Visual Culture: reading images devoid of context
Material Culture: objects as value
Design Culture: the production of meaning through cultural symbols
— what's the connection?
Visual Culture — way of looking. Authors "explain their discomfort and inability to deal meaningfully with the functions [what functions?] of ceontemporary design." pp. 65
"...proliferation of images becaome a characteristic of modern social organization."
"Commodities and services needed to be made more self-consciously visual in order to advertise and market them to a wide, anonymous audience." pp. 65 In discussion of Victorian era. In addition to "new visual technologies such as film, animation and photography.
No clear distinction between literary era and visual era.
"all media are hybrid, 'impure'." "They do not merely engage one expression—visual, tectual, aural, material—but are dissolved within their mediatory contexts. (One cannot talk of the Internet in terms of either visual or textual cultlure but, perhaps, as screen culture.)"
Essentialist view that the visual is the medium of our times ot a Complex view where the visual is intrinsic and important social and cultural expression.
Visual Culture "disembodies images from their primary contexts of encounter. Adverts or photos are quite lieterally cut out of newspapers and magazines for analysis" which removes them from the very culture and place which has given birth to them. Example would be Colour magazines advertising.
Martin Jay provides three steps for visual analysis of renassaince painting.
1. Static position of viewer
2. obvservational empiricism revels in surface detail
3. viewer must piece objects together into narrative
This is useful for exploring the beginnings of r adesign object and environment but doesn't take into account it's place within cultlure.
Scott Lash notes, "Culture is now three-dimensional, as much tactile as visual or textual, all around us and injabityed, lived in rather than encountered on a separate realms as a representation." — cultlure encompasses all. And architectonic perspective. Design is "more than just the creatiuon of visual artifacts to be used or "read." It is also about structuring of suystems of enouncter within the visual and material world." pp. 67
"Systems are orchestrated and routinized for maximum perceived efficiency, leaving the consumer as a passive participant." Also the term"the tourist gaze" which accepts "tourism as a form of spectacular consumption in which sites are arranged for visual pleasure. Tourist spaces are produced and viewed as an alien 'other'".
Monday, March 13, 2017
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
GRAP 2030 // Week 02 // Reading // Csikszentmihalyi (1996)
"To move form personal to cultural creativity one needs talent, training, and an enormous dose of good luck. Without access to a domain, and without the support of a field, a person has no chance of recognition."
"When we live creatively, boredom is banished and every moment holds the promise of a fresh discovery." – What other professions does this hold true for? SCIENCE. Oh heck yes.
In the way of creativity are four problems:
1. Exhaustion: "exhausted by too many demands" and have trouble accessing creative energy
2. Distraction: "easily distracted and have trouble learning how to protect and channel whatever energy we have"
3. Laziness: "laziness, or lacking discipline" to direct the energy
4. Unknowing: "not knowing what to do with the energy we have"
All people have roughly the same brain power and energy the difference is "how much uncommitted attention they have left over to deal with novelty. In too many cases, attention is restricted by external necessity."
— too true. I stopped playing videogames because too often I found any energy I had to create was immediately absorbed by the television and console controller so even though I thought it was a "recreation" it was actually drawing attention away from the things that satisfied me most—the art of drawing and creation. Further, we too often believe that recreation is the thing that will give us satisfaction btu if you really stop to think abotu it, greater satisfaction can be found elsewhere.
— for students I believe the desire to study and worry about "getting things right" is the hiundrance to creativity even within a creative degree such as design. It's necssary to forget that the work we're doing is for grades and instead lose yourself int he process. Same appleis for commercial work—when you let go of the stress and worry you're removing a blockage from the real work.
"There are real limits to how many things a person can attend to at the same time, and when survival needs require all of one's attention, none is left over for being creative."
"... often the obstacles are internal. In a person concerned with protecting his or her self, the practically all the attention is invested in monitoring threats to the ego." — which reminds me of Ian Anderson of the The Design Republic's discussion last night (7 march 2017 at Mercury Cinema) in which he discusses "Kill Your Self" t-shirt campaign. He said it wasn't meant in a negative light but that rather instead of preening and primping oneself to make sure we "look our best" in front of the mirror, instead we get over it and move on with more important things in life. We kill the ego in order to gain control of our lives."
