|
Design Wordsmiths
BY
Gwendy Tan
|
page
1
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Rick Poynor
Around 1980 I worked at a book production company and became interested in typography because of my love of books. Record covers had always fascinated me and so did the new 1980s style magazines such as The Face, designed by Neville Brody, who is the same generation as me. I got hold of Philip Meggs’ A History of Graphic Design when it came out in 1983 – this was probably quite unusual then for someone who wasn’t a designer.
I became a journalist and by the late 1980s, at Blueprint magazine, I was in a position to write about anything that interested me: architecture, interior design, furniture design and graphic design, as well as art. In 1990, Blueprint’s publisher gave the go-ahead to Eye, with me as editor, and allowed me complete freedom to put whatever I wanted in the magazine, which was pretty extraordinary in retrospect. From that point, as editor and writer, I concentrated increasingly on visual communication and began to develop my ideas about what forms the criticism of the subject should take.
TAXI >> Being one of the most well-known and respected Design Critics in the industry today. In your opinion, how would you define a Design Critic? What do you mean by Criticism?
Rick Poynor >> A critic is someone who takes nothing for granted, thinks carefully about a subject and forms his or her own conclusions. Anyone can have an opinion, of course. But for criticism to have value, for it to be useful to other people and make a contribution to the area of activity it covers, it needs to come from close study and deep knowledge. Critical writing should reveal an individual sensibility and a strong and consistent personal point of view, though you would also expect to see an evolution in the critic’s ideas over time. Even if you disagree with what the critic says, you should feel that the criticism is considered and coherent and, in that sense, reliable.
Critics must be specialists in whatever area is being discussed, while also possessing a wide knowledge of neighbouring fields so they can place their subject in a broader context to understand it better. A design critic who didn’t know much about art or photography, for instance, would be severely limited. A critic must be prepared to take a stand when necessary and go against prevailing opinion. If all the “critic” does is to reinforce the general view within a discipline and prop up the status quo, then that isn’t really criticism. Genuine criticism will provoke strong reactions and people on the receiving end of adverse criticism will probably hate it. That shouldn’t stop the critic.
TAXI >> We need more Design Critics and exposure to intellectually penetrating criticism. Why do you think that there is little motivation to produce oppositional Design Criticism? We would expect design professionals and practitioners to be the fiercest critics, but progress is slow.
Rick Poynor >> Yes, progress is slow and we can’t have a mature design criticism without a lot more design critics. There are plenty of design journalists, but very few can accurately be called critics. You are absolutely right that there is hardly any oppositional design criticism. The most obvious reason is that most design publications are trade journals. They exist to serve the design community and they depend on sales and advertising to survive. Their publishers and editors are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them, so over time very few of these publications have tried to develop a culture of criticism, though occasionally an article with a bit more bite makes it into their pages. Unfortunately, readers in search of criticism often overlook these pieces because they are so unexpected. It’s ironic because on occasions when you hear designers discussing other designers’ work – at a design school crit or on a design awards jury – they can be really sharp critics. My conclusion is that designers would accept and appreciate much more critical writing about the subject than publishing chooses to give them.
A truly oppositional criticism is more problematic. One of the recent critical debates within design has focused on the way that design is now perceived, and even taught, primarily in terms of commerce. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, it does mean that most designers are completely locked into the prevailing commercial mentality. They believe that they have to be to survive and, little by little, the oppositional tendencies we used to find within design practice are disappearing. Design can be seen as a visual symptom of our economic and political situation and it’s very hard to establish a critical position outside of design’s day-to-day, pragmatic assumptions. When this kind of criticism is made – the First Things First 2000 manifesto is an example – many designers are infuriated and refuse to accept that it has any validity at all.
We might ask whether it is even possible now to be a full-time oppositional design critic. Meanwhile, mainstream media sees design in the most simplistic terms, concentrating mainly on design as an aspect of consumerism and lifestyle, and this presents even fewer opportunities for more questioning, critical and oppositional forms of design writing.
