sailorette’s diary - a diary writen by a sailorette for her loved ones to read after returning safely home from sea

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Mr Nuzzaci pointed this out to me a while ago, but I just came across it again and it deserves another post. It’s a passage by Paul Rand from his book A Designer’s Art.

What really hit me, was the scientific manner in which he picks apart exactly the things we designers moan about, to produce matter-of-fact conclusions on the consequences that arise. Consequences that perhaps lead to the numbers of designers who don’t make it past the first 7 years in the ‘design business’.

It is no secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling. For sales, and not design are the raison d’etre of any business organization. Unlike the salesman, however, the designer’s overriding motivation is art: art in the service of business, art that enhances the quality of life and deepens appreciation of the familiar world.

Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.

The smooth functioning of the design process may be thwarted in other ways, by the imperceptive executive, who in matters of design understands neither his proper role nor that of the designer; by the eager but cautious advertising man whose principal concern is pleasing his client; and by the insecure client who depends on informal office surveys and pseudo-scientific research to deal with questions that are unanswerable and answers that are questionable.

Unless the design function in business bureaucracy is so structured that direct access to the ultimate decision-maker is possible, trying to produce good work is very often an exercise in futility. Ignorance of the history and methodology of design — how work is conceived, produced, and reproduced — adds to the difficulties and misunderstandings. Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communication: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically relate to the process.

One of the more common problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and time-consuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It discourages spontaneity, encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.

The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear.
He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones.

Frequent job reassignments within an active business are additional impediments about which management is often unaware. Persons unqualified to make design judgments are frequently shifted into design-sensitive positions. The position of authority is then used as evidence of expertise. While most people will graciously accept and appreciate criticism when it comes from a knowledgeable source, they will resent it (openly or otherwise) when it derives solely from a power position, even though the manager may be highly intelligent or have self-professed “good taste.” At issue is not the right, or even the duty, to question, but the right to make design judgment. Such misuse of privilege is a disservice to management and counterproductive to good design. Expertise in business administration, journalism, accounting, or selling, though necessary in its place, is not expertise in problems dealing with visual appearance. The salesman who can sell you the most sophisticated computer typesetting equipment is rarely one who appreciates fine typography or elegant proportions. Actually, the plethora of bad design that we see all around us can probably be attributed as much to good salesmanship as to bad taste.

Deeply concerned with every aspect of the production process, the designer must often contend with inexperienced production personnel and time-consuming purchasing procedures, which stifle enthusiasm, instinct, and creativity. Though peripherally involved in making aesthetic judgments (choosing printers, papermakers, typesetters and other suppliers), purchasing agents are for the most part ignorant of design practices, insensitive to subtleties that mean quality, and unaware of marketing needs. Primarily and rightly concerned with cost- cutting, they mistakenly equate elegance with extravagance and parsimony with wise business judgement.

These problems are by no means confined to the bureaucratic corporation. Artists, writers, and others in the fields of communication and visual arts, in government or private industry, in schools or churches, must constantly cope with those who do not understand and are therefore unsympathetic to their ideas. The designer is especially vulnerable because design is grist for anybody’s mill. “I know what I like” is all the authority one needs to support one’s critical aspirations.

Like the businessman, the designer is amply supplied with his own frailties. But unlike him, he is often inarticulate, a serious problem in an arena in which semantic difficulties so often arise.
This is more pertinent in graphic design than in the industrial or architectural fields, because graphic design is more open to aesthetic than to functional preferences.

Stubborness may be one of the designer’s admirable or notorious qualities (depending on one’s point of view) — a principled refusal to compromise, or a means to camouflage inadequacy. Design cliches, meaningless patterns, stylish illustrations, and predetermined solutions are signs of such weakness. An understanding of the significance of modernism and familiarity with the history of design, painting, architecture, and other disciplines, which distinguish the educated designer and make his role more meaningful, are not every designer’s strong points.

The designer, however, needs all the support he can muster, for his is a unique but unenviable position. His work is subject to every imaginable interpretation and to every piddling piece of fact- finding. Ironically, he seeks not only the applause of the connoisseur, but the approbation of the crowd.

A salutary working relationship is not only possible but essential.
Designers are not always intransigent, nor are all purchasing agents blind to quality. Many responsible advertising agencies are not unaware of the role that design plays as a communication force. As for the person who pays the piper, the businessman who is sympathetic and understanding is not altogether illusory. He is professional, objective, and alert to new ideas. He places responsibility where it belongs and does not feel insecure enough to see himself as an expert in a field other than his own. He is, moreover, able to provide a harmonious environment in which goodwill, understanding, spontaneity, and mutual trust — qualities so essential to the accomplishment of creative work — may flourish.

