Alex Kern Scores!
by Steve Serkland
Graphic design student
Alex Kern, barely into his freshman year at New York’s Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), is suddenly
less the student and more the designer. Kern’s wining entry
in a Mall of America (MOA) design competition was honored by eye-catching
MOA billboards that went up in Minneapolis and St. Paul during October
and November.
Kern, 18, a 2005 graduate
of St. Louis Park High School, says the experience has been “exhilarating.” His first reaction
to the news, he writes from Rochester, was “a whoop, like Curly
in the Three Stooges.” Alex’s winning design, a wristwatch,
features a sinister dragon whose head falls across the watch face.
The creature wraps its body and tail about the wristband in green
and brown colors. Runic letters evoke ancient times.
Asked about the award’s impact on his studies, Alex says his
work at RIT had been coming along fine before the MOA announcement. “But
afterwards,” he says, “I had a sense of courage and determination
to achieve beyond what my teachers expected. I found inspiration
from this success.” Alex says that college life has given him
a greater sense of freedom—and of personal responsibility.
With both conviction and considerable understatement, Alex says, “Time
management is important in college and can be challenging.”
Mall of America spokes
person, Anna Lewicki, says that art students were invited to design
watches as part of MOA’s major advertising
campaign, More Ways to Be You. The MOA campaign, created by the Kerker
agency, Minneapolis, also features jeans designed by Twin Cities’ celebrities.
Lewicki says that Kern’s winning watch design was among fifty
selected from about five hundred entries.
Alex charts his interest
in art from early childhood. His mother observed an intense interest
in drawing at age two. By his first year in high school, Alex’s art was being expressed in video
game creations and drawings that wowed his classmates and brought
important encouragement from teachers. During his junior and senior
high school years, Alex kept classmates and staff in stitches over
a daily blackboard comic based on assorted alter egos. Alex says
modestly that his cartoon work merely presented “my observations
and strange humor.”
Senior year work as
a Student Assistant to St. Louis Park art teacher Trevor Paulson
was an important stage in his preparation for college. Alex says, “Learning
how to help other students with their projects really helped develop
my own skills of analysis, and my ability to shape artwork for
visual effect.”
Educators aren’t shy about returning the praise Alex gives
his teachers. St. Louis Park Chief Educational Case Manager and teacher
Barbara Becker helps district students with hearing loss shape their
high school careers. She talks with enthusiasm about Alex’s
gifts in math, science and art. But Becker says “his strong
belief in himself, his perseverance and the degree of responsibility
he takes for his own learning might be greater gifts.” Asked
to say more, Becker couldn’t prevent a smile. “He has
an absolutely wonderful, twisted sense of humor,” she says.
She adds that Alex’s billboards have made him an inspiration
for all of the district’s students this year, especially young
students with hearing loss.
Asked about the role
deafness might play in his artistic creativity, Alex says, “I’ve
pondered this. But even without my hearing, I learn. I see and
learn from shape, form, line, structure, unity, movements, emotions,
ideas that life presents, interactions with nature. What I experience
goes into my creativity and my art. Sometime I do think my deafness
gives me wider creativity. But we all have differences and different
influences, and everybody has their own way of finding their inspiration.”
Alan Parnes, a counselor
for persons with hearing loss at the Minnesota Department of Employment
and Economic Development, helps students in St. Louis Park make
plans for their transition from school to careers. Parnes, who
first met Alex in his junior year, says that Alex’s scholarship and an already well developed focus on a
career in art and graphic design made him stand out among students
he has counseled. He adds, smiling broadly, that Alex was very likely
the only St. Louis Park student sporting, at that time, a very full
beard. “It did give Alex a certain mature look,” Parnes
says.
Parnes was instrumental
in facilitating Alex’s plans for attending
RIT, home to the National Technical Institute for the Deaf and a
campus rich in communication supports and technology for students
with hearing loss. Alex says the student body includes about 1,000
persons who are deaf or hard of hearing. Rochester, N.Y itself has
been called the most deaf-friendly city in America, where almost
every aspect of life is deaf-accessible. Alex, who uses speech, hearing,
and sign language to communicate, prefers to sign. Alex says there
is deafness in his family but that his parents, Richard and Terry
Kern, are not deaf. They had acquired some useful but very rudimentary
signing skills before Alex was born, to communicate better with deaf
relatives. They began learning sign language in earnest soon after
Alex’s hearing loss was diagnosed at fourteen months.
What three contemporary
consumer products does Alex Kern, designer, find interesting? Alex
considers the question, and offers these: “Apple’s
iPod—white, sleek, futuristic. Canned pop—playful colors
and designs blend with the idea of party. Quicksilver clothing—it
fits with a sense of summer and sport.”
About education, Alex
Kern, student, observes, “We all have
to work big in our future and must be prepared.” Asked about
advice he has for younger students, Alex replies: “Always be
who you are. If you need help, seek help from others you are close
to. Upon entering college, expect to work hard, because they will
pour assignments on you.”
Alex, who describes
his parents as his greatest supporters, says fondly, “They want me to follow what is in my heart.” Now
that his design has been presented on two immense billboards seen
by thousands of people every day, Alex says it’s interesting
that he wasn’t very enthusiastic about the competition at first.
His parents encouraged him to sketch a watch design. “Looks
like it got me to be a winner,” he says, “weird!”
Persons interested in
information about vocational services for persons with hearing
loss, including youth and young adults in transition from school
to careers, may contact Rubin Latz, State Coordinator for services
to persons who are deaf or hard of hearing, MN Department of Employment
and Economic Development-Rehabilitation Services, St. Paul MN,
651-297-8269 or 1-800-328-9095 (Voice), 651-296-9141 or 1-800-657-3973
(TTY), 651-297-5159 (FAX), or email: rubin.latz@state.mn.us.
