Here is where Mark Deshon gets to “play” a bit. This page can contain anything that is directly or indirectly related to D&A that is not covered in any of the other navigational categories above.

Blast from the Past…

Many thanks to the good folks at University of Delaware Printing. In addition to all the good service they’ve given me over the years, I recently checked a proof on a book job being printed there, and I was handed a plaque—a little blast from the past.

I’ve really never won much of anything for my professional work, but this plaque from 2004 was an In-Print first-place award for an event-program cover I designed while working for the University of Delaware’s Institute for Public Administration (see About…Mark Deshon). It was awarded to the University by In-Plant Graphics and the International Publishing Management Association in In-Print’s “programs/non-offset” category.

I do so appreciate that they decided to give it to me rather than throw it away, since they had long since removed it from their office wall.

Typographic creativity on display…

Late in 2019, some of Mark’s creative work was included as part of an exhibition of Lead Graffiti letterpress projects at the Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) in Wilmington, Del. During the show opening, Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher (pictured here) talked about the creative process and presented anecdotes about some of their favorite projects during their time at Lead Graffiti.

Holding the entire exhibit together were selected posters from Lead Graffiti’s monumental five-year “Tour de Lead Graffiti” project, each year during which Ray and Jill would spend 23 consecutive days working an average of 18 hours a day (along with others) creating posters related to the particular day’s event within the Tour de France. Mark’s July 2015 stage 4 poster and his July 2013 stage 5 poster (see “National notoriety” below) were displayed among the other letterpress posters and fine letterpress art.

At UD/VC homecoming 2017 reunion…

Had some fun creating, along with classmate Kathy Maas Turk, this fall during UD/VC homecoming reunion shop time at Ray & Jill’s Lead Graffiti studio.

More fun with letterpress…

One hardly ever has the time when running a business to experiment and truly have some fun with design. Mark took the opportunity to visit Ray & Jill’s Lead Graffiti studio in the fall of 2015 for a UD/VC alumni letterpress party. The photo here shows him working on his free-form “D&A” logo. Not the best piece of workmanship, but it was so much fun to have that sense of freedom to play again with color and shape.

More good poster press…

Again in 2014 Mark Deshon worked with the crew at Lead Graffiti on the Tour de Lead Graffiti’s Tour de France Stage 5 poster. The final product this time showed up in Bicycling magazine’s online edition.

National notoriety…

Mark Deshon gained some measure of national notoriety, as a letterpress poster that he had collaboratively designed and printed back in July of 2013 was published in the Dec. 16th, 2013, edition of Sports Illustrated, along with a small article on Lead Graffiti’s “Tour de Lead Graffiti” by SI senior writer Alexander Wolff.

Wolff writes, “Each morning during the Tour de France, members of the Lead Graffiti printmaking collective gathered to watch that day’s stage. They took note of every salient breakaway, pratfall and Phil Ligett bon mot, then spent the rest of the day producing a broadside that captured the action. The results—visible at leadgraffiti.com—are like the peloton, a riot of shapes and colors. The designers call what they do ‘endurance letterpress,’ for they repeat the routine 23 days in a row and, like the Tour itself, scrupulously post total elapsed time.”

My two design mentors…

The two people who were instrumental in guiding me into my profession while I was a college student are my design profs, Harwood Ritter and Ray Nichols.

Without their having both challenged and supported me as a student in the late 70s, I would not have had the wonderful design career I’ve enjoyed. This page is dedicated to Woody and Ray, who are each still active creatively.