Who’s the other guy?
by Lindsay Yee
You’re obviously the wrong person to ask… you’re part of a community of designers who actually want to learn and discuss design. But do the majority of New Zealand designers take an interest in Graphic Design in terms of wanting discussions about design theory, changes in design – or is it just something they do? Just another template, just another piece of new software, just another job?
A few months ago I listened to Elaina Hamilton and Duncan Forbes from Experimenta (which is now the International Office) talk on Typeradio. They were saying they knew many designers who thought of design as merely something they did. The designers they referred to didn’t care much for the history of Graphic Design or for the studios producing great design today; and they didn’t want to be involved in any sort of design community.
Similarly in design school, many of my fellow classmates didn’t care at all about furthering their knowledge of design, let alone having conversions purely about design. Now I am not perfect or anywhere near it; I didn’t really try hard to find out more about design ’til probably mid way through my second year and I do not consider myself an expert on the subject either, but I try. But there are too many people who make me think of what Michael Bierut has written about. I had a moment similar to this in my third year. I was in the Mac lab when a second year class was asked to name some designers, and someone yelled out “Dave Carson” then a pause until one girl asked “Oh, who’s the other guy?”
Conversely, did you head in to the industry with a head of steam only to be burned out after a few years working. Having your energy for exploration and talking about design been stamped out by tight deadlines and difficult clients.
So, when did you really get interested in design in terms of design theory, professional development? Was it in design school or was it from working in the industry? Or has your enthusiasm waned? And do you think other designers you’ve met are interested in discussing design issues?
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March 21
2012
July 9th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
LOL! “The other guy” Brody or perhaps Sagmeister :D
For me it was when I started animating type. Until then I found it rather mundane but once they started moving… it was like those letters just came to life. After 10 years tho I still don’t know half as much as I feel I should about the history of graphics, but I feel that way about a lot of things.
Great first post, what about yourself?
July 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
I completely agree with you Lindsay, I found myself cruising through Tech, not having bothered with learning more about the great designers that have been and are, and now I find myself trying to design with a sense of a void in my work.
I think a design community is the key to learning in design after Uni.
Street art posters and magazines got me into design, I think a lot of my design friends do care a lot about design, but only look at others to a certain point for inspiration, which is how I think design should be. You need to develop onwards from design you’ve previously looked at.
Sorry its a bit of a mess, but cant be bothered editting.
July 17th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
I was the opposite in my first few years of school, and maybe even still to this day. My primary interests and strengths were in the design theory and history classes – learning about other designers work, as opposed to doing my own! Seeing as I’m not in the real working world yet, it will be interesting to see how it affects my attitude to design, whether I will still love it, or not…
July 20th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Mostly in my first year of study or so I was mostly engrossed in my own work, midway through my second year I started to look, read more about Graphic Design and Art. But somewhere in between Semi Permanent and attending all the seminars CPIT had set up l (with WETA, Harvey Cameron, Joe Bennett et al) when things really started to ‘click’ (so to speak).
I wanted other people to share my enthusiasm for design and began suggesting and showing as much as I could to whoever would listen/look.
The accompanying picture above is of a poster I designed for all the lectures, podcasts, images, websites… I had collected and put on the student server for other students to use as resources and inspiration.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
[...] is it plausible or just a pipedream? As noted here and here, our design community doesn’t seem to be the most engaged on the [...]