“It’s a matter of seeing. It’s teaching the students how to see.” -Randall Hoyt.
When it comes to design, artists tend to gravitate towards a specific medium. That skill might be sculpture, webpage design, print, or animation along with others. However, Randall Hoyt, the new graphic design professor at Keene State College, is equally as skilled in all of the possible mediums he can work with when it comes to design. Hoyt’s ability to portray his visions and the visions of others through different mediums lead to the development his portfolio.
“My job is to invigorate and communicate someone else’s vision,” Hoyt said about his responsibility as a designer.
Hoyt said he strives and challenges his students to do the same.
“I like to challenge the students to have technical mastery, to have meticulous craft, to create solid concepts, which drive the message that their communicating so we’re not just making pretty things but we’re making beautiful work that speaks in a variety of modalities,” Hoyt said.
After Hoyt graduated from Plymouth State College in 1994, he said he chose to stay away from the designer’s business.
Contributed Photo / Randall Hoyt:
Design artist Randall Hoyt joins KSC faculty after teaching at UConn and being part of Yale University’s graduate school program.
“I took a few years off which I think is important. A lot of students are encouraged to go onto grad school right away, but I think for designers it’s not a really good idea. So I encourage my students to try and get jobs and work before they go back to grad school,” the professor explained.
Hoyt stated he believes grad school allows designers to focus more on experimental or new areas of investigation but, “it is kind of like a break from the real world.”
After getting experience in the field by designing for a friend’s hemp clothing business, Hoyt was accepted to Yale University. According to Hoyt, Yale has the number one graphic design program in the country.
“I guess if Yale accepts you to go to grad school, you sort of have to go,” Hoyt said humorously.
Hoyt recalled that after seeing his senior thesis, Edvin Yegir, the director of the Communication Design Program at UConn, was invited to apply for a position, where he was chosen for the tenure track position and began his career in teaching. Needing a change after twelve years at UConn, Hoyt found himself at KSC.
“I needed a change. I was ready to do something else, and I love New Hampshire because I grew up here, so when I saw this position I thought, ‘Let’s see if they want what I have to offer,’” Hoyt said.
According to Hoyt, he has been in the process of writing a curriculum for the past two years, which Hoyt and his colleagues are trying to get approved by the senate in the fall to redirect the course work and make it fit the market.
“The Keene [State College] program is heavily print-based, and it needs to point at the screen because so much of our information comes through our devices, computers tablets and that sort of thing,” Hoyt said about the current program.
“So I decided to teach a mobile media class, designing mobile media. We’re basically taking on and investigating. It’s more a seminar….I’m envisioning it as more collaborative where the students contribute, report and direct the process in terms of what they’re interested in,” Hoyt said.
Kiley Henderson, a student of Hoyt’s, mentioned the skills she has gained after participating in his graphic design class.
“He’s definitely tough, he expects you to be there in class, he expects you to keeping working on your work, he doesn’t expect you to do it and have it be perfect the first time around. You have to keep working on it,” Henderson said.
“He wants you to do your best and like he says, the work is never finished. There’s always more you can do. There’s always more you can fix, and you can always go back to something and make it better,” Henderson said.
Henderson designed a poster for KSC’s symposium event last semester in Hoyt’s class for the event Food for Thought, which was hung up around campus.
“I think the best thing about him [Hoyt] is that he was hard on us because he wants us to be better as designers, which obviously is a good thing,” Henderson said.
Professor of KSC’s art program and colleague of Hoyt’s, Rebecca Davis-Kelly, agreed that Hoyt is a great benefit to the program.
“[Hoyt is a] great addition for sure. He has this very dry sense of humor, which students are attracted to. He has a different background than the rest of the faculty, which brings a good compliment to the program,” Davis-Kelly said.
“I want them to challenge each other. When they’re in a critique at least, initially there’s a tendency to not want to make comments about how to improve the work,” Hoyt said about his class dynamic.
He went on, “We’ve been taught to be polite to other people and politeness does not serve the design process. You don’t want to be mean, you don’t want to present work in a negative way, but you definitely want to be able to say ‘look this isn’t working, this is what I think might make it better.’”
Community members can see Hoyt’s recent work in an insert in the Keene Sentinel advertising the Monadnock Film Festival, which is being unveiled next week.
Also, Hoyt and other faculty members have a show in the Throne Art Center for students and other community members to view.
Annelise Kloster can be contacted at akloster@keene-equinox.com