Castleton professor Bill DeForest discusses life and his career in graphic design.

Not many people would call the Oxford Dictionary their favorite book. And not many people would even have a nickname for this lengthy, comprehensive collection of words. But Bill DeForest does. He calls it the “OFD,” by the way.

DeForest was a senior in high school when he became part of a group of regional scholars. Being a regional scholar required him to go to one scholar class a day and then spend the rest of his time doing an unlikely task.

“You have to sit by these fire alarms all day except for lunch and one class for the regional scholars. I didn’t mind skipping class after that,” the VTSU Castleton graphic design professor said.

He would often head over to SUNY Adirondack, a college near him in New York, to fill up the time he didn’t spend sitting next to the fire alarm. He would peruse all the books and randomly pick one to read. The visits sparked his curiosity and inspired him to read books he would have never picked up otherwise. He was interested in many topics.

DeForest described his high school self as “shy” and a bit of a “misfit.” But misfits are always bound to find each other, especially in high school.

“Eight or nine of us found each other. We called ourselves The 641 Club, which is the case of Matt’s beer plus tax,” DeForest said, reminiscing.

The band of misfits hung out together at their pal Eddie’s.

“It was a farm outside of town with no parental supervision. That’s where we would go to hang out. Ed Manor,” DeForest said matter-of-factly.

He said he has kept in touch and remained best friends with almost all of the 641 Club members – except for Ed.

“He’s missing now. No one can find him; he’s just gone. Disappeared. We’re still searching for him,” DeForest said glumly.

DeForest’s typical outfit in high school was almost the same every day. 

“Levi jeans, work boots, a tee-shirt, and a denim jacket,” he said. 

He mimics this outfit decades later but switched the tee-shirt for “a short sleeve button-up front shirt.”

“I never learned how to dress myself well,” DeForest said, laughing and throwing his hands up in defeat.

Colby Tucker, a graphic design major and student at VTSU Castleton, has a personal relationship with DeForest outside of academics.

“Bill’s my advisor. He started as my teacher, not really knowing if graphic design was it, and then I met Bill. He guided me through all of it. He runs the Content Lab, a club that I’m a part of. We’re closer than just advisors and students. I think we’re genuine friends,” Tucker said.

Tucker was unsure how to describe Bill; there were no right words to truly show his character.

“Between you and me, I am working on a theory about time and the universe. BUT, it is backed by physicists,” DeForest remarked during an interview. 

Unfortunately, the details are classified.

“He’s someone you need to meet for yourself,” Tucker said, laughing. “He introduced himself to me as the reverend of the Church of the Spiral Love Jelly,” Tucker said.

DeForest discovered an online form to create your own church, and he knew that it needed to be his next adventure. He became the official ordained minister of his very own church, The Church of the Spiral Love Jelly.

“He’s out there, and it’s easy to get engaged with him. That’s what happened to me,” Tucker added.

Like Tucker, many people began to interact and meet Bill through the graphic design program, but graphic design doesn’t limit Bill and his creativity.

“I was living in Ithaca, New York. I was living a great life on a communal farm, bartending, painting, and teaching as an adjunct instructor in painting. My life was hilariously good,” DeForest recalled. 

But, he knew that this picturesque life couldn’t last forever.

“I could see the writing on the wall and knew it wasn’t going to last forever. I thought I should have some commercial art training, and I thought that medical illustration would fill that need,” DeForest added.

He went to the Rochester Institute of Technology to pursue a master’s in Medical Illustration with a concentration in computer graphics. 

The coursework in this major included pre-med coursework, which involved human dissection.

“It was amazing, it was life-changing. It didn’t answer some of the fundamental life questions, but it blew my mind,” he said.

“The medical illustration program was where I first encountered Adobe creative products. My first love was Illustrator,” DeForest said, sighing.

Medical illustration allowed him to explore other forms of art and sparked his creativity.

“That’s when I got wicked into graphic design. I learned to love the white space. I love type, I love color, I love arranging things,” he said. “In my secret real life, I do paintings and drawings. I drew the human figure a lot, but now I mostly paint flowers.”

DeForest lives in Poultney, Vermont. He bought his house in 2019. It was his very first home. 

And his home is what every Vermonter dreams of. A picturesque piece of land with super tall maple trees. He describes his home as “parklike” as the maple trees line the land. 

His home is complete with his art studio, something he never owned before.  A place for his art, a place for him to explore his talents and become immersed in his “secret real life.” 

“The walls are bright yellow and the ceiling is white and there are drawings and paintings of flowers,” Tucker said.  

The yellow and white illuminate the studio making the space big and bright, an artist’s dream. 

“An artist actually lived there before me. She put on some of the crazy patterns and paint, and I just went with them,” DeForest adds.

