Hmmm this is funny because in my post I on ‘the peripheral’ I say that discourse is focused on meaning over aesthetics, function over form. I’d suggest it’s very brave for a designer to openly admit to purely having an interest in the way things look… but maybe we’re reading different stuff? When you say “the celebration of form that predominates the literature and discourse of graphic design”, it makes me realise we come from very different backgrounds. What about Beatrice Ward (The Crystal Goblet)… Josef Muller-Brockman, Massimo Vignelli… and any of your Modernist architects… “machines for living in” (Corbusier), “Ornament and Crime” (Loos)? And it’s not like people have forgotten… modernism as an ideology is very easy to teach at schools, so it generally predominates there too (the ones I’ve been to anyway). One of the things I like about Peter Saville is how he admits to having an interest in the way things look… a very rare confession for a designer as far as I can tell.

We engage people through surfaces, through sight… through beauty or ugliness, or somewhere in between. These surfaces are loaded. Other disciplines (architecture, industrial design) call us superficial… and in response graphic design attempts to scientificate itself. But this won’t ever work, improve things, change anything, because graphic design is like music… it’s a very pure form of engagement. And like music it’s effects can never be accurately gauged, planned, or laid out on a board-room table. That’s why all the best graphic designers are losers. Architecture and industrial design, having very much dominated ‘design histories’, always talk about ‘people’ and ‘interaction’… they build things, make things,… then we cover them up with our pretty/ugly pictures.

Sorry about that, a bit carried away… coffee kicking in. Is your research about engaging people? What engages you in the world? Not beauty? Why’s that such a bad answer?

When I said I felt like you were pouring concrete over the grass, I meant that I thought you were taking something that’s natural, instinctual, and intuitive… like a conversation at a party… and turning it into something logical (hey the weeds won’t grow), and hard. But we need the weeds you know… and that’s what I mean when I use ‘peripheral’… it’s the space in between, I’m talking to you, but I’m looking at her wondering if she came here with him, did you bring enough to drink, should you have brought a present, you wish you had their stereo, their dog smells and they should have left it outside for the party… you know what I mean? It’s not about form or function… it’s about engaging with situations and people… naturally and honestly. You can’t force it, or you’ll end up sitting on the couch on your own.

I guess though you’ve made me realise more than ever that the periphery has a lot to do with perspective. Horizons perhaps?

Sorry. Realise maybe none of that’s very helpful… a couple of questions,

Who do you want to ‘participate’ with?

What do you want them to participate in?

PS. Ideo’s “design toolkits” are just old conceptual art strategies, and it’s not just appropriation it’s plaigirism really! If I could blow up any company in the world it would probably be Ideo.

Thanks for your comments Luke. I think as always, we come from different perspectives, which is probably why we find eachother’s opinions so challenging.

My comment on ‘celebration of form‘ is direct reference to post-modernism discourse. I hadn’t even considered the orthodoxy of Modernism, to be honest, and you made me consider whether I should…. I also think my topic has more reference to postmodernism (rather than the rejection of Modernism) since it attempts to acknowledge ’self’ and ‘others’ as an integral part of design. It has complexities and convolutions. It is multiplicity, rather than simplicity.

Anyway, reading Poynor’s ‘Postmodernism’ book, I couldn’t help but notice the infatuation that designers have of form. It’s always about expression. You’ll find that form is not discussed in terms of reception, engagement or context of other people. I get that sense from you too. I don’t think it’s necessary a criticism, but one thing stands out as an omission – people other than yourselves. I hear you talk about your posters and the blood, sweat and tears over them, and who actually gives a shit? You do. I think you are very self-concsious about how your posters will be recieved. Whether it will bring in the crowds to your gigs. Isn’t that why you’re posting up posters in Brooklyn, for them to be seen by others? Without admitting to, you are designing for yourself as well as hoping that it would resonate with others who are similar minded like you. It is about you + others. But ‘the others’ might not be conscious, it could be a subconscious thought, mixed in with intuition. I’m attempting to highlight that ’subconscious-ness’ and really talk about that as something unique designers do.

