Readings 5

Why designers can't think- Michael Bierut
Summary: "Modern design education is essentially value-free: every problem has a purely visual solution that exists outside any cultural context." Bierut expresses his concern for a lack of culture among many design school graduates and makes a strong plea for educators to remedy this.

- graphic designers are lucky because they can partake in as many fields of interest as we have clients

- process school= swiss school (only 15 yrs) ; portfolio school= slick school (from 1950s)
To the portfolio schools, the “Swiss” method is hermetic, arcane, and meaningless to the general public. To the process schools, the “slick” method is distastefully commercial, shallow, and derivative.

- Process schools favor a form-driven problem solving approach; don't relate to real world as much; focus on "process" more than "product"
- 1. draw letterforms, translate 3D objects, still life photography> 2. relate drawing of object to hand drawn letter then combine letter with a photo> 3. letter+object+photo+a 42 pt. typeface= poster for Rudolph Nureyev

- Portfolio school aims to provide students with polished books that will get them good jobs after graduation; the problem solving mode is conceptual; focus on "product" more than "process"

- what's wrong with graphic design education is how both school are the same: what's valued is the way graphic design looks, not what is means; the passion of design educators seems to be technology; educators need to expose their students to a meaningful range of culture; most mediocre design today comes from designers are who faithfully doing as they were taught in school, worship altar of the visual

- pioneers of graphic designers were more well-rounded because their work draws its power from deep in the culture of their times (they had no intensive specialized programs);




I come to bury graphic design- Kenneth Fitzgerald
Summary: He proposes that the objective of design, to create a class of expert professional practitioners, can - and should - only lead to its demise as a specialist profession. "An education through design rather than in design should be our goal."

- design's essential impulse is to perpetuate itself, in other words, its first concern is reproduction; to assure its existence, design strives to create a class of expert prof. practitioners with high social standing

- We should be resigned to never achieving full regard for expert design production, The reason is that as the non-designer public become converts to design’s message, the conversion is total.

- Koolhaus’s engagement in design might be considered another triumph for the field. It is, in fact, a sign of the coming apocalypse, because the works are contemporary, capable and forgettable.

- Design culture is blind to its motivations. It constantly seeks to eradicate itself and designers will instinctively reject this notion.

- design study without application is unlikely

- practical hazards in academia: how it puts that idealistic pursuit into practice;well-funded design programs being hijacked or infiltrated by sinecure seekers

- Design is a dislocated art form born out of industrialization.The idea of professional artists is fairly implausible, certainly as a way to consistently generate fresh insight. The activity inevitably becomes routinized and formulaic when required to be on demand. The product turns distant, abstract, and impersonal.

- the only problem professional design solves with any demonstrable success is a designer’s urgency to get a professional design job.