Looking Closer 5

Looking Closer 5 provided some more critical essays on the rationale and methodology of experimental design.

Style is not a four letter word - Jeffery Keedy

Keedy dicusses the validity of style in design by analysing the viewpoints of Adolf Loos, Austrian and Czech architect and influential European theorist of modern architecture, and Virginia Postrel, economics columnist for NY Times and past editor for Reason magazine. 

Adolf Loos suggests that style does not belong in design. It is left to the 'degenerates' of society as explained through the common tattoos seen on convicts in prisons. 

Loos argues that ornamentation raises the price of design. 
"Decorated plates are expensive, while white crockery, which is pleasing to the modern individual, is cheap." (Loos, 2002) Although this statement is regarding design in general, in terms of graphic design, it can be inferred that ugly design would mean more expensive solution for the client.

According to (Keedy, 2006), "Loos was successful at discrediting style and elevating function and economics as the primary goals as opposed to older views like 'truth, beauty, and power' (Dresser, cited in Keedy, 2006)

To aid his rejection of style, Loos choose materials like wood and marble for its decorative qualities because they're more "authentic". (Keedy, 2006) And as a result, this ornamentation can be seen in modernist design. Where the design is reduced to its core function and communication, free from embellishment.

"At the end of the twentieth century, designers find themselves in a world in which ornament, decoration, and style are reduced to meaningless superficial effects; form is only to be derived from function" (Jongerius, cited in Keedy, 2006)

"anti-decorative dictate is a modernist mantra if ever there was one, and it is for the puritanical propriety inscribed in such words that postmodernists have condemned modernists like Loos in turn." (Foster, cited in Keedy, 2006)

Postrel on the other hand, as Keedy describes, argues against the modernist ideals of antiornamentation by explaining that they are defined "based on rules that have little to do with desires or purposes of those who create, use, or inhabit the subjects of the critique." (Postrel, cited in Keedy, 2006)

In the quote "Its the gatekeepers who are upset–people who want to dictate the one true style, whether they're arbiters of fashions in clothing or in architecture." Keedy touches on a concept by Postrel called gatekeepers. The gatekeepers of design are equated to the authoritative voice on style and what deems as good design, which can be equated to the modernist views on ugly design. However modernists follow the ideologies of the technocratic era where "correct taste was a matter of rational expertise 'this is good design' not a personal pleasure 'i like this'." The principles of modernism demand an objective viewpoint on taste and style whilst ugly design is subjected to emotional responses due to its subjective facade. Taste and style through ugly design is therefore not a universal opinion as its subjectivity differs from person to person.

In Rick Poynor's No More Rules, he explains that its "central argument is that one of the most significant developments in graphic design, during the last two decades, has been the designers' overt challenges to the conventions or rules that were once widely regarded as constituting good practice." (Poynor, 2003) This quote reflects the influx of ugly design by young designers today and summarises why they are challenging 'good design'.

Understanding the emergence of ugly design can be explained through Keedy's interpretation of Poynor's views on the existence of postmodernism. "The ideas that designers started exploring in the eighties and nineties, like deconstruction, appropriation, technology, authorship, and opposition (. . .) seem more like an attempt to establish new rules, practices, and disciplinary in place of the 'received wisdom' of modernism." (Keedy, 2006) It can be said that the new young designers are interpreting design by themselves, through more creative and expressive interpretation of design solutions that have been encouraged by faculties who limit a standardised perspective on design. These new designers are creating a new visual language that the 'gatekeepers' are deeming ugly.
But not only that, as Keedy describes, ugly design can be "en exploration, expansion, and redefinition of the boundaries of design as a dynamic self-organising system of possibilities, instead of a top-down hierarchy of rules." (Keedy, 2006) in much the same way postmodernism was for designers of that time.

"Until designers get past their 'monkey see, monkey do' approach to designing, they will just be going around in the same old circles, doing the same old 'new' work. That is why designers need to think about some different (if not new) ideas about style that come 'outside' the usual discourse." (Keedy 2006) This explanation by Keedy can be supportive and a reason to celebrate the unconventional qualities of ugly design. Ugly design is a representation of what is possible in visual communication and a test of the fundamental principles of good design.

The reason why ugly design is considered 'ugly' could be because of the "single-minded pursuit of structural meaning and authenticity, decorated only with irony in the aesthetics of the twentieth century, has left style and beauty in the hands of amateurs." (Keedy, 2006) Amateur or young designers are the ones creating ugly design. As such they are creating their own interpretation of how design should be designed. As a result, the 'gatekeepers', who aren't amateur designers, don't share the same views on taste and therefore will view it as ugly.

