RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
Sketchbooks Research & Analysis Ideas for Week 10.
The role of a designer as an author and examples of designers who demonstrate authorial / making expertise in delivering a component of their practice.
Graphic design is a service industry. Designers are paid to use design to communicate a message to an audience on behalf of a client.
A designer as an author transcends the traditional commercial production service and pursues personal, social, investigative or inventive projects. Design authorship is a self-initiated creative endeavour, similar to that of an artist. A design author has an individual voice or viewpoint and uses design as the vehicle for self-expression to originate, re-imagine or give existence to a creation. Authorship can be anything from an object to an exhibition, book, poster campaign or even a process.
Paula Scher
Paula Scher is a partner at Pentagram, who, in her spare time, creates paintings of maps based on her interests. She is a designer who uses art to author unique creations as she plays with the language of maps in painted abstract works full of information. Her 'USA' exhibition in New York showcases large scale cartographic paintings as complex infographics that explore a plethora of United-States-related topics (Binlot, 2016).
'My paintings are paintings; I accomplish them as a painter, not a designer.'
Fig. 1: Scher, 2021.
&Walsh
Jessica Walsh is the driving force behind the studio &Walsh. She uses design skills to start dialogues, create change and re-invent the role of women and non-binary people in the creative industry, specifically addressing the lack of female leadership and pay gap through social initiatives like Ladies, Wine & Design. Jessica has authored a new vision and direction for the design industry, with more representation at the top, making work robust, inclusive, creative and better functioning (&Walsh, 2021).
Stephan Sagmeister
Stephan Sagmeister ended a successful design agency career to take famed sabbaticals that acted as a catalyst to authoring his design creations based on his experiences, passions and interests.
These include books like 'Things I have learnt in my life so far', exhibitions like 'The Happy Show' and even objects like his Darwin Chair.
The Happy Show is an exhibition of film, print, infographics, sculpture, and interactive installations based on a ten-year exploration of happiness and presented typographic investigations of a series of rules to live by that test the boundary between art and design (Stefan Sagmeister: The Happy Show, 2021).
The Darwin Chair is a free-swinging structure including 200 sheets printed with intricate patterns abstracting the creation of the universe to the digital revolution. As the top sheet gets dirty, the user rips it off, thereby transforming the chairs appearance. As more and more sheets are torn off, the perforation forms a comfortable headrest(Sagmeister, 2021).
Fig. 2, 3: Sagmeister, 2021.
J. Abbott Miller
Abbott Miller assumes both roles of designer and author with his book, Design and Content. A compendium of Miller's design and design thinking, starting with his training at the Cooper Union in the early 1980s, through the formation of Design Writing Research, the studio he co-founded with Ellen Lupton in 1989, and on to his work at Pentagram.It is a catalogue of design strategies that emerge from the unique circumstances of form and content. It explores the role of a graphic designer as an intermediary between ideas, images, and words ('Abbott Miller: Design and Content' — Story, 2021).
Lupton & Miller
"We thought the design was this incredible discovery as a field, and yet no one was making it interesting."
To Abbot Miller and Ellen Lupton, design has never been about how things look. With roots in other, related practices, it is a set of techniques capable of generating ideas, as intellectual as they are visual.
They began steering design towards significant theoretical issues and the culture of the design industry. A collaboration that started with an after-work think tank or laboratory for ideas, Design Writing Research, resulted in a published book and a Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design.
Lupton sees herself as a writer who uses design as a tool to convey her message. Abbott sees himself more as a form maker. In the future, they anticipate that, instead of making only formal choices, designers will become producers of content and the meaning behind content (J. Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton, 2021).
Fig. 4: Broad, 2021.
Kelvyn Laurence Smith
Smith is a craftsman, designer, typographer, printmaker, wordsmith and maker who creates exquisitely crafted contemporary typographic printed matter using wood and metal type in his Letterpress workshop.
In much the same way as artist authors original pieces of work, Smith uses his design talents, attention to detail, quality artistry and thorough practice as a tool to originate content to sell, films to exhibit and skills to teach (Selected Films, 2021).
Fig. 5, 6: Mr Smith's Letterpress workshops, 2021.
Anthony Burrill
Anthony Burrill is a graphic artist, printmaker and designer known for his persuasive, up-beat communication style, passion for creativity without limitations, analogue craft skills, positive messages, and an innate curiosity about the world and people in it. He pushes the traditional field of letterpress printing into bold new territories. His work, both self-authored and commissioned, is exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, including posters, installations, events and three-dimensional work. Burrill advocates for designer authors and encourages designers to be themselves and find their voice (Anthony Burrill Prints | JEALOUS Gallery, 2021).
Fig. 7 - 14: Anthony Burrill, 2021.
A design author throws off the shackles of an industry constrained by clients and audience demands to create freely without limitations. Their passions and interests use design as a basis to shape, craft, invent and re-imagine.
IMAGINE
Imagine and communicate ten initial ideas for a series of outputs you could make as an author.
