Obituaries

Bill Kinser, 67, associate professor of art; headed Communication Design Program

Bill Kinser, a popular teacher who headed the Communication Design Program in the Department of Art, died suddenly over the weekend in his home in Boalsburg, Pa. He was 67.

Kinser, an associate professor of art, was a popular teacher whose inventiveness and promulgation of new methods, forms and technologies in graphic design took his students to the frontiers of the communication field.

"Bill was always full of energy and enthusiasm-a really crazy guy," said Tony Rozak, professor of art and Kinser's close friend.

"He was an excellent designer-really an exceptionally creative artist-who was always full of great ideas." Rozak said. "His talent is well-known in the field. He was already a legend when I was in graduate school."

Rozak's comments were echoed by department Chair Adele Henderson. "We'll really miss Bill," she said. "He was such a smart guy and he always had something to contribute that made us stop and consider a new perspective."

Kinser was assistant professor of art at Pennsylvania State University before he joined the UB art faculty in 1988. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in computer graphics, communication design, experimental media, typography and electronic publications design. Before Penn State, he was on the faculty of the University of Illinois and the Atlanta School of Art, where he chaired the Graphic Design Department.

During his professional career, Kinser developed a personal computer program for graphic design called RUNE, an interactive expert program for the non-designer.

He served as a design consultant for a number of colleges, universities, museums and corporations both here and abroad, and was vice president of Forever Toys, a Pennsylvania company headed by his wife, Charlene, that produces handmade playthings for national distribution.

His articles have appeared in such magazines and journals as Print, Idea , Graphis, Horizons (a USIA publication), the German publication Novum Gebrauchs-graphic and in design publications in Japan. His books include "The Elements of Western Typographic Style," "Design for Desktop Publishing" and, with Neil Klienman, "The Dream that was No More a Dream: A Search for Aesthetic Reality in Germany, 1890-1945."

Rozak described Kinser's loss as "terrible for the students, for UB and for me personally. I can't believe he's gone. I just have a hard time 'knowing' it. I'm going to miss him very, very much. We all will."