These days, gun and media seem re-surging on the tip of the iceberg. I was looking for some old writings regarding imaging making and its impact on society done when I was an art student. Then the following one appeared first, but, in a "neutral and objective" tone that makes me wonder who, what, how the contemporary image makers, surely, the particular digital ones, who dominate the ubiquitous video game business (for the better and the worse) and the relevant products, taking on their role, status, and functions in this rapidly transformed-into-the-virtual world!!!
Note on Graphic Design And Visual Communication
of Gregg Berryman
By Crystal Li-chin Huang, 1999
1. Summary:
“
The absence of design is a hazardous kind of design. Not to design is to suffer
design by default. We cannot afford to
have graphics, products, and architecture
‘just happen.’ ”
The book is about history and practice of graphic design
published in 1979 and revised in 1984.
From the design necessity, the roots of design, the targeted audience,
to the process and methodological explanation about different terminology,
function and practice, the author,
domestically and cross-culturally laid out a fundamental techniques, concepts
and principle of visual communication.
Either for visual literacy or professional practice in
design, he emphasized that the solid
foundation of this discipline is the most important part of the design
education process. Through the stable
establishment of historical awareness
and visual intelligence, the designer
develops variety of alternative solutions to reach the optimal goals - finds
the best and brings it into use.
2. Observation:
Some interesting observations were identified and
discussed as follows:
a. The horrendous “eye harassment” of the author’s specific
intention:
There are several things in my life that I almost try
not to touch. To read a series of CAP words - not to mention the handwritten
CAP of whole body text, is one of them.
The author’s all CAP lettering in this book reminded you the formidable
analogy and opposite test in the GRE vocabulary section.
So, we know this scheme, or we should say “a very
special design” - the author’s choice of hand lettering rather than typesetting
to explain design concepts, as he named it-
was personal and was intended to help to remove some sort of the
“mystery “ of design, but I think the
most important point is that all caps typesetting reduces reading speed by
about 15%. Your can not just read it by browsing or skimming, but chewing and
pondering as slowly as you have to. This is a very special experience to me.
b. The difference
between Design and other Natural Sciences, e.g., mathematics or
chemistry: the author mentioned that the
former discipline had more than a single solution for each problem, i.e.
alternative solutions, which is different from the Natural Sciences (p.2). Designer attempted to find the
optimum or best of the alternative solution.
Actually, this is partially true.
Many hard-core sciences do have
alternative solutions to a
problem set. Trial and error and experiments are necessary for many natural
sciences in order to find the best, efficient and economic ones. The major
difference is the methodological approach: the latter is pure rational,
objective and scientific with universally precise criteria to measure the
outcome.
c.
Two forces are in constant opposition: The author pointed out that Design
was not art but a creative pursuit and could bring equal satisfaction
(p.3) He also mentioned that the fine
artist had an audience of only one (herself or himself). The graphic designer dealt with a mass
audience of sometimes millions. Due to the different intent, the
self-expression or personal creativity must be tamed and brought into a
delicate balance for the constant need to satisfy an audience in a logical and
rational manner within the economic limits.
From the author’s assumption that to fit the targeted audience’s need
(time, appreciation, and cost) would confine certain degree of the creativity of a graphic designer, so
design was not art. And the fine artist was his or her own audience.
These generalizations may not hold
true today. Since the trajectory of fine
arts has been evolving from 60’s
Conceptual, Performance, Minimalists’ formalist visual vocabulary...etc.
into 70’s pluralism and 80’s post-modernism which critique the Esoteric
Modernist concept of the artist as a lone individual heroically creating a
unique new personal reality. The
post-modernists place the artist within a socio-economic and political system,
which ends the concept of avant-garde genre developed in the 60’s.
Especially
the Simulationists - they aim their art
with a populist audience. The imagery shared by the culture as a whole takes
precedence over individualistic forms.
The
boundary of fine arts vs. applied arts, arts vs. craft is unavoidably becoming
blurry.
So, I am wondering to what extent
the tension between “Two forces”-creativity vs. audience need is existing in
today’s design market and practice?
d. Selecting an
effective mark is bound by the scale of a business:
The author mentioned that when a budget was small, few
exposures could be purchased, magnifying the need for quick recognition and low
abstraction. A high level of
abstraction is a luxury only the high-rolling client can afford (p.11)
Here exists an interesting
phenomenon- Good abstraction is a desired and determined variable in the
selecting the effective marks. Because
the low budget can make the low abstraction marks possible and get quicker
recognition with more effective visual tools. Then, the big business is
self-imposed into a dilemma: to spend much more money to gain slow recognition
with wide abstraction range for the luxurious/high aesthetics’ sake?
Could big businesses have the luxury to gain quicker
recognition with effective visual tools that small business enjoys and get the
quality of abstraction with fixed budget?
e. This book was published 15-20 years ago; I did not check it out whether there was an
up-to-date version of it. Some sections
(such as mass/multi-media imagery making and rendering), would have been more
elaborated and interesting, if the newer version did exist.
3. Effects on the current work:
This is my first class of Graphic Design that helps a
neophyte understand the techniques, principles, method and the main gestalt
concepts of this discipline. Not only in
the micro level of processing the graphic design per se, but also to the macro
state of its practical operation in the competitive marketing world, the author
provided the first hand and insightful direction to the learner.