1) Create packaging for an alcohol-free wine brand called 'WonderFly'. I have stopped drinking alcohol this year and can find little to no alternatives in the wine category. If there are products available, their packaging positions them as entry-level to cheap in the market. WonderFly would include a range of alcohol-free wines that I conceptualise and design from the ground up with no audience or client input. They are whimsical and unexpected, pushing the boundaries in a traditional category focusing on humour and print effects. I would partner with a great wine producer to ensure a quality product.
2) Create a brand of penis bow ties called 'Dickiebow'. The patterns, designs and logo would be humorous and entertaining.
3) Design a tea brand that branches away from the traditional and expected. I am a passionate tea-drinker who would like to create a tea brand of my own. I have collected tea from around the world. I am intrigued by T2, which pushes the boundaries of contemporary tea packaging with a no-budget approach to printing. I would like to create the packaging and store design for a tea brand that moves away from the expected and perhaps follows more along the lines of the refillable applications employed by the Danish chocolatier Peter Beier.
4) Create a brand and design the packaging for a range of vitamins presented as gummies. I am a generally fit and healthy person who takes vitamins as part of my daily health regime. Taking tablets is not a pleasant task, and more often than not, I forget to do so. At one point, I started to buy kids multivitamins that came in a sweet or gummy form because they were better tasting, and it felt more like a treat than a chore to take them. This got me thinking that I would love to create a vitamin alternative for adults in a healthy gummy form.
5) An art exhibit that explores eroticism and minimalism through shape and suggestion.
6) An art exhibit in charcoal of people shot through thick perspex, with most of the figure blurred except for some attributes closest to the perspex. It should create an intriguing ghostly outcome.
7) An art exhibit called the Angel Series, where forms are photographed mist to appear ethereal.
8) The design of artisan chocolate packaging and an artisan chocolate store, rooted in African design and patterns.
9) A breast exhibit showcasing a large variety of natural busts in all shapes and sizes. Conversations and research with the younger male generations have brought to light a warped perspective due to overexposure to pornography that unnatural, fake boobs are normal and the epitome of feminine beauty. I would like to correct this assumption with exposure to a mirage of natural breast shapes and forms.
10) Based on the classic pin-up girls, I would design a range of T-shirts for women; the subject will instead be pin-up boys with funny lines to flip the previous sexism on its head.
REFLECTION
I have found becoming a design author to be a slow but inevitable process. A few years ago, I started to pick and choose projects my company took on based on my interests—this escalated to a desire to create packaging with no design limitations, client or audience in mind. I simply wanted to create something unique and inspiring using my design skillset. With no one to answer to, the outcomes and creativity were leagues ahead of what I had been making and entirely innovative and original.
I realise that design is the base or platform from which creativity can branch off in many directions when not restrained.
Reference: Andwalsh.com. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://andwalsh.com/articles/all/help-keep-lwd-afloat/> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: BINLOT, A., 2016. A la carte: Paula Scher's American maps chart more than just territory. [online] Wallpaper*. Available at: <https://www.wallpaper.com/art/paula-schers-american-maps-chart-more-than-just-territory> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Sagmeister, S., 2021. [online] Sagmeister.com. Available at: <https://sagmeister.com/work/darwin-chair/> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Moca.org. 2021. Stefan Sagmeister: The Happy Show. [online] Available at: <https://www.moca.org/exhibition/stefan-sagmeister-the-happy-show> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Pentagram. 2021. 'Abbott Miller: Design and Content' — Story. [online] Available at: <https://www.pentagram.com/work/abbott-miller-design-and-content/story> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Smith's Rules. 2021. Selected Films /. [online] Available at: <http://www.smithsrules.com/selected-films/> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Dwell. 2021. J. Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton. [online] Available at: <https://www.dwell.com/article/j.-abbott-miller-and-ellen-lupton-9cefdd1d> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Reference: Jealousgallery.com. 2021. Anthony Burrill Prints | JEALOUS Gallery. [online] Available at: <https://www.jealousgallery.com/artists/anthony-burrill> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Image 1: Scher, P., 2021. A la carte: Paula Scher’s American maps chart more than just territory. [image] Available at: <https://www.wallpaper.com/art/paula-schers-american-maps-chart-more-than-just-territory> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Image 2, 3: Sagmeister, S., 2021. Darwin Chair. [image] Available at: <https://sagmeister.com/work/darwin-chair/> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Image 4: Broad, J., 2021. J. Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton. [image] Available at: <https://www.dwell.com/article/j.-abbott-miller-and-ellen-lupton-9cefdd1d> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Image 5, 6: 2021. Mr Smith's Letterpress workshops. [image] Available at: <https://typography.guru/directory/artisan/mr-smith’s-letterpress-workshop-r458/> [Accessed 9 August 2021].
Image 7 - 14: 2021. Anthony Burrill. [image] Available at: <https://anthonyburrill.com> [Accessed 9 August 2021].