The first thing that I found really hard to write about this post was: how should I begin it? What I mean by this is that last Thursday, Ross MacDonald, a printer/illustrator/propmaker/designer, left the entire class astonished and amazed with the quality and variety of his work.

In his lecture, Ross presented multiple images of his work, which included beautiful illustrations for major newspapers and magazines, comics, books and movie posters, all hand-drawn or using his amazing arsenal of letterpress equipment.

He then proceeded to show his work as a prop maker, using his collection of period magazines, newspapers, posters and vintage ephemera as references to recreate letters, notebooks, paintings, legal papers, maps and books seen on TV shows and films. If you have ever asked yourself, “Wow! How the hell did they design this?” or “How they were able to find this old document/book?” or even “How could they replicate it so well?”, it was probably made by Ross MacDonald.

Once again, I was mind-blown by a class in the MFA Design program. Thank you so much Ross! And just a final message: if you ever get tired of your amazing letterpress equipment, please remember this poor student, give it a good price and call me!

*If you want to know more about Ross MacDonald’s work, visit his website.

Post by Fernando Capeto, 1st year student at SVA MFA Design.