THE DEMOCRATIC LECTURE _ CRAIG OLDHAM

THE

DEMOCRATIC

LECTURE

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BY

CRAIG OLDHAM

[United Theory of Everything, Manchester, 2012]
The Democratic Lecture is a great book - especially when it comes to issues raised by and involving contemporary graphic design students in todays world - this was interesting to me personally. 

Not only that but it really helped me to find interesting lines of enquiry and it definitely planted seeds which helped me triangulate specific issues and come up with what is hopefully a focused and productive research topic.


For every book I read I plan on typing up all notes, quotes and page numbers so it gives me a good archive of references for when it comes to discussing points. I took down these quotes before I fell upon my research topic but I feel they're mostly relevant and still fall upon the contemporary design world - which is a line of enquiry when it comes to my topic of globalisation and graphic design.



Key
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          = Quote

          = Analysis _ Comment





Notes
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"design exists to improve and to inform, and to be effective it has to be understood" - p53

"If you live and create in isolation, more than likely you're going to create thing that have no place within a real environment, and so they will fail, because they have no context other than inside your head." - p56
Effect of society on design, representing and influencing society?


Copy/Steal and idea of influence/looking back
"A lot of students, even designers in the industry, feel that if they admit that they've been influenced that it somehow reduces their originality  that somehow it's not their idea, and theyve just copied someone... to merely copy is to take an existing interpretation and simply re-skin it. To steal an idea is to take something of value and make it yours, make it relevant to your practice and the problem you're trying to solve. To make an artistic element yours, you have to interpret it your way with your own approach." - p53 



Outside influence -
"You work with exists, the ideas around you and the opportunities you combine them with, within your own way of working to create something different." -p53



Taking + Manipulating + Juxtaposition + Progressive graphic design
"How do you make a dog drink? Put it in the blender.

You take the existing and manipulate it into something new, unexpected and this is where great ideas come from, and how great things are made." - p53

"It is fatal to assume that graphic design is a medium for self-expression." - p51

Objectivity x Subjectivity within graphic design.

Agree? Artist definitely not as important in Graphic Design when compared to specialisms such as Fine Art, but if everyone plays by these 'rules' then there wouldn't be such as thing as a recognisable style and recognising a certain designers work is a sign of successful and iconic work - if they played by a set number of rules to solve a problem - these individual characteristics wouldn't be there?




Clinical graphic design in past / compared to now. More self-expression and 'trend' orientated design culture now compared to before computer and maybe a more global culture?

"Over the past two decades, designers seem less and less interested in solely solving the problems of their clients. No they're far too interesting for that." - p60

Look into designers attitudes and intentions now, compared to before the computer and globalised culture of past two decades. How and why?



The argument of solving problems yet these same designers have a 'signature' style where they probably stepped out of these objective guidelines in order to create something iconic - slightly contradictory. You still know certain pieces of work without seeing their name so there's definitely an element of style and self-expression.

For example, Wim Crouwel grids, Massimo Vignelli helvetica. Possibly subconsciously applying expression and their own unique problem solving techniques which are typical of them



MODERNISM + FUNCTIONALITY

"You can trace back the origins of that Swiss/modernist, highly typographic, highly clear, with an emphasis on function and content."

How did these styles come about, especially the Swiss style of design which symbolises modernist and minimal graphic designs, was there a change in economy, culture and society which pushes designers to be more objective and functional in design? 



Swiss modernism affecting advertising and a more consumerist society.  
Design > influencing > Society
Design < influencing < Society

Michael Beirut "Like a glass of ice cold water" - referring to moving to Helvetica from decorative fonts in advertising.




BIBLIOTHEQUE - Posters exhibitions for Dieter Rams, 50 years of business for vitscoe. Ten principles of good design.

* 'Britishness' and it's influence on shaping British design and recognisable visual sensibilities

"Britain has a world famous, and world envied creative industry every nation wishes it was theirs... Although negativity is a bad thing for the mass-majority, like everything there's a flip-side and if used correctly, negativity can yield positive results. Knowing when to look through a slightly negative eye can be a really useful thing to a designer." - p46

"The real thing that negativity gives you is a critical stance. An obstacle which your creativity has to be able to overcome to prove its worth, and a problem which it has to solve in order to succeed." - p46

"A critical mind sets higher standard, and higher standards lead to better work. The Brits have this critical stance engraved our DNA, but we use this negativity in a positive way." - p46 

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 ANALOGUE x DIGITAL
"Even in an age where digital could be seen to the popular choice, it'd be hard to deny that it was the poster that elected the first black President of the United States of America." - p27

"But that's only because Shepard Fairey understood what confused so many, just like Martin Luther did. They employed the right technology to best communicate their ideas." - p27



Branding influence on Consumerism + Society

"I think that brands always have shaped society, even before we knew they were brands. Just as when a person becomes known for being the best at a skill, the demand for his skill increases.  