TAXI >> You founded Eye magazine and were its editor. The designer-as-author role is quite prevalent especially in Design magazine culture, a successful example being Tibor Kalman. Do you think there is a general devaluation of our expertise in today’s culture?
Rick Poynor >> The devaluation comes from the idea that graphic design’s primary or even sole purpose is to sell things, and that it’s about packaging, promotion and constructing an identity or image that will persuade people to part with their money. In this way of thinking, graphic design becomes indistinguishable from advertising – it all blurs together as part of the same basic activity. When design is reduced to a purely instrumental role, it’s hardly surprising that it has been taken over by marketing people whose primary goal is to sell as many CDs or bottles of shower gel as possible, not to facilitate the unconstrained creative design that designers still dream of being free to produce. The number of units shifted becomes the ultimate indicator of the design’s success and any aspect of the design that might reduce the volume of sales has to be eliminated. The process gets dubbed “branding”, designers start to call themselves branding consultants, and the branding virus spreads just about everywhere with profound consequences for design, even in the once reliably free and open cultural area. By participating in this process in great numbers at the expense of other approaches to design, designers have contributed to the public devaluation of their profession.
Some designers have certainly resisted these trends and Tibor Kalman was one of them. He was one of the most inspirational designers I have met and it is people like Kalman who kept me interested in design over the years. It’s still just about possible to break free from the uncritical commercial norm, but it’s getting harder all the time.
TAXI >> Design critic Bruce Nussbaum recently caused an uproar in the Design industry when he published his article, ‘Designers are the enemy of Design’. What would your reaction to this statement be, in the words of Tim Brown from IDEO, ‘Design Journalism Sucks’?
Rick Poynor >> I agree with Brown that the mainstream media coverage of design is much too preoccupied with seductive surfaces at the expense of deeper thinking, but there is plenty of level-headed, responsible design journalism in I.D., Print, Metropolis, Blueprint, Eye, Icon and Domus, to name just a few. We probably want the same thing – greater seriousness – but are coming from different directions. The visual expression of ideas, meanings, emotions and values is a fundamental part of being human and it is misguided to deny design’s visual and aesthetic side. We just have to write about it more intelligently for a wider public. At this point we need more criticism, not more journalism.
TAXI >> I read your article, ‘The Time for Being Against’ written some time back and you brought up one very valid point that got me considering, ‘Why are you writing? What, ultimately, is the point?’ What would your stand on this be now?
Rick Poynor >> Good question. Once I would simply have said: for the pleasure of writing. These days, having done a lot of writing, other factors are just as important. I enjoy being part of evolving debates and arguing for a particular point of view. Design is very revealing of our attitudes and talking about design is a way of talking about the contemporary world. I admire what designers have achieved in the past century and some of my writing takes a more historical view of design. But I’m also concerned about what design and our society are becoming, so I find ways to write about that.
TAXI >> What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Rick Poynor >> Wouldn’t it be nice to think that the word could be “criticism”?
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Michael Bierut
business seemed to understand that there was “good design” and “bad design” (with few reliable ways to distinguish between the two), “innovation,” at least as a popular business catchphrase, had only positive connotations.
TAXI >> The US has one of the world's most established and saturated design industries, and yet prejudice and stereotyping about what design can or cannot do still surrounds it. How else do you think design can get a better representation, from the business sector or from the design communities themselves?
Michael Bierut >> I agree with pioneering designer William Golden, designer of the CBS “eye” logo, who once said that the environment for design gets better every time a designer does a good design, and in no other way. Although designers can be our own worst enemies, we are also our own best advocates.
TAXI >> How effective do you think a change in the scope and definition of design would impact on the degree of respect and recognition the industry gets?
Michael Bierut >> If by “change in the scope and definition of design” I can assume you mean a broadening of it, I would argue that the broader the definition of design gets the weaker it gets. At the heart of what we do is a kind of magic: the ability to make connections and creative leaps, the ability to make something out of nothing. This is more than “strategy” or “problem solving.” We should be proud of the unique contribution we can make as designers, get invited to participate as designers, and then work to expand our influence.
TAXI >> As one of the industry's well-respected veterans, what do you think is the most important, and lacking, quality that graphic designers today should have?
