Ironically, Rosenthal was initially turned down for the internship that led to the great success she shared with art director Glen Cummings and Silvia Fantauzzi, who also was part of the design project.
“Sarah is a better designer than she thinks she is and her humility is the key to the 'Key' project,” Ashley Pigford, assistant professor and coordinator of the visual communications program in UD's Department of Art, said. “[After] 2X4 initially turned her down [she got] some friendly nudging, decided not to take 'No' for an answer, got the internship, designed this Key art and made the front page of the New York Times real estate magazine. I can't stress enough the relationship between humility and creativity, and Sarah is a prime example.”
“Once a year The New York Times Magazine puts out a special real estate issue called Key. They commission five designers/illustrators/ artists to create a page based on the notion of a key. One page becomes the issue's cover, and (in the past) the rest are grouped together to form an illustration section,” Rosenthal explained. “This year the magazine asked 2x4 to contribute a page. Glen Cummings, a designer at 2x4, forwarded the creative brief to everyone in the studio, inviting everyone to participate.
“We had a pin-up (a critique) later that day, and nobody had anything to say about mine. I felt like such an intern,” Rosenthal said. “I threw out my stuff from the first critique, and I started over. I just had fun with it the second time. It always works out that way--the projects that I have the most fun with seem to turn out the best.
“I pinned up four versions of my new design, and everybody liked it during the second critique. As a group, we picked our favorite five designs and sent them in, so that they had a few to choose from,” Rosenthal said. “This critique was actually the last day of my internship. I e-mailed Glen a few weeks later only to find out that they chose mine! It was a black-and-white version, and they asked Glen to add color, so I can't take credit for the colors. He tweaked a few details, too.
“I still didn't know it would be on the cover until I went to buy the Sunday Times and opened it up. I started jumping all around; the guy at the newsstand on Main Street probably thought I was a little crazy,” she said.
“When I first met Sarah as an applicant to UD, her creative spirit was immediately apparent,” Martha Carothers, UD professor of art, said. “As a visual communications student, Sarah contributes inventive ideas during critiques and asks stimulating questions. She's resourceful, as well as supportive of her classmates. I'm thrilled about Sarah's cover design for The NY Times. 2x4 studio speaks highly of Sarah as an intern. It's very noteworthy that 2x4 involved interns in the Times project.”
“We try as much as possible on projects like the cover to involve everyone in the studio in the design process, so that everyone has a chance to propose ideas,” Georgianna Stout, partner and creative director of 2X4, said. “This is a great way for our interns to get involved in our design process, as typically they work in more supportive roles on projects. In this case, everyone in the studio proposed ideas in an initial charrette, and we discussed several of the ideas and how they might be developed into viable cover ideas. We encouraged Sarah to explore an idea of overlapping shapes. She made several proposals that played with the forms of keys and the shapes created by their overlapping forms.
“The idea was then taken up by a second design intern who worked with the art director on the project, Glen Cummings, and together they made many additional sketches. Then Glen took the final direction and worked on it further to incorporate color, a specific request from The New York Times. The final artwork was developed by him, using transparency and palette to give it depth,” Stout explained.
Rosenthal, who enjoyed editing her high school yearbook and newspaper, originally planned to major in communication at UD, but a strange twist of fate at a UD Decision Day changed all that.
“I visited UD for a Decision Day, checked in, got my folder with my itinerary for the day, and it said to go to the talk on 'visual communications,' instead of 'communication,'” she explained. “I thought that was strange, so I looked again at the name on the folder and it was Erin Rosenthal's folder, not mine (Sarah Erin Rosenthal). But visual communications sounded pretty interesting, especially since my favorite part of being an editor was when I got to design the page layouts. It was too late to return the folder at that point, anyway, so I took Erin's folder and went to the talk on visual communications. The talk sold me. It sounded like everything I loved to do. I switched my intended major to visual communications, sent in my portfolio, and I've been passionate about design ever since I realized I could major in it.
“As a former Blue Hen Ambassador, I can assure you that these kind of mix-ups never happen. I just got very lucky that day. And yes, Erin Rosenthal did make it to the talk. Just a little late,” she said.
2x4 describes itself as "a multidisciplinary studio focusing on design for art, architecture, fashion and cultural clients worldwide.” It has a variety of clients from Target to Prada to Nike.
As an intern, Rosenthal said she was lucky enough to experience quite a variety of tasks. She scanned and organized old projects for 2x4's self-promotional material, created mock-ups of various current ideas to present to clients, researched and brainstormed concepts for a major ad campaign and observed a photo shoot. “It was definitely an exercise in balancing several tasks at once,” she said.
A senior, Rosenthal said her response to the dreaded "What are your plans?" question is that she's not yet sure what sort of design career she wants to pursue.
“Right now I am focusing on developing my portfolio,” she said. I am really trying to have it represent who I am and what I like to design, in hopes that it will lead me to a job that will make me happy. So far I've determined that I like using design to create opportunities for people, advertise for good causes and, of course, to shamelessly display goofy puns and word play. My default plan is to head home to St. Louis and pick up any freelance design jobs I can while I try to figure out what's next.”
Article by Beth Thomas
Photo by Kathy Atkinson