Milieu: Communication Design Discourse: Design's Impreative

I spoke last time about restriction and how actions are driven from those restrictions. But I must admit that the example I gave for anyone outside typography, lettering or graphic design was so specific that it was almost to the point of be asterisk. In addition, I feel this discussion of imperative could use some more fleshing out. With these points in the mind, I have a example of lettering that might address these points, provided by thegulfcostnews.com.

Coast residents wasted no time in telling Katrina and others about how they feel. As you can see from the signs GCN photographed around the area. GCN will add more sign photos as we can...Photos by Keith Burton
This sign appeared shortly after the storm at the entrance of this road where severely damaged homes were located in Biloxi.

Notice at how this sign was made — It appears that first the letters were scratched onto the plywood, with additions like the double underline under the “No” and the ligature for the “Th”. However it seemed like the person making this sign realized that there wasn’t enough contrast between the letters and the the wood, so spray painted letters were placed on top of the scratched out letters. Taken in any other context, this sign would merely be a grotesque beast of a visual artifact, better burned than allowed to exist — but in it’s context of Kateria, this artifact is worth discussing. In the death, suffering and destruction of Kateria, the simple task of telling people “No Thur Traffic” was elevated to a act of great imperative by the consequences of this hurricane.

I do have to wonder if designers can create artifacts of such vivid imperative? Do we practice our craft with the same gravity of intent and purpose? I tend to think not. For most designers it seems their imperative is to amass enough income in order to enjoy life as they wish to. The fact that design is the means they obtain this capital seems more a happy accident rather than one of essential obligation and need. In this light the act of design is more the result of the imperative to make money than anything else — And a imperative that seems to be only growing in intensity as the training and education of designers becomes more and more costly.

However this imperative for capital is far from a binding imperative, it’s instead a conditional imperative that is washed away from reality as soon as a larger ,more binding, imperative presents itself. 9-11, Virginia Tech, Katrina, or any other event that makes the obtaining of symbolic representations of wealth,in the form of decorated paper or objects, irrelevant. Does this explain the silence of designers on these events? Does this explain why when designs do discuss these kind of topics, it’s from the perspective of anything else other than being a designer — A Liberal, a Conservative, a Catholic, a Muslim, a Surfer, a Commuter, a MILF, a New Yorker, etc.?

Perhaps this is at the core of the dismissal of Design and designers by non-designers, whom seem to view Design as a luxury of profit, excessiveness and consumption. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprise if in a few years some industrious type designer will do a typeface based on the lettering sign I provided in this essay and then sell it on Myfonts.com. In a situation like that, how could anyone take us seriously? But beyond what outsiders see of us, there is the harsh reality that our skills we spend such massive amount of time and effort to master, shrinks to nothingness in the face of great imperatives, like 9-11 or Katrina. How could kerning, leading, tracking, optical sizes, accent marks be of any use to an elderly women drowning in filthily New Orleans water? Forget what outsiders see of us, how in the world could we take ourselves seriously? Doesn’t it come off as forced, arbitrary, and frankly, absurd to hear designers claim they can make the world a better place when the skill sets of such designers are placed next to the real and harsh realities of death and suffering? In situations like this, perhaps the only authentic act for a designer to do is to posses the humility to know their limits as designers.

Comments

Good points all.

But there's a balance, right? You can't be changing the world every day. at some point, a designer just has to pay the bills i would think. But your point is well taken; if that's all you're doing as a designer, you're abdicating your bigger potential and more important role of creating culture and changing lives.

I also think, still, people just don't understand the depth of what designers do. You see that red arch on the citigroup logo and can't imagine someone spent alot of time designing that, right?! which is a way of saying that "designer" has been associated with luxury goods, and now, with "hip, cool goods, even if they're cheap" for a long time. (and let's be fair - designer is very associated with Target in the public's mind, which is definitely not luxury.)

but more importantly, there are pockets, for sure, of a growing awareness of designers' roles in the bigger picture; sustainability is a big one that comes to mind. how are graphic designers communicating that their work is helping us to live more responsibly on the planet for example?

Finally, I think your examples of imperatives are very good, but don't necessarily have to be natural disasters. the election of 2000 was a disaster based squarely on bad design. if ever there were an example of an imperative...

Posted by: Jen | November 01, 2007 at 03:32 PM