keetra wants you to be tickled
Keetra Dean Dixon, a designer and full-time member of the graphic design faculty at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, has made a career out of putting optimistic messages into the world.
“I think that is why most graphic designers get into it, right? We are about other people and communicating. We just want to give stuff to people and have them open it and be tickled,” Dixon said.
Dixon’s work, titled, “The Anonymous Hugging Wall,” is a large-scale cloth wall that features sewn sleeves for slipping arms into. With no face and only two cloth-covered, extended arms, bystanders receive an embrace. Other works that showcase Dixon’s optimistic tone include cards from “A Small Series of Cordial Invitations,” with phrases such as “Make Luck,” “Be Courageous and Vulnerable,” and “Invest in the Fantastic.” With sprinkles of bright colors, and custom-built experimental type, the letterforms are constructed through loops, interlocking bits and layered pieces that fill the space. Dixon also enlists others to help spread the positive vibes. Created in collaboration with her husband, JK Keller, “Amazing Mistake,” right, takes the letters from the word “MISTAKE” to spell “AMAZING” in long, multicolored vector strokes that twist and configure into script letterforms.
Dixon keeps a visual library that is full of examples of how she misuses tools to get new ideas. The library displays jewel-toned prism shapes, bacteria-like patterns and extruded, outlined vectors all recombined and edited to Dixon’s aesthetics. Some of her favorite tools to use are simple Illustrator JavaScripts.
JavaScripts are a starting point for gaining authorship in the design process, according to Dixon. The actual script is a series of commands that tell Illustrator to perform one or more tasks. A script could automatically color several items within a limited range selected by the designer.
JavaScripts also can manipulate forms, such as connecting all the points in an Illustrator path, and split and align selected objects. With JavaScripts, there is an element of random chance within each automated task.
Dixon said scripts push designs in a new, often unexpected way.
“I design, to a certain extent, with the tool that I have, and then I stop and wait and see how we can actually facilitate things,” she said.
Dixon gets the scripts from husband and co-creator, JK Keller, who writes them for her. They met as undergraduate students and eventually eloped while they were both studying in the master’s program at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit. They often design together.
Keller’s work often manipulates existing tools and technology. He writes his own JavaScripts and systems to create complex forms. For example, the results of his “Slitscan Type Generator” look like hairy letterforms from afar. Keller’s custom script types a letter using every font installed on a computer and aligns all the letters to cut slices out of each letter based on width. The final step includes gradating the color of the slices from the outside to the inside.
“We’re both on crazy opposite ends, and he’s such a huge part of my process. The JavaScripts that he writes for me are usually when I’m frustrated by an issue and he’s like, ‘Oh, here’s a present for you … JavaScript, yay!’ ” Dixon said.