There’s no doubt that sometimes, only designers can really appreciate certain aspects of our craft; not too many people know what a pica is, fewer still can recognize when something on the page is off-balance by a single point or less, or if the leading differs from page to page. Designers have an extraordinary ability to see how things fit together, how to improve composition, but more importantly, they know how to communicate the right ideas at the right volume to the right audience. Like any creative field, from music to photography to painting, a highly esoteric component exists because of the complexities involved in the endeavor…far from being pointless, this aspect helps to define the profession, turn it from an activity into an art.
Even merely competent design relies on the designer’s command of subtle nuances, and often the best designers slip their brilliance in like an Emily Dickinson slant rhyme—clearly there, but totally silent and invisible, puzzling and challenging but every drip of it beautiful. To design well, you have to have the attention to detail of a surgeon (well, maybe that’s extreme, but…), and most designers find a certain joy in looking deeper, longer and harder, always searching for something they haven’t seen before, trying to catch the details everyone misses. The more designers look at their own work and that of others with a critical eye, the further the profession is pushed and the better the collection of work from year to year gets; all the details we’d prefer to forget on 9pm Friday evening, desperately trying to make a FedEx deadline, actually do matter. I hear a lot of people say in regards to something “minute,” that “they’ll never know the difference.” I disagree, and while yes, design is a bit exotic at times, that’s often fine and actually really good. But there are times when I think its a bit too exotic.
Some of my first introductions to what graphic design was all about came in the form of a series of paper promotions designed for Strathmore—they were loaded with all this insight into color that I had never considered before and certainly wasn’t taught. My father’s agency had a collection of paper promos piling up in a corner room somewhere, which I raided frequently, if only to indulge in cool looking stuff and unique textures. It was rather intoxicating.
Naturally I started shortly thereafter perusing the various publications and books associated with the design profession, and for awhile much of my reading consisted of looking at awards annuals and shows and the like. In addition to the stacks of famously unread annual reports and impossibly expensive letterheads, one thing always, always stuck with me—many of the awarded pieces, many of the pieces I saw from book to book to book were for…Calls for Entries posters or mailers for one competition or another.
Enough sightings of this and I started thinking a bit harder about what was before me, what it meant and where it was going. Paper promotions and some of these call for entries packages were really cool, but…who did they speak to outside of other designers? Suddenly I found myself quite perplexed by the whole notion of it, confused by what compelled designers to lavishly create these pieces with limited runs and perhaps limited value for such a limited audience that was essentially themselves. As I’ve gotten older and more experienced, I discovered that most clients think profit well before they think creative quality, and sadly the two aren’t often linked, so expending your best efforts on paper promotions started making some sense. The companies depended on designers specifying them, and what better way to seduce designers than something gorgeous. But I still wonder about it. Why are these projects so envied when they’re really only going to give the creator recognition among people who are competitors and not potential clients? Why is that attention so valuable? Is it ego or something else? While it’s nice to get the stroking from people who understand all those minute details that you inject into your work, who can intelligently critique a composition and an idea and a style, it’s not everything. For a profession that has always bitched and moaned about being misunderstood by everyone else, things like these seem to be a primary culprit for that—I’ve seen numerous firms who do their best work for microscopic clients, yet the work that goes out to the masses, into the real world where no one understands kerning or assumes that leading is pronounced “leeding,” pales in comparison. Maybe its my point of view from an advertising agency that’s prompted the attitude, but I strongly believe that the truest test of creativity is taking a really difficult client (like…an HVAC manufacturer, maybe a medical seating fabricator, or how about a standard 4-door sedan?) and doing something brilliant. When you design for designers, the bullseye is most of the dart board, it’s hard to miss. Designers frequently focus on weird things, they spend hours on the stuff an ordinary person usually misses, but I think that’s important and worthwhile for the reasons mentioned earlier. What I don’t understand is designing for designers—I think we have better things to do. I think there are greater challenges out there, ones that can still advance this profession while playing a critical role in commerce, culture and society.
If designers are the audience then there’s nothing wrong with doing work they can appreciate. Maybe HVAC manufaturers and the like elicit a certain kind of design treatment, or the client resists fresh, creative work and just wants things to be simple. But if you can do great work for some of these unlikely open clients then more power to you and go with your bad self Mr. Designer!
On May.29.2004 at 04:45 PM