Others may be able to perform the skills but it is he who he is in demand. Is that not a facet of branding? Are people not brands themselves?" - p55 

Self-expression + Style

"Style is yearning for recognition from the peer group." - p56

So graphic designers shouldn't have a style, or a unique approach to solving a problem not yet been employed before? Or style as in what's currently in trend - this could possible indeed be yearning for recognition and approval from peer group.

Is graphic design more 'style' than substance in todays global culture than before? Constantly seeking approval in person and through online on blogs, online portfolios etc by following trends and high likelihood of acceptance on visual merit not content. 



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Big/Small studios

"In every industry, your success is measured against two things (i) The size, bigger the better, and (ii) it's financial value. The more money you make the better you are. Except design is a bit of a weird industry. In design if you're big then you're deemed a sell-out or of no creative worth." - p58





Environment + design

Book _ 'A Technique for producing ideas' - by James Webb Young

"Your environment will inspire you. You will draw information from every aspect of life and fine the solution to a problem in a totally different place. Wood for the trees so to speak." - p60

"Have a life outside of design and let your life have an influence on your design." - p60

If environment inspires you then different environments, culture and society create different work, as environment plays a huge part in your work. Then in todays global culture what actually is the environment which inspires you, has this environment remained culturally distinct or is the environment in todays world merging into one - in turn creating one design language?


"You are always thinking about the problem, whether you know it or not, and as ideas are just new combinations of the same individual bits of information, all it takes is for the subconscious to trigger off something. and the idea just pops out of thin air." - p60





Ambiguous art

"Mr Wilde once wrote that form and colour tell us form and colour that is all" - p60

"There are two basic elements in communication - form and content - and it is their relationship that creates a piece of graphic design."

"Graphic design is simply a method of communication, and without something to communicate it's redundant. Content is key." - p63

 Ambiguouty and prioritising style and trend, visual clutter over the communication which is key. More so now, than in the past?

Rejection of technology? Rejection of communication - 'glitch art'

"Sure it's possible to do graphic design about graphic design but designers always struggle without a brief to define their content, resorting to the ever-repeating Pantone skits, novelty typefaces, and empty graphic 'styles'. In which you're not really a graphic designer." p63


Importance + success of enjoying research

"The great thing about it is that it's almost always about something else. Football, cake, world peace. The Wizard of Oz. Music. Art. David Ginola. And if you can't get excited about whatever that something else is then you will have trouble making that job a good piece of Graphic Design."

"When you dig deeper, you will rise higher." - p63

"It's better to be interested, than uninteresting" - Alan Fletcher - p63 

Importance of looking to the past for forward-thinking work. Issues of more looking back now than ever before? With rejection of clutter, too muchtechnology and a more analogue life - more analogue design.

"My course placed particular emphasis on the importance of past-design and how it can influence and inspire what is to come. These lectures affected me profoundly as a designer." - p66



Art is timeless, can inspire anyone, anywhere, anytime. Todays designer, especially me, looking to the past more than todays world - just as inspiring as it would have been to someone ten years from now, or ten years in the past.

"A good example of this is in music where influences, experimentation and creative application happen at various times in a linear chronology, but a user can experience them at any time after that fact. You can, for example be as affected by the music of Dylan or The Beatles at any point in time." p66
Exactly the same with design work



"History provides the riches and most valuable source of reference a tool on which to produce better, more considered work which allows the transference of thinking from period to another. But so many of the new blood entering the industry lack this reference tool."
Past influencing now

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COP3 Proposal Form - Revised

"To what extent did cultural and social particularities inform and shape the visual language and reputations of Swiss and American modernist graphic design of the mid-20^th century. 

In the future of graphic design will distinct regional design styles remain in the face of globalisation?"

Rationale _

 It will be really interesting for me personally to investigate these 'stereotypes' we have of countries and their industry, design and society. For example German functionalism and engineering, Swiss reliability, English wit and so on and in the same respect how the modernist design styles of Europe and America gained their reputation and visual languages. Paying specific attention to the Swiss style and American consumer driven graphic design movement in the mid 20th century.