Michael Bierut >> Most designers are not particularly good at explaining our work to others. By this I don’t mean “educating the client,” a phrase I hate. Instead I mean making our work truly relevant in terms that would be understood by the client or the user. This requires less educating of them and more educating of us. The best advice I can give to an ambitious designer is: stop talking and start listening.
TAXI >> In your article "The Obvious, Shunned by so many, is successfully avoided once again", you brought up the designer's reluctance and dilemma in using the most obvious and clearest solution for their work. Where do you think that pressure to be different to the point of absurdity come from the most: The designer, the boss or the client?
Michael Bierut >> The pressure from all three can be substantial. The trick is to ignore all of them and focus on that person who’s almost always forgotten: the end user.
TAXI >> The realms of business and design have been coming increasingly near of each other, yet there remains a constant struggle on both sides to understand each other's point of view. How do you think that perennial gap in thinking can be bridged?
Michael Bierut >> Probably answered in the previous questions.
TAXI >> Scan a word for us, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years.
Michael Bierut >> It sounds obvious, but despite a lot of embarrassment about it, I don’t think the word “design” is going away any time soon.
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Ellen Lupton
Ellen Lupton >> First of all, I’m not a rock star designer. I’m a design educator who has been lucky enough to reach broader audiences than most educators do through my publishing and curatorial work. Milton is the rock star. Secondly, I believe there’s a lot of truth to what Milton said. It’s very hard to reconcile raising a family with achieving unbridled success in any field. Fathers have a tough time, too, but the burden tends to be greater on women, based as much on our own choices as on external expectations.
The idea that you can drop out of your career for six or ten years and hop back in without having lost ground is not realistic, and Milton shouldn’t be demonized for saying so. Milton also got people mad by saying that mothers are better parents to their kids than nannies or daycare centers. This rather obvious statement makes people very angry. I guess we don’t want to hear it from a man, or we just don’t want to hear it at all.
TAXI >>Taking on such esteemed and important roles as a writer, curator, graphic designer and the director of the graphic design course Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), do you give a certain role more precedence over another?
Ellen Lupton >> My books are the most important part of my collective output, because they have a lasting physical presence, they circulate and have an influence over time, and they get picked up and used and interpreted by people in various parts of the world. Exhibitions and classroom teaching are more ephemeral. That said, all my projects feed each other and reflect a common set of obsessions.
TAXI >>From an educator at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s point of view, what do you think is essential now to the future generation of graphic designers as compared to the past?
Ellen Lupton >> Designers will need to constantly retrain themselves over the course of their careers. (I’ve survived three different technological paradigms myself, and it’s a big, big undertaking to stay current.) Designers need to be great collaborators, something we all learn on the job but could be better prepared for in school. Climate change is a huge issue that our field is just coming to terms with; we need to become part of the solution, not just part of the problem.
TAXI >>One of your books in the works, D.I.Y. Kids is something very different from the books you are used to writing, namely that your target readers are much younger, how do you adapt and change your writing style for easier reading?
Ellen Lupton >> D.I.Y. Kids, co-authored with my sister Julia (with help from our six kids and all their friends) is unique not only because it is written for kids but is also illustrated mostly with kids’ artwork. So much for the design profession and its sacred trade secrets! Julia and I didn’t “dumb down” our book for kids. We just keep the language simple and direct. Kids are the future, and we respect them wholly. See http://www.diykids.org for more info.
TAXI >>A designer once warned Paula Scher that “the danger of doing a book of my own work, beyond the obvious egotism involved, is that after its publication I’d be “over.” Has there been a period of time when you felt that you are “over”, or almost?
Ellen Lupton >> I felt “over” when my first child was born 12 years ago. It was a shock to have this tiny human being depend on me for so much. It was a shock not to be able to work whenever I wanted to. But as it turned out, I have been able to have a rewarding career as a working mom. Maybe I could have been a rock star, but I really don’t think so. I love my family, and I love my work. I need them both.
TAXI >>As a veteran in the field of graphic design, how do you think the scene has evolved from when you started?