Unfortunately, his house has yet to be visited by his family. 

“They have not and will not make it up to Vermont to see my first ever house, my home. They just can’t get it together,” DeForest said without elaboration. 

But, DeForest has good company at home. Charlie is a creamy white, short haired cat, with three legs. According to DeForest, Charlie is the “heart and soul” of his home. 

Charlie is obviously well-tended-to and valued. He has his own personal fountain which he loves, and even though Charlie isn’t technically allowed outside, DeForest makes exceptions.

“He’s a bit of a captive, I can’t bring myself to let him just go outdoors anymore so I bought these mesh tunnels, it’s like a cat habitrail,” DeForest describes.

The mesh tunnels are dozens of feet long, extending throughout DeForest’s backyard, with a large tent at the end that Charlie can visit as he pleases. 

Bill’s house is a quick 15-minute jaunt from where he teaches, which makes it ideal with his busy schedule. 

His job is hectic and sometimes it seems like the emails never stop coming.

“Email, Email, Email,” DeForest said of how his day starts and ends the same way.  

“It seems that during the semester, the day and the week are never done. You get home and think of everything you need to do and the weekend comes and you try to get ready for the next week,” DeForest said, smiling through the pain.

But like many hardworking individuals, coffee keeps DeForest afloat. 

Tucker noted how Bill always had a coffee cup in his hand or at least within close proximity of him. 

“The secret that most people don’t know is that I only drink decaf. I can’t handle full caffeine, you don’t want to see me. If I drink full caffeine I’m a fiend, it’s too much. People think I’m a little wired already so full caffeine would be no good,” DeForest laughed. 

DeForest started teaching at Castleton in 2017, and students from the university like Zoe Ukasik flocked to his classes.

“I heard about him before I even knew him. He’s got a chaotic energy, and I like it. That’s what makes him different from other teachers, and that’s why I wanted to take a class with him. The chaos keeps you engaged,” Ukasik said, smiling.

Ruben Somda has only taken one class with him, but the impact he has had on their life is long-lasting.

“He treats me like he knows me personally, which is something that I really appreciate when people do that. He is very invested in people,” Somda said.

Sam Davis-Boyd, a colleague in the Communications Department, describes him as “one of the most kind and energetic and friendly people that I know. I can’t go anywhere with Bill without him, like, stopping to talk to pretty much almost every single person he meets because he knows everyone,” Davis-Boyd said.

Davis-Boyd told how after she was first hired to work at Castleton University. She was living in California and needed to find housing near the university, but it was hard to actually look for a place for obvious reasons.

“Bill was in the process of purchasing a home in Poultney that had an attached apartment that he was planning to rent out. And he very kindly, before his own deal had even gone through, said, ‘As long as the deal goes through, y’all can live here,’” Davis-Boyd recalled.

The first year of her and her wife’s life at Castleton was spent living in an apartment attached to his home.

“He even made it part of the deal that me and my partner were able to move in early before he was even able to move,” Davis-Boyd said thankfully.

This speaks to DeForest’s character. He has never known a stranger.

Somda reflects on the time DeForest and they went to Ireland to visit an Oscar-winning graphic designer for film, which is a whole other story in itself. DeForest allowed Somda and another student named Wes Simard to “do their own thing” and explore on their own.

“The amount of times we would leave for the day, come back, and he’d come in and be like, ‘Oh, I just met my friend at a pub or something,’ or he would say, ‘I went pub crawling, met an artist on the street, and we drew together.’ He just knows everyone,” Somda remarks.

Davis-Boyd agreed.

“Like, he just… he is somebody that gets to know pretty much everybody that crosses his path and, like, genuinely wants to know people and about them and get to know them. And it’s just so, like, great to see and just endearing,” she said. 

Above everything, DeForest believes in beauty. In fact, the best day of his life was because of the simple and true beauty around him.

DeForest was on a run one day, as he typically did. All of a sudden he saw an incredibly large bird. He described the appearance of the bird to a raptor. 

“I’m watching it as I’m running and I see that it’s headed to the harbor. I ran to the end of a long pier where they used to store the buoys. There was nothing but me and the lake,” DeForest recalled. “I looked to the right and there was a snow owl, about three feet away from me. There was a full moon. The sun was setting on the left. I remember it well.”

DeForest describes these moments of beauty as “small little beads” in his life. Beauty is something that remains consistent. Beauty is something that will be remembered.  

“Between you and me, I think the fact that we can all appreciate beauty is a really important and powerful feature. Even two enemies can look at something beautiful and have power. I think at the end of your life, if you were given a choice—if you could have all the toys and money, all the power and money, or true beauty—we all would choose to see beauty before we go,” he said.