Never fear being wrong. "A paranoid tendency is one obstacle to the free deployment of mental energy. The person who suffers from it usually cannot afford to become interested in the world from an objective, impartial viewpoint, and therefore is unable to learn much that is new." — and we might attribute a fear of experimenting, pushing boundaries, trying new things, for fear of failure prevents us from pushing forward. As scientist on BBC Science Hour (or was it The Monkey Cage) said, "I love being wrong because I've still learned something. I've learned what doesn't work." Which means you're still describing the parameters of something through it's negative instead of positive which still helps us to form an understanding of the thing we're doing or exploring. It's like drawing the negative shape in life drawing in order to learn new forms.
Cultivate Curiosity and Interest
Children's curiosity "highlights and invests with interest anything within range."
Adults "lost the sense of wonder, the feeling of awe in confronting hte majest and variety of the world."
"Yet without awe life becomes routine."
"Creativity within a domain often goes hand in hand with conformity int he rest of life." Using Einstein as an example, but is this true? I don't know—I hope I can disagree!!
Things to help creativity:
"When we live creatively, boredom is banished and every moment holds the promise of a fresh discovery." – What other professions does this hold true for? SCIENCE. Oh heck yes.
In the way of creativity are four problems:
1. Exhaustion: "exhausted by too many demands" and have trouble accessing creative energy
2. Distraction: "easily distracted and have trouble learning how to protect and channel whatever energy we have"
3. Laziness: "laziness, or lacking discipline" to direct the energy
4. Unknowing: "not knowing what to do with the energy we have"
All people have roughly the same brain power and energy the difference is "how much uncommitted attention they have left over to deal with novelty. In too many cases, attention is restricted by external necessity."
— too true. I stopped playing videogames because too often I found any energy I had to create was immediately absorbed by the television and console controller so even though I thought it was a "recreation" it was actually drawing attention away from the things that satisfied me most—the art of drawing and creation. Further, we too often believe that recreation is the thing that will give us satisfaction btu if you really stop to think abotu it, greater satisfaction can be found elsewhere.
— for students I believe the desire to study and worry about "getting things right" is the hiundrance to creativity even within a creative degree such as design. It's necssary to forget that the work we're doing is for grades and instead lose yourself int he process. Same appleis for commercial work—when you let go of the stress and worry you're removing a blockage from the real work.
"There are real limits to how many things a person can attend to at the same time, and when survival needs require all of one's attention, none is left over for being creative."
"... often the obstacles are internal. In a person concerned with protecting his or her self, the practically all the attention is invested in monitoring threats to the ego." — which reminds me of Ian Anderson of the The Design Republic's discussion last night (7 march 2017 at Mercury Cinema) in which he discusses "Kill Your Self" t-shirt campaign. He said it wasn't meant in a negative light but that rather instead of preening and primping oneself to make sure we "look our best" in front of the mirror, instead we get over it and move on with more important things in life. We kill the ego in order to gain control of our lives."
Never fear being wrong. "A paranoid tendency is one obstacle to the free deployment of mental energy. The person who suffers from it usually cannot afford to become interested in the world from an objective, impartial viewpoint, and therefore is unable to learn much that is new." — and we might attribute a fear of experimenting, pushing boundaries, trying new things, for fear of failure prevents us from pushing forward. As scientist on BBC Science Hour (or was it The Monkey Cage) said, "I love being wrong because I've still learned something. I've learned what doesn't work." Which means you're still describing the parameters of something through it's negative instead of positive which still helps us to form an understanding of the thing we're doing or exploring. It's like drawing the negative shape in life drawing in order to learn new forms.
Cultivate Curiosity and Interest
Children's curiosity "highlights and invests with interest anything within range."
Adults "lost the sense of wonder, the feeling of awe in confronting hte majest and variety of the world."
"Yet without awe life becomes routine."
"Creativity within a domain often goes hand in hand with conformity int he rest of life." Using Einstein as an example, but is this true? I don't know—I hope I can disagree!!
Things to help creativity:
- Try to be surprised by something everyday
- Try to surprise at least one person every day
- Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others OR Keep a Journal / Sketchbook
- When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it BUT be careful when these things are found on Facebook. Perhaps a better way of approaching this is to subscribe to blogs and emails which pique your interest and follow these instead. For example, I love Nautilus and Capture and sometimes even AGDA.
