Contemporary Art and Design Critique

"Criticism prises open doors, reveals unforeseen possibilities, enhances our awareness, refines our values, hones our taste and exerts a myriad of influences on the judgements, decisions and actions we will take in the future. Whether we are fully conscious of this web of inspiration or not, criticism helps to shape our mentality."

Rick Poynor

KEY IDEAS ABOUT CRITICAL WRITING...

* Anyone can have an opinion -
'everyone's a critic' but in a limited sense. For criticism to have value, for it to be useful to other people and make a contribution to the area of activity it covers, it needs to come from close study and deep knowledge. Critics must be specialists in whatever area is being discussed, without this understanding and the ability that comes with it to make comparisons and arrive at carefully considered judgements, a weighted and trustworthy criticism is simply not possible. Without the critic having specialism, the opinion often seems to flit with excitement about the latest thing, often without seeming to acknowledge what it doesn’t know. Think twitter, Amazon reader reviews and the Reality TV phenonema - 'your' vote counts

* Conveying a sense of the critic
Critical writing should reveal something of the individual - a sense of who he/she is, what they stand for, what they value, what they believe, a strong and consistent personal point of view. The critics' weaknesses may be apparent too, but the crucial thing, for me as a reader, is that their vision of the work has depth and makes sense — that it adds something to my own understanding when I read them. Even if you disagree with what the critic says, you should feel that the criticism is considered and coherent and, in that sense, reliable.

* A critic must be prepared to go against prevailing opinion
and take a stand when necessary. If all the critic does is to reinforce the general view within a discipline and prop up the status quo, then that isn’t really criticism. Genuine criticism will provoke strong reactions and people on the receiving end of adverse criticism will probably hate it. That shouldn’t stop the critic.

* Detachment
Design critisism needs to find a way of staying close to its subject while maintaining a sceptical distance. This is not easy to pull off. Designers who turn to writing have an initial advantage – they already inhabit this world – but naturally then find it difficult to achieve detachment; they worry about their design colleagues’ reactions to what they write.(see previous point also)

* Change in contemporary reading -
ie much is done on line rather than in print so there is an increasing tendency for readers to scan and graze rather than engage in attentive and indepth reading, this has a big impact in the realm of critical writing in relation to the depth of the writing and the intimacy of the writing and reader with the subject matter

* Design is a fusion of commerce and culture.
For design criticism to develop, we need to place a great deal more emphasis on investigating the cultural implications of that union. So design criticism needs to be genuinely critical. This is taken for granted in other kinds of cultural reviewing and criticism: films, novels, plays, art exhibitions and music are all subject to continuous evaluation. The reader’s awareness that merciless criticism is possible when necessary, means that favourable judgements are more reliable and trustworthy when they are read. In the specialist design press design work often gets an easy ride, and design 'critisism' can seem to function as a PR platform in many respects. While in general media it is often viewed as a specialist subject where it is written about like a lightweight consumer subject. It is difficult to find serious, well-informed, mainstream design criticism.

* Language
There is a big difference between art and design critisism. "Design writing on the whole is much clearer, much more inclined to use plain English and is as a consequenc much more exposed? By comparison with art writing, design writing can seem obvious, under-theorised and naive, especially to anyone reading from an art point of view who’s come to expect those superficially impressive trails of circumlocution as a sign of weighty content" (Rick Poynor)

* Context
The context of the work being critiqued is also an important aspect of the critisism itself. Where the work is to be placed and the function of the design is inextricably linked to its success as a piece of work. Critisism should encourage debate and be a forum for us to question.

Rick Poynor, My Design Writing Hero

Since my very beginnings as a design student I have been a huge admirer of Rick Poynor. He began as a general visual arts journalist, working on Blueprint magazine in London. After founding Eye magazine, which he edited from 1990 to 1997, he focused increasingly on visual communication. He co-founded Design Observer (see the RSS feed on this blog), a weblog for design writing and discussion, with William Drenttel, Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut. His writings document and analyse general movements in graphic design and typography and explore the cultural implications of visual communication, including advertising, photography, typography, branding and graphic design. Over the years I have found myself constantly in agreement or intrigued by his viewpoint. In short the man is a hero of mine, as a home printed T-shirt from college days testifies... "Rick Knows."

