David Rudnick. Lecture "Crisis of Graphic Practices: Challenges of the Next Decades"

Strelka Institute/Институт Стрелка
14 Aug 201763:14
EducationalLearning
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TLDRThe speaker discusses his unconventional path to graphic design and his skepticism about the industry. He argues designers must consider their responsibility in shaping society and culture. He examines how memory, personal narratives, and 'proper nouns' relate to design's social impact. Looking at practices in fine dining, he calls for more independent, expressive design studios. He sees graphic design moving away from commercial firms toward more agile teams celebrating local cultures. Finally, he analyzes emerging cinematic techniques like nonlinear narratives, infinite scrolling, and freedom of movement, suggesting they illustrate how perception of reality itself is changing in the internet age.

Takeaways
  • 😀 His early love for New Order album design sparked his interest in graphic design
  • 🎨 He believes design should embrace differences, not conform to minimalism
  • 📚 The Northern Renaissance showed him the radical power of spreading new ideas via images
  • 🔎 Proper nouns offer designers narrative control and influence on audience memory
  • 🎭 Fine dining chefs operate in design's future with their focus on full sensory experiences
  • 👩‍🍳 Independent studios should proliferate like chef-run restaurants tailored to local cultures
  • 🎥 Cinema's "ultra-reality" bends time, space and perspective - unlike grid-bound design
  • 🕹 Design should prepare for an audience used to navigating the world as protagonists
  • ⏱ Linear chronology is fading as social feeds jump through time based on interest
  • 🌀 Infinite scroll and looping content resists cuts and imposes continuity
Q & A

  • What was the speaker's first memorable encounter with graphic design?

    -The speaker's first memorable encounter with graphic design was when he received the New Order album 'Best Of' designed by Peter Saville for his 8th birthday. He became fascinated with the album packaging and typography.

  • How does the speaker view the role of design in shaping society?

    -The speaker believes design plays a major role in shaping society by creating the objects, voices, and surroundings that make up our environment. Designers must consider the political and social implications of their work.

  • What is the speaker's perspective on proper nouns in design?

    -The speaker sees proper nouns like band names as a key opportunity for designers to make a definitive visual impact. Since proper nouns have no prior meaning, designers can completely shape the visual narrative.

  • How does the speaker propose reimagining graphic design studios?

    -The speaker proposes modeling graphic design studios after restaurant kitchens - as creative laboratories focused on refinement and research. There should be many small, collaborative studios rather than large firms.

  • What can graphic designers learn from chefs?

    -Chefs consider details like lighting, music, and service to shape the dining experience. Graphic designers should think more holistically about how audiences encounter design in real-world contexts.

  • How does the speaker characterize 'ultra-reality' in film?

    -The speaker defines ultra-reality filmmaking as ending linear narrative, embracing infinite loops, giving cameras complete freedom of movement, abandoning the ground plane, and surrounding viewers with flying debris.

  • What shifts does ultra-reality suggest for graphic design?

    -From a fixed grid system defined by horizontal and parallel lines to an overlay system with shifting, curved perspectives more suited to augmented reality.

  • How should graphic designers adapt to audiences shaped by ultra-reality?

    -They must create experiences that make audiences feel like protagonists rather than passive observers, giving them control and showing them radical visions.

  • What does the speaker cite as formative for his design perspective?

    -Studying the volatile impact of early printing and religious art in 15th century Northern Europe under his Yale professor Christopher Wood.

  • What is the speaker's view on expressing personal voice through graphic design?

    -The speaker believes designers must consciously develop skills for meaningful self-expression within the commercial constraints of design. This remains an ongoing process.

Outlines
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Mindmap
Keywords
💡Narrative
The speaker uses 'narrative' to refer to an individual's unique experiences and memories associated with a term or concept. He explains that designers can aim to influence people's narratives or mental associations. For example, an album cover designer works with the 'proper noun' of a band's name and can influence listeners' memories and perceptions related to that band.
💡Proper noun
A proper noun refers to a specific person, place, organization or creative work. The speaker explains that proper nouns like an album or book title provide opportunities for designers to strongly influence the audience's narratives and mental imagery associated with that title.
💡Expression
The speaker discusses designers' capacity for expression - communicating ideas, emotions and viewpoints - through their work. He advocates that designers consciously develop skills for expression despite constraints, rather than only solving problems.
💡Fine dining
The speaker draws an analogy between chefs in high-end, creative restaurants and graphic designers. He argues designers should aim for the revelation and surprise of fine dining through their work, at every level from books to posters.
💡Memory
Memory is identified as the most important creative tool for chefs and designers alike. The speaker advocates that designers focus on memory as a means to generate ideas, awaken nostalgia in the audience and defy expectations.
💡Research and development
In discussing chef's creative processes, the speaker highlights their dedicated time for research trips and experimentation. He suggests designers similarly need environments to freely research and develop their visual language.
💡Altered reality
The speaker identifies a trend in cinema he calls 'altered reality,' with effects disrupting linear narrative and traditional constraints of time and space. He suggests designers consider how this shift in perceptions of reality may change expectations for media like books.
💡Grids to overlays
As part of altered reality's departure from thestructural grid, the speaker foresees a movement from grid-based design to systems of overlays. This suggests that rigid structures may give way to more fluid and multidimensional arrangements of information.
💡Autonomy
The speaker advocates for graphic design studios to be autonomous - independently expressing their perspectives and cultures versus serving commercial interests. He envisions a proliferation of autonomous studios versus consolidation in mega agencies.
💡Protagonist reality
The speaker suggests altered reality in cinema reflects a change from observer to protagonist perspective for audiences and users. As designers, he argues we must consider how people increasingly see themselves as protagonists actively structuring reality through their preferences.
Highlights

Designers create and recreate the objects, voices and surroundings between people, making us partially responsible for their political and social content.

Proper nouns like a person's name or a specific date/place are special - they extend to a single point in someone's unique experience and memory.

As designers we can influence how someone pictures a proper noun like Joy Division in their head by how we visually represent it.

I believe design can be a terrain for expression while still delivering solutions, not just being obtuse like art often is.

Designers should have labs and spaces for pure R&D like chefs do - what is the graphic design equivalent of a restaurant kitchen reaching its audience?

Like chefs use food and memory to surprise diners, designers can provoke viewers by playing with their visual memories and expectations.

There should be 50 great design studios in every major city, drawing on local heritage and finding ways to translate culture into visual form.

Design risks being relegated to huge organizations because it fails to train young designers to lead and be creative directors.

Cinema often visually represents how our fractured, nonlinear social media reality works better than design does.

Young generations see cuts and editing as violent interruptions inhibiting exploration - they want to move freely through the medium.

Design needs to shift from grid systems to systems of overlays to match how young viewers see the world.

We risk assuming physical formats like print and books inherently make sense to future generations - we must make the case for them.

The design industry tricks young designers into becoming the workforce rather than training them to lead companies.

Design fails to stimulate people's imagination and present alternate worlds that suggest other possibilities.

The control factors of design may not disseminate from authorities anymore - the genie may be out of the bottle.

Designers should celebrate difference and showcase cultural breadth rather than unifying social factors people feel compelled to conform to.

Transcripts

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