Cultivating Flow (or Focus) in everyday life
- Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to—also be sure to keep lists of things TO DO and be sure to include on them things that you want to do for YOURSELF and NOT JUST for work. Too often we write lists of things we MUST do instead of lists of things we WANT to do.
- If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable.
- To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity—which is true. Continue to push yourself daily and you'll quickly improve. This goes for design. If you've mastered one grid, then try something new. If you already know how to draw figures then begin to apply that knowledge to drawing horses. If you've mastered typeface then try to design one.
Direct your time
- Take charge of your schedule
- Make time for reflection and relaxation — when shooting a recent burlesque show The Deco Dolls (3 March 2017) I was using a 70-200mm zoom and after shooting portraits for a period I put the lens down and realised that in focussing on the face for 20 seconds I'd completely missed the beautiful foot work and flow the dancer was cultivating with her legs and the sensuality of her hands. I needed to see the whole picture to appreciate what I was missing because my focus was too narrow. Though, it was necessary to focus at the time!!
- Shape your space.
- Find out what oyu like and what you hate about life OR know your feelings. This is important to understanding the way you work as well. If you know that you require time away form the computer to socialise in order to do your best work then do it. If you don't like to hang out with a certain person because you feel they drain your energy, then don't. If you don't feel like drinking then don't.
- Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate
TBC
GRAP 2030 // Week 02 // Lecture "What is Design Process?"
What does creativity mean to you?
How does process assist in your design creativity?
"You cannot hold a design in your hand. it is not a thing. It is a process. A system. A way of thinking."
design = process
design is NOT an object
though, it may result in a design artefact, or a designed system
What is a design process?
BUT process is not always linear.
There will be false starts.
Problem and context need redefining.
Even solution may not be the best in application.
Remember to step back — see Make time for reflection and relaxation in Week 02 reading.
Design Process
1. Resolve ill-defined problems
2. By adopting solution-focussing strategies rather than problem-focussed — DISAGREE with Myra's discussion that in science there is only one correct solution. Instead, I would argue that in engineering there must be a correct solution. In science, an answer that is not desirable may still produce beneficial results.
3. Through employing adductive reasoning — MAY BE multiple solutions. There WILL BE a new solution by every designer that attempts to define and resolve a problem. The problem may be defined differently, the skill set of the designer will result in a different solution, the cultural heritage will inform a different solution for every problem, the age and experience of the designer will result in a different solution, even the drawing abilities of each designer will result in a different solution. ‚ SKETCH don't DRAW to expand the possibilities of your own thinking. For example, if you sketch out ideas as stick figures, ideas in their piurest form, you can then develop them later. You're not being held back by your own skills but rather but your ability to imagine a new solution.
4. Using nonverbal, graphic / spatial modelling media as a means of communicating solutions and developing specification for production.
Design process as TRANSFORMATION
"A skilled professional communicator who mediates between an expert and the audience. the transformer's job is to put hte expert's message in a form the reader can understand, and to look after the reader's interests in general."
Key Questions for successful design process
What action is desired? What do I want the audience to do or how do I want them to respond?
What does the audience need to know to respond in the desired way?
Waht is the best way to facilitate desired response?
Waht will it say? What will it be? What will it look like? — Why are these questions so important? Look back at Nigel Cross who quotes Denys Lasdun "Our job is ot give the client, on time and cost, not what he wants, but what he never dreamed he wanted; and when he gets it he recognises it as something he wanted all the time." What is the thing that you're providing the client? They've asked for a poster but is it really a website they need? Or a flyer?
How does process assist in your design creativity?
"You cannot hold a design in your hand. it is not a thing. It is a process. A system. A way of thinking."
design = process
design is NOT an object
though, it may result in a design artefact, or a designed system
What is a design process?
There will be false starts.
Problem and context need redefining.
Even solution may not be the best in application.
Remember to step back — see Make time for reflection and relaxation in Week 02 reading.
Design Process
1. Resolve ill-defined problems
2. By adopting solution-focussing strategies rather than problem-focussed — DISAGREE with Myra's discussion that in science there is only one correct solution. Instead, I would argue that in engineering there must be a correct solution. In science, an answer that is not desirable may still produce beneficial results.