This is turn will transition into the modern day and the effects of the comptuer on design which is an investigation I still wanted to look into but this time it's not on the process but on the idea of inspiration and collaboration, what are the pros and cons of the computer and globalisation in terms of regionalised and local design styles and sensibilities. Do they still exist when modern designers like me have the world at their fingertips? Hopefully by the end I'll be able to sort of hypothesise the future of graphic design in terms of styles, trends and in terms of visuals and intentions.



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After much deliberation and not doing any favours for myself here is the final and finished proposal form laying down the plan of action in terms of research - I've found it very difficult to pick a research topic even though I've done a lot of reading and research into possible avenues of research sine deciding to change my research idea as previously mentioned in an earlier post.

I was worrying too much about the end result and wanted the research to be perfectly organised and planned out, basically writing my dissertation title out right now, I thought this was what was asked of us so I think I was way too precious about it all. It took a while to realise just to take a step back and go with it, I'm very happy with my research topic now and comfortable with it in terms of visual experiments and projects too.

It's an extension of COP2 and taking it in a different direction, I wanted to capitalise on COP2 as it was so educational and helpful to me as a graphic designer, I produced probably one of my strongest projects I've done yet. Onwards and upwards! I really should have done this proposal form earlier as it allows you to crystallise and focus down thoughts and ideas and I already feel much more focused and confident in terms of research.




Below _ PDF version of proposal form.

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THE VIGNELLI CANON _ Notes

 THE VIGNELLI CANON                                     


Massimo Vignelli


Lars Muller Publishers


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Rationale

I've taken from reading through The Vignelli Canon, written by noted modernist designer Massimo Vignelli and published by Lars Muller Publishers

I was fascinated and hugely influenced by this book because I'm fascinated by the craft of design, following on from my enjoyable Cop2 programme of study focusing on the craft of modernist design. For my COP3 year of study and dissertation I want to focus on the craft of design for print, particularly the process and classical 'efficiency' and 'success' of it. Critically analysing what makes good design and I want to focus on different viewpoints, to inform my on practice and to also inform my own opinion through physical and theoretical explorations. Paying particular focus to the state of the graphic design world in todays digital age and the analog age - especially as in todays world we seem to cherish the analog age even more as maybe we have realised the limitations of working with computers and digital platforms? It's not just in graphic design it's in all popular culture too - with people embracing a more analogue form of life - a rejection of technology. I find this really interesting.

But anyway - Vignelli is interesting because he often refers to design as BC or AC - Before Computer of After Computer and he's very opinionated and articulate on the matter. Maybe swaying more towards there being more visual pollution and 'good design' in his judgement is perhaps less frequent.

I took notes I felt were important to my research and lead to further lines of enquiry and, also importantly, quotes which I want to remember and learn from as a designer which are important to my own progression, but I want to make both of those ambitions one and the same within this study which is why I want to spend my time with this.






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Special Focus - Process / Approach / Craft

What makes 'Good Design'?

How did they produce complicated design products without a computer? I can't even fathom this in todays day and age


"BC" - Before Computer 

Also see - 
Sagmeister - his approach and opinions on design
Muller Brockmann - his opinions approach and analogue process
Saul Bass - Creating moving image without a computer - analogue prints - thoughts on design and process
Wim Crouwel - process, opinions and thought process


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Notes
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The hype about the miraculous electronic universe has abated among graphic designers.

Clearing the way for the recognition that even the most ingenious software can never replace the principles of food design.

The rules of graphic design have not changed since the the analog age. A viewpoint I share " - Lars Muller


Have the rules changed? Maybe Graphic Design isn't as specialist as it used to be, thus the frequency and engagement with the craft of design is perhaps not as prevalent as it used to be?.




In several teaching situations I have remarked the lack of some basic typographic principles in young designers.

Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at it's best. - The concept of rules of design, is there such a thing as rules? Or are these just design norms. Which is subjective anyway?



It is not the formula that prevents good design from happening but lack of knowledge of the complexity of the design profession. It's up the brain to use the proper formula to achieve the desired result.


I learnt about disciplined design from my Swiss fellows, about white space from my American fellows, about wit from my English fellows.


The beautiful feeling of enrichment comes from new discoveries, new ways of doing the same thing better than before.



I HAVE ALWAYS SAID THAT THERE ARE 3 ASPECTS OF DESIGN THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO ME _

1 _ SEMANTIC
2 _ SYNTACTIC
3 _ PRAGMATIC








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SEMANTIC
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- Meaning of whatever we have to design
- History of the subject
- Info on the company, product, market position, competition, destination and of course the final user.
- Extremely important.

Investigate their complexities

Ambiguities of the project and UNDERSTAND THE CONTEXT


Semanticsdefine the most appropriate form for your subject.



