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Icograda: Alejandro Quinto and Chang Sik Kim
BY
TAXI
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Icograda Design Week in Seattle was an international design forum which took place in Seattle, USA last 9th July till 15th July 2006.
Defining Design on a Changing Planet, Icograda invited 22 international speakers to discuss on the role of design in this global awareness of evolution; how design has and may serve the economy and society and will also address the major topics design faces: cultural, political, economic and environmental issues at work in a global society. Last year’s Icograda Design Week is first in history to be held in USA and is in partnership with AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design.
TAXI Design Network proudly supported Icograda Design Week in Seattle as the Major Media Partner. The editorial crew from TAXI Design Network proudly reported the conferences live and delivering to you our interaction with the presenting design leaders.
For every week from April to June 2006, TAXI Design Network conducted exclusive interview sessions on the speakers based on their opinions of design in the growing world of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Please visit Icograda Design Week in Seattle for more information.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Alejandro Quinto
TAXI >> Your work has been published internationally in magazines like Creative Review, England and Designers Workshop, Japan. What criteria do you think should a design book have in order to be regarded as a design bible?
Alejandro Quinto >> Many books have been written that deal with the ethical implications of a designer’s profession. Such books include Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1970), Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), and more recently Massive Change: The Future of Global Design by Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries (2004). Some people might argue these books have reached the “design bible” status. However, these books are authored by individuals and not institutions. The design bible I imagine doesn’t exist yet. It would require a global design organization to create THE design bible that could be taught in schools around the world. In other words, I think a design bible today should be authored by a collective group of experts from various cultures (not individual authors from the West), widely distributed, and promoted by a leading international design authority.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Alejandro Quinto >> Two years ago, my partner Lorraine Gauthier and I started a design studio in Toronto called Work Worth Doing, focused on using design as a tool for positive social and environmental change. We’re still in the early days of this global movement where designers engage more directly with the world beyond the design of discrete objects. Hopefully our presentation will show how Work Worth Doing is only an example among many other designers, networks of entrepreneurs, companies, and organizations that are working in similar projects. I hope our presentation will inspire others to consider the social and environmental implications of our work as designers.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Chang Sik Kim
of most design projects should be determined objectively and rationally in terms of its communication of message whether it makes effective sense or not. However, due to the fact that design is involved with not only communication/function of pure message/content but also artistic expression as subjective aesthetic points of view, this certainly makes it difficult to rationalize, in many instances, the evaluation process/methodology. One evaluator’s personal/subjective parameter and criteria will certainly be different from another’s.
Along with this, as an educator, I have experienced how diverse realities and ideologies of expected design goals can be. Sometimes we like to set the goals and direction of a design project towards a more idealistic concept. We approach the process in a way that sometimes can’t be achieved, misused to accommodate a specific audience and circumstances, with constrained resources, resulting in the dissonance of an analytical database survey concept vs. an emotional and subjective concept.
Another sensitive topic might be, “Plagiarism: Originality and Morality.” It has increasingly become an issue of how to admit which is solely creative work developed by original authorship vs. which is not. As technological advancement keeps growing, already part of the creative process, this issue becomes more sensitive and harder to determine where the margins of originality are drawn.
More and more, the borderline and definition of originality and authorship is blurred and confusing in this sense. Multi-cultural and technical integration as a mixture of sampling pre-made resources create such common methods of a kind of replica design work. The convenience of easily useable default tools allows inexperienced or uneducated designers to quickly access undefined techniques and resources of design from the Internet database. Such easy modification of good design samples may reproduce unbalanced conceptual and visual look and feel of work without concern about morality.
Even though there are lawful determinations of the originality of design products, no such work can be perfectly judged when an accusation would be claimed; it might be hard to tell what is original.
TAXI >> You are currently one of the 35 Presidential Prize Recipients in Korean design community endorsed by Korean Government. How different do you think is the design scene in Asia and in the West?
Chang Sik Kim >> First of all, it is, in all honestly, difficult for me to answer this question. Since my background, education, and professional experience is Korean, with limited experience about Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, etc. I don’t feel I have enough knowledge to cover the overall spectrum of the Asian design scene.
I can say, in general terms, Asian (certainly Korean) designers have demonstrated strong ethnically and culturally related design concepts and visual styles including spatial sense, color and motifs of design elements. Normally these typical visual and contextual components help them to create unique visual representations of communication within the norm of their culture. However, often it is too emblematic resulting in formulated approaches. Of course, design supposedly reflects the historical and social realm of the culture, resulting in communicating to a targeted audience. On the other hand, I believe Asian designers/students tend to get into the mood of the design message emotionally and aesthetically and try to create more visually expressive (form and style) solutions in terms of the design process.
I would say that many Asian designers are more sensitive, esthetically inspired from-givers, with very socially/culturally oriented presentations of their work. Often times, their conceptual themes are too philosophical or ethnic whose form and style are less rationally systematic and functional.