Ellen Lupton >> The general public is more aware of design and more involved with it on a daily basis. People have better products to buy, and better books and magazines to read. Craft stores like Michaels are full of intriguing design supplies. Above all, the Internet has given people access to a whole new venue for authoring and image-making, especially since the rise of blogging.
The fact that people are exposed to fonts, templates, and “desk-top publishing” has made the public, as a whole, more knowledgeable about design, and I believe that’s a good thing. Within the profession, there are more areas of specialization, like web design, motion graphics, and environmental graphics, than when I entered the field. Design has thus become both more generalized and more complex. Unrelated to technology, I’m seeing a new permeability between graphic design and illustration, which was a verboten marriage when I was in art school. All these changes make it a terrific time to be a designer.
TAXI >>Which WORD do you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Ellen Lupton >> Green
..........................................................................................................
Read OTHER INTERVIEWS on DESIGN LEADERS
Sara Little Turnbull & Darrel Rhea
Neil Leifer, Eikoh Hosoe & Duane Michals
Saki Mafundikwa & Ravi Naidoo
..........................................................................................................
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Interview with Rick Poynor
 | TAXI >> Could you tell us who and what were your earliest influences? What led you to the appreciation of Design and how were you led to start Design Writing and Criticism?
Rick Poynor >> My earliest influences, when I was still at school, were writers and artists. They opened my eyes and changed my life. I admired writers such as Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Camus and J.G. Ballard – I was a typical high school existentialist – and art movements such as Dada and Surrealism. All this was deeply exciting and I wanted to be part of that world in some way. To find out more about these poems, novels and paintings I started reading criticism. I couldn’t decide whether I was a words person or a visual person – I’m both – and whether I should study English or fine art. I resolved this by studying art history and after a spell writing short stories – none of them published! – the path eventually led to design. |
Around 1980 I worked at a book production company and became interested in typography because of my love of books. Record covers had always fascinated me and so did the new 1980s style magazines such as The Face, designed by Neville Brody, who is the same generation as me. I got hold of Philip Meggs’ A History of Graphic Design when it came out in 1983 – this was probably quite unusual then for someone who wasn’t a designer.
I became a journalist and by the late 1980s, at Blueprint magazine, I was in a position to write about anything that interested me: architecture, interior design, furniture design and graphic design, as well as art. In 1990, Blueprint’s publisher gave the go-ahead to Eye, with me as editor, and allowed me complete freedom to put whatever I wanted in the magazine, which was pretty extraordinary in retrospect. From that point, as editor and writer, I concentrated increasingly on visual communication and began to develop my ideas about what forms the criticism of the subject should take.
TAXI >> Being one of the most well-known and respected Design Critics in the industry today. In your opinion, how would you define a Design Critic? What do you mean by Criticism?
Rick Poynor >> A critic is someone who takes nothing for granted, thinks carefully about a subject and forms his or her own conclusions. Anyone can have an opinion, of course. But for criticism to have value, for it to be useful to other people and make a contribution to the area of activity it covers, it needs to come from close study and deep knowledge. Critical writing should reveal an individual sensibility and a strong and consistent personal point of view, though you would also expect to see an evolution in the critic’s ideas over time. Even if you disagree with what the critic says, you should feel that the criticism is considered and coherent and, in that sense, reliable.
Critics must be specialists in whatever area is being discussed, while also possessing a wide knowledge of neighbouring fields so they can place their subject in a broader context to understand it better. A design critic who didn’t know much about art or photography, for instance, would be severely limited. A critic must be prepared to take a stand when necessary and go against prevailing opinion. If all the “critic” does is to reinforce the general view within a discipline and prop up the status quo, then that isn’t really criticism. Genuine criticism will provoke strong reactions and people on the receiving end of adverse criticism will probably hate it. That shouldn’t stop the critic.
TAXI >> We need more Design Critics and exposure to intellectually penetrating criticism. Why do you think that there is little motivation to produce oppositional Design Criticism? We would expect design professionals and practitioners to be the fiercest critics, but progress is slow.
