#pratt comd mfa

[design-xinyi]

CRAFTING UNCERTAINTY · slowLab in dialogue with Judith Wehmeyer van den Boom

[design-xinyi]

Type walk with Paul Shaw in Little Italy, the Bowery and the Lower East Side！

Organized by TDC Pratt Student Group.

Paul has been a calligrapher for over 40 years and has designed 18 typefaces. He is the principal of Paul Shaw / Letter Design and teaches calligraphy at Parsons School of Design and the history of typography at the School of Visual Arts.

Paul is also the author of Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, the book I bought last week from NY Art Book Fair!

spur serif

ghost sign

philosophy of unicase

[design-xinyi]

Josef Müller-Brockmann, Grid and Design Philosophy, originally published 1981, reprint from Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the field, ed. Helen Armstrong, Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2009

[design-xinyi]

What is Graphic Design?

Design is everywhere. It is impossible to find a clear definition for such a broad term. Basically all human activities are design to some extent. Even if narrowing down the scope to graphic design, there are still so many forms that fall into the category of graphic design. In terms of graphic design, I would like to address four crucial aspects involved in my attempting definition. Those four important aspects are: need, aesthetic, form and context.

The desire to design something begins with the needs. Graphic design should fulfill people’s needs, not just the basic ones but also more genuine and spiritual needs. Architecture and environmental designers are creating with a specific venue in mind; industrial designers are inventing products that will be manufactured and are touchable. Unlike those two types of designers who are dealing with tangible media, graphic design is dealing with the spiritual and non-material aspects of design, to create something out of nothing. I’m not saying that graphic design is totally intangible—actually a book or a poster is substantial once printed, but the concept the design is presenting is spiritual. It is the conceptual value driven by the needs that make graphic design matters. 

Graphic design is about aesthetics. Aesthetics is a tool, a tool for designers. Designs include visual representations that have unique aesthetics qualities. Jan van Toorn once argued in the debate with Wim Crouwel: “I think that as a specialization graphic design, just like other design, has begun to fall short under pressure of the industrial developments in our society and all their various consequences. ” This could still be questioned nowadays. In light of advancing technology and social media, communication is growing more and more powerful. The downside of this is that computer-aided designs are more uniform, and sometimes too similar. In some cases, it would be hard to tell the difference between a project done by one designer in Netherlands and one in China. Designers are losing their voices somehow. Graphic design should utilize technology while still establishing their own aesthetic marks.

Designers, however, can neither express whatever the like to nor attach objective understandings to the design. Graphic design serves as a tool of communication, an assistance of conveying information. We designers are the form giver, the messengers between the sender and the receiver. Wim Crouwel argued that design should present the clarity and transparency of information. This point has been argued a long time ago as “the crystal goblet” by Beatrice Warde in 1955. To me, graphic design is not completely transparent. When content is provided, it is the designer’s use of form that bears meaning and supplies functionality. When a design piece is presenting to the audience, there are two kinds of content. One is the content produced by the author; the other is the content created by the designer. “Form” becomes another “content”, the content created by designers to facilitate the communication. 

Graphic design should fit into certain cultural, social and economic contexts. Graphic design should be the creator of healthy, modern, active lifestyle, the leader of correct developing direction. I believe that better communication with the help of graphic design could eliminate misunderstandings, and could lead to a better world. Design could raise important issues, bear meaning and attempt to provide solutions. Design has the capacity to engage, delight people, making them think and react, to bring positive impact. Graphic design should have principles and good will. Design has the potential to contribute to society.

Designer Richard Seymour defined “design” during the Design Council’s Business Week in 2002—design is “making things better for people.” I would like to use this quote to conclude my understanding towards graphic design. Designing out of need, with aesthetic value, in effective form and for a certain context. Those are that we should bear in mind.

 Crouwel, W. (2015). Debate: The legendary contest of two giants of design. Monacelli Press

 Design Council. What is design. Retrieved from http://www.mech.hku.hk/bse/interdisciplinary/what_is_design.pdf