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J U N E 2 0 0 7
I S S U E
Contributors
On-the-Job Training
The shape of things to come
After graduating from Iowa State University, illustrator
Ken Orvidas spent years as an art director and creative
director at advertising agencies, meanwhile dabbling in
illustration. In 1993, he became an illustrator full time,
and has become masterly at combining many layers of
Photoshop digital imagery to create work like the faux-silk
China cover. "China's in a transformational period," he
says. "I like to riff off of words, so I thought, What's
the ultimate transformation? Then I thought of the
metamorphosis of a butterfly from a cocoon. Fortunately for
me, the shape of China resembles wings. If it were Chile, I
think I'd have been screwed."
The advice of experts and experts-to-be
When Jim Duffy took on "20
Questions: China Edition," he was not exactly well
versed on matters Chinese. "I was walking in cold," he
recalls. But he jumped into the project the way a good
journalist does— he began hunting the Internet for
Johns Hopkins experts and calling people up and posing
questions. His respondents ranged from emeritus faculty
like
anthropologist Sidney Mintz to Seattle ninth-grader and
Center for Talented
Youth student Tracy Whelan, whom he describes as
"frighteningly adult and knowledgeable for her age."
(Sounds like a CTY kid to us.) Duffy, a frequent
contributor to Johns Hopkins Magazine, freelances
from his home in Cambridge, Maryland. — DK
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