the guys over at core77 give a excellent overview of the night with Militon Glasser, George Lois, James Victore, and Jessica Helfand— which I had the pleasure to go to.
Looking back on the night a few days later, I have to say that my overall feeling about it are wheels that are metaphorically spinning in the mud.
While I was touched and humored by George Lois's foul mouthed, no nonsense, livid, old school new yorker attitude— As a designer and as a person I felt that was he was saying was so disconnected to today's designers and the way we operate today.
My personal favorite line from Lois was around the lines of "You just gotta be really fucking pissed off!"
Sadly I think most designers my age don't operate this way.
There's a general air of disinterest from every designer— including myself to be honest. While we may believe in aesthetics and the importance of it, beside this wishy-washy idea not much else motivates the average designer today.
Doing Social/ Political work is seen as "nice" or "cool" but is never framed in the sense of urgency as this lecture presented it.
Overall the great majority of designers are a placid group— with really the only urgent goals for the most part doing "cool" work and getting a paycheck to live a comfortable lifestyle. As I've been saying through the whole post about this event, This event just didn't connect to the reality of the designer working today.
This reminds me of Militon Glasser's comment about the nature of aesthetics, ethics, and morality. Miltion spoke of the idea that design by it's inherit nature an act of morality and ethics— as well as aesthetics and economic. Like my thoughts about Lois, while I admired and wanted to believe him, the average designer my age does not work in this manner— and I'm really scared we never will.
I even asked a question during the Q & A on this issue— specifically because three of the panelists were educators and were in direct contact with students of my generation— about what was the mood of the design students today that you work with? What motivates them? Drives them? What's important to them? Most likely due being the last question and time running out, I didn't get the response I was looking from Jessica. However. when speaking to people after the event I was glad that many other people had the same question as me and I hope that this issue will be addressed in a future Designism lecture.
Oh on a more positive note, I love James Victore. Not only was he a really cool guy to speak to after the lecture, I found his message the most poignant: “Just fucking do it. Don’t wait for anyone, just go and do something that moves you and just do it.” It keeps the degree of “wheels in the mud” discussions in a context of the need for actions, not words.
This panel includes very smart, talented and experienced people. But even they can be trapped within their own narratives.
Maybe if we can get some clarity on who is talking to whom and why, it would help figure this stuff out.
I think there is no question that something pretty big is going on. Globalism, blah, blah, blah. Where do designers fit in?
It would be great to really understand how the next generation of designers see the world. Since they are growing up in a completely different communication environment, you have to believe that it's going to be very different.
Posted by: MJ | October 07, 2006 at 10:12 AM
Just one another thought..
Maybe it would help if we all had more humility and less anger.
Posted by: MJ | October 07, 2006 at 11:36 AM