The most important thing that we provide is honest discussion around design education and the questioning of the status quo. Neither Mitch nor I hold back on what we think about teaching and students and I think that’s the best part of our show. In my cumulative six years of education I never heard anybody say that critiques were a drag and maybe not necessary. Or that “good design” is a fucking illusion. And while neither Mitch nor any of guests thus far agree with me, I’ve never heard a teacher advocate for not teaching the “rules.” I don’t know the extent to which Through Process affects anyone or anything but its important to me that we talk through these ideas (even if we end up changing our minds later).
Multi-hyphenate creative person and co-chair of VCFA’s MFA in Graphic Design Ian Lynam interviewed me and my Through Process co-host Mitch on podcasting, design criticism and what movies we’d like to show our students (or, do show as the case may be).
One last thing: part of what makes hardcore or punk work is that you create from your skill level. The worst bands are always those ones that tried to write music that copied more mature bands rather than play organically from where they were at. It took me a long time to understand this idea in terms of work. I have a particular way of working, it’s fairly minimal and not on-trend but it’s how I like to work and what I want to see in the world. When I was at agencies and tried to make work that was more slick and popular almost nothing I made ever got produced. At some point I stopped “trying” and just treated every project like it was my own and all of the sudden, things are getting produced. When you work from where you’re at you tend to make something that has more of you in it and when that happens you’re probably making better work.
I have a general philosophy that everything is terrible and everyone has bad taste. This might seem cynical on the surface but I use it as a reminder that there’s no correlation between quality, trends and success so I might as well do what feels right rather than what other people deem “good.” This might be punk in a nutshell.
I was already a fan of sergeantd’s new site exploring the influence DIY subcultures like punk and graffiti have on careers and business so I was honored to be a part of the “Alumni” series. We get into how my experiences in hardcore shaped what I do as a designer as well as the programming I’ve been trying to undo in recent years.
An absolutely amazing interview with Ian MacKaye of, you know, everything that barely touches on the regular topics of Fugazi, all ages shows and the music industry and it instead goes for the big questions like “just what the hell is it that we are doing being alive?”:
I understand that people, melodramatically, may consider life something one has to survive... It plays into this idea that people’s lives are narratives—that it’s a film or book and you have to survive all this craziness. I think it’s a disservice, ultimately, because it makes others feel like their lives aren’t crazy enough. In my mind, life is not a war—although human beings create conditions that make it feel that way—and I think that navigation is a fairer term. I see life essentially as an empty field. The construct of that empty space has to do with society, but it also has to do with us. The only real question is how are we going to navigate that space, from beginning to end.
Or:
This experiential thing? It’s a little touristic. Like, ‘I gotta taste it all!’ I know people who fucked one person, I know people who fucked 100 people. Their experience may seem different, but outside pressures leave both people wondering if they made a mistake. I wish people wouldn’t spend their lives thinking about what they could’ve or should’ve done. I wish they would live their lives thinking about what they should be doing now.
On insecurity and those big questions:
Do you ever feel anxiety or have moments of insecurity?
I’m not an anxious person, at all. I tend to think of insecurities as reminders to go do something. As a teenager I was extremely self-conscious of my body. But at some point I realised there’s nothing constructive about agonising over it. So I filed that away, like, I can’t change this, so just do something—get to work. As a young child, I couldn’t grasp the idea of death. It was so unbearable for me, I freaked the fuck out. But then at some point I realised I would never get an answer from a single person on earth. So I figured—just live. I think the most constructive way to approach a lot of this stuff is to make peace with incomprehensibility. I accept the things that I cannot comprehend, that I will never comprehend, and I have peace with that. If I feel an insecurity, I practise more. I write a song. Just do something.
There is just so much good stuff here like this perspective on online fighting and shaming (in this example as a result of Minor Threat shirts being sold at Urban Outfitters with Ian’s blessing or at least his “Who cares?”):
The headline was something akin to, ‘Ian MacKaye Doesn’t Care Anymore’. This set off a day-long siege of comments... Friends called to say, ‘I feel terrible, you’re getting your ass kicked online.’ But you know, the internet is an aquarium. There could be the fiercest battle—like the fish could be going at it, just tearing the crap out of each other. The castles could be knocked over. The gravel displaced. But for those of us outside the aquarium, not a drop gets on us. It’s just not real. If people want to engage in that communication, I’m not judgemental. But if it hurts you, or it’s dispiriting, then get out of the aquarium. I mean, you spend more time in that world, what do you make of it?
What does it take to succeed when you’re decided to switch careers and go back to school? What if you’re still maintaining a 9–5 at the same time? Joshua Har...
Every fall I meet with a group of adults who are returning to college to pursue a design education. There’s a lot that can stand in their way to achieving success in that environment from family responsibilities to the belief that they’re work needs to be “good.” These tips for surviving those 2.5 years and not wasting the opportunity were recorded fall 2014 on the first night of my Design in Context class.
