Adam Harrison Levy is a Professor at the School of Visual Arts in New York City as well as Wesleyan University in Connecticut. In addition, he writes for Design Observer and works as a freelance interviewer/filmmaker for the BBC.
Our conversation meanders and gets slightly meta. We acknowledge the odd circumstances of a professional interviewer being interviewed by an amateur, and of two Americans discussing their love for the BBC.
Read some of Mr. Levy’s articles and learn more about his film work via Adam’s profile on Design Observer.
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Show Notes & Links
- Video Filmmaking for the iPhone
- Co-teaching w/a NYT Culture Journalist on Research and Writing
- The MA in Design Criticism, aka “D-Crit”, is now more focused on research and writing
- South Sudan is developing a logo and flag
- Prescott did a Master’s in Graphic Communication at the University for the Creative Arts (UK)
- Gobsmacked, a British term meaning “struck speechless”
- Mad Men
- George Lois
- Steve Heller
- Gay Talese
- Prescott is an internet nerd, watches overseas programming via grey market websites and techniques
- Country House Rescue (brilliant show on Britain’s Channel4, not the BBC, but still)
- Zaha Hadid, British-Iraqi Architect
- Horizon and Panorama, recurring BBC series
- Imagine, another great series featuring such topics as “The Book” and The Chelsea Hotel
- Port-forwarding and VPNs to get access to the BBC iPlayer
- Selling the Sixties: How Madison Ave. Dreamed a Decade
- BBC has to be “fleet and maverick” regarding graphics; Don’t overdue it
- Simple title graphics
- Cleatus, the dancing robot on FOX [American] Football Coverage
- Stiff Upper Lip
- The Scottish Referendum on Independence (spoiler alert: they voted “No”)
- Simon Schama, a History of Britain
- David Attenborough
- The Story of Science
- Isambard Kingdom Brunnel, 19th Century British Civil Engineer
- The Bombing of Hiroshima, re-enactments created with student actors
- Czechoslovakia (no longer a country)
- Adam is the “intellectual content research” guy, not the technical video and sound guy
- Chuck Close
- The Beauty of Maps, BBC Four
- George Elsey, worked in the Truman White House. Was standing next to President Truman on SS Atlantic when news of Hiroshima reached the Pres.
- The Map Room in the basement of the British Library
- The Domesday Book, 1086
- Maps as political cartoons
A Cartoonish Map of Europe
- Great British Railway Journeys with Michael Portillo
- 700 Photographs of post-bomb Hiroshima found on a street corner in Mass., written about on Design Observer
- Don Levy (no relation) found the photos in a suitcase
- International Center for Photography
- The design of castle towers learned during The Crusades
- Nijū Hibakusha, (literally “double bomb-affected people”), the term for those in Japan who survived both atomic bombings
- The Writers’ Room, NYC
- Email is bad for your brain, e.g. Phantom Blackberry
“Getting in The Zone is a weird sort of meditation.”
—Adam Harrison Levy
- Funions
- Mind Like Water, as mentioned in Getting Things Done
- Prescott and his friends were lifeguards as teenagers. They would use the time to ponder levels of Commandos
Tools
- 18th Century French table, which Adam uses as a desk these 20 years
- Laptop
- Pens and pencils, paper (pretty old-school, actually)
- Totems (monkey holding a Mont-Blanc pen)
- Brass date-changer
Techniques
- Be “Tight and Loose” as an interviewer (almost a Zen practice)
- Always have a point-of-view, which Adam calls “The Force of Will”
- Hit the books, hit the phone, and do a pre-interview before turning up with a camera crew
- Create a ritual with the passing of time, such as a physical calendar
- Batch your email, especially when it’s from London and there’s a time-shift
Habits
- Wake up early; not quite as early as Steve Heller
- Meditate for 20-25 minutes; not quite the 5-hour Zen practice
- Tea, and coffee only when I need a shot
- Leverage “Creative Distraction” to free your brain
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