Design and Art Blog Response

But, is it Art? (2003) - Kees Dorst

Art’s Little Brother (2005) - Rick Poynor

Some Art is As Bad As Design and Some Design is As Good As Art

M/M Royal College of Art Discussion with David Blamey (2006)

-       Design – goals are determined by others, stakeholders

o   Design must fulfill some practical purpose

-       Artists – freedom to create, do not aim for any practical application

o   Strive to influence feeling or thinking

-       Design plays a bigger role in culture than ever

-       Designer must deal with matters of practicality and function while artists are free to do what they like in pursuit of their self-chosen goals

-       More you are a specialist in your field the closer you get to the essence of things

-       Designers were liberated from the weight of art history

-       Graphic design is situated at the crossroads between many different activities

Each article presents the roles of designers and artists today and how designers and artists collaborate with one another to achieve new creative goals. The argument is that designers have been excluded from the art world and get considerably less recognition than artists.  The belief is that artists attain such prestige, because of their creative freedom and ability to provoke feeling and thinking.  Designers get a bad wrap due to creative limits when working for hire.  The common belief is that designers when working on commission are limited due to investors who have a certain vision and often play it safe.  Although many designers argue that they have just as much freedom as artists, who have connotations and standards that must live up to the standards of art history.  Designers are still very influenced by the art world and are able to incorporate ideas from artists and works of art into their own work.  When working on commission designers still have some freedom with the work and can persuade investors with new ideas to make the final product more unique and original.  Also not ever designer’s work is based on commission, designers still produce work independently that allows them to try new things to explore his or her creative side.  The only major difference is that artists do not have the same responsibilities as designers.  As designers we have the responsibility to communicate ideas clearly to an audience.  This responsibility makes our works sometimes more rigid following guidelines that make our work more structured.  Artists do not necessarily have to worry about an audience fully understanding the portrayed meaning of a work of art.  The ability to be abstract gives artists an advantage and sometimes more prestigious because only the “educated” may sometimes understand a work of art.  I do not believe that designers should get a bad wrap for sometimes centering work based on commission.  I believe that as designers the more hired work and different opportunities allows designers to develop their skills more.  As stated in the M/M Royal College of Art Discussion many classical artists we praise today such as Michelangelo, were artists who worked primarily on commission, which allowed them to develop their skills.  I do not believe commission work means lack of creativity or artistic freedom.  Also it is important for artists, designers, and other creative people to collaborate with one another to reach certain goals that might be unachievable on their own.  Collaborate work gives artists and designers the opportunity to explore outside their own specific field and to incorporate new and innovate elements to create inspirational work.  The ability to grow from the influence of others is one thing, but the opportunity to work with other like-minded people and to grow into a more creative person is essential when working in art.  The amazing and significant element of art is the ability to grow as individuals with others.  There should not be set guidelines for designers and artists that deter the opportunities to work in each other fields.  In fact the art world and those who dictate what is right and wrong should actively promote collaboration with different creative persons and fields to achieve something great and universal.

Sustainability (EDITED)

Ten Ways to Use Paper Responsibly

1.     Every designer should recycle any unused paper properly

a.     They could use the paper as compost material

b.     Save scraps to use for sketching

2.     Designers have the ability to communicate with the public and should promote good design towards recycling.

a.     This can be accomplished by a smart design campaign for recycling, placing signs and more recycling ‘areas’ on public streets

3.     Designers with left over papers can pulp it and make new paper to get the full use out of any scraps.

4.     Everyone should consider different types of paper out there made from alternative materials.

a.     Recycled paper

b.     Bamboo

c.     Hemp

5.     Designers should consider alternative mediums for designs/ideas instead of relying only on paper

6.     Certain inks have an impact on paper that is recycled or in wastelands.  Choosing water-based or vegetable oil-based inks are more easily broken down and have a less effect on the environment.

7.     Designers should choose paper from environmentally sustainable companies or consider local venders to promote grassroots making of paper.

8.     Designers should be diligent when making test prints.  Should get sketches and drafts as close as possible to final product before making tests to make only a few numbers of prints to avoid wasting paper.

a.     Will cause designer to be more meticulous.

9.     Should consider technology as a means of production.  Instead of printing out tons of paper for posters or flyers, perhaps use LCD panels to display work.

10.   Sketch less on paper and consider using a stylus pad and pen to do sketches on computers using programs like Adobe Photoshop.

Design Proposal: Doors

This idea of using gears that spin or crank a generator to create sustainable energy would be ideal for 

doors, especially those in buildings in cities that are used by thousands of people daily. The idea is to 

redesign three kinds of doors: the standard door, swinging doors, and revolving doors.  

The 

standard door hinges would be replaced and the door would be set on a metal pole that would extend into the floor and upper door frame/wall. At each end of the pole would be a fixed gear that spins and cranks a generator when the door is opened or closed. This door would be ideal for every home or building allwoing people to save money by creating self-sustaining clean energy.

Swinging doors that are 

commonly found in bars and restaurants would have two doors, each set on 

poles that would 

crank the generator when swung open and closed.  What is unique about the 

swinging doors is that 

when it is swung open it will 

continue to swing back and forth for several 

seconds continuing to 

crank the generator.  Essentially 

there would be one generator per door. These 

doors would revolutionize the restaurant industry and other small business by saving them tons of 

money, while creating self-sustaining clean energy.

Revolving doors are the revolutionary door that could potentially power entire cities.  The revloving door is usually found in city buildings where mass 

crowds of people enter and exit on a daily basis.  

