Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
I had never heard of Jan van Toorn, so I looked up some of his designs. The designs I saw definitely go with the message Marie described in her post. They suggest a sense of chaos, which I think matches his idea of "oppositional cultural production." Like Andy said, when we graduate, we will mostly be designing for clients, but I don't think that means that every piece we create won't have some of our own points of view. And the public may interpret things in ways the clients and we never foresaw.
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
To survive, design must “strive to neutralize these inherent conflicts of interest by developing a mediating concept aimed at consensus [....] to accepting the world image of the established order as the context for its own action.” By reconciling the differences of various ideals and opinions, and establishing a cultural norm, design develops a “practical and conceptual coherence” in mass media, thereby legitimizing itself––legitimized “in the eyes of the social order, which, in turn is confirmed and legitimized by the contributions that design make to symbolic production.”
This paragraph stated in "Design and Relexivity," (1994) I completely agree with. Being a designer is definitely a hard task and you are constantly dealing with the conflict of trying to neutralize things. No matter how a designer tries to reconcile the differences of various ideals and opinions among it's viewers, one cannot whole heartedly control how anyone interpretes anything. Everyone has their own opinions towards different things and they develope those opinions based on past experiences and the environment around them. So as designers continue to strive to neutralize conflicts and reconcile the differences of various ideals ones opinions are continuously evolving.
This paragraph stated in "Design and Relexivity," (1994) I completely agree with. Being a designer is definitely a hard task and you are constantly dealing with the conflict of trying to neutralize things. No matter how a designer tries to reconcile the differences of various ideals and opinions among it's viewers, one cannot whole heartedly control how anyone interpretes anything. Everyone has their own opinions towards different things and they develope those opinions based on past experiences and the environment around them. So as designers continue to strive to neutralize conflicts and reconcile the differences of various ideals ones opinions are continuously evolving.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
The problem with theoretical analyses of what design should or shouldn't be is that they always seem to incubate in some sort of alternative universe where nobody has to please a client or pay bills. Design is visual problem-solving; if you're innovative with your concepts and you can create compelling visual interpretations (and meet your deadlines) you'll have a decent career. As Einstein said, "it's not quantum physics."
I have a book of political posters, "The Design of Dissent," edited by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic, which I love. It's full of great provocative ideas and edgy executions. But I would be willing to bet that more than 90% of the examples were self-published or designed gratis.
I feel like I keep hammering variations of the same theme with these posts, but this is not the fine art world. What you create will be driven by the goals of your client. If you can get "peculiar, political" things approved, then great, but I think it's a little idealistic to think that any of us will have all that much autonomy in the real (read: paying) world. And ultimately, that is why we are doing it: to make a living, not reshape society's methods of communicating.
I have a book of political posters, "The Design of Dissent," edited by Milton Glaser and Mirko Ilic, which I love. It's full of great provocative ideas and edgy executions. But I would be willing to bet that more than 90% of the examples were self-published or designed gratis.
I feel like I keep hammering variations of the same theme with these posts, but this is not the fine art world. What you create will be driven by the goals of your client. If you can get "peculiar, political" things approved, then great, but I think it's a little idealistic to think that any of us will have all that much autonomy in the real (read: paying) world. And ultimately, that is why we are doing it: to make a living, not reshape society's methods of communicating.
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
Ugly on purpose, as the article Mark posted shows, is still cringe-worthy. The first time I was told, "just squish the type to fit," I refused, trying everything else possible first. Following your moral compass in design is a two-edged sword - you may be standing your ground, but you may be losing business and income. In the long run, working with clients you respect is preferable, but its hard to do that before you have a client base strong enough to support making that decision.
So then there are designers who create change, instead of just supporting it. John Bielenberg is a graphic designer who created Project M. Project M "has developed projects to help a conservation area in Costa Rica, Micro-financing in Ghana, New Orleans after Katrina, the community of East Baltimore, connecting households to fresh water in Hale County Alabama and addressing the the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Alabama." (cited from the Project M website)
Project M reinforces "thinking wrong," which is designed to allow designers to explore the area of social change, though as it's not easy to do in a professional design capacity, it tends to thrive in academia. The idea is to challenge the status quo, breaking biases, and generating the most potential solutions before choosing one.
I think Van Toorn's argument is very important, and I think aside from designing for things we believe in, we have a responsibility to help educate those who would blindly assimilate into the "existing symbolic and social order."