Similarly, the skilled graphic designer is a professional whose world is divided between lyricism and pragmatism. He is able to distinguish between trendiness and innovation, between obscurity and originality.
He uses freedom of expression not as a license for abstruse ideas, and tenacity not as bullheadedness but as evidence of his own convictions. His is an independent spirit guided more by an “inner artistic standard of excellence”(1) than by some external influence.
At the same time as he realizes that good design must withstand the rigors of the marketplace, he believes that without good design the marketplace is a showcase of visual vulgarity.

The creative arts have always labored under adverse conditions.
Subjectivity emotion, and opinion seem to be concomitants of artistic questions. The layman feels insecure and awkward about making design judgments, even though he pretends to make them with a certain measure of know-how. But, like it or not, business conditions compel many to get inextricably involved with problems in which design plays some role.

For the most part, the creation or effects of design, unlike science, are neither measurable nor predictable, nor are the results necessarily repeatable. If there is any assurance, besides faith, a businessman can have, it is in choosing talented, competent, and experienced designers.

Meaningful design, design of quality and wit, is no small achievement, even in an environment in which good design is understood, appreciated, and ardently accepted, and in which profit is not the only motive. At best, work that has any claim to distinction is the exception, even under the most ideal circumstances. After all, our epoch can boast of only one A.M.
Cassandre.

- Paul Rand
from “A Designer’s Art”

(1) Anthony Storr, “The Dynamics of Creation”, (New York, 1972), 189.

The original source from monoscope

On thursday I had the luck to be sent to belgium for the day to visit the BoldItalic lecture in Ghent, Belgium.

This was my first visit to Ghent, and was the second time I have traveled on the Eurostar. I think it is remarkable that one can step onto a train at London, Waterloo, and 2 hours later step out onto a foreign platform in a foreign country. It takes a bit of time to then realise you are in a foreign country, and for your ears to accept a different language. I’m used to the traditional way of flying and the psychology of entering a new country from the air. The Eurostar is grounded. It brings countries closer together. An icon for globalisation.

The trip was very smooth and easy. From the eurostar at Brussels I took a rather crowded train to Ghent, then hopped on an electric tram to the vooruit where Daniel Eatock was just finishing his talk. I was deeply sorry I missed his performance, but was soothed by the knowledge that the excelently named, James Goggin would be stepping up next.

Mr Goggin gave a very good talk. He began by discussing nationality and the method of stamping CANCELLED on his Australian passport to physically cancel his citizenship. He had a very anthropological approach and I really liked his weather project, taking clips of wether reports from around the world. I did not know that much about his work, so I can appreciate that someone who already knew all about his lost satellite project, direction of the Wire magazine and work for the Tate, would have found the talk boring. I, fortunately, did not.

Lost Satellites by James Goggin

The best talk, by far, was one that reminded me of John Cage’s performance of 4′33″ where the almost all the audience left the building. Will Holder’s ’speech’ - An Attempt to Evolve created a similar effect. This was perhaps because his talk was not a conventional talk. No. He had a conversation on stage with a girl called Cally Spooner. Nothing was scripted and it naturally took some time to get rolling but before long it evolved into a very interesting situation. As we watched Will ask Cally about design and its relevance to speech, we, the remaining audience, were the voyeurs. It was strangely exhilerating to watch these two people on stage having a conversation, as if they were in the pub.

Speech, as Cally explained, was an exchange of talking and listening, between two, or several, people. Alot of her discussion was based on Anne Moeglin-Delcroix’s book Esthétique du livre d´artiste which outlined the difference between fixed ’speech’ as langue and fluid spoken ’speech’, or conversation, as parole. Cally suggested, that Design should follow parole in that it should be a two way process, with a designer talking and listening to their content.

Ghent itself has a charming character that probably came from the fact it wasn’t trying too hard. Its houses some lovely flemish cathedrals yet they have not been comercialised in the way that Notre Dam has. It also has one of the smallest houses in belgium, which I tried to find, but perhaps it was just too small. The one thing that was most prevalent was the lack of cars. Bicycles seemed to be the main transport, and the city was scattered with yellow bikes marked www.studentENmobiliteit.be, provided by the local university.

My kind of city.

While staying with the nuzzaci’s in italy over christmas, much conversations were had about flat renovations..
and i think i may be getting there!