I am exploring that grey area between designing for youself and for others. Maybe I’m saying it’s two sides to the coin, it’s not an either-or argument either, I think it’s definately both. It is surfaces, it is ugliness, it is beauty, it is emotion, it is humour, it is everything in between. It is about the practices of people who create something, and about those people who is intended to be engaged. It’s more at a meta-level.

I don’t understand why you’re threatened by the fact that I don’t talk about beauty etc etc. It’s not because I don’t value it, but it’s because someone else (like you) could talk about it, and I’d rather listen. I’d rather talk about other things, because that’s where my interests and experience of living lies. Isn’t that exactly why we’re doing this (blogging) now? Because we have different things to say?

I’m not interested in measuring ‘engagement’ or trying to come up with a formula that fits and is successful. I don’t know why people always assume that of my research, and it’s getting rather boring. I guess I get bunched into the usual categories just because I’m talking about ‘people’.

Commenting on your concrete obliterating grass metaphor, I realised that you seem to have pre-conceptions about my research. I think design is ‘natural, instinctive, intuitive’, I completely agree. I do discuss my research in that context, but I guess I don’t highlight it as much, hence why I get the backs up of the likes like you . To me, the conversation about art/design and the artist/designer’s intuition, creativity etc, is a given. It’s there, and we know it. But saying that’s all there is to it, also skews the actual picture. My take on it, is that designers are people, we design with people and for people. There’s politics involved, there’s ego’s involved, there’s idiosyncracies involved. So, how do we design?

Your ‘party’ metaphor is quite apt, and that’s why I say that we have more in common than you think. You ‘d probably find I’m rude at parties. I’m way too eager and curious to know everything and talk to everyone, I find it hard to sit still with just one person and have a long conversation. You and I should sit on that couch one day, and have a real good chat. It could turn into something pretty amazing.

First up, l like the way you’re called “Admin”… very funny! Yeah it’s interesting that you bring up that Poyner book. When I went to art (Design) school I was indoctrinated (althoug not as bad as some) by a very charismatic old Modernist who, although it was at that time, wrote off almost all the work/people represented in that book – Postmodernity. I was curios though and started reading Emigre when I left school… it’s taken me a long time, and I still wouldn’t call myself a Postemodernist… more a reformed Modernist, to learn to appreciate many of the types of practice represented in that book. I think to write them off as being “infatuated with form” is to grossly over simplify much of the work. I’d also suggest that that’s the mainstream attitude, because let’s not forget that a lot of the practices represented there are, for all intents and purposes, still relatively marginal… they might be “famous”, but often not particularly “successful” by industry standards. Modernist logic still pervades design… try telling a client “I did it cause I thought it looked cool”!? At the very least you HAVE to say that it has something to do with the content. You’re half right I think because it’s usually a lie. You make it look how you want and then make up the rest retroactively.

“You’ll find that form is not discussed in terms of reception, engagement or context of other people”… that’s not entirely true… maybe in that book it is, I can’t remember, but I know people like Saville and Kalman for instance, have discussed this kind of stuff. Again I like Saville’s angle on it… he thinks of himself kind of a cultural barometer, he’s really good at reading fashion and trends. He’s very aware of the transient nature of that kind of practice, but that’s part of his point I think. His work for Joy Division was obviously “engaging”… what exactly do you want him to say about that? Have you seen Scorcese’s Bob Dylan Documentary? I really enjoy watching Dylan (he does it in Don’t Look Back too) dodge the reporters questions about how he does what he does, why he’s engaged so many people all over the world etc… he just goofs around, until he eventually gets pissed off with them. You should see it, it’s really good.

When people engage with your work (as a graphic designer) a large part of that engagement will be formal, or superficial at least. Do you want people to fall in love with your work? I do? And that’s the point of the party metaphor I guess… you meet a pretty boy/girl… you try to hard… you blow it! And in hindsight you realise you should have just been yourself…

When you say “I’m not interested in measuring ‘engagement’”, and then that “I don’t know why people always assume that of my research…” maybe that’s something to think about. What do you say to those people to tell them they’re wrong… and then set them on the right track?

