About this site and Robert Denton
I am a web designer at Bowdoin College.
I’ve been working with publishing in one form or another since high school and have been involved in in many facets of publishing and production from what was once called “new media” in the late 80s, desktop publishing, computer assisted design, and multimedia production. Now it’s called “web design” but it’s all the same banana really, just different medium and mechanisms.
This site is the note pad, sketching space, link party, for my workstation which i use as a build locale for projects professional and personal. I may post partial thoughts as I circle a problem… hopefully visitors will bear this in mind if they arrive here in search of answers from google. I am open to discussion. All the content from a previous blog is still in the archives, as flat files.
Education
MFA, Photography — School of Art & Design, Univ. Illinois, Chicago [site design doesn’t let me deep link into the graduate program section]
BFA, Photography — Univ. Houston
Cum Laude
I studied with Ed Hill & Suzanne Bloom primarily at UH. And a host of good folks at UIC in the entire School of Art & Design
Aside from photography, concentrations for both degrees included art history, design theory, and digital media.
Background
From about 1988 to 1995 I was in school and working as an artist making work to hang in galleries. While completing my BFA in Photography, I taught a few classes at Houston School for the Performing and Visual Arts for David Sheard, the wonderful director of that department. I also made money by doing a summer camp, waiting tables, and doing freelance desktop publishing (yech). During this period in Houston, TX. I participated heavily in the art community putting on shows, being in shows, and living in one of the worst but best art warehouses in the city.
In 1993 I moved to Chicago for an MFA. This was a huge change for me. I went without any vehicles, I knew nobody in the city, and I was becoming more interested in functional design as I ventured deeper into a fine art program. I like to say that I studied myself into a theoretical corner. I could not continue making gallery art. That aside, my favorite part of my art degrees were the seminars where I studied color theory, design history, art history, usability, the history of photography, the history of film (Ken Burns and Frederick Wiseman joined a few sessions of that seminar), and more…
After graduate school in Chicago 1995 I moved to Maine where I worked in a video production shop V.P. Film & Tape. I was hired as the multimedia designer. We produced and developed applications in Macromedia Director & Authorware, animation for broadcast, screensavers, and more. I left the company with a colleaque and we started Sputnick I.D.A. where we continued on in the same manner. Our clients included Maine Public Broadcasting, National Semiconductor, Osram Sylvania, and several marketing groups in Maine.
Other interests (in no particular order)
- Cycling — on and off road — mostly road biking these days though.
- Lucy and Will
- Staying fit
Building a kayakPaddling the kayak I built from a Pygmy Boats kit!- Learning about birds with the Sibley Guide
- Using my Canon 10D!