2002 King Commemoration Design Highlights Interconnectedness

Nov. 29, 2001
University Park, Pa. – A design featuring multi-colored strands of yarn leading into and out of a piece of fabric shaped like the United States will serve as a “teaching point” on posters and buttons for the 2002 Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration at Penn State.

Created by junior art student Erik Baxter, the design was picked from a field of 18 individually-developed proposals to illustrate the 2002 commemoration theme, “A Single Garment of Destiny.” Such proposals are annually submitted by students taking a graphic design course taught by Lanny Sommese, professor of art, and are treated for career training purposes as a serious commission from the University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration Planning Committee. The committee selects the top design and uses it for posters, buttons and other items to be distributed across campus.

“My initial reaction to the theme was the idea that we are all woven together to form one beautiful tapestry,” says Baxter, of Josephine, Indiana County. “Every race is a colored thread. The rest of the quote from which the theme was drawn reads ‘Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’”

Baxter’s first design showed the entire world woven together into one fabric. The bottom of the world was fraying with one strand being pulled away, loosening the rest of the fabric. He eventually reworked the concept “to make it more relevant to the theme, and to give a positive image of what the United States should represent.”

Inspired by the theme, based upon quotes by Dr. King referring to the importance of international ties between the U.S. and other countries, many of the students featured fabric- and flag-related imagery in their proposals. Hands and arms also figured heavily in various designs, sometimes in conjunction with flags.

“My friends always joke about me being an art major, but they have no idea the long hours and hard work we put into our designs,” Baxter says. “Graphic design is more about solving a problem than about making art, so the challenge to my creativity is very appealing to me.

“It is a great honor to have my design chosen,” he adds. “This recognition made all of the long hours of work very worthwhile. It is not every day that, as a student, your work can be seen and appreciated by such a large audience. It makes me very proud when we in the graphic design program can make our talents available to the community.”

Baxter’s design stood out from the others by eschewing a bright red-white-and-blue color scheme in favor of muted shades of yellow, purple, green, blue and red.

“It is strikingly different than any design we’ve had in the past,” said committee member Lea Asbell-Swanger, events manager for Eisenhower Auditorium. “It suggests that we all have come from somewhere else and still have a link to that place.”

It also will create moments for instruction about the 2002 theme, says Thomas Poole, associate vice provost for educational equity and chair of the committee.

“This year’s theme is derived from one of Dr. King’s most famous statements about the interrelatedness of all peoples,” Poole explains. “He frequently pointed out, ‘We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.’ We felt this theme illustrates the way in which Dr. King’s thought remains relevant to our times, and speaks to us as we struggle to make sense of life this side of September 11th. Dr. King’s reference to ‘we’ does not simply refer to those of us in the United States, but includes the worldwide family of humanity.”

All 18 of the proposed designs will be displayed in the near future in the Pattee and Paterno Library, and also shown in the HUB-Robeson Center on Monday, Jan. 21, the federal observance of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

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Contact:  Gary W. Cramer, Penn State Department of Public Information, at (814) 865-7517 or gwc104@psu.edu