My Design Statements (In Progress)
People always give any type of creative “manifesto” or “mission statement” a hard time. Academics hate it because its too straight forward and often dilutes the work of artists and designers by showcasing some sort of contradiction or self-loathing ego within the artist. Designers hate it because it sounds like a soap box speech telling them how to live their life. Yet, history has shown us Dadaists, Futurists, and so on who have had a common artistic ideological idea applied to their movement and were successful. Also, corporations are encouraged to have a “mission statement” to establish brand direction… aren’t we all just hypocrites?
I view a manifesto as a set of rules that are ever changing. A manifesto is never complete to me. What I feel like today doesn’t always hold true for tomorrow. Above are some of the “ideological idea” I wrote on the plane ride home yesterday that I hope explain in some way my thought process towards design.
Some I have gathered from other designers and manipulated for my own use.
Example: Designers like Karim Rashid despise nostalgia and liken our current world as a fake set or stage to live in. He is quoted in the movie Gary Hustwit’s film “Objectified” as saying this:
We have advanced technologically so far… and yet somehow we have some paranoia where we are afraid to really say “we live in the third technological revolution”. I have an iPod in my pocket, I have a mobile phone, I have a laptop, but then somehow I end up going home and sitting on wood spindle…chairs. In a way you could argue we are building all these really kitsch stage sets that really have absolutely nothing to do with the age in which we live in.
I agree with him…yet prior to this statement he remembers the connections to objects and “looking back” at his white bubble stereo and what it meant to him. We cannot escape nostalgia… you feel it when a certain song comes on the radio or when you smell a certain food… therefore we should use it when appropriate. (Rashid is most likely commissioned to create in a multitude of disciplines for clients that are looking for a certain aesthetic quality to the work so he has the ability to escape nostalgia and typical project constraints. I am not saying what he does ultimately isn’t approved by someone… but when he is commissioned it is for HIS ability and HIS style.)
So I believe “Nostalgia. Never. Unless Appropriate.” meaning , my own work is to push the current age… unless its project appropriate to lean on the past. I personally am not a fan of trying to create work that looks old or aged… I would rather take the past and reinvent it… make it new again.
The biggest part of design for me is to make people feel. I would hope that my designs, specifically the work I do as an environmental graphic designer, make people feel at ease or excited within the built environment.
I am sure I could go on for hours… but I won’t.