Below is just a comment from him on the EYE magazine blog.

In it he is commenting in response to the article entitled -
"Art bollocks is everywhere you look. Woolly ‘artspeak’ is nothing new, but who will stem the flow?"


RICK POYNOR SAYS:
Agree with this so far as it goes, but it’s an old story.

Matthew Collings, for instance, has built a writing career out of declining to write art bollocks. He’s so clear, so straightforward, so demotic, so assertively moral in his judgements that it’s almost shocking. He’s also committed to aesthetic values. And that’s one of contemporary art’s big problems. Once you demote beauty, deny the importance of the retinal, elevate the ‘idea’ to a position of untouchable pre-eminence and abandon the notion that criticism’s task is the evaluation of quality, how exactly are you going to demonstrate the importance of art? Especially now that art has been so thoroughly assimilated, institutionalised and domesticated, as a degree-awarding academic subject like any other.

But how does all this relate to design writing, which on the whole is much clearer, much more inclined to use plain English and is as a consequence – for the reasons David Thompson explains – much more exposed? By comparison with art writing, design writing can seem obvious, under-theorised and naive, especially to anyone reading from an art point of view who’s come to expect those superficially impressive trails of circumlocution as a sign of weighty content. (In truth, though, art writing is often highly sophisticated and at the same time perfectly intelligible to an educated reader – just pull down a copy of October.)

So is there a comparable form of design bollocks, David, and, if so, who’s doing it, where can we find it, and how is it a problem? Surely the main issue in design writing remains the comparative lack of the stuff, rather than a surfeit of bollocks. It will be interesting to see how the new design writing courses at SVA and LCC handle this issue. Who are their critical models and what kinds of writing do these courses seek to encourage?

Rick, I concur.

Live@8: "The Potential of Vacancy"

vacancy:
emptiness, lack of thought, idleness, unoccupied position, gap

The various video installations at last nights' event in Galway dealt with these themes: empty houses, empty landscapes, empty minds. While the setting itself promised atmosphere and vibrancy, along with the promise of subversive and emergent expression, for me, the show disappointed. With the exception of Trisha McCrea's "What Do We See" and Ella Bertillson's untitled piece examining a journey home through memory, the work in many ways seemed vacuous, and not in the manner intended.

While I freely admit my sensibilities towards this type of work is wanting, I can only contextualise it from my own perspective. Or to put it somewhat more succinctly, "every lens distorts reality, so we can never be sure ours is the right set. I’ll have to get by with my personal lenses. I call the left one think and the right one feel."

Art, for me is a medium that helps us to question, observe and understand the world, and ourselves. Live@8 while having the potential to encourage us to question and understand, abandoned the value of aesthetic and the idea dominated entirely, the concept became 'king'.... Or maybe that should be 'emperor', the one with the new clothes.

Starting To VET

Typography Served features top work in categories such as typeface design, lettering, illustrated typography, or any piece with a strong typographic treatment.

"Served" is a collection of sites that showcase category-specific content from the Behance Network, the world's leading platform for creative professionals across all industries. Projects featured on the "served" sites are selected by a Behance curatorial team.

Finding the Served and Behance sites has been a total revelation for me - in relation to VET and my personal viewing pleasure. I don't know when I last got so utterly immersed in design work. It's a fantastic feeling to get so stimulated, energised and inspired, a real touchstone. I'm really looking forward to this VET activity. It's great to be looking outwards again after the past few months of gazing in and at myself. Yippee!

My first album

Just tried this for a bit of mindless fun... It's all the rage on face book it appears.
But it makes good use of the participatory web! Give it a go and release your inner graphic designer. I admit though it made my talents feel a bit redundant!! It could be fun to put together a little mini exhibition of all our efforts - one from everyone in the audience?!
Here's what to do.......

1. Go to wikipedia and hit random. The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. 2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit random. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. 3. Go to flickr and click on 'explore the last seven days'. The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. 4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together. 5. Post it with this text in the caption and tag the friends you want to join in.

