Shortly into my graduate study, I considered compiling a lexicon of common graphic design terms. However, they weren’t profession-specific words like “kerning” or “corporate identity.” They were familiar to design discussions everyday and everywhere, employed by clients and designers. The definitions were my own derisive views on the process.
My design career to that point had been brief and erratic. As inexperienced as I was, I knew that it wasn’t just my cynical nature. I had done enough design to encounter the disconnect that’s often between what a client says and what is meant. And this was something different than realizing when someone asks, “Can you make the type bigger?” it’s really a call for a greater emphasis on the particular text. No, this was using a word that pointed to a meaning wholly at odds with the dictionary definition. They were code words, doubletalk. I imagined making a small volume of terms and my alternate definitions. It would be called The Printer’s Devil’s Dictionary.
My inspiration was Ambrose Bierce’s classic 1911 book, The Devil’s Dictionary. First published five years earlier as The Cynic’s Word Book (a title the author hated), the book is still in print today, along with a variety of web versions. It is a masterwork of what would now be called language deconstruction. Then it was simply satire. Bierce was a contemporary and friend of Mark Twain, and some consider Bierce the greater wit. Unfortunately, if he’s mentioned today, it’s alongside Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa. Like them, Bierce disappeared mysteriously and his fate will likely be forever unknown.
Bierce’s scathing humor spared no person, belief, or institution. Today, it can seem decidedly insensitive—and startlingly relevant. Bierce continues to spawn a number of imitators, none of which can match his acuity, word play and venom.
I didn’t fancy myself anywhere near Bierce’s level with my collection but it was great therapy. From my freelance days I had things like:
Audience, n. An army of me.
Deadline, n. A point in time whose arrival results not in actual demise, though its approach induces yearning for that sweet release.
Quick-and-dirty, v. Method of dispatch suitable to those who employ the term.
Simple, adj. Cheap.
Straightforward, adj. Designed in a manner the client’s already determined.
X-acto, n. A cutting tool that, unlike the surgeon’s scalpel, assists the wielder in embellishing the surface, rather than penetrating it.
Graduate school was where I mainlined design literature. My frustration with much of the popular discourse directed the lexicon’s emphasis inward:
Art, n. What graphic design isn’t, except when it is.
Fame, n. As a design usage—e.g. “famous designer”—it is an oxymoron. (See also, “design superstar”)
Over-analyze, v. 1. To perform even the most cursory critical study of a design artifact. 2. To analyze.
Theory, n. A manner of creating design inconsistent with my own, and is therefore incomprehensible and faddish.
White-space, n. An area where the designer demonstrates the greatest ability by restraining from displaying any effort. Less is—and costs—more.
And like Bierce, I amended little stories, though my tales were true:
Appropriate, adj. An expectation fulfilled.
A requirement of my second-year graduate seminar was to write an artist’s statement. The class included students from all disciplines. The professor showed interest during my oral presentations and supported my investigation. As I was exploring the rhetoric of design, I designed my statement differently than the typical artist’s statement (i.e. 12 pt. Helvetica, double-spaced). I used three highly readable typefaces to weave alternate lines of three different short texts. She returned my submission with the notation that the writing was good—but that it wasn’t in the appropriate form. This brief, dashed-off comment essentially negated my entire graduate study. I knew I was in for a hard time. I also knew I was on the right track.
I toyed with making The Printer’s Devil’s Dictionary part of my graduate thesis document. As that tome already had two addenda and much apocrypha, I dropped it. My dictionary remained scattered notes that, over the years, were absorbed into various essays and lectures.
Since then, whenever I’m referred to as a critic, I ponder Bierce’s definition:
Critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.
Then I recall my aborted project. It really came back when our Speak Up friends introduced The Design Encyclopedia. When I poke through many of “real” entries there, I insert my own, sardonic takes. Surely, I’m not alone in this.
Maybe there’s still a place for The Printer’s Devil’s Dictionary. The two serious flaws of the original effort was my design experience (limited), and relying solely on my own wit (insert your own descriptive here). What if I throw it open to the world?
So, I welcome your submissions to the Dictionary. While the temptation may be great to focus on client claptrap, doublespeak cuts both ways. A study of design gibberish might provide more enlightenment. Terms that were on my list to be “defined” ran from the profound to the mundane: brainstorm, concept, creative, elegant, freelance, inevitable, interactive, intuitive, layout, logo, pop, rough, stock, tweak. All these and more, plus the ones above, are up for grabs. Style, however, might need a rest.
Kenneth FitzGerald is an Associate Professor of Art at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, teaching in the undergraduate Graphic Design and graduate Visual Studies programs.
Cool, adj. Possessing qualities beyond articulation.
Pop, n. Scientific unit used to measure legibility and contrast.
On Apr.27.2006 at 12:37 AM