A short essay on Mediocrity, Typography and Clients.
“White space creates the negative space; The negative space creates the positive space.” A statement any Parsons student who has had the pleasure of Foundation year knows quite well I’m sure.
If we take this idea to typography, we’re now talking about relationships. Many relationships. To those who don’t study typography, they may think typography is the act of selecting Comic Sans as instead of to Time New Roman in Microsoft Word, but in reality typography is a universe of scales. In typography we look at the collective effect of paragraphs to the page, the sentence to the paragraph, the individual word to the sentence, the glyphs that compose the word, until we finally come to the basic “atom” of the typographic universe of the individual glyph to the page. All of which occur all at the same time and are interdependent on one another.
But at the core is the individual glyph and the fact that any typographer must respond to a restriction he is place with. If I want to make a “Q”, a “Q” is not a “O.” This restriction is unchangeable and binding, the only thing I can do is respond to this condition as a given, otherwise I am not making a letter, with a signifying meaning, I’m making something else. This restriction may seem to be a bad thing, but it’s quite the opposite — This is where true potential for greatness is possible, and no where else.
However, the reality is that people will try to solve their problems with what they have possible. If something a person wants to achieve is beyond him due to a limitation, only then will a person expand his capacities within himself or by collaborating with others. If man cannot fly, he’ll make airplanes. If man needs to eat, he will hunt. If there are no restrictions, then there is no need to create new things and people can rely on what already at their disposal. This explains the Microsoft Word poster with clip art for an informal club meeting, but why for a more high-risk event a designer might be employed. When presentation actually counts, then the client comes knocking.
If we don’t practice our skills with a eye on restrictions, we’re doomed to just repeat mediocrity, regardless how much we try to do otherwise.
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