FINAL PERSONAL STATEMENT

Steve Jobs famously once said:

“People think [design is] this veneer – that the designers are handed this box and told, ‘Make it look good!’ That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

My work is an ongoing conversation between personal creative exploration and professional practice. The goal is to achieve a healthy balance between design that works strategically and design that creatively pushes at boundaries – whether those boundaries be personal, aesthetic, about the message or about the choice of medium. I derive energy and a sense of accomplishment from capturing the essence of a briefs' requirements, while engaging with the viewer in a meaningful, provocative and aesthetically pleasing way.







Crafts Council of Ireland - Strategic Plan
The brief for this project was to produce a typographic ‘tome’ but also required the inclusion of strong imagery which was to create impact without distraction. This design challenge was addressed through the use of dramatic fold out pages which held full bleed imagery and this element also functioned as section dividers. I also aimed to communicate the tactility of the crafts through the inclusion of the embossed basket on the front cover and by printing onto uncoated stock. Typographic devices were used as chapter indicators and typographic emphasis was further exploited in the strong use of ‘pull out’ text throughout.


When I work I follow a pattern that I have evolved and refined over the years. It involves ‘setting of the trajectory’ for the project at the outset , whereby I define the parameters of the brief, establishing clear objectives for myself before launching into the exploratory process of concept and visual development. Subject research and identifying keywords to helps to enhance my understanding of the communication challenge and expand my thinking beyond it. My own memories and experiences are a rich source of inspiration, along with referring to my influences (and the pages of a good thesaurus). There is a strong element of collecting and selecting in how I work – I collect, collate, curate, create – the gathering together of visual elements before really getting into the task of creating the visual entity itself. The process leads me to formulating a colour palette, investigating font choices and suitable imagery and exploring tactile finishing processes (embossing / cutting / paper stock / varnishing etc). I review, refine, examine, seek opinion, sleep on it, show the client, review again until I reach a point where I am satisfied the solution communicates in a revealing way, while engaging the viewer emotionally and intellectually.








Claremorris Open Exhibition - (COE)
Collateral for open submission art exhibition for which I have designed for the past 12 years. Examples shown here are designs for the exhibition catalogue. In many instances the artists will be exhibiting many works, but only one is to be featured in the catalogue – in the majority of cases I am in the fortunate position to curate which works appear in the catalogue, which is something I enjoy enormously. These designs demonstrate the recurring theme of tactility in my work. Tactility that hopefully engages the viewer and adds another layer of communication and intrigue to the designed piece.

“Words have meaning and typography has feeling. When you put them together it’s spectacular” Paula Scher

Visually my work is underpinned by formal typography, the use of rich colour, tactility and, when possible, abstracted / stimulating imagery. I aim to create a dialogue between the client, myself and the viewer, that by necessity can only be completed by the viewers own interpretation, ensuring a fluidity of communication. My work has really always involved attempts to imbue its own voice alongside that of the clients/tutors intended message. For me , the modernist idea that designers are passive passive conveyors of meaning, with no opinions of their own, is no longer valid.

I am inspired by designers who are committed to self expression within their work, and I have maintained many of the same creative influences over the years: Jonathon Barnbrook (subjectivity in graphic design, type designer); Tomato (embracing the message, contemporary mediums); Irma Boom (scale and integrity of her work, colour, personal voice); Bruce Mau (the range and scope of this work and conviction to ‘designer as author’); the writings of Rick Poyner (thought provoking, current).


Jon Barnbrook: Saatchi Gallery: The Saatchi Decade
Exhaustive survey of the Saatchi collection, quickly became one of the best selling art books of the year.

I have added to this list and it has evolved in time to include influences where the focus is often more aesthetic: Oded Ezer (tactile, playful typography):



Marian Bantjes (organic nature of her visuals that combine with inherent structure and organisation);




The questions that concern me in my work are not simply those of graphic design but issues of ambient information and meaning, questions of sense and message, when people see my work I am hopeful that they engage with it, question it, relate to it, remember it.

Below are some samples of my work, these 'shows' is made up of various projects over a number of years which I hope illustrate my ethos and the conceptual and visual approaches detailed in this statement:






Concept and visual development:

every minute of 'the daily me' !

Kal and Baby Finn