This is pretty random find. An action-packed edit of the Bones Team in Florida back in 2012. Were they filming for that Bones video at this time? For some reason I assumed that that wasn’t a “real” video, like everybody just sent in whatever footage they had. Regardless, this is sick. Squad includes Jake Johnson, Kenny Anderson, Torey Pudwill (before the hair and grose button-downs), Clint Peterson, Justin Strubing, Danny Fuenzalida, Boo Johnson, Joel Meinholz, Benny Fairfax, Jordan Hoffart, (amongst others) and closes with what is basically a mini-part from Evan Smith.
No joke, I’ve listened to the Sissy Spacek/K2 collaborative record every day this week on my drives into and out of work. Classic, frenetic harsh noise that we only seem to hear from John Wiese if he’s working with a Japanese artist. This track captures Sissy Spacek and K2 recorded live in LA (or that’s what the liner notes lead me to believe). From the Sissy Spacek/K2 album on Helicopter.
Grindcore has never done much for me but this might be my favorite Sissy Spacek material. The clichés of genre—blast beats, and the coupling of high-pitch and cookie monster screaming become textures that punch in and out of a sea of harsh noise. From the Sissy Spacek/K2 album on Helicopter.
Spencer at Village Psychic put together an edit from Bobby Worrest’s multiple video parts this year. Consider this the Psychic’s official endorsement for Worrest’s candidacy as Skater of the Year.
I should give you the benefit of the doubt. When you give a talk I shouldn’t get hung up on all the “likes” and “ums”, your clothes or your boring delivery. I should spend all my effort trying to extract something useable from what you’re saying. When you present a project I shouldn’t point out the typos. In fact, I should try to see them as invisible so that I can focus on the real work—the ideas at play in your work and how you executed them. When I read your blog posts I shouldn’t be distracted by typos or bad grammar or sentences that are too long. I should be analyzing the substance of your words.
My brain wants to conserve energy and it does that by finding any excuse to disregard what you’re putting in front of me. It looks for any reason to say “Come on, this guy can’t complete a thought without saying ‘Ya know?’. He’s not credible. Let’s bounce.” Or to make a critique easier by looking for the low-hanging fruit thus avoiding the hard work of taking a deep look at a project and finding something of value to say. So, I should give you the benefit of the doubt.
But, when I’m the speaker I should assume you’re tired and distracted and that it’s my job to keep you interested and focused. I should assume that every “um” and “like” is undermining your desire to hear what I have to say. When I write I should assume that you’ll stop reading mid-sentence if what I’m saying isn’t clear or if its too long. I should assume that “TL;DR” is your default mode. I should assume that you are looking for any reason to stop reading and that I need to get in front of that by running spell-check, reading everything out loud and correcting any typos that do make it into the published piece as soon as I see them.
The math is simple: if I want to learn as much as I can from you then I have to ignore the trivial and superficial to get at the core of what you have to offer. But if I want to share my ideas with you then I have to assume the worst about you. I have to assume that the trivial and superficial will become barriers between us and that my job is to overcome as many of those barriers as possible.
In 2008 I had the opportunity of a lifetime—2 different publishers bought 3 book ideas from me and I would write and design them over the course of the next year. I officially started compiling New Skateboard Graphics in May 2008 and wrapped up the design of Function, Restraint & Subversion in Typography in summer 2010. In 2008 I was elated as my dreams were coming true. By the time I sent over the last file in 2010 I was over it.
Making a book is hard work regardless of what its about or how its formatted. And that hard work has very little in the way of a pay day. I was mentally and physically exhausted by the time I delivered the last book. I was broke from putting a lot of hours into projects that don’t pay upfront and frustrated by the lack of results I was seeing. Once the 3rd book had been on the market for awhile the results of my forays into design publishing were: tons of work that ultimately paid about $3 an hour; poor sales so I was never going to see royalties; unfair business practices; book titles changed without asking me so much as informing me; and zero publicity. I thought I would end up with a nice little check once a year, and perhaps some new opportunities: new clients in publishing or speaking gigs or something. When I finished the 3rd book I declared I wouldn’t ever do another book project (unless some pretty magical conditions were met which I didn’t believe were practical). It just wasn’t worth the effort.
I thought I was being an adult and making a mature decision to keep from putting myself and my family through further stress but eventually I saw the situation for what it was: I was shook and so I retreated.
I didn’t “quit” making books. You quit things that you hate—jobs, toxic relationships, bad habits. No one ever consciously quit something that made their life better. Nothing about writing books was bad for me. Nothing about it was unhealthy. It was just fucking hard. So I retreated.
When an army retreats its not like they said “Oh wait, you know what? We didn’t really want to secure this village it just would’ve been nice.” They met an obstacle that they couldn’t get through or did not have the resources necessary to overcome so they fell back. At no point did anyone suddenly realize that the goal wasn’t worth achieving.
I could have quit making books because I realized that I hated it. But I didn’t. I loved it. I still had ideas for new books but the obstacles—all the things that made me think publishing was unworkable for me—were too much for me. My targets were the same, my goals the same, but I didn’t have the heart to try again so I retreated.