And why would you even want to be a graphic designer if you didn’t care about the way things looked? I think we have one thing in particular in common… we’re both decieving ourselves… and we’ll probably never learn how not too…

Hmmm. I think my reading of Poynor’s book has been quite different to you… and perhaps you’ve taken my comment to mean that I am rejecting ‘form’ for some reason, which isn’t the case. The omission I refer to in his book tells an incomplete story of design and design practice. Those pieces of work in the book were intended to engage and resonate with people (I assume) but I don’t see that discussed anywhere. Admittedly, it is a hard thing to discuss (hence my fascination). I’ll return to this point later.

Do I want people to fall in love with my work? Of course. I don’t think anyone putting themselves out there would not want that. When you say, ‘you realise you should have just been yourself’, what does that actually mean? I’d like to think that I am myself with everyone I am with. Though, I behave slightly differently when I’m talking to a Japanese friend, to an old friend back from London. I pull out different conversations and experiences with people who I’ve just met, to those who I see every day. I think there is much more subtle engineering going on according to who we’re talking to, that meets the eye, that we ourselves might not be fully conscious of. I relate that to how we design. The works I create is ultimately me, but it has layers of people who I’ve collaborated with, input by cilents, writers, editors, photographers, illustrators, and the hope that this engages those who it’s intended for. I wouldn’t call that ‘trying hard’, but a natural reflection of the breadth and depth of the realities of a design practice.

At the core of my research question, I want to know what goes on when we design, how we design and why design is the way it is. I want to capture that very fine line between designing for yourself and for others without making it into a black + white argument. Also, I want to be true to reflect my practice and my lived experience of designing. Perhaps I am a designer who have more consciously considered my audience than other designers I have met (or read about). I know that it may sound trite, and it’s probably much more ‘cool’ to be like Saville. But you know, I’m not and won’t be interested in being like him. At the risk of sounding like a do-gooder boring dork, I do actually care about others when I design. It’s just the way I am I’m afraid. Maybe that’s the fundamental difference between you and me. We’re actually two very different people. Or, perhaps, you haven’t confronted and looked your monsters square in the eye??? And in fact, you are underneath, a do-gooder boring dork like me, but in denial. Heheheh.

I think talking to you gives me an opportunity to try out how I talk about my research. I think the questions in my research make designers uncomfortable, similar to the way you are responding. Since I’m not talking about the way things look, people assume I’m not interested in that either. In the end, my research folds unto itself, because I want my research to engage people like you. In many ways, I am conscious of how my research will be received, so again, I am ‘designing’ by considering others. That doesn’t mean to say I am going to change what I say to make it sound good, or to write it to be liked and approved by others. I am hoping to manifest my research by the way I conducted my research and to reflect my research.

Hey I thought this was an interesting link to what we’ve been bashing about here, from my post on the ‘peripheral’… psychology’s use of the term ‘Peripheralism” is pertinent, “the explanation of psychological events emphasizing peripheral human functions, as those of skeletal muscles or the sex organs, rather than cognition or other processes of the central nervous system. So I could argue that those of us seduced by artefacts/form/images could be called ‘peripheralists’… the link to limbs, touching, and sex. The word periphery can also refer to the surface of a solid… so being a peripheralist doesn’t need to be an oxymoron maybe, it might just mean you’re more interested in what’s going on outside than inside… extrospection instead of introspection. I feel more comfortable with that for some reason?

Hey Yoko, was just thinking about how you use the term ‘cool’ in the pejorative. Was thinking that that’s precisely what Saville ‘aims’ for, and that it’s also precisely what is engaging to an audience. I think it’s really easy to write things off as being superficial or ‘cool’, when actually both those things are somehow fundamental within what we do as ‘graphic designers’.