Design without semantics is shallow and meaningless. But unfortunately also ubiquitous. That is why it is so important that young designers train themselves to start the design process in the correct way - the only way that can most enrich their design.



Semantic means to design something that has a meaning  it is not arbitrary. (random)


*Makes sense to both sender and receiver.


"How often we see design that has no meaning: stripes and swashed of colour for no reason whatsoever. Well they are meaningless or incredibly vulgar or criminal when done on purpose...


I consider this action criminal since it is producing visual pollution that is degrading our environment just like all other types of pollution." 
- This I really can connect to as this ambiguous and 'random' design is something I feel is prevalent in art college, with people producing what I call art college design - design for designers which doesn't have the same effect on the consumer. Even I have been guilty in the past of these meaningless elements to work, just to gain a sort of accepted 'style' of design. This art college environment of design and sensibilities is really interesting.



In our contemporary world it becomes increasingly more difficult to find honest forms of vernacular communication as once existed in the pre-industrial world.







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SYNTACTIC
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"God is in the details" _ Mies Van Der Rohe


Proper use of grammaer. Constitution of phrases. Articulation of language.  - Never use more copy and more sentences/explanations than you need. Good copywriting is essential.



In Graphic Design pay huge attention to the structure, the grid, typeface, text, headlines, illustrations etc. Small details subconcsiously do work and have a positive effect on the end-user.



"Syntactic consistency is of paramount importance in graphic design as it is in all human endeavours."


Appropriate relationships between _

typefaces and pt sizes
grids and columns and rows
type and image
grid and document size
stock and intentions

"Ways to achieve that are correct. As there are others that are incorrect and should be avoided." - I feel incorrect is a bit too dismissive, in my opinion certain stocks for example might weaken a project in mine and most peoples opinion but it isn't plain wrong.











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PRAGMATICS
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Communication + Understanding

"If at the point of fruition, no one understands the result or the meaning of all that effort, the entire work is useless."

"Clarity of intent. Clarity of result." -   Paramount importance in design."

"Confused, complicated designs = confused, complicated minds"

WE LOVE COMPLEXITIES. BUT HATE COMPLICATIONS!!

"The moral imperative of designing things that will last for a long time."

DISCIPLINE - Sticking to your self-imposed rules

Design without discipline is anarchy. An exercise in irresponsibility.

There is no doubt in my mind that the most important aspects in formation of a designer should be a deep understanding of design history. Without a knowledge of the past there is no understanding of the present - formulation of the future.

The more we can spend time on reviewing the past the better we can understand contemporary phenomena.

History, theory and criticism. There are the real backbone of design!

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DESIGN IS ONE
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Constiglioni Architects _ Milano

16 Year olds Vignelli. Strongly recommend to all designers to  investigate and study their work.

"I discovered that what is important is to master a design discipline. I need to be able to design anything, because that is what is essential and needed on every project.

Intellectual elegance is also our civic consciousness, our social responsibility, our sense of decency, our way of conceiving design, our moral imperative.

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TIMELESSNESS
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We are definitely against any fashion of design and any design fashion. We despise the culture of obsolescence. The culture of waste, the the culture of the ephemeral. We detest the demand of temporary solutions, the waste of energies and capital for the sake of the novelty.

We like typography that transcends subjectivity and searching for objective value. A typography that is beyond time - that doesn't follow trends.

We like economy of design because it avoids wasteful exercises, it respects investment and lasts longer!

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RESPONSIBILITY
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Too often we see printed works produced in a lavish manner just to satisfy the ego of designers or clients.

It is important that an economically appropriate solution is used and is one that takes in proper consideration all the facets of problem.

3 LEVELS OF RESPONSIBILITY

1 _ To ourselves. The integrity of project.

2_ To the client. Solve the problem. Economically, efficiently.

3_ To the public. The consumer + end user.

IN THE END A DESIGN SHOULD STAND BY ITSELF.

LIGHT REVEALS THE PURE PRISTINE BEAUTY OF A WHITE PAGE FULL OF UNSPOKEN WORDS.

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Proposal + Plan of Action _ Project Re-think

I really enjoyed the Context of Practice programme of Level 05, not only did I find an area of design I'm passionate about and continually inspired by, it altered my own design practice and truth be told it's informed the projects I've carried out during and after the research and they've been the strongest pieces of work I've definitely done at LCA so far.

At first, I felt it was easy to carry this on, the research and foundation is already there to take it to the next level for Level 06, but me being me, I went off on a tangent. Somehow I discarded this research project for Level 05 I enjoyed so much and learnt so much from as a designer and instead decided to focus on the environmental and sociological implications of technology, using Blade Runner as a vision of the future - random right? I agree.