In terms of history and trend of graphic design in Asia until late 1980’s, Advertising design, including promotional design (posters, typography, and package design) was more popular and significant than any other graphic design area except book design in Japan and Korea that was already well established. In advertising, this phenomenon was more significant: with very stylized, aesthetically approached, socially/culturally engaged design.
Often, this fast tracked design culture and social trend is caused by the lack of fundamental design principles. It appears to me that Asian designers are more interested in looking forward to generating new technical trends and style pragmatically and practically, while Western design society, especially in education, still try to find a balance between a theory based foundation and technically challenged aspects of design.
More recently, however, due to the rapid growth of IT (information technology) based business and industry, such as: digital networking, wireless/satellite telecommunication technology, and database streaming/programming, leading Asian countries (mostly Korea and Japan) are trend makers of the new generations/paradigm of visual information design which is the advanced term for traditional graphic design regarding trend and technical approaches. This allows for design globalism blending Western and Eastern themes toward a more universal design. In short, today, I don’t see much differentiation between Asian and Western design in general as much as it used to be in terms of the designers of the younger generation, since both breathe the same resources through a technologically inter-networking planet.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Chang Sik Kim >> I recently became interested in developing an universal and a metaphoric prototype of fundamental design principles as a global design education tool. This conceptual model of design foundation resources would be an easy and intuitive learning tool that integrates theory and practice as one systematic approach. Through my teaching experience, there has been a big parallel gap between theory and practice. In many situations, a good thinker would not necessarily be a great practitioner or visa versa. The accomplishment of this challenging project has been one of my long-term goals of my educational activities. It would certainly not be an easy task and possibly can’t be done by one person, but it could take even longer through a team effort.
I hope Icograda Design Week in Seattle will provide a stepping-stone to global teamwork that would enhance more exchange events among different countries through diverse channels for better interaction by the global design education community. Finally, I appreciate the efforts of the organizers and staff members of this event and sincerely believe it will be successful.
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Defining Design on a Changing Planet, Icograda invited 22 international speakers to discuss on the role of design in this global awareness of evolution; how design has and may serve the economy and society and will also address the major topics design faces: cultural, political, economic and environmental issues at work in a global society. Last year’s Icograda Design Week is first in history to be held in USA and is in partnership with AIGA Center for Cross-Cultural Design.
TAXI Design Network proudly supported Icograda Design Week in Seattle as the Major Media Partner. The editorial crew from TAXI Design Network proudly reported the conferences live and delivering to you our interaction with the presenting design leaders.
For every week from April to June 2006, TAXI Design Network conducted exclusive interview sessions on the speakers based on their opinions of design in the growing world of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Please visit Icograda Design Week in Seattle for more information.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Alejandro Quinto
 | TAXI >> You grew up in Mexico, studied in England and are now in Toronto. Culture change and cleansing – Will vast culture exposure help in expanding one’s horizon of creativity?
Alejandro Quinto >> Yes, I grew up in Mexico, studied in the U.S., England, and Canada. After ten years of being away from my home country, I’ve returned to Mexico, where for the past year, I’ve worked on a project about the future of the U.S./Mexico border. This cultural exposure in previous years has given me a different perspective that I’m applying to this cross-cultural project titled Hyperborder 2050. I’m working with American and Mexican partners from different fields of expertise to imagine new ways both countries can envision desirable futures using their common border as place for collaboration and innovation — a very challenging goal considering the high political controversy this border region faces today. |
TAXI >> Your work has been published internationally in magazines like Creative Review, England and Designers Workshop, Japan. What criteria do you think should a design book have in order to be regarded as a design bible?
Alejandro Quinto >> Many books have been written that deal with the ethical implications of a designer’s profession. Such books include Victor Papanek’s Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1970), Buckminster Fuller’s Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1969), and more recently Massive Change: The Future of Global Design by Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries (2004). Some people might argue these books have reached the “design bible” status. However, these books are authored by individuals and not institutions. The design bible I imagine doesn’t exist yet. It would require a global design organization to create THE design bible that could be taught in schools around the world. In other words, I think a design bible today should be authored by a collective group of experts from various cultures (not individual authors from the West), widely distributed, and promoted by a leading international design authority.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Alejandro Quinto >> Two years ago, my partner Lorraine Gauthier and I started a design studio in Toronto called Work Worth Doing, focused on using design as a tool for positive social and environmental change. We’re still in the early days of this global movement where designers engage more directly with the world beyond the design of discrete objects. Hopefully our presentation will show how Work Worth Doing is only an example among many other designers, networks of entrepreneurs, companies, and organizations that are working in similar projects. I hope our presentation will inspire others to consider the social and environmental implications of our work as designers.
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Chang Sik Kim
| TAXI >> You have published three complete books, wrote more than 25 articles/papers and held three solo exhibitions that contain works on extremely diverse experimental subjects. What do you think is the most sensitive topic in design that one avoids speaking of and writing on?
