After a cursory read of Ian Lynamâs, âThatâs Entertainment!...â essay, because thatâs all I could manage, I can safely say, âOne is not amusedâ.
Firstly, what ghastly design, or lack thereof, and that typeface. I donât care how he justifies its use, itâs beyond, just beyond disgusting. To me itâs akin to using Comic Sans and thatâs saying something.
Also, why does every essay Mark sends us to read (if you can call it this) use so many overinflated words. Side note, Iâll work on a better description for these later. Before I can even read the text, I first have to decipher what every second word or so means... and the list is long, enough to be annoying. If you have a point to make just make it. Donât beat around the bush I say.
In a vain attempt to understand what Lynam is trying to say, let me break it some of it down into plain English:
Out of the gate, Lynamâs references a neoliberal era: what is this, did or does it exist, or did this guy just make it up? More research needed here! According to Google dictionary, firstly it should have a hyphen between the neo and liberal, and secondly hereâs their definition...
Neoliberal adjective
relating to or denoting a modified form of liberalism tending to favour free-market capitalism.
Lynam then sets the premise of his essay by stating, 'the sphere of cultural production and assorted economies attached to graphic design consistently ignore intellectualism as operational methodology'.
The puppeteers, the ones running the cultural show and fat cats with all the money who are in charge. This is what I take away from this sentence and it worries me somewhat. Everything is life is orchestrated, this much I know to be true. Itâs scary when mentioned in anything remotely graphic design related. The two notions seem at polar ends of the spectrum of corruption and greed... or are they.
Intellectualism noun
the exercise of the intellect at the expense of the emotions.
Next Lynamâs goes on to quote Jeffery Keedy's eponymous 2013 essay which describes global style, on an emotional level, as something that âsublimates quotidian boredomâ. Â
Sublimate verb
3rd person present:
(in psychoanalytic theory) divert or modify (an instinctual impulse) into a culturally higher or socially more acceptable activity.
Quotidian adjective
of or occurring every day; daily.
Weâre numb to the cultural content that surrounds us, immune to its effects and becoming increasingly aware of its lack of substance? I donât know what either is trying to say, but this my interpretation anyway.Â
Ennui noun
a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement.
Extraneous adjective
irrelevant or unrelated to the subject being dealt with.
Fordist policies aka Fordism is a tag used to characterise the post-1945 long boom experienced by western nations. It is typified by a cycle of mass production and mass consumption, the production of standardized (most often) consumer items to be sold in (typically) protected domestic markets, and the use of Keynesian economic policies.
Itâs odd, considering its more gruesome descriptive nature, but the next paragraph struck me:Â âThe political poster today is the semantic equivalent of a bloated corpse floating in an aquatic environment... There is a body, but there is little to distinguish it as unique, much less rebellious in nature.â
At this point in time, 70+ years since graphic design became a recognised discipline, have we simply run out of ideas? When you think back over the course of art history, are we not caught in a perpetual loop of repeat, regurgitate and refresh? Nothing is new anymore. No idea is original.
Semantic adjective
relating to meaning in language or logic.
âGraphic design itself is increasingly fractured and graphic designers must be adept at more skills and specializations than ever before.â My response to this: as a designer I must become a jack of all [art] trades in order to succeed, and I feel the weight of this pressure.
I disagree with Lynamâs summation that 'designers are more free than everâ. Not when taking into account political correctness and what not. I do, however, feel the tie of my workstation, or more accurately, laptop. I am certain it is preventing rather than aiding me becoming a truly great designer. Yet I cannot escape it. The pressure is always there to learn all the design programmes and packages, become an expert in them and thus a multifaceted designer in order to succeed in the industry.
Polyphonic adjective
producing or involving many sounds or voices.
And living, existing, and experiencing life in the midst of a global pandemic, a time that will later become of great historial importance, Lynamâs words that âthe possibility of actual freedom from control is nearly nonexistent in the contemporary momentâ could not feel more acurate. Forgive my brief meandering into the realm of conspiracy theories but something is afoot here. Whether itâs design weâre talking about or daily life, we are all being controlled by the powers that be, the one percenters or the whatever you may wish to call them. Very little lately feels like freewill and is more akin to an expected response to a predetermined situation?!
Itâs funny how many articles and blogs, videos and what nots are being thrown our way to encourage us to use our time in lockdown to play, be creative and constructive when, as Lynam puts it âthe Information Economy [had previously] destroyed boredom by occupying citizens' time while simultaneously deskilling themâ. Now the one thing we do have in spades is time and many, like me, are using it to get back to basics. Itâs no laughing matter how easily we are all controlled in this way - to work or play or work again.
Another frightening side note, when someone like Lynam points it out... because I hadnât stopped to think about it before... Adobe has a virtual monopoly on specific software. With no competition or barely any, economics aside, how does this encourage creativity. In my humble opinion, it doesnât and cannot.Â
1. relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being."ontological arguments"
2. showing the relations between the concepts and categories in a subject area or domain.
We are all controlled. Simple. Even down to our creative responses. Just look at Pinterest and Behance, Instagram and other social media platforms for example. We see something, the latest trend or fashion, we mimic it, we embrace it, we try to make it our own but in essence this isnât whatâs really happening, and then we repeat the process all over again and again.Â
Ostensible adjective
stated or appearing to be true, but not necessarily so.
What others think to be true, is in fact highly likely the opposite. I know this makes me sound like a crazy person yet I cannot help but think it.
Raison dâetre noun
the most important reason or purpose for someone or something's existence.
We create reasons to exist. Whether it be to go to college, get married or become a designer, in my case. Without a reason, there is no reason to exist. I mean what is the point to life?
If it is all about money, which largely it appears to be, then as a designer Iâm a bit stuffed. While the âvalue of design [may be] increasing sociallyâ, itâs  economic value is not. Too many people think the can become or are designers simply by using Photoshop and selling bits on Etsy. It diminishes the importance of my degree, the value of design and being a designer, the years it will take me to become a bloody good one. But hasnât this also happened in the wider art world? Many think they are artists, painters, sculptors or potters when they are not. Not even remotely to the likes of Michelangelo or Da Vinci status.Â
Reading an exert from âan as-yet unpublished essay by Randy Nakamura and Ian Lynam', a realisation that I am about to begin working in a defunked industry is dawning on me with statements such as âThe ubiquity of the overused catchwords âcreativityâ and âinnovationâ are perhaps the surest indicators that a culture is in decline' and â...how is it even possible to talk about creativity in a way that is neither insipid nor irrelevant?â, and âInnovation, creativityâs idiot cousin, is in barely better condition.âÂ
Add play to creativity and innovation and these words are the very basis of my own arguement that in order to be a good, if not great, designer - to create innovative solutions to many of lifeâs problems - we need to adopt a more playful attitude. I, therefore, cannot agree with Lynamâs statement that âalmost anything can be considered the product of innovationâ. Hard work does not help you innovate. It is but one element in a melting pot of skills and attributes, that not everyone has I might add, needed to cultivate innovation.
With a list of suggested reading and various, rather random, downloadable PDFâs as a last and closing thought to Lynamâs piece, I am left with a complete opposite feeling of being entertained.
http://entertain.ianlynam.com