We all do this. We back down from a goal we set because an obstacle—money, time, people, talent—is set in our way and we can’t see a way out. The problem with retreat is that it’s a lingering wound. It starts with something that you wanted to do but it didn’t turn out how you hoped. And once you back down that disappointment changes. It could have been a set-back or lesson learned the hard way but the retreat makes it a scar. Every time you look back on it, it still hurts.
Every reason I had for quitting publishing was an excuse. Each had a solution that I chose not to find. But you don’t solve problems in retreat, you just create a new unsolvable problem—the sting of a dream abandoned.
William Bennet of Cut Hands/Whitehouse talks transgression, art, intent, Italo Disco and Erhard Seminars Training.
I love this bit about explaining your art:
You said that you don’t like to explain lyrics, and that’s something you didn’t used to do, as far as I can tell. You didn’t really respond to accusations of fascism or racism that would arise from Whitehouse. But earlier this year you very strongly and publicly responded to these accusations via Facebook and your blogs. Obviously it’s been more than 30 years since you started Whitehouse, but what has changed to make you want to address this commentary?
I still believe that. It’s a big sacrifice to do that. Most art is rationalized in some kind of way, whether it’s literature or music. We live in an era where everything is rationalized. When Caravaggio painted he didn’t need to do interviews or magazine reviews or features, he could pretty much do as he wanted. I’m kind of jealous of not being able to be in that position. The reason for not rationalizing is to give people the freedom to experience art however they wish. I hate movies with a message at the end telling you how you should feel about what you just watched. Oliver Stone is a particular transgressor in that regard. If it’s not at the end of the film then it’s in an interview or a blurb. I want to give people the freedom to experience it in whatever way they want, whether they like it or don’t like it. I strongly believe in that freedom, and if I start coming out with stuff regarding my personal beliefs or the reasons why I made something then I’m taking away some of that freedom.
Regarding your question, I’m in a very fortunate position where I’m doing a lot of shows and other people depend on that, it’s not just me who’s affected. Somebody was sending anonymous threats to venues and I didn’t want people to have to deal with that. Not everybody is as knowledgeable about early ’80s industrial music, for example, and you can’t expect everybody to do all sorts of research to find out. So, I can’t be so arrogant as to presume that everyone knows what kind of person I am. I felt that, especially for the sake of other people, that it was important to put that on record.
So, basically, hicks are uncomfortable with art that doesn’t explain every last detail of its existence and they threaten venues where Bennett/Whitehouse is supposed to perform. So then he’s forced to spoonfeed answers to people like this one:
A song like “A Cunt Like You” was seen by a lot of people, critics and fans alike, as being a of sort of paean to misogyny. I hate explaining lyrics, because I don’t think one should, but I gave a talk in London where I explained that the truth is that it was anything but. It was actually language used by my parents against each other and part of it was about the hypocrisy of men and their relationship towards women of their own age and, say, their teenage daughters. I saw it as the same thing, they have the same feelings towards their daughters that they do towards women of their own age, but it’s a nasty, dark secret. So, that’s what that song is really about, it’s not a paean or anthem to misogyny in any way.
How shocking—he’s not a lunatic frothing at the mouth woman-hating Nazi! Who would’ve thought? (Please read with your “dripping with sarcasm” voice)
And then there’s his work as a communication teacher (IDK if this describes it but whatever):
I don’t call it motivational speaking because I’m not really there to specifically make people feel better about themselves. It’s difficult to explain, but they’re sort of workshops about acquiring skills in unconscious communication techniques. This stuff is very useful in so many different spheres, and comes up so often in social interaction.
Ryan Holiday on how listening to shitty pop music helps him write. Actually how listening obsessively to one shitty pop song helps him write. I completely buy this idea—that something that fills up some of the space while becoming like air helps you block out distraction without becoming a new distraction. I can’t listen to new music (that is music I’m not deeply familiar with) or podcasts while designing. Its too mentally taxing to process the signal coming in while trying to sort out my own ideas. Actually I don’t think anyone can do that, just that they think they can.
My brother reminded me of this song an hour ago with a series of desperate texts. The ender on Rye Coalition’s best work On Top—an epic post-hardcore meets classic rock homage to Woody Allen’s Sweet & Lowdown.
New piece by yours truly about what I’m trying accomplish when I design something.
Graphic design is a lot of things. For me, it’s a form of story-telling. I know people who can get the name of a company and what it does and have 3 logos for that company done by the end of the day. These logos will have a concept, be aesthetically-pleasing, and be considered “appropriate” for the company’s industry. A win all-around.
I hate people who do this. Actually, I like the people, I just hate what they do.
I hate it because their logo is not about the company, the way it works, what it believes or its history. The logo is simply a reference to the industry the company works in. This is not good enough for me. When I design a logo it should contain some element of truth about the company or the individuals involved. It should tell a story.