Rick Poynor >> Yes, progress is slow and we can’t have a mature design criticism without a lot more design critics. There are plenty of design journalists, but very few can accurately be called critics. You are absolutely right that there is hardly any oppositional design criticism. The most obvious reason is that most design publications are trade journals. They exist to serve the design community and they depend on sales and advertising to survive. Their publishers and editors are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them, so over time very few of these publications have tried to develop a culture of criticism, though occasionally an article with a bit more bite makes it into their pages. Unfortunately, readers in search of criticism often overlook these pieces because they are so unexpected. It’s ironic because on occasions when you hear designers discussing other designers’ work – at a design school crit or on a design awards jury – they can be really sharp critics. My conclusion is that designers would accept and appreciate much more critical writing about the subject than publishing chooses to give them.
A truly oppositional criticism is more problematic. One of the recent critical debates within design has focused on the way that design is now perceived, and even taught, primarily in terms of commerce. Whether you think this is a good thing or not, it does mean that most designers are completely locked into the prevailing commercial mentality. They believe that they have to be to survive and, little by little, the oppositional tendencies we used to find within design practice are disappearing. Design can be seen as a visual symptom of our economic and political situation and it’s very hard to establish a critical position outside of design’s day-to-day, pragmatic assumptions. When this kind of criticism is made – the First Things First 2000 manifesto is an example – many designers are infuriated and refuse to accept that it has any validity at all.
We might ask whether it is even possible now to be a full-time oppositional design critic. Meanwhile, mainstream media sees design in the most simplistic terms, concentrating mainly on design as an aspect of consumerism and lifestyle, and this presents even fewer opportunities for more questioning, critical and oppositional forms of design writing.
TAXI >> You founded Eye magazine and were its editor. The designer-as-author role is quite prevalent especially in Design magazine culture, a successful example being Tibor Kalman. Do you think there is a general devaluation of our expertise in today’s culture?
Rick Poynor >> The devaluation comes from the idea that graphic design’s primary or even sole purpose is to sell things, and that it’s about packaging, promotion and constructing an identity or image that will persuade people to part with their money. In this way of thinking, graphic design becomes indistinguishable from advertising – it all blurs together as part of the same basic activity. When design is reduced to a purely instrumental role, it’s hardly surprising that it has been taken over by marketing people whose primary goal is to sell as many CDs or bottles of shower gel as possible, not to facilitate the unconstrained creative design that designers still dream of being free to produce. The number of units shifted becomes the ultimate indicator of the design’s success and any aspect of the design that might reduce the volume of sales has to be eliminated. The process gets dubbed “branding”, designers start to call themselves branding consultants, and the branding virus spreads just about everywhere with profound consequences for design, even in the once reliably free and open cultural area. By participating in this process in great numbers at the expense of other approaches to design, designers have contributed to the public devaluation of their profession.
Some designers have certainly resisted these trends and Tibor Kalman was one of them. He was one of the most inspirational designers I have met and it is people like Kalman who kept me interested in design over the years. It’s still just about possible to break free from the uncritical commercial norm, but it’s getting harder all the time.
TAXI >> Design critic Bruce Nussbaum recently caused an uproar in the Design industry when he published his article, ‘Designers are the enemy of Design’. What would your reaction to this statement be, in the words of Tim Brown from IDEO, ‘Design Journalism Sucks’?
Rick Poynor >> I agree with Brown that the mainstream media coverage of design is much too preoccupied with seductive surfaces at the expense of deeper thinking, but there is plenty of level-headed, responsible design journalism in I.D., Print, Metropolis, Blueprint, Eye, Icon and Domus, to name just a few. We probably want the same thing – greater seriousness – but are coming from different directions. The visual expression of ideas, meanings, emotions and values is a fundamental part of being human and it is misguided to deny design’s visual and aesthetic side. We just have to write about it more intelligently for a wider public. At this point we need more criticism, not more journalism.
TAXI >> I read your article, ‘The Time for Being Against’ written some time back and you brought up one very valid point that got me considering, ‘Why are you writing? What, ultimately, is the point?’ What would your stand on this be now?
