Posts Tagged ‘Industry’

I am a Graphic Designer. And I do some Art on the side.

— Posted on by Sean Batchelor

I’ve been thinking about the distinction between the artistic and commercial aspects of what we do as designers. I haven’t come to any conclusions but here is what has been running through my mind.

There is occasionally the feeling, particularly in young designers (me) that more ‘commercial’ work offers less freedom of artistic expression. I suppose in some ways this is true. Corporate brand guidelines are generally more restricting, the tone more conservative and the outcomes often quickly absorbed into the everyday monotony of business and capitalism and our lives. But then, freedom isn’t a necessity for the creation art. Working within boundaries is a reality for anyone working creatively, no matter how FAR OUT you are. Art exists in provocation. An emotional shift caused by a composed number of elements within a boundary. These element might include the constraints of medium, colour, social class, budget, human perception, etc. and designers are communicating within these realities every day.

Design’s link to commerce is our artistic advantage.

Maybe it’s the fact that our work is directed by an outsider (a client) with their own set of goals and expectations as a customer that limits our artistic ownership. But most art is for sale and it’s value is determined within a commercial market of it’s own with the big players mostly linked to big corporations. Successful Art communicates truthfully whether someone pays for it or not. The value of design work is based on time and labour, but also creative or aesthetic expertise, which basically amounts to artistic skill. The fact that we are being paid for the outcomes of our art should mean that our art is more effective (has a greater effect).

I suppose you could think “But – being a designer is more than being artistic. There is marketing strategy, awareness of business, quoting etc” and you might be right. What frustrates me is that with clients, designers struggle to interact comfortably (at least in the majority of circumstances) as an artist. An artistic vocabulary can almost sound embarrassing, but it is these exact qualities – emotional, cryptic, abstract – that they are most importantly engaging graphic design services. It’s as though art is what we do alone, almost secretly in our studios – where graphic design is like a wall of financial assurity and sensible creative pragmatism.

I am of course speaking from the perspective of a designer working in Sydney, and maybe it is different elsewhere.

What do you want from me?

— Posted on by Sean Batchelor

For designers it can feel as though marketing teams or business committees are a well intentioned pair of solid concrete boots. We as designers have all conceded our share of defeats at the hands of lower/middle/upper management as they try to tell us how to do our job. They would argue though, that they are just doing their job. For a real solution to this conflict, and to create more progressive, positive outcomes for design, business and society, we need to learn each others language and especially business needs to learn exactly what to expect from a graphic designer.

We aren’t supposed to be our clients, just as we expect them not to act as designers. Meaning we need a more mutual understanding of roles. It must be a partnership in which both parties are aware of their own and each others basic roles but I feel that it is the designer’s role that is more often sublimated.

The design industry as a whole has an identity crisis. We are strategy consultancies, advertisers, artists, activists, innovation hikers etc etc… amongst which ‘graphic designer’ could sound a bit dry. Whilst the role(s) of a graphic designer may seem broad, we need a coherent description of services that we share and that business can understand. Even designers who design exclusively for online should describe themselves as graphic designers to maintain this sense of consistency for the sake of the industry.

These transformations would take place slowly and require organisation and an a consensus within the industry. As well as improving the quality of the work, I think this would have other positive effects such as enabling designers to quote/charge with some consistency, find clients more easily, and once a job has been secured allow for it to run more smoothly. Articulation is key and we can start with the questions…

What should business expect and respect of graphic designers?

I propose something along the lines of:

  • Dedication to, and expertise in the field of aesthetics
  • Whilst being a service industry, we have our individual ideologies, ethics, and sense of purpose towards the improvement of society beyond answering a brief.

That is maybe a left of centre place to start, but maybe one day I’ll go into why I think these are the really important concepts that hold back our industry from job to job.

What should designers expect and respect of business (clients)?

I’d say this ball should be thrown in to the court of a ‘business-person’, but I’d say designers should expect a set of definable goals or motivations and for their responses to be challenged and held accountable.

The Best Design Magazine

— Posted on by Sean Batchelor

It’s a good feeling when an impulse purchase, in this case necessitated by an emergency need for pain killers and a strict $5 eftpos limit at a train station news agency, leads to valuable discovery.

After a quick scan of the magazine shelves I opted for Bloomberg Businessweek. It was an aesthetic decision. Simple bold masthead, neutral colour scheme full bleed image and a big headline about Google. I joined my travelling partner and boarded the train. I am NOT a businessman. I am a graphic designer and i’m pretty sure that I am not the target audience, however I found it to be the best design magazine I have read this year in both it’s layout and its content.

Layout

The grid was pretty scrappy but there were so many IDEAS. Margins were either non existent or crammed with supportive facts, anecdotal illustrations of graphical representations of the textual content. The typography was simple and unadorned with articles navigating elegantly from start to finish. There was no Jan, Emil, Herb or Eric looming over its shoulder. The aesthetic led to my surprise it’s brashness. It felt free and dedicated to the editorial focus of its content. No design magazine that I’ve seen/read recently has this freedom.

Content

Graphic design as an industry has an inherent link to business. It is a commercial undertaking (even more so when it’s trying not to be) and anyone working within the industry needs to be at peace with this. The articles in Bloomberg Business were plainly written, with minimal business/economic jargon and despite it being American-centric, fairly international content. With well edited coverage on innovation, products, economics, management, markets, politics, media – all of which design is or should be entwined. To be a good designer it is more important to be aware of business than of graphic design. Obviously we must know our tools, both our programs and technical restrictions and the typographic and compositional rules of the art form. These are rendered useless without a strong understanding of the message the message’s environment and the message’s recipient.

Design literature should make us better designers and a smarter industry collectively, though most magazines fail to go further than patting ourselves on the back. It is important that the industry’s acheivements and the best of our designs are documented and discussed but this does not really make us better at our job or improve the position of the industry – especially Australia.

The Indigenous Voice

— Posted on by Sean Batchelor

Designers have long asserted the influence of their craft on a social and political level. It can be demonstrated (from Jazz, to Nazism) where a visual aesthetic has offered more than a colour scheme throughout the course of history and where the tone of communication has galvanised a message. In this new era, we as professional image makers and thinkers in Australia should be asking what is broken, and what can we do to fix it? What can designers offer to the betterment of Australian life?

One such area of great importance is white understanding and acceptance of indigenous culture. The huge difficulty that has faced Aboriginal people is in communication. Plainly, there is a disconnection in language both spoken (heard) and unspoken (seen). This being the result of a violent and guilty past which is tolerated by most westerners with embarrassed forgetfulness and by Aboriginal people with anger and sorrow.

Western designers and artists working in Australia have, in the past, drawn from Aboriginal motifs in proclamation of our independence and individuality from Britain. It plays well for our global identity. However, the presentation of Aboriginal Culture in this way is perhaps just as damaging, given the ongoing national struggle to fully accept and respect the original owners of our country. The plagiarism of indigenous motifs and symbols in this way is simplistic and disrespectful.

Designers today should in all cases present the true sense of what being Australian means, in politically focused messages and – more importantly – in the everyday visual media. It is necessary for this to have within it, an understanding of Aboriginal culture and language. Australian design, fashion, hospitality, entertainment and especially big business should all be open to the recognition of this cultural asset as part of the make up of their visual identity. The result of this would be a collaborative achievement and Australia would benefit for the shared experience, with reconciliation as a natural progression.