Our bathroom is very small.. around 140cm wide. So this short soaking tub, and glass shower beside, would be a brilliant way of getting the best of both worlds, and looking rather nice. I’m not sure about the steel tub, would prefer a tiled in white tub. But the layout is rather close.

The exhibition on Alan Fletcher at the design museum didn’t need much of an introduction. His design work is the kind that makes the smile in your mind talk to the muscles in your mouth. Blotchy ink lines that aren’t scared to make mistakes. Small marks that create loud reactions. The exhibition showcases his life of design. The design of his life. Each piece of work has a clear and simple reason for exisiting and proves to communicate this 20, 30, 40 years after its creation.

Straight away it’s his commercial work. I breathe alot of ‘I don’t want to work with corporate clients’ and here was work that combusted each one of those words. To the right, a collection of personal christmas card, a replication is below because the internet wasn’t talking:

The little christmas tree

Graphis, 1960’s issues of ARC - the royal college of art zine, the V&A logo, sketch books, inky lines, blotchy views of ireland from wales, arrays of letterheads, packets of found letters, collages where evian becomes naive. A movie in the corner of Alan talking with tired eyes. A blurb about him leaving Pentagram after corporate became consumerist. The design for his alphabet iron gates - the Q is the gate stop. And the smile from your mind upon your lips becomes bittersweet as everything seems strangely familiar. You’ve seen it all before from your contempories. And comforted by the fact that this is real design, and you will never forget it.

A new Topshop.com has launced and thanks to those lovely people at POKE it looks, and navigates, like an f1 car. And now the guantlet of style guidelines has fallen at my feet, and with it the responsibility to maintain the high standard of design and typography over the site.

So far its been the most interesting, and toughest, design job i’ve had what with pushing out fortnightly podcasts, weekly features, monthly events, and a myspace page, with the odd micro-site or two thrown in.

It’s very interesting to witness an old system like arcadia group, as it changes and restructures itself to become a self-sufficient online provider.

“Most people live with a bag over their heads. Seeing, for them, is just a convenient way for not bumping into things.�?
Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher, the smile in the mind of graphic design, died 21st September 2006.
He was diagnosed with cancer over a year before, and, understandably, chose to keep it quiet.

From the day I was given “The Art of Looking Sideways” on my 21st birthday, I have had immense respect for the quick minded, clear and clever thinking that watermarks Alan Fletcher’s designs. With his signature blotchy pen and napkins folds of ideas he remains to be one of the true, uncompromising, greats.

Wonderful design by the spanish Rodrigo Alonso and great news for sleepwalkers in chilly regions. This teddy bear sleeping bag, or selk’bag means you can move around easily outside your tent when its too cold outside. I’d probably never want to get out of it!

Just had to put a little post about these. Taking a bit of a deeper look into designer toys… um.. and mixing them with popular food packaging.

What this blog looks like as a graph.
From here

The Real Thing is an installation by Helmut Smits that converts coca-cola into clean drinking water. Rather ingenious. Check out his work.

Can you remember the professor? I’m sure I had one when I was a little mathmatician. And this model was brought out the year I was born, 1981.
From a lovely collection of calculators here

As someone very close to me would agree, i should buy some of these.

This is absolutely beautiful. A perfect example of architecture inspired from its environment and enhances its surroundings. I love the ‘invisible’ glass barrier at the end - releases butterflies in my stomach just looking at it.

It’s just lovely:

I’m munching into my cereal today and realise just how great these new crunchy nutty cornflakes are. I haven’t had the pleasure of trying their berried relative but I can say this will be replacing my daily porridge (which, in time, will have its very own post).For now tis the summer of content and time for the nuts to come out!

After browsing through the interweb for some mouth watering images of the crunchy nut cereal box, I realised there is not much attention given to this wonder-cereal. Here follows a short history of the cereal that makes people hide under room-service trollies.

1894: The wheat flake is first produced by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and Will Keith Kellogg at the Sanitas Food Company.
1898: Kellogg’s corn flake is introduced.
1907: The company is renamed Toasted Corn Flake Company; the main factory building is destroyed by fire.
1909: Company is renamed the Kellogg Toasted Corn Flake Company.
1980: Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes are launched; Kellogg’s becomes the first company to run a joint promotion with the Post Office.

The cockeral on the package is know by serveral names: in the US he’s Cornelius, in the UK he’s cock-a-doodle-doo and, i love this, in Columbia, Cornelio.

Below is some german packaging for Crunchy honig & Nüsse flakes. Most definitely a classic and the best.