Rick Poynor >> Good question. Once I would simply have said: for the pleasure of writing. These days, having done a lot of writing, other factors are just as important. I enjoy being part of evolving debates and arguing for a particular point of view. Design is very revealing of our attitudes and talking about design is a way of talking about the contemporary world. I admire what designers have achieved in the past century and some of my writing takes a more historical view of design. But I’m also concerned about what design and our society are becoming, so I find ways to write about that.
TAXI >> What is the WORD, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Rick Poynor >> Wouldn’t it be nice to think that the word could be “criticism”?
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Michael Bierut
 | TAXI >>Judging from your article "Innovation is the New Black" on Design Observer, your pet peeve seems to be the association of the word "innovation" with the design industry. What is it about this association that irks you most?
Michael Bierut >> I wouldn’t say that the word “innovation” is a pet peeve. I just find its use trendy and euphemistic within the design profession. TAXI >> In your article you also mentioned the negative connotations linked to design, while innovation "is always good", despite the numerous scandals surrounding the scientific research sector. In your opinion, who or what is responsible for the design industry's bad reputation? Michael Bierut >> Again, I don’t think design has a bad reputation. Instead, in that article I said that while people in |
business seemed to understand that there was “good design” and “bad design” (with few reliable ways to distinguish between the two), “innovation,” at least as a popular business catchphrase, had only positive connotations.
TAXI >> The US has one of the world's most established and saturated design industries, and yet prejudice and stereotyping about what design can or cannot do still surrounds it. How else do you think design can get a better representation, from the business sector or from the design communities themselves?
Michael Bierut >> I agree with pioneering designer William Golden, designer of the CBS “eye” logo, who once said that the environment for design gets better every time a designer does a good design, and in no other way. Although designers can be our own worst enemies, we are also our own best advocates.
TAXI >> How effective do you think a change in the scope and definition of design would impact on the degree of respect and recognition the industry gets?
Michael Bierut >> If by “change in the scope and definition of design” I can assume you mean a broadening of it, I would argue that the broader the definition of design gets the weaker it gets. At the heart of what we do is a kind of magic: the ability to make connections and creative leaps, the ability to make something out of nothing. This is more than “strategy” or “problem solving.” We should be proud of the unique contribution we can make as designers, get invited to participate as designers, and then work to expand our influence.
TAXI >> As one of the industry's well-respected veterans, what do you think is the most important, and lacking, quality that graphic designers today should have?
Michael Bierut >> Most designers are not particularly good at explaining our work to others. By this I don’t mean “educating the client,” a phrase I hate. Instead I mean making our work truly relevant in terms that would be understood by the client or the user. This requires less educating of them and more educating of us. The best advice I can give to an ambitious designer is: stop talking and start listening.
TAXI >> In your article "The Obvious, Shunned by so many, is successfully avoided once again", you brought up the designer's reluctance and dilemma in using the most obvious and clearest solution for their work. Where do you think that pressure to be different to the point of absurdity come from the most: The designer, the boss or the client?
Michael Bierut >> The pressure from all three can be substantial. The trick is to ignore all of them and focus on that person who’s almost always forgotten: the end user.
TAXI >> The realms of business and design have been coming increasingly near of each other, yet there remains a constant struggle on both sides to understand each other's point of view. How do you think that perennial gap in thinking can be bridged?
Michael Bierut >> Probably answered in the previous questions.
TAXI >> Scan a word for us, which you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years.
Michael Bierut >> It sounds obvious, but despite a lot of embarrassment about it, I don’t think the word “design” is going away any time soon.
..........................................................................................................
Exclusive Highlight on TAXI Design Network
Interview with Ellen Lupton
 | TAXI >>In your article, Myth of a Working Mum, you mentioned that your children view your work as ‘cool’ as they too get to learn more about design, would you strongly encourage them to follow the same career path as yours when they are older?
