In September of last year Bryony and I started teaching, together, one of the various portfolio classes offered to fourth year students at the School of Visual Arts’ undergraduate program. It was completely upon us to decide what and how many assignments we would have the students undertake for the next two semesters. Our approach was clearly and early defined: Force students into parameters of realistic projects and put them through the gauntlet of “what would your client say?” We do this mostly by asking “why?” after every single thing they say and letting them know that “I don’t know” is not an appropriate answer. After a first semester that included a 2-color poster, an identity for a law or architecture firm, making a book out of 50 photographs of 50 people, and a series of book covers we thought it would be nice to ask the students, at the start of the second (and their last) semester, if they would like to do any specific type of project to include in their portfolio. One of them responded, “What about a personal project?”
As he said that, my brain quickly accessed the files in my noggin’ to remember any “personal” projects that I may have seen over the years from students. I vaguely remembered journals with fuzzy photography, books with lack of intention, posters with pictures of parts of students’ bodies, postcards from, I’m guessing, the edge and other projects that required thirty minutes to explain. As a disclaimer I should admit that, personally, I have never responded favorably to these loosely labeled personal projects when reviewing portfolios — unless they showcase an amazing display of typographic and layout control. However, that is rare. But, before you dismiss my attitude as curmudgeonly or narrow-minded, I should also note that I find these exercises to be extremely helpful in developing a process of thinking and analysis with execution as an end goal. In the beginning. Most design undergraduates want to get a job at the end of their education and what we want to do in our class is bring a little of what that first job will be like into the classroom and direct them to build a portfolio that will reflect their personal sensibilities in the context of day-to-day design projects. Eventually I asked our student, “and what would you do?” He started his response with “I don’t know…” but realizing that this was not the way to get a personal project assigned by us, he added, “the other class is doing a 100-page book with whatever they want,” I raised my eyebrow and he concluded “their only restriction is that it has to be black and white.” As if that made it more realistic. I pretty much repeated to the class what I said in this paragraph, and thanked the student for expressing his concern.
Since then, I’ve been thinking about what makes a “personal” project such a desirable exercise not only for students but for practicing designers as well. Perhaps it’s the need to cope with the limitations of graphic design’s client-designer dynamic that trumps designers’ odd desire for self-expression. Or maybe it’s a way to straighten the constant confusion of graphic design and art. It could also be a therapeutic process to shake off all those logos and blocks of 9-over-12 typography that we’ve had to make bigger. Mostly, I think it’s a longing to break out of the parameters, rules and expectations set forth by someone other than us. Regularly, we do what other people want under the coping mechanism that we are doing what we want and just happens to be on their behalf — this is not, by all means, wrong or lame, it simply is the way graphic designers work. There comes a point, for all of us I think, when this model is just not enough and we look to ourselves for challenges that still operate within graphic design parameters… basically, that of doing something, anything.
So I am not referring to knitting, cooking, or playing frisbee on the beach to satisfy what graphic doesn’t. But to designing books, web sites, magazines, journals, posters and other paraphernalia that satisfies our own design process where we set the rules, the agenda, the schedule and even the budget. As stubbornly as I questioned my student and all those portfolios with personal projects I’m as wont to indulge in the process and the result as them. Why else spend endless hours animating a headless chicken with a fetish for Cooper Black, or rendering centuries-old type in 3d, or, heck, designing blogs like if there was no tomorrow? The answer may be painfully simple: “Why not?”
Personal projects allow us to — speaking allegorically — tap into our design unconscious by granting our talent and technical know-how permission to do as they please unraveling results that we may have otherwise never achieved. And — speaking metaphorically clinically — they also serve as a colonic of sorts by purging our system of ideas, visuals and other minutia that would otherwise be stuck in our system. Clearly, I have conflicting dual sentiments towards personal projects: I admire the tenacity and desire they represent but I also question their relevance as reflective of the day-to-day process of graphic design and how much of these exercises — specially in students’ portfolios — can translate into steady contributions in a working environment. Ultimately, and what is probably the most rewarding part of being graphic designers, is that we can choose to be lured by the siren song and apply our own personal ways of twisting words and images into new forms of meaning. Maybe, after all, we will assign a personal project to our students …
Ha! No, we won’t.
Isn't Speak Up a giant personal project?
On Jan.31.2007 at 10:52 AM