Tributes to Roger Remington

With Roger’s support, I developed a program called the Public Communication Service Program as my graduate thesis. It involved teaching staff of non-profit organizations how to work with designers, printers, photographers, and writers to get their message out to the public. After 10 weeks of seminars, a staff member was matched with a design and a photography student to work on a specific piece of printed communication. At the end of the program, the non-profit agency had a professionally designed and printed piece and the students had a printed piece for their portfolios. (In 1974, a printed piece was a big deal in a student’s portfolio.)

After graduating I was hired to make the program a reality as an Urbanarium program. I did this for two years and it had a major impact on my design career.

The Urbanarium and Roger, however, had a larger impact on my life. In 1974, I met my future husband: Michael Geissinger ’64 BFA photo, ’76 MST taught photojournalism at RIT and was on the Urbanarium’s board of directors. His students took part in the Public Communication Service Program. We just celebrated our 40th anniversary and Roger was at our wedding in 1979.

After leaving RIT in 1986, we moved to Alexandria, Va., where Mike freelanced for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other major newspapers and magazines. I owned a design studio and my clients included National Geographic, American Red Cross, National Park Service, and many more.

We now live on the Northern Neck of Virginia, where Mike is cataloging his 60 years of work, which will be donated to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas Austin. I am the director of the Steamboat Era Museum in Irvington, Virginia, where—after raising almost $400,000—I am in the final phases of the museum’s complete redesign, including the installation of a restored steamboat pilothouse and the publication of a book about the era.

It’s been a great adventure  for both of us, but for me, it all began in a studio at RIT with a professor introducing himself as Roger Remington!

Roger served as the visionary program leader, assembling interdisciplinary teams of faculty, students, and community leaders from across the Greater Rochester region. The legacy of many of those projects is evidenced today, especially in the renaissance of downtown Rochester, its neighborhoods, and surrounding towns.

During this period, Roger and I collaborated closely on the redesign of RIT’s graphic identity system and graphic mark, which resulted in a strong, unified look across all of the colleges and the university’s branding, marketing materials, publications, signage and other communication—much of which is still in adaptive use today almost 40 years later. Also evident is the legacy work of many of his students, including the identity marks still in use by the City of Rochester and County of Monroe.

More recently, as chair of the national business advisory committee to the School of Design, I again worked closely with Roger, the committee and other leaders as Roger led the initiative creating the Vignelli Center for Design Studies, which would not have been realized without Roger’s diligence, vision, and persuasive powers. 

My friend, Roger Remington—a most distinguished educator and community builder.

Senior year, when we spent days and nights in the studio, Roger was there to critique, advise, encourage, and laugh along with our foolishness. He emphasized learning and understanding the history of all the great designers, who paved the way in editorial, advertising, and corporate design. I appreciated (as did my dad) that the program focused on making us professionals—emphasizing research into our ideas, discussing our work, being able to put it in writing, and ultimately, finding a job.

Roger had lists of designers to contact in whatever city you were heading to—in my case, Boston. That list was golden—1980 was not a good time to find any job, much less as a graphic designer. But I had great conversations with some of the best names in Boston—some of them sending me off to other interviews—and all of them helping me shape my portfolio. Eventually I landed a position at Cornell with a wonderful mentor and a great group of colleagues. I found that working in higher education suited me and I continued at the University of New Hampshire for another 20-plus years, with a few agency and studio gigs and freelance in-between.

His work forming and shaping the Vignelli Center for Design Studies is outstanding—and just like him to be able to pull a collection and center of that scope together. What a fantastic resource for students of any discipline to draw upon for inspiration and an understanding of how design impacts our culture. RIT is very lucky to have had Roger as a consummate fixture in the community for so many wonderfully creative and productive years. 

Roger, congratulations on your retirement and from my heart, I thank you for laying a foundation of knowledge and curiosity. I learned more than just design in those classes, and I appreciate everything that you did to help me shape and enjoy a design life.

Few professors leave behind a landmark building whose construction they master-minded. Patiently but persistently, Roger breathed life into the Vignelli Center for Design Studies, charming brilliant clients, raising several million dollars, and opening the doors necessary to move beyond road blocks in a complex institution. Roger’s vision extended into multidisciplinary programming, a lecture series by preeminent designers and thinkers, podcasts, student participation, community outreach, exhibits, research initiatives, and a recently launched graduate program in Design Studies.

One must look closely at Roger’s teeming bookcases to see the breadth and depth of his scholarly curiosity. Tucked among the books are awards from national and international organizations and a collection of vintage cameras. Like Roger, these represent his strengths, but are embedded in his scholarship. Roger’s life is an inspiration.

That career took me all over the country and to many places around the world as an art director, creative supervisor, and ultimately as a vice president and creative director for Saatchi & Saatchi.

After 25 years in advertising, I came back to RIT as an adjunct instructor and taught advertising design, business practices and portfolio development in the same classrooms where I had been Roger’s student many years earlier. Those experiences convinced me that teaching was what I should do next. My teaching career shifted from part-time to full-time in 2005, when I moved to Savannah, Ga. to help launch the advertising design major at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). For the past 14 years up to my retirement in June 2019, as a professor and as department chair I have been instilling a standard of professionalism in a new generation of designers. 

Thank you, Roger, for getting me started and setting an example that I have never forgotten.

While at Xerox, I used design language to bring out the best in customers, product designers, anthropologists, mechanical and software engineers to create better office and mobile systems. After getting an MBA, I operated one of the most successful Drama Kids International franchises in the United States here in Rochester, N.Y., where the motto is “Drama Develops Kids.” Just like good design, drama develops great self-expressions skills in individuals and builds curiosity and imagination. Now, I’m giving back to RIT as an innovation coach in the applied entrepreneurship classes, coaching student teams as they learn the process of creating new businesses. Through applied entrepreneurship, I challenge the students by asking: “What customer problem are you trying to solve, and what design solution can best solve it?”

Thank you Roger Remington and RIT, for providing me the design foundation upon which to ask questions and spark imaginations to inspire the next generation of great people in Rochester!

I have fond memories of our group critiques and Professor Remington’s thoughtful and gentle guidance. He never directed, but asked poignant questions that made one think and pursue different paths into the unknown. After years of working as a professional designer in the field, the experience was unfamiliar—where was the map I was supposed to follow? He introduced me to creative methodologies and interdisciplinary theories that changed the way I look at everything from the way I design, teach, and think. I am and will forever be grateful for the experience of working with such a profound and wise professor.

Good natured, respected for his scholarship, collaborative, unique in his ability to establish the Vignelli Center and Archive, and a lifelong educator.

RIT will need to name more than a brick or two for Roger. Few people in my experience, have had a longer or more positive influence on their discipline or institution than Roger.

I wish him the very best in this next phase of his career and hope we continue to cross paths in the future.

Becoming his protégé was pivotal to my life and I honor him with my work and by bestowing Remington on the middle name of my first-born son. Most professors aren’t willing to spend countless hours researching topics with graduate students, producing documentaries and inviting students to events normally reserved for more senior staff. Roger taught me design, but how he carried himself left a greater impression. He makes you feel special … like family. He created a legacy with both the university and all the personal and professional lives he has touched.