Graphic Design in Boystown U.K. →
When did the UK graphic design scene become so gender biased? Was it a gradual thing? How did we miss this? Which leads onto my next question… Why are male graphic designers so damn competitive about every little thing? Where are the designers that value harmony, balance and level-headedness. The ones that don’t need to be constantly self promoting because they don’t shout about everything they do, they just do it… and it works. I’m guessing they’re still around. They’re just being shouted down by the current‘boyworld’ of obnoxious geek designers, happier running work down than celebrating anything of any real significance.
I’ve started off a bit ranty here I know but seriously, how is this current rash of brash, negative, ‘boy racer’ types helping an industry that, you have to admit, needs all the help it can get at the moment, as it makes the traditional from relying on mostly print based work to tackling all manner of new, mostly digital, media.
Over the past 12 months we’ve seen more ‘networks’ of designers and developers forming. As well as a renewed clamour to dissect and crit the business of graphic design slowly growing in volume. Is it just that were been constantly told there are less jobs out there so, boys being the way they are, have grouped together, at the same time switching to competitive mode, in an attempt to starve off whatever circumstance lies ahead? Or is this a sign of the rise of the designer developer, coming from an industry that was moulded, it’s fair to say, mostly by men, who are now finding a new voice in the elder industry of graphic design that they haven’t expected to have before.
Whatever the reason, the need for fellow designers to squabble and generate negative comments, tweets or whatever on the subject of graphic design does the industry, and all those that reside in it, a dis-service. Our industry, like most other modern, media-based industries, is shrinking. It has happened to publishing, to music, to cinema and it’s now happening to graphic design. To stem the tide of clients turning away from using traditional graphic designers, to welcoming the idea of being ‘undesigned’, we need to provide a united front. We need to support creative endeavours of merit, not just the ones that a handful of our mates happen to have come up with in their ‘spare time’.
There is a danger that designers will only end up discussing design with other designers. That graphic design will become a niche thing for wannabe artisans. We are already loosing our relevance, and therefore influence, in the eyes of many potential clients so how about we all start pulling our heads out of our arses and celebrating the fact that we are all fortunate enough to work in one of the most amazing industries around. An industry that, when successful, touches the lives of everyone, not just other designers, and stop the ugly bickering, one-ups-man-ship and infighting.
Graphic design deserves better than that and you know it.
Finally ordered a copy.
Best of Times Poster by Hinterland.
waxandmilk: “Saul Bass. Before I ever met him, before we worked together, he was a legend in my eyes. His designs, for film titles and company logos and record albums and posters, defined an era. In essence, they found and distilled the poetry of the modern, industrialized world. They gave us a series of crystallized images, expressions of who and where we were and of the future ahead of us. They were images you could dream on. They still are.” — Martin Scorsese on the “Economic” Genius of Saul Bass
Poster by Josef Müller–Brockmann created in 1959 to list showtimes for the Stadttheater (State Theater) of Switzerland in Zurich.
“When I came to the United State, I noticed that many people don’t know my hometown Taiwan. Some people even cannot tell the difference between Taiwan and Thailand, just because they sound alike. As a designer, I think I should do something to promote this beautiful island.
The cover of the book is just like someone is watching Taiwan with telescope, and said “Ilha formosa”. It is inspired by the story of the first time European found Taiwan. They looked at this beautiful island and said “Ilha formosa” which means a beautiful island in Portuguese. After that, “Formosa” had been used as a name of this island (Taiwan) in the west for hundreds years.” - Tien-Min Liao, on her book, Ilha Formosa.
KALIBER10000 finally shuts down after years of inactivity. End of an era.
“Having had the honor and pleasure of designing all of Haruki Murakami’s books in hardcover since The Elephant Vanishes, I was especially looking forward to working on 1Q84, as it is his most ambitious and absorbing novel yet (and that’s saying something). Also, logistically the title is a book designer’s dream, because its unique four characters so easily adapt it to a very strong, iconic treatment. The plot follows two seemingly unconnected stories that eventually weave together. The first involves a woman named Aomame, who in the opening scene finds herself descending a service staircase off a busy elevated highway in Tokyo to escape a traffic jam. Once she gets to the bottom and out onto ground level, she eventually comes to believe that she has entered an alternate reality, one only slightly different than what she had known. She refers to this new dimension in her mind as 1Q84 (the book takes place in 1984 and in Japanese ‘Q’ sounds just like ‘9′), with the Q standing for “Question Mark. A world that bears a question.” This concept becomes one of the novel’s major themes. Upon reading the manuscript, it soon occurred to me that the duality of Aomame’s situation could be represented by an interaction of the book’s jacket with the binding/cover underneath. By using a semi-transparent vellum for the jacket, and printing the woman’s image in a positive/negative scheme with the title on the outside layer and the rest of her on the binding, once the jacket is wrapped around the book it ‘completes’ the picture of her face. But something odd is definitely going on, and before the reader even reads a word, he or she is forced to consider the idea of someone going from one plane of existence to another. “Plus, always to be considered, it looks pretty cool.” —Chip Kidd