Project M reinforces "thinking wrong," which is designed to allow designers to explore the area of social change, though as it's not easy to do in a professional design capacity, it tends to thrive in academia. The idea is to challenge the status quo, breaking biases, and generating the most potential solutions before choosing one.
I think Van Toorn's argument is very important, and I think aside from designing for things we believe in, we have a responsibility to help educate those who would blindly assimilate into the "existing symbolic and social order."
Monday, October 8, 2012
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
I completely agree with Mark. You can't stop a good idea from slowly being interpreted by other designers out there. Wasn't there a blog post we just did on inspiration and being authentic? It's almost impossible to go into a world where nothing inspires you and then you magically make up a design that everyone loves.
I was watching TV this morning, particularly the HGTV channel as I am addicted in an obnoxious way. They just recently came out with a new commercial for "House Hunters: International". I couldn't find it on the internet (I'm sure it will be on here soon) but they totally changed their style. They started interpreting each countries culture and typographically displaying it as the commercial went on. It was almost as if the designer wanted each culture to relate to the social realm of type he/she was using. I loved the aesthetics of the commercial, but I was a little put off by not recognizing it as an HGTV advertisement. (If I find it online, I will post it so everyone can know what I am talking about.)
I was watching TV this morning, particularly the HGTV channel as I am addicted in an obnoxious way. They just recently came out with a new commercial for "House Hunters: International". I couldn't find it on the internet (I'm sure it will be on here soon) but they totally changed their style. They started interpreting each countries culture and typographically displaying it as the commercial went on. It was almost as if the designer wanted each culture to relate to the social realm of type he/she was using. I loved the aesthetics of the commercial, but I was a little put off by not recognizing it as an HGTV advertisement. (If I find it online, I will post it so everyone can know what I am talking about.)
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
While Van Toorn's argument is strong, promising design trends usually do evolve from rebellious at birth to corporatist at death. I'm not sure you can stop that, a good idea slowly becomes modified as more people see it and reinterpret it in their own way. What started at the Bauhaus turned into logos for oil companies and banks. And as Marie's post reminds us, postmodernism and niche marketing make it pretty impossible to ever have a graphic design concept that never ends up seeing some sort of corporate application.
Even rebellions rooted in intentionally creating things that are "ugly" eventually become stylized. This Design Observer article, discussing the new ugly of 2007 has since seen more stylized applications at Urban Outfitters. With that kind of visibility, perhaps we're 10 years away from Ann Taylor using typographic treatments on their marketing materials that would have been considered avant garde in 2005.
Becky points out Fairey as an example of a designer who advocates social change through his work, and he does. But his work has become a commercial commodity (two of the images in Becky's post are for Obey). He did the design for a mainstream comedian's show on a cable network (Russel Brand's Brand-X on FX) and his style has been replicated and parodied in too many contexts to keep track of.
It's fairly impossible to protect an aesthetic from falling into "the wrong hands" like a band you like eventually being followed by people you would never want to be associated with. That kind of creative exposure and evolution comes with graphic design too.
Even rebellions rooted in intentionally creating things that are "ugly" eventually become stylized. This Design Observer article, discussing the new ugly of 2007 has since seen more stylized applications at Urban Outfitters. With that kind of visibility, perhaps we're 10 years away from Ann Taylor using typographic treatments on their marketing materials that would have been considered avant garde in 2005.
Becky points out Fairey as an example of a designer who advocates social change through his work, and he does. But his work has become a commercial commodity (two of the images in Becky's post are for Obey). He did the design for a mainstream comedian's show on a cable network (Russel Brand's Brand-X on FX) and his style has been replicated and parodied in too many contexts to keep track of.
It's fairly impossible to protect an aesthetic from falling into "the wrong hands" like a band you like eventually being followed by people you would never want to be associated with. That kind of creative exposure and evolution comes with graphic design too.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Re: Graphic Design Heroes & Citizenship in Design
Jan van Toorn has many valid points about how a designer should thoughtfully portray society and reality in their work, especially when trying to communicate a particular political or cultural message. As far as what he refers to as "symbolic productions", these are what we see most in our daily lives. Advertisements for a wide range of things, aren't always going to have a deeper meaning and are not meant to be any more than what they are on the surface. A designer/illustrator that came to mind while I was reading this, is Shepard Fairey. Much like Jan van Toorn, Shepard works political and cultural messages into his work, and typically leaves the viewer with few words to use during interpretation of the design. Although their styles are very different, I think they both have the same goal -- to reveal true reality. Here are a few examples of Fairey's work:
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