West Point & Design
CONNECT + INSPIRE
CADET is a bi-annual magazine about West Point culture.
Highly independent, quite unofficial, aggressively dedicated.
Based in DC @chrisWpestel @carolinepestel
THE DESIGNS OF USMA | 2018-19
If there was ever a lull in West Point activity, it would have to be this time of the year. Now, we know West Point doesn’t ever stop, but this is the closest things we get to a slow period. So, we are taking this opportunity to look a little closer at the convergence of two of our favorite topics (and why CADET exists) West Point and Design. Much like our Design series from the Army-Navy Game, this aspect of the West Point experience can easily be overlooked.
Over the next few weeks we will wrangle 10 design topics and will put them under a microscope. We will look at the year that was AY2018-19, as well as take a deep dive (or at least a shallow swim) into topics to explore the connection of design to the heritage and traditions of the West Point story.
This is going to be FUN!
[COMING SOON]
THE DECISIVE (USMA) MOMENTS
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
- Dorothea Lange
THE STILL IMAGE We are living in a golden age of photography at West Point. With each passing year more cadets are finding their visual voice with a camera. Additionally, there is a surge of highly…
BRILLIANT SIMPLICITY
“The next time you see a sixteen-color, blind-embossed, gold-stamped, die-cut, elaborately folded and bound job, printed on handmade paper, see if it isn't a mediocre idea trying to pass for something else.”
― Milton Glaser
DIGITAL if you are like me, you can’t get enough social media infographics. These beauties range from in-game statistics to copious retrospectives. Done right, these graphics possess the ability to…
A CATALYST FOR INTROSPECTION
Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson
DEPARTMENT OF DRAWING many years ago West Point’s academic curriculum included mandatory classes from the Department of Drawing. In addition to learning a necessary topography skill cadets…
TIMELESSNESS THROUGH STYLE & HERITAGE
Fashion is just another word for the constant, inevitable shifts in popular taste. Garments, just like buildings and cars and movies, can’t help but reflect the circumstances of our moment in history. That’s what fashion is. Another way of telling time.
- Avery Truffleman
UNIFORMS one of the best designed pieces of anything from the last year is Army Football’s tribute to the BIG RED ONE. This masterful design is top-notch in every way. From the look and feel, to the…
WEST POINT INTERCONNECTEDNESS
Cooperate and Graduate
THE DESIGN OF INFLUENCE
We don’t make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.
― Walt Disney
SING SECOND [RE-MASTERED] when USMA 2017 grad Austin Lachance was given the chance to re-visit his masterful 2017 Army-Navy Spirit video, he didn’t hesitate and knew exactly where he wanted to take it…
MARCHING TO THE BEAT OF INSPIRATION & TRADITION
Without music, life would be a mistake”
― Friedrich Nietzsche.
DUTY HONOR COUNTRY on Sunday, May 12, 2019, the Glee Club tagged us in the comments of a post. Much to our surprise, the post was announcing the first new West Point song in 100 years…
DESIGNING STORY FOR POSTERITY
“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
WEST POINT STRUCTURES & SPACES
Every great architect is - necessarily - a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
PILLARS OF WEST POINT IN THE MESS HALL Have you ever noticed those four statues attached to the poop deck in the Cadet Mess Hall?? Even if you are certain you’ve looked in their direction…
THE BLUEPRINT OF IDENTITY & LEGACY
I was born by myself but carry the spirit and blood of my father, mother and my ancestors. So I am really never alone. My identity is through that line.
- Ziggy Marley
USMA 2019 vs USMA 2022 The evolution of class crests is something we are excited to take a deep dive into a little later this year, stay tuned…