Chang Sik Kim >> Most of the articles and essays I have written in the last decade were focused on typography and critical reviews of graphic design trends in a useful sense. I am, and have been, quite open-minded to talk and discuss just about any topic in design. However, there are some topics that we (designers and educators) don’t necessarily want to discuss, such as, “how to evaluate a design work objectively.” Many different methodologies and systems have been developed and applied to arrive at rational decision making in regards to evaluating design work. Some were adapted from cognitive science, or business marketing, as well as from personal interpretation. Practically speaking, the goal |  |
Along with this, as an educator, I have experienced how diverse realities and ideologies of expected design goals can be. Sometimes we like to set the goals and direction of a design project towards a more idealistic concept. We approach the process in a way that sometimes can’t be achieved, misused to accommodate a specific audience and circumstances, with constrained resources, resulting in the dissonance of an analytical database survey concept vs. an emotional and subjective concept.
Another sensitive topic might be, “Plagiarism: Originality and Morality.” It has increasingly become an issue of how to admit which is solely creative work developed by original authorship vs. which is not. As technological advancement keeps growing, already part of the creative process, this issue becomes more sensitive and harder to determine where the margins of originality are drawn.
More and more, the borderline and definition of originality and authorship is blurred and confusing in this sense. Multi-cultural and technical integration as a mixture of sampling pre-made resources create such common methods of a kind of replica design work. The convenience of easily useable default tools allows inexperienced or uneducated designers to quickly access undefined techniques and resources of design from the Internet database. Such easy modification of good design samples may reproduce unbalanced conceptual and visual look and feel of work without concern about morality.
Even though there are lawful determinations of the originality of design products, no such work can be perfectly judged when an accusation would be claimed; it might be hard to tell what is original.
TAXI >> You are currently one of the 35 Presidential Prize Recipients in Korean design community endorsed by Korean Government. How different do you think is the design scene in Asia and in the West?
Chang Sik Kim >> First of all, it is, in all honestly, difficult for me to answer this question. Since my background, education, and professional experience is Korean, with limited experience about Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China, etc. I don’t feel I have enough knowledge to cover the overall spectrum of the Asian design scene.
I can say, in general terms, Asian (certainly Korean) designers have demonstrated strong ethnically and culturally related design concepts and visual styles including spatial sense, color and motifs of design elements. Normally these typical visual and contextual components help them to create unique visual representations of communication within the norm of their culture. However, often it is too emblematic resulting in formulated approaches. Of course, design supposedly reflects the historical and social realm of the culture, resulting in communicating to a targeted audience. On the other hand, I believe Asian designers/students tend to get into the mood of the design message emotionally and aesthetically and try to create more visually expressive (form and style) solutions in terms of the design process.
I would say that many Asian designers are more sensitive, esthetically inspired from-givers, with very socially/culturally oriented presentations of their work. Often times, their conceptual themes are too philosophical or ethnic whose form and style are less rationally systematic and functional.
In terms of history and trend of graphic design in Asia until late 1980’s, Advertising design, including promotional design (posters, typography, and package design) was more popular and significant than any other graphic design area except book design in Japan and Korea that was already well established. In advertising, this phenomenon was more significant: with very stylized, aesthetically approached, socially/culturally engaged design.
Often, this fast tracked design culture and social trend is caused by the lack of fundamental design principles. It appears to me that Asian designers are more interested in looking forward to generating new technical trends and style pragmatically and practically, while Western design society, especially in education, still try to find a balance between a theory based foundation and technically challenged aspects of design.
More recently, however, due to the rapid growth of IT (information technology) based business and industry, such as: digital networking, wireless/satellite telecommunication technology, and database streaming/programming, leading Asian countries (mostly Korea and Japan) are trend makers of the new generations/paradigm of visual information design which is the advanced term for traditional graphic design regarding trend and technical approaches. This allows for design globalism blending Western and Eastern themes toward a more universal design. In short, today, I don’t see much differentiation between Asian and Western design in general as much as it used to be in terms of the designers of the younger generation, since both breathe the same resources through a technologically inter-networking planet.
TAXI >> Is there a specific message that you look forward to share over your presentation at Icograda Design Week in Seattle?
Chang Sik Kim >> I recently became interested in developing an universal and a metaphoric prototype of fundamental design principles as a global design education tool. This conceptual model of design foundation resources would be an easy and intuitive learning tool that integrates theory and practice as one systematic approach. Through my teaching experience, there has been a big parallel gap between theory and practice. In many situations, a good thinker would not necessarily be a great practitioner or visa versa. The accomplishment of this challenging project has been one of my long-term goals of my educational activities. It would certainly not be an easy task and possibly can’t be done by one person, but it could take even longer through a team effort.
I hope Icograda Design Week in Seattle will provide a stepping-stone to global teamwork that would enhance more exchange events among different countries through diverse channels for better interaction by the global design education community. Finally, I appreciate the efforts of the organizers and staff members of this event and sincerely believe it will be successful.
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.