I recently finished David Barringer’s American Mutt Barks in the Yard. By page ten, I knew I was reading the sort of thing that would become a touchstone for me. Here’s why: a few weeks ago I was in the process of drafting a somewhat grumpy letter to Emigre due to a vague yet undeniable frustration that has been developing while reading recent episodes of design criticism. Here is how my letter began:
Then I received American Mutt in the mail and the above rant was promptly abandoned. Barringer’s book is exactly what I’d been looking for and I hope to see more of it. Now, whether or not I agree with him isn’t my concern here; I am interested in the form and tone of his piece — it is the move towards personal narrative that interests me. Unlike much of design writing, Barringer’s investigation originates from a specifically defined and engaging personal relationship with graphic design, and it’s rare to read something so intimate yet wide-swinging, so punchy and big. You can tell he’s having fun with his opinions and, more importantly, asking questions to which he does not already know the answers — an avalanche of all kinds of questions concerning education, aesthetics, economics, and everything else.
At first I was baffled by the lack of discussion surrounding American Mutt. I expected this book to cause an absolute stir online, especially among those folks who enjoy taking writers like Mr. Keedy apart. Now, it should be noted that I am only gauging discussion frequency via the occasional Google search, so hopefully animated conversations are taking place in classrooms, cafes, and cubicles. American Mutt certainly sparked discussion among those I know who’ve read it, and these conversations also tended to emphasize its form and voice rather than specific arguments. Perhaps the book is too sprawling and all-inclusive for it to be effectively organized and summarized for a traditional review.
In attempting to write about American Mutt here, I find that I am steeped in its mood and personality, yet if I try to look directly at the thing so that I may pin it down, it disappears. This is fine by me. It’s nice to simply feel close to another designer’s psyche as it identifies and tackles all of the disparate and unexpected issues that keep designers up at night. American Mutt demonstrates the value of bringing one’s experience to the table when discussing any discipline (it reminds me of a design version of Christopher Hitchens’ Letters to a Young Contrarian, which leans on Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet for its form). For the purposes of discussion, Barringer’s book would certainly benefit from a tighter, more organized structure, yet that would spoil the effect — its off-the-cuff expansiveness provides a valuable framework for considering the unexplored possibilities when it comes to writing about design.
I assigned the first thirty or so pages to my History of Design Literature in Education class at Pratt as an example of the sense of personality, passion, and play that writing about design can and should possess. The link between writing and design is inexplicably overlooked in design education. Given the amount of energy that is devoted to defining and defending graphic design, I wonder if the discipline would be better served if the term “design” were used in the same way in which we use “writing”: as an individual skill determined largely by voice and context rather than a fixed term for a profession. The notion of writing accommodates personal memoirs, copy for a toaster manual, esoteric literary fiction, academic papers, shopping lists, investigative reporting, etc. — why can’t graphic design be just as accessible and flexible? Writing is verbal communication; graphic design is visual communication.
Perhaps much of the current hand-wringing about the ‘state of graphic design’ has to do with the fact that our vocabulary isn’t quite right. Many critiques about design are often so broad that they quickly degrade into stock critiques of technology, capitalism, and anti-intellectualism. Rather than continuing to describe graphic design in the abstract as if it equally applies to all personal, social, and commercial efforts, we need more storytellers whose disparate experiences can test, affirm, and challenge each reader’s own relationship with the visual world. Today’s technology provides unprecedented access to image-making and consumption, and this is exciting yet incredibly challenging for a profession that has always struggled to define itself. The only cost of entry is access to a computer, so really, who isn’t a designer nowadays? And now that more and more designers are authoring their own content, the once convenient walls between designer/artist/writer are becoming increasingly unhinged … this is why the idea of approaching design the same way a writer approaches text sounds right to me.
And this is why I was thrilled to see an entire issue of Emigre devoted to one writer’s complex and meandering relationship with design. Rather than collecting the usual vague statements to be passed down from anonymous hands, Barringer’s book possesses a wonderful sense of pulling back the curtain, looking under the hood, etc. that goes a long way towards shoring up the ongoing discussion of what design ought be: noisy, chaotic, and personal.
James Reeves is the co-founder of Red Antenna, a design collective based in Brooklyn. He teaches in the Art & Design Education department at the Pratt Institute and is currently putting together his notes for a project about the political impact of graphic design. Under the Kinosport moniker, he creates coarse agitprop & makes sweeping statements about design, education, Condoleeza Rice, and mass transit.
Thanks for making me curious, I just ordered "American Mutt".
On May.10.2005 at 11:43 AM