Michael Bierut
Swiss Design
'Calm, ordered, tranquil and absence of ostentation - with a bit of geometry thrown in to hold it all together.'
Graphic Design perfection, for some however it is 'soulless conflation of graphic rigidity and arid expression.'
Neutrality - Traditional grid based rigidity and mathematically derived sense of structure are seen as too neutral. - Cold and unwelcoming according to clients
Order expresses the spirit of a more progressive age.
Helvetica
Helvetica is the 'democratic and rational solution to all typographic tasks. For others it is a problematical typeface that smacks of authoritarianism and sterility. Yet for most designers, it is a handy fallback option that gets us out of typographic jams.'
A symbol of order in a world of chaos, for others, it is soulless and mechanistic. Unoriginal and boring.
Aesthetics
'Set of principles concerned with the appreciation of beauty, especially in art.'
Focuses on it's visual appearance rather than its content or message however after further and deeper study it has been found that aesthetics and content are inseparable.
For designers, 'aesthetics is a term that has become interchangeable with style and visual appearance. although it is not only used to describe design that is beautiful or representative of good taste. Terms such as 'trash aesthetic and 'vernacular aesthetic' are common place.'
Two sides to aesthetics:
PRAGMATISTS: Designers who see design as a service industry supplying the packaging for business messages. (Objective)
AESTHETES: 'Designers who see design as aesthetic expression driven by inner compulsion'
(Subjective)
'The former group underplays the importance of aesthetics; the latter group overplays the importance of aesthetics.'
Massimo Vignelli (In an interview with Steven Heller)
(Pragmatist)
'There are two kinds of graphic designers: one rooted in history and semiotics and problem solving. The other is more rooted in the liberal arts - painting, figurative arts, advertising, trends and fashions. One side is the structured side, the other is the emotional side.'
But even Vignelli has aesthetic impulses - George Orwell 'Why I Write', Orwell lists the 'four greatest motives' for writing:
- Egotism
- Historical Impulse
- Political Purpose
- Aesthetic Enthusiasm
Asking this to a designer, aesthetics would have to be high on the list as it will be very hard to design without an awareness and interest in aesthetics.
Fashions in Design
'Slavishly following fashion is lazy and unimaginative, yet when we stop being excited and informed by new trends its usually a sign that we've stopped caring about our personal development, and that we've stopped caring about the evolution of design in general.
'It's fashionable to dismiss all fashions in graphic design as ephemeral and diminishing. Purists talk about the merits of tradition.' Shaughnessy is saying that although design traditions have survived the test of time, without fashion there is no 'fizz of the new'. Which sounds like a dull world.
'As designers get older, it is natural that they think less about fashionable gestures and more about permanent things.'
Super Super for example, 'carried a blast of steroid pumped magazine design that made designers sit up like meerkats at the approach of a leopard.' Unsurprisingly, it excited outrage and approval in equal measure.
Super Super excited curiosity.
Shaughnessy is saying that without fashions, design would be far less likely to evolve. 'If design doesnt admit rude intruders from time to time, it will atrophy.
Graphic Authorship - p127
Describes the activities of designers who generate their own content and create work without the sponsorship of a client.
For Shaughnessy, 'a graphic designer who creates a new visual entity where one didn't previously exist is indulging in an at of authorship.' Going further, he believes that ' working for a client doesn't preclude the ability to have authorial intent.'
Making something that wasn't there before encourages authorship as the designer must design something new with confidence/authority.
Ellen Lupton: 'Typically, designers provide the spit and polish but not the shoe.' This suggests that Lupton doesn't believe in authorship as designers are ready to do the bidding of the client.
Ornament
Since the rise of Modernist functionalism, ornament and decoration have been dirty words in graphic design.
Avant Garde Design
Various avant garde movements have driven design to new heights. They shock.
Avant Garde movements in the early 20th Century were oppositional.
Originality
Perhaps designers are consciously breaching the rules to avoid plagiarism.
Crouwel is a graphic author because he
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