Acknowledgements

Much effort and help is required in writing and designing a book of this sort. . . and not just from the spirit of Albrecht Dürer. Special thanks goes to the members of the International Engraved Graphics Association for allowing us the opportunity to conceive, write, and design with great freedom. We hope to have done them well. Thanks to Margaret Moore Booker whose expert copyediting certainly made this book go from good to great. Hurray for Christopher Navetta for the myriad tasks, suggestions, and hard work at all levels. Superman (or is it Batman?), thank you. And to our colleagues for their helpful support, a most distinguished professor, Robin Landa, along with Martin Holloway, Ray Cruz, and Kean University alumni, Alexander D’Angelo and Allison Grow, thank you.

Big hugs of thanks to “The Cre8tives”: Jessalyn, Rachel, Jennifer, Sharon, Bob, Michelle, Michael, Joseph, and Isabel, our extraordinarily ebullient team of interns who are responsible for all manner of assistance with research, design, and creativity, as well as the Design to Touch title and marketing campaigns: “What Do You Like To Touch” and “Please Engrave Me.”

Visit Design to Touch on screen at: 
http://www.designtotouch.com or on Facebook: 
Design to Touch.

Rose Gonnella, Erin Smith, Christopher Navetta and the members of the International Engraved Graphics Association also extend special thanks to the generous and wonderful creative directors, illustrators, designers, and artists who contributed images. Their work makes this book truly extraordinary.

ROSE GONNELLA

Rose Gonnella is the Executive Director of the Robert Busch School of Design at Kean University in Union County and Ocean County, New Jersey, and Wenzhou-Kean University, China (2015). Rose has taught graphic design for over 25 years including courses in design theory, materials and techniques, and guided the school's web design curriculum.

Rose serves on the executive board of the Art Directors Club of New Jersey (ADCNJ); She is the Director of the Kean University/ADCNJ "Thinking Creatively" design conference, as well as directs and guides the Kean Cre8tive, the RB/School of Design in-house graphic design studio.

Rose is also a designer, writer, illustrator-artist. She has been awarded membership in two scholarly academic organizations: Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society in 1980 and Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society in 2001. She has received grants from the Mid-America Arts Alliance International Residency Project, the Mid-Atlantic Residency Grant Project and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship. She has also received several awards from Kean University, including the Presidential Award for Distinguished Research/Creative Work, the Computers in Curriculum Released Time Award, the Alumni Association Grant, the Faculty-Student Research Award and the Alumni Association Teacher of the Year.

As co-author, Rose has contributed research and writing to seven books and has written numerous magazine and newspaper articles on creativity, art, and architecture, and design.

ERIN SMITH

Erin Smith is engaged in the artistry and craft of design.

After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from Kean University in 2006, she worked for several small studios before taking a position as Designer with her alma mater Kean University in the offices of Media and Publications and subsequently, Kean University Foundation.

While working in the private studio and later the in-house setting, she explored and developed her artistic style of design. During her time in Kean's publication office, she took on the extra job of handling the art direction for the Kean Review, the university scholarly journal. While working on the journal, Erin honed her editorial design skills and was given the freedom to truly "create". When the call came to join the team of the Kean Cre8tive, she made an internal move in order to become its art director and senior designer - establishing the style and vision of the Cre8t8ve (an in-house, for profit studio).

Erin has become as well known for editorial concepts and ability to consistently delight with her typographical creations. While she doesn’t consider herself a web designer, her screen based designs are truly elegant and extension of her print based artistry. She continues also to work on "extra-curricular" projects and is in process of directing a line of greeting cards and posters.

Credit as "author" was given to Erin for her creative contributions and art direction on Design to Touch because the book is a holistic work. Without Erin's design artistry, the book could not exist.

CHRISTOPHER J. NAVETTA

Christopher J. Navetta has been a professional freelance graphic designer for over 15 years. His diverse career boasts an eclectic group of clients and employers--from large corporations to small businesses and individual customers--which have given him a unique sampling of the multifarious facets of design.

Christopher's earliest experience in the world of graphic design came years before any formal scholastic training in the field. Starting in the early 1990s, he was a regular participant in computer-generated graphic competitions on Quantum Computer Services' Q-Link, an early online service for the Commodore computer platform (a service that eventually became known as America Online). He later became a judge for some of those competitions, and through his exposure there, got his first taste of the professional graphic design world when he started freelancing for companies such as Wendy's and Long John Silver's.

Throughout the next several years, Christopher continued to freelance, particularly for national retail franchises such as Kay-Bee Toys, Natural Wonders, and New York/New Jersey comic book/collectible chain Comic Attitudes. It was then that he assumed the position of digital colorist for the New Jersey-based comic and magazine publisher Southpaw Publishing (later Axess Comics). His duties there quickly expanded to complete book layout, advertising, packaging, public relations, web design, and story/script editing.

After his stint in the comic book world, Christopher returned to school and spent the next years at Kean University, where he earned a BFA in Visual Communications/Graphic Design. During that time, he was awarded two Art Directors Club of New Jersey (ADCNJ) scholarships for design and a Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society writing scholarship. All the while at Kean, he continued his freelancing, gaining clients of all sizes such as Jersey City Public Schools, Thomson Delmar Learning, music promoter TigerClaw Enterprises, PFLAG, Prentice Hall, and the ADCNJ. In 2004, he became an executive board member of the ADCNJ (and is currently serving as vice president), and a designer for the 2005 Awards Show and Exhibition, as well as being involved with the Kean University/ADCNJ "Thinking Creatively" annual design conference. He has been a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG). He has continued working for many of the aforementioned clients, adding new ones such as Six Flags, the Mall of America, and Nickelodeon.

In September of 2007, Christopher became a professor of design at Kean University, and has instructed courses including digital prepress, promotional design, and--of course-- studio skills.

On the personal side, Christopher is a lifelong student of history, fine art, literature,and film. Bastien-Lepage, Dürer, van Gogh, Munch, Boccioni, Lichtenstein, and Warhol rank among his infl uencing artists. Also included are eclectic interests such as Gothic and Baroque architecture, and medieval European and Japanese armor/swordcraft. His studies in history have included heavy focus on the Roman Empire, the Hundred Years War, and the history of New Jersey. Most recently, modern film costume/set/prop design has come to the forefront of his artistic endeavors, with particular focus on the design and fabrication of science fiction and fantasy-based film props. This appreciation and unyielding love of history and popular culture has guided his design style throughout the years, and serves as an ever-changing source of artistic inspiration.