Michelle Wolfarth's Blog

The influence of the fine arts in the graphic design industry has been on my mind a lot this week.  I just recently interviewed for an internship with the Working Class Studio and one of the questions I was asked was how often to I design with my hands; not digitally, and I realized it’s almost never.  My first thought was, well, I am designing with my hands, but it’s just on a computer and not a piece of paper.  However, after the interview I went home and really started to look through my portfolio that spans a good 15 years and I realized that 15 years ago I actually would draw things on a piece of paper, not with a stylus.  I used presentation boards to present ideas, not a computer and there was no such thing as easy access to stock photography.  Then things really started to click for me.  I have patterns and packaging in my portfolio, but again they were all drawn on a computer, not on a medium that I would then use to create the packaging.  Why did this change?  Why has my design changed was what I really wanted to understand.

Has it been the longer I was working as a design “professional” the more my creative process was centered around a deadline or what a client wants?  Is it that I work mostly with electronic mediums so I instinctively go to the computer?  I don’t know if I have the answer yet, but I did realize this week that I have set a new personal goal for myself while in graduate school, to try and design as much as possible, project permitting, NOT at the computer.  This was a really foreign idea to me.  I kept thinking, how will I do this?  But then I started thinking about the graphic designers I admire;  Paul Rand and Milton Glaser and they both boomed in our industry in a “non-digital” environment.  Can I do this?  Am I a strong enough designer not to rely on a computer to fix a crooked line?  Can I explore an idea far enough without the fear of having to crumble up a piece of paper if it doesn’t work out? And I really wonder if non-digital graphic design still has a place in our profession.

I quickly got to set my goal in motion this week for a project for GRDS 702 that I have decided to do mostly designing off the computer.  My neighbor is a fine arts student at SCAD and I sat down with her over the weekend to do some brainstorming and I found her creative process so interesting.  We were sketching with different mediums and I realized each time she did it, she always grabbed a small piece of paper from a notebook.  I asked her what it was and she said it was her experimenting notebook.  She pulled it out and leafed through all these pieces of paper that had different patterns, motifs, drawings sketches almost anything she felt like experimenting with.  Whether it was a new paint, marker, ink, whatever, she would just doodle with it to learn how it flowed, how it would blend with other colors or mediums.  It was something I typically do on a white artboard in Photoshop or Illustrator and then hit the delete button when I’m finished and I thought about how many possibilities I probably erased at the click of a button.

It’s been a fun goal so far and I’m really looking forward to the challenge down the road!

The topic I’ve been researching for my limited research review is DIY design and I’ve been reading the pros and cons by various designers over the past few weeks.  While I’ve been reading I find myself trying to decide which side I agree with more.  When I initially started my research my bias was leaning towards against DIY design and I had to consciously remind myself to stay open minded.  Then over the weekend I was clicking around on Adobe’s website looking at the new software they’ve released and came across Adobe Muse.  It’s a tool for designers to create websites using the tools they are used to (Photoshop and InDesign) and create websites without having to write any code; Adobe Muse takes care of all of the coding for you.  I thought “Wow! This seems great, I can’t wait to use it.”

As I was watching the videos about the software’s features, they kept using terms like “Muse does it for you” or “There’s no need to worry about coding.”  I started to think of all of the great projects I was going to use this for and how much easier it was going to make my job now that I don’t have to worry about all that code.  Then I stopped in my tracks and realized is this a form of DIY?  The Adobe videos were using very similar phrases as the DIY articles I’ve been reading.  I could hear the developers in our company that always get frustrated when I use the code-help features in Dreamweaver and they sit down with me and show me how it should really be written.  What would they think of Adobe Muse?

We have the DIY debate heavily in the graphic design profession, but rarely look at ourselves as DIY users in another field.  I’m a design professional, and that’s what I’ve always thought of myself – a professional.  Does a developer get just as frustrated with a designer that is claiming experience in a development field with the help of a DIY tool?  And is something like Adobe Muse considered DIY?  I look forward to asking our development team this week!

We’ve discussed a lot the theory of “thinking wrong” in both GRDS 701 and 702.  I have to admit that for the first few weeks, I was unsure of what exactly “thinking wrong” was.  Was it about design?  Was it about design process?  Or something completely different?  After several discussions and readings, my perspective of “thinking wrong” has become the idea of just thinking.  Oftentimes we discuss, ponder, and think about what a design may look like, typefaces we could use, images that would work before we even sit down to design something.  We think, think, and think more about the possibilities opposed to just exploring an opportunity with no preconceived ideas.

For example, working on Exploration A.  I felt myself feeling frustrated not knowing what the next step in the process was.  I kept wanting to know why we were doing the exercises, what are the goals and what are we trying to achieve.  I kept asking myself these questions instead of just focusing on the task in front of me without any concern for the next step.  This is what I mean by “thinking wrong.”

