welcome. Thank you.
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