Key quotes

"The lack of ornament is a sign of intellectual power" (Loos, cited in Keedy, 2006)

"The primary function of ornament––and it is a function, make no mistake––is to remedy this dissatisfaction by introducing free choice and variation into even those parts of a work that appear most strictly shaped by structural or functional needs." (Trilling, cited in Keedy, 2006)

"Communication need not be symbolic, any more than function need be mechanical. Before one even selects a pattern or motif, the decision to use ornament conveys a wealth of meaning, no less or real or powerful for being inchoate." (Trilling, cited in Keedy, 2006)

"They seem to be operating on the assumption that it doesn't matter any more; they are no longer in the business of dictating taste, because there are no rules any more." (Keedy, 2006)

"Modernism made the issue of style much easier for designers to deal with, since it gave them a style that they could pretend was not a style." (Keedy, 2006)

Crimes against typography: The curse of Avant Garde - Steven Heller

"Avant Garde was adopted as symbolic of the raucous sixties and me-generation seventies. While the face had roots in modernism, it was also eclectic enough so as not to be too clean or cold." (Heller, 2006) This statement by Heller in a way begs the question if there could be a typeface that can be representative of the ugly design movement. 

"Eventually, after excessive overuse and rampant abuse, its quirkiness became simply tiresome––something like the paisley of type fonts––no longer fashionable, but not entirely obsolete either." (Heller, 2006) The overuse of Avant Garde that led to its downfall, could be equated to the ubiquity of Modernism that led to its downfall. Postmodern designers and designers today want to stray away from the overdone clean and corporate look associated with modernism. 

Experimental Typography. Whatever That Means - Peter Bilak

Peter Bilak is a graphic and typeface designer who worked for Studio Dumbar. Currently working as his own design studio in The Hague, Netherlands, where he works in the field of editorial, graphic and type design. 

Bilak explains what experimental design is through his definition, "In the field of graphic design and typography, experiment as a noun has been used to signify anything new, unconventional, defying easy categorisation, or confounding expectations." This contrasts against the scientific definition of the word. 

"Carson and several other designers suggest that the nature of experiment lies in the formal novelty of the result." (Bilak, 2006)

"Carson's statement also suggests that the essence of experimentation is in going against the prevailing patterns, rather than being guided by conventions." (Bilak, 2006)

"A design experiment that is rooted in anticoventionalism can only exist against the background of other––conventional solutions." (Bilak, 2006)

However despite ugly design breaking new boundaries in graphic design, "The fate of such experimentation is a permanent confrontation with the mainstream; a circular, cyclical race, where it is not certain who is chasing whom." (Bilak, 2006) Therefore it questions the possible successfulness of the trend. In order for ugly design to remain within the sphere of design, it must not transform into ubiquity. Following the definition explained by Bilak, ugly design must not transform into ubiquity. When it becomes ubiquitous, it inevitably will be rebelled against, much like modernism and post modernism, and therefore limiting its 'success' as graphic design's new visual language. However the problem with this argument is that its success would be determined by its ubiquity. The more commonly seen the style is, the more is ugly design accepted as a form of 'good design'. 

"An experiment in this sense has no preconceived idea of the outcome; it only sets out to determine a cause-and-effect relationship. As such, experimentation is a method of working which is contrary to product-orientated design, in which the aim of the process is not to create something new, but to achieve an already known, preformulated result." (Bilak, 2006)

"Following this line, we can go further to suggest that no completed project can be seriously considered experimental. It is experimental only in the process of its creation." (Bilak, 2006)

Biblio

Bilak, P. (2006). Experimental Typography. Whatever That Means. In: M. Beirut, W. Drenttel and S. Heller, ed., Looking Closer 5, 1st ed. New York: Allworth Press, pp.172-176.

Heller, S. (2006). Crimes Against Typography: The Case Of Avant Garde. In: M. Beirut, W. Drenttel and S. Heller, ed., Looking Closer 5: Classic Writings on Graphic Design, 1st ed. New York: Allworth Press, pp.108-111.

Keedy, J. (2006). Style Is Not a Four Letter Word. In: M. Beirut, W. Drenttel and S. Heller, ed., Looking Closer 5: Classic Writings on Graphic Design, 1st ed. New York: Allworth Press, pp.94-103.

Loos, A. (2002). Ornament and Crime. In: A. Loos, ed., Crime and Ornament: The Arts and Popular Culture in the Shadow of Adolf Loos, 1st ed. Toronto: YYZ Books.

Dresser, C. (1873). Principles of Decorative Design. 1st ed. London: Cassell Petter & Galpin.

Foster, H. (2002). Design and Crime (and other Diatribes). 1st ed. Verso. 

Postrel, V. (2003). The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness. 1st ed. HarperCollins.

Poynor, R. (2013). No More Rules. 1st ed. London: Laurence King.

Trilling, J. (2003). Ornament: A Modern Perspective. 1st ed. University of Washington Press, p.75.