As I’ve read more through our units and talked with my classmates, I’ve learned that asking myself these questions encouraged my heuristic biases to surface and hindered my “thinking right” process.  What I’ve enjoyed the process of Exploration A is learning if when I am faced with no obstructions am I able to approach design opportunities with a fresh perspective.

Over the weekend I watched the movie Objectified.  It’s examines the way we design and interact with every day objects.  While the entire film had interesting observations and commentary from various designers one of the statements that resonated the most with me was that sometimes the most difficult aspect of design was to actually not design.  At first I thought “huh?” but the more I thought about the readings for this class, as well as in GRDS 702, things started to connect.  Do we as designers get so caught up in designing that it almost blinds us from finding a simple solution?  And does each design have to be complex to be inventive?  I started to think about “thinking wrong” and “thinking right” and it made me consider that perhaps “thinking wrong” is actually thinking and “thinking right” is to just let go of our biases, notions and expectations and start the creative journey.

Another segment that really caught my attention was a discussion about the perception that creating an inventive “new” design is often associated with using the latest technology.  Immediately thoughts started to pop into my head about wanting the newest version of Adobe CS, or the newest MAC and if I’m using those technologies does I feel my designs are more current?  I have to admit that I’ve fallen into that trap several times.  A client wants something “new” and I think I need to jump on my computer and if I handed them something I created by hand would they interpret it as less professional? Why does something have to be designed using an electronic medium to be considered professional or new?

I could continue to write on and on about the interesting interviews throughout the movie.  I hope others get a chance to check it out because it really was a great film and very related to both GRDS 701 and GRDS 702.

With all of the readings and discussions we’ve done this week comparing and examining the relationships between qualitative and quantitative  research, I thought it was such a coincidence the main story on the AIGA website was about a controversy over a University of California redesign controversy.

In short, the University undertook an effort to design a logo that was to be used along with the school’s traditional crest, but never replace it.  However, what was greatly underestimated was the reaction by not only students, faculty and staff, but also by the media and the local communities.  While the design team did poll a population of students on their opinion, the sampling was far too small to truly capture what public opinion may have interpreted.

It states “Rahman sees things differently. Although he regrets the tenor of the conversation, he defends his decision to launch the petition. “Sometimes undermining leadership is necessary when unacceptable decisions are made,” he explains. “Garnering 3,000 opinions, as they did with the now disposed monogram, is a paltry representation of the entire UC community of more than 234,000 students, 207,000 faculty, 50,000 retirees and 1.6 million living alumni.” The outcome, he says, was a victory for democracy.”

This article is such a perfect example of how research into your audience and how they may respond to particular factors can greatly influence the success of a design.  We reference the “design mind” or “design thinking” often in this course, and it makes me wonder if this article makes the case that “design thinking” really means removing yourself from the questions of form and understanding how a design will function.  Not just within the walls of a design studio with other designers, but in public spaces and among the people who will interact with them.

The article is http://www.aiga.org/the-uc-logo-controversy/

While reading the articles for this unit and discussing the paradigm shift occurring within the graphic design industry, my mind kept wandering back to the Japanese designer Kenya Hara.  While reading Dubberly’s “Design in the Age of Biology”  I could not help but draw a relation between his article and the thoughtful and socially responsible practices of Hara that emphasizes design and experience.  With all of our discussions this unit about the paradigm shift, I begin to wonder if this truly is the future direction of graphic design.  It is no longer enough to be innovative through technology, but designers must create experiences and visions.  However, when I examine the history of our industry, is this not what designers have done for over a hundred years?

While the end product defined as technology  has changed over the decades, the battle between design and technology has been constant.  Whether it was Beatrice Warde’s “The Crystal Goblet” that argued the need for the new technology of typography to be invisible to the viewer, or today’s designer that advocates design that moves beyond technology and impacts our society and environment, hasn’t a paradigm shift always occurred when new technology is created?  What has remained constant is the graphic designers ability to adapt to the change and communicate regardless of the platform.  Dubberly quotes Paul Rand saying “The computer is just another tool, like the pencil.”  But couldn’t the word “computer” be changed to “printing press” and the paradigm shift we discuss that’s occurring in the 21st century apply to the early 20th century?

I guess my thought is that the paradigm shift is constantly occurring in our industry, but the role of the designer has remained the same.  The designer’s role has consistently been to create an experience, evoke emotions and provide a visual voice among our society. Whether it was Futurists publishing manifestos to encourage young people to embrace new ideas, or Dada’s attempting to break away from traditional aesthetics, to the Bauhaus searching for order after the war,  to modernists again rejecting order, and today’s contemporary designer questioning the social impact of technology the shift is constantly occurring and the designer remains the communicative voice.  So it really makes me wonder what exactly is the paradigm shift?  Is it a study of our society more than graphic design?  Is the shift how the graphic designer tries to understand the best way to communicate?  There will always be societal action and reaction with the birth of new technology that influences the tools designers use and how they implement them, but has it really changed the graphic designer?