Aesthetic:
Visual appearance rather than its content or message - However upon further study it reveals that the two are inseparable. - Dafi Kuhne: Hard to make a good poster if the content is crap.
It is a term that has become interchangeable with 'style' and 'visual appearance'. Non-designers tend not to view work aesthetically, therefor they see it differently.
Trash Aesthetic
Vernacular Aesthetic
There are two types of designer - Pragmatists and Aesthetes
Pragmatist: Underplay the importance of aesthetics. Designers who design for a service industry, supplying the 'packaging' for business messages. Clearly objective designers work pragmatically such as Wim Crouwel.
Aesthetes: Overplays the importance of aesthetics. Sensitive to art and beauty. Designers who see design as aesthetic expression driven by inner compulsion.
According to Massimo Vignelli (pragmatist) 'There are two kinds of graphic designers: One is rooted in history and semiotics and problem solving. The other is more rooted in the liberal arts - painting, advertising, trends and fashions. One side is the structured side, the other is the emotional side'.
George Orwell, 'Why I Write' - 4 motives for writing:
Egotism, historical impulse, political purpose and aesthetic enthusiasm
The importance of aesthetics differs depending on the designer.
The text goes on to balance the argument - 'But even the pragmatists tend to care passionately about their own work'. There aren't many designers who don't have a personal aesthetic.
Is it possible to be a graphic designer without having an interest in aesthetics?
'Possibly, but it would be a bit like trying to climb Everest in ballet pumps. You might be able to do it but not without difficulty.'
Fashions in design
Without fashions flaring up design would be far less likely to evolve. Without the conflict and skirmishing caused by fashion, design is likely to stagnate. If design doesn't admit rude intruders from time to time, it will atrophy.
It's fashionable to dismiss all fashions in graphic design
Purists support the merits of tradition
Design without fashion 'sounds like a very dull world to me.'
As designers get older it is natural that they think less about fashionable gestures and more about permanent things. Perhaps this is because they want to leave something behind to show for all their work?
Fashions cause designers to examine and reexamine what they do.
2006, Super Super was launched:
'Steroid pumped magazine design that made designers sit up like meerkats at the approach of a leopard.' It excited outrage and approval in equal measure. Most of all it excited curiosity.
Patrick Burgoyne: 'Willfully distorted typography, day-glo colours and total rejection of the holy tenets of magazine design are enough to give more mature art directors a fit of the vapours.'
Postmodernism urgently questioned certainties laid down by Modernism and rebelled against grand Eurocentric narratives in favour of multiplicity. The result in graphic design was to strip Modernist formality of both its infrastructure and outer covering. The grid was demolished, while neo-classical and contemporary ornaments, such as dots, blips and arrows, replaced the tidiness of the canonical approach. As in most artistic revolutions, the previous generation was attacked, while the generations before were curiously rehabilitated. The visual hallmarks of this rebellion, however, were inevitably reduced to stylistic mannerisms which forced even more radical experimentation. Extremism gave rise to fashionable ugliness as a form of nihilistic expression.
Produced publications examined accepted notions of graphic design, illustrating ideas and preoccupations to explore themes of authorship.
Output by Cranbrook is an example of fashionable experimentation according to Heller, 'the layering of unharmonious graphic forms in a way that results in confusing messages. By this definition, Output could be considered a prime example of ugliness in the service of fashionable experimentation.
'We have to admit that it is fashion that reinvigorates design.'
Graphic Authorship
The word was coined to describe the activities of designers who generate their own content and work without the sponsorship of a client. It is basically self initiated work.
If someone is renowned for having a successful and innovative track record then they are considered an 'authority' figure in his/her chosen field. Perhaps this is why Modernism took off so much because the design principles were backed up by facts and opinions from established graphic designers.
Elliot Earls
American designer
'The complete loss of subjective self-identity':
Also referred to as ego death.
British designers - Fuel
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/reputations-fuel
Work outside commercial design - ‘We love collecting vernacular … it’s functional, not following a preconceived idea of what is correct. This can give it an unexpected quality … in “real” design all those elements are lost. Everything is too considered.’
Ellen Lupton on the other hand believes that 'graphic designers provide the spit and polish but no the shoe'. And it is a combination of imagination, skill and professional judgement.
Swiss Design
'Calm, ordered, tranquil and absence of ostentation - with a bit of geometry to hold it all together'
NEUTRALITY
Grid based rigidity and mathematically derived sense of structure
Often seen as too neutral - Clients often see it as cold and unwelcoming.
Mueller Brockman
Anton Stankowski
Helvetica
Mechanical precision and perfect letterforms
Helvetica has conquered the world as it is the most widely used typeface. For some it is the only typeface.
Universal
'Ne Plus Ultra' - The perfect or most extreme example of its kind.
'It is a symbol of order in a world of chaos' and has become the default style.
However some believe it to be soulless and mechanistic and a Modernist doctrine of inflexibility.
It is durable as it beats fashions and stylistic fads.
Ornament
Since the rise of Modernist functionalism, ornament and decoration have been dirty words in graphic design.
Avant Garde
Oppositional
Contrarian
Rebel
Shock
Movements in the early 20th Century were oppositional. They were about rebellion and the shock of the new. The commercial world is now so dominant that as soon as new styles and graphic modes of expression emerge they are absorbed into advertising, marketing and branding.
Art vs Design
In the Postmodern world, anything can be art - Even graphic design.
Manzoni's 90 cans of shit.
There is a design sensibility and there is an artistic sensibility, and they are not the same thing.
Traditionally, the main difference between graphic designer and an artist is that a graphic designer requires a brief and needs to be given content to work with. Artists on the other hand write their own briefs and create their own content. But what about authorship? Designers that produce self initiated projects, that isn't art?
We get aesthetic pleasure from graphic design posters just as much as a fine art painting.
Intentions behind posters are different from fine art. Manzoni didnt produce cans of shit for it to be enjoyed in the way that art is normally enjoyed. He wanted people to 'think about the relationship between the body and art.' therefor making the conceptual message overshadow the aesthetic value of the can.
Contemporary art is like graphic design - Both are conceptual and both have a message that is more important than the artwork itself.
Shaughnessy calls designers who follow their own instincts and creative agenda 'auteurs'. These designers offer clients self-expression and radical gestures that come from the same impulse as the need to produce art. - Not all interested in aesthetics as some designers choose to imbed their political or ethical values into their designs, offering a subjective perspective.
Art Without Boundaries -
'At one time it was easy to distinguish between the fine artist and the commercial artist. It is now less easy. The qualities which differentiated the one from the other are now common to both.
Both art and design are consumed by commercial intentions
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