Also down to my own prioritisation of the practical briefs and PPP briefs going on around the time I was expected to research my proposal - I spent at a push 2 days formulating my proposal presentation - it was rushed and way too flaky.

Below are the proposal forms and presentations I carried out.

Overall, I had a gut feeling right after feedback from tutors that this just wasn't what I really wanted to do and due to leaving it so late, and picking the first thing that came to mind and going with it was a mistake - I feel in time I would stray away from this anyway. So I've decided to take a step back from this, Level 06 is my study and I don't want to spend 9 months researching something I know I won't really enjoy or grow as a designer in terms the fundamentals of design and my process - something I feel I developed so much in Level 05 and want to take further.

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Richards words about producing the written and the physical in synthesis rang true with me and I felt I could really do this with a focus on something else, more in tune with my aspirations and tastes as a designer - but I've always found it really difficult to find a line of enquiry within the design world - just what do I want to talk about and research about? What I do know is that over summer I want my physical work to literally be visual investigations of what I'm looking into - analysing the finished work and most importantly the process.






Change of Plans

As of now, the area and topic I'm going to undertake are still quite vague but I do know which designers and what overall questions I want answered. 

...

Massimo Vignelli often refers to design as BC and AC - Before Computer and After Computer. I'm fascinated by how the computer affected design, in particular the process and overall 'success' of it according to the classical principles of design as outlined by the masteres, such as Dieter Rams. I have my own opinions and preconceptions of how the computer affected design, in someways I feel it helped and in some ways I feel it didn't and in fact detrimented the design world. I'm also fascinated with creating a piece of design without a computer, in todays day and age I can't even fathom how you'd create a magazine without going on Indesign - even now I literally have no idea how they did it. For example Saul Bass' intro credits for movies? Crazy.


Massimo Vignelli is often quite critical of the computer - for example in his day and age a designer often had a maximum of 3 typefaces he used, back then a typeface literally was a typeface you had to keep a drawer of it so you couldn't to afford to keep about 292392348 like I do. These restrictions made you approach design in such a different manner, in todays world perhaps there's more visual pollution - everyone can be a designer. Back then, was it more specialised, did people who attended design school feel completely passionate about it and didn't fall into it, in turn creating a higher number of technically superior designers compared to today?

Researching a topic paying special attention to the design movement in Europe in the 40s 50s and 60s, maybe with a more specific decade when I engage with this more - allows me to research even deeper into a design scene I'm fascinated by, especially the Swiss style of design. I want to study the process and work of masters such as Vignelli, Muller-Brockmann, Dieter Rams, Wim Crouwel etc and see just how they created work, what are their opinions of modern design? Paying specific attention to print and publishing - an area I want to associate myself with. 

I also will investigate todays design scene, especially the 'art college' style of design I feel exists which perhaps doesn't work in the real world, with recycled trends taking focus instead of tackling the problem at hand with elegant design. Something Vignelli has covered numerous times - the 'trends' in todays design scene.



Plan of Action

I understand I don't really have a fully focused line of enquiry yet and it needs a lot of tightening but I know I can find something really interesting with this. As I learnt with my original proposal I don't want to rush this, but I intend on consistently plugging away at it until it just falls into place, at the start I understand it might be a bit blurry a efficient as it could be in terms of research but I need to read a lot more and engage with debates and discussions in relation to art and design anyway. Doing this and reading any design magazine and book I can get hold of and I own but haven't read yet will allow me to engage and see existing debates and discussion with a filter of my pathway I want to research.

My physical work over summer will hopefully be  visual investigations of this, I want to work how the masters worked and record my process - how did it differ? What implications did these differences have? How difference were certain elements. Overall how different was my end product when carrying out a whole project with and without a computer. Which was classically more successful? I intend to carry out a variety of these - I'm really excited on not going near a computer for a whole brief. 

I intend in September with a body of work which literally is what I'm researching, not simply a book about something which you can produce for anything.


For now I'm going to keep plugging away at it, until I feel ready to produce a strong proposal form and research subject which I will work on through summer.


I have a starting selection of books to read which discuss design in a classical sense and process, along with contemporary debates such as The Dem Lec - 

The Vignelli Canon - Massimo Vignelli
The Democratic Lecture - Craig Oldham
What Is Graphic Design? - Quentin Newark


I feel this will be a good starting point, especially The Vignelli Canon and The Democratic Lecture. I will blog consistenty my notes and thoughts on the books and hopefully I will get further on with this project.

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