Ellen Lupton >> I want design to be part of their lives, but that doesn’t mean I want them to become professional designers. Whatever they end up doing professionally, I want them to think creatively, value their physical environment, take pride and pleasure in how they communicate, and use “art” in all its manifestations to make a better world. TAXI >>Milton Glaser said during a panel discussion that there are very few women who are rock star designers because “women get pregnant, have children, go home and take care of their children”, but you proved him wrong by balancing a successful design career and family. What is your take on this? |
Ellen Lupton >> First of all, I’m not a rock star designer. I’m a design educator who has been lucky enough to reach broader audiences than most educators do through my publishing and curatorial work. Milton is the rock star. Secondly, I believe there’s a lot of truth to what Milton said. It’s very hard to reconcile raising a family with achieving unbridled success in any field. Fathers have a tough time, too, but the burden tends to be greater on women, based as much on our own choices as on external expectations.
The idea that you can drop out of your career for six or ten years and hop back in without having lost ground is not realistic, and Milton shouldn’t be demonized for saying so. Milton also got people mad by saying that mothers are better parents to their kids than nannies or daycare centers. This rather obvious statement makes people very angry. I guess we don’t want to hear it from a man, or we just don’t want to hear it at all.
TAXI >>Taking on such esteemed and important roles as a writer, curator, graphic designer and the director of the graphic design course Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), do you give a certain role more precedence over another?
Ellen Lupton >> My books are the most important part of my collective output, because they have a lasting physical presence, they circulate and have an influence over time, and they get picked up and used and interpreted by people in various parts of the world. Exhibitions and classroom teaching are more ephemeral. That said, all my projects feed each other and reflect a common set of obsessions.
TAXI >>From an educator at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s point of view, what do you think is essential now to the future generation of graphic designers as compared to the past?
Ellen Lupton >> Designers will need to constantly retrain themselves over the course of their careers. (I’ve survived three different technological paradigms myself, and it’s a big, big undertaking to stay current.) Designers need to be great collaborators, something we all learn on the job but could be better prepared for in school. Climate change is a huge issue that our field is just coming to terms with; we need to become part of the solution, not just part of the problem.
TAXI >>One of your books in the works, D.I.Y. Kids is something very different from the books you are used to writing, namely that your target readers are much younger, how do you adapt and change your writing style for easier reading?
Ellen Lupton >> D.I.Y. Kids, co-authored with my sister Julia (with help from our six kids and all their friends) is unique not only because it is written for kids but is also illustrated mostly with kids’ artwork. So much for the design profession and its sacred trade secrets! Julia and I didn’t “dumb down” our book for kids. We just keep the language simple and direct. Kids are the future, and we respect them wholly. See http://www.diykids.org for more info.
TAXI >>A designer once warned Paula Scher that “the danger of doing a book of my own work, beyond the obvious egotism involved, is that after its publication I’d be “over.” Has there been a period of time when you felt that you are “over”, or almost?
Ellen Lupton >> I felt “over” when my first child was born 12 years ago. It was a shock to have this tiny human being depend on me for so much. It was a shock not to be able to work whenever I wanted to. But as it turned out, I have been able to have a rewarding career as a working mom. Maybe I could have been a rock star, but I really don’t think so. I love my family, and I love my work. I need them both.
TAXI >>As a veteran in the field of graphic design, how do you think the scene has evolved from when you started?
Ellen Lupton >> The general public is more aware of design and more involved with it on a daily basis. People have better products to buy, and better books and magazines to read. Craft stores like Michaels are full of intriguing design supplies. Above all, the Internet has given people access to a whole new venue for authoring and image-making, especially since the rise of blogging.
The fact that people are exposed to fonts, templates, and “desk-top publishing” has made the public, as a whole, more knowledgeable about design, and I believe that’s a good thing. Within the profession, there are more areas of specialization, like web design, motion graphics, and environmental graphics, than when I entered the field. Design has thus become both more generalized and more complex. Unrelated to technology, I’m seeing a new permeability between graphic design and illustration, which was a verboten marriage when I was in art school. All these changes make it a terrific time to be a designer.
TAXI >>Which WORD do you think would reside and reverberate in the design world for the next 10 years?
Ellen Lupton >> Green
..........................................................................................................
Read OTHER INTERVIEWS on DESIGN LEADERS
..........................................................................................................
© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.