The revolving door is designed to keep a continuous 

flow of people entering while exiting.  The 

revolving door is genius because it continuously rotates several seconds after being used. 

A crank 

attached to both ends of the revolving door's center poll would crank two generators, one 

in the 

ground and one in the upper doorframe of the building. If these revolving doors were placed in 

busy buildings such as the New York Port Authority where thousands of people enter and exit all hours of the day and night, then energy would be continuously produced throughout the day.  All of the extra energy produced could potentially supply energy for a whole city block if not more.  If all major buildings were placed with this newly redesigned door then cities could potentially beome sefl-sustaining with clean energy.

VERNACULAR DESIGN

We’re Here to be Bad

Tibor Kalman and Karrie Jacobs

-       Bad as in taking the design brief the client gives and rewrite it

-       Marketing, the science of manufacturing desire

o   People express individuality through the products they buy – Scion

-       Global Mall

-       Selling Out

-       Package more important than product

-       Indigenous cultures move to the culture of bigness

-       Vernacular, a process that creates work which has an unfiltered, emotional quality

-       Appropriate design is design that pleases the largest number of people

-       Inappropriate design is a way of making people think about why they like what they like and how they learned to like those things

o   Design that ignores professional standards

Kalman and Jacobs discuss the idea of ‘bad’ design as a movement in which designers should “rewrite” what the client’s demands to improve design and business.  Today ‘good’ design is just a product of commercial interests that is concerned more with a company’s image (the packaging) than with the actual product and it’s functionality.  Marketing today focuses more on trying to create an image or idea through there products.  Companies are attempting to mold the consumer to with these false ‘ideas’ to create a cult following.  I recently came across an example of this when listening to the radio.  A commercial came on promoting Scion vehicles that are meant to be cool and for urban consumers.  At the very last few seconds of the commercial the spokesperson exclaims, “discover individuality with Scion,” which claims that the consumer is not already individual unless they drive a Scion.  This idea to me is appalling especially in such a subliminal format.  This idea of blurting out ideas or packaging symbols that promote individuality is a complete mockery to the consumer.  Every person already possesses some if not all the qualities big business is trying to sell to us.  It is necessary for the designer to take responsibility and make a change in the marketing of these qualities of human life and success.  The designer should become an “outsider” who should prevent the negative ideas projected by companies that create competition and start to think like the consumer.  Every designer has the ability to think like the consumer and assist the consumer with his or her essential needs.  Vernacular design is an important process because of the “unfiltered [and] emotional quality” that is associated with design.  If designers become somewhat emotionally invested with design and products then the products, promotion, marketing, etc…will be more true to the actual product and the consumer.

Professionalism, Amateurism and the Boundaries of Design

Gerry Beegan and Paul Atkinson

-       Modernism has lead to the constant changing relationship between amateur and professional

-       Profession, a public statement or vow

-       DIY (Design It Yourself)

o    Targets younger and more experimental designers

o    Bypass commercial uniformity and gaining a sense of self-satisfaction

-       Craft – self-reliance, earth-friendly, reuse and appropriation of objects

-       Technology

-       Universal relevance to daily life

-       Design to help people to understand the principles and complexity of visual communication

-       Arts and Crafts Movement

-       Dilettantes, individuals who dabble in a range of activities without dedicating or committing themselves to any one field – vast knowledge of art and media/consumer

§  Embraced a very wide field – the ability to dabble, combine and cross discipline’s, without attachment to an institution or a professional view point

Like Kalman and Jacobs, Beegan and Atkinson describe the relationship between professional and amateur.  Those who are deemed professionals are viewed as designers who do everything pristine and precise, while the title amateur has negative connotations of poor design, craft, and uneducated.  The amateur is viewed as someone who participates in vernacular design; the everyday, drab, crafts of art.  Although a professional title comes with prestige and recognition, today some consumers view most professional designers and advertisers as being untrue to the public.  The professional is suppose to be a status of someone who makes a “public statement and a vow” that benefits the community.  With all of the subliminal messages in advertisements claiming their product will propel you to a higher status in society or will help you find some sort of self identity nirvana; designers and advertisers should be staying to true to the value and functionality of products that are “relevant to [our] daily life”.  The answer seems to be that the amateur can help revolutionize the design industry to reconnect with the public.  The vernacular design associated with amateurs can be used in a positive way, because it’s the essence of the average person.  The average consumer participates in his or hers own way be attempting to become an individual, being creative, and trying to connect with his or hers environment.  Some of us seem to buy into consumerism while others practice in DIY work.  DIY to me is the very foundation of being an amateur and creates someone who has a very eclectic eye for design.  I have practiced DIY methods applying it to music and art.  I have always had a variety of interests in music, photography, print making, painting, drawing, sculpture, pretty much if you can make it with your hands I wanted to know how.  After reading and learning the term ‘dilettante’ I realized I was indeed a dilettante.  I basically started to teach myself all of my interests and when I entered Mason Gross having a solid foundation to learn from seemed to excel my abilities.  I believe having such a variety of interests and not really wanting to focus on just one area allows me to learn and adapt quickly to new ideas, situations, or problems.  I believe having a vast knowledge of all kinds of media, who is an outsider, and is directly connected, with the making of things it allows an individual to develop skills that can be up to par of a professional.  Although I know I am nowhere near a professional level yet, I believe that level can be achieved through the ideas and practices of the amateur who seems to be more connected and invested with public statements and vows.