3. Through employing adductive reasoning — MAY BE multiple solutions. There WILL BE a new solution by every designer that attempts to define and resolve a problem. The problem may be defined differently, the skill set of the designer will result in a different solution, the cultural heritage will inform a different solution for every problem, the age and experience of the designer will result in a different solution, even the drawing abilities of each designer will result in a different solution. ‚ SKETCH don't DRAW to expand the possibilities of your own thinking. For example, if you sketch out ideas as stick figures, ideas in their piurest form, you can then develop them later. You're not being held back by your own skills but rather but your ability to imagine a new solution.
4. Using nonverbal, graphic / spatial modelling media as a means of communicating solutions and developing specification for production.
Design process as TRANSFORMATION
"A skilled professional communicator who mediates between an expert and the audience. the transformer's job is to put hte expert's message in a form the reader can understand, and to look after the reader's interests in general."
Key Questions for successful design process
What action is desired? What do I want the audience to do or how do I want them to respond?
What does the audience need to know to respond in the desired way?
Waht is the best way to facilitate desired response?
Waht will it say? What will it be? What will it look like? — Why are these questions so important? Look back at Nigel Cross who quotes Denys Lasdun "Our job is ot give the client, on time and cost, not what he wants, but what he never dreamed he wanted; and when he gets it he recognises it as something he wanted all the time." What is the thing that you're providing the client? They've asked for a poster but is it really a website they need? Or a flyer?
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Photography // Photographers and Art
Am I a 'modernist' photographer? When shooting, am I creating art or just another photograph? I wonder... though I'm not sure there's a definitive answer.
In an article for PetaPixel "Why Photographers Don't Get Art", John Raymond Mireles discusses the nature of modern professional photography versus contemporary art to try and tease out the differences between the two and how they might be reconciled. Central to his argument is the idea that photographers operate within a narrow definition of what's considered a great photograph through a modernist lens. Or rather, technical proficiency equates quality of art—camera operation, quality of light, aesthetic achievement and the description of a visual narrative must be of the utmost quality. Photography is a well-defined narrative captured in a single image, apparently.
Art, Mireles argues, relies on the "underlying conceptual currency"* of the piece and less so on the aesthetic result with "the move away from craft...art has increasingly focused on exploring concepts and philosophies and less on advancing art on its aesthetic merits. Postmodern art especially is about dissecting historical perspectives and denouncing traditional narratives. Basically, you have no idea what you’re looking at nor how to judge it unless you read the often densely written artist statement affixed to the nearby wall." For conceptual art this might be true—ideas push the artist to explore abstract concepts rather than obvious visual narratives—but not always. And there are many practicing artists who's craftsmanship is impeccable.
I take issue with the photograph he uses as an example of "commercial photography" as well. The image by Mark Seliger is the most cartoonishly exaggerated example of a female cowgirl standing on an obvious set with painted backdrop and all the props you can scavenge from a country goodwill store in order to make his point. But commercial photography has so many facets which include the creation of images that are inspired by art, or documentary, or editorial styles. Sven Kovac, for example, created this beautiful commercial / fashion image which also feels like the best of contemporary street photography.
Still, I enjoyed reading the article and it's obviously got me thinking which is never a bad thing.
Drawing from my own city for example, Adelaide local Yanni Floros has produced a series of hyperreal illustrations of men and weapons to discuss masculinity and power using only charcoal as a medium. Joshua Smith creates incredible miniature reproductions of real dilapidated storefronts inspired by his love of graffiti culture and architecture, spending many hours developing new techniques to perfectly reconstruct tiny bricks, chains and milk cartons. And Lisa King, who paints aesthetically beautiful images of women in oil, inspired by the work of fashion photographers and designers and while her images may appear "simple" in composition there's many hours of mood boarding and concept development before she even begins painting. Then there are artists such as Tom Borgas who creates highly refined sculptural works that exist in reality but which he only completes if they "look good through a camera, as all work exists to be digital these days." (I'm paraphrasing Borgas here from a presentation he did a few years ago at the Relay design forum.)
Maybe I'm going off point but I feel that the position taken by Mireles assumes that most photographers are still steeped in traditional values only held by pure commercial studio photographers of the late 1990s but aren't necessarily here today. At least, they're not the same views held by many of my contemporaries (photographers in their late 20s to early 30s) who love and appreciate art in all its facets.
 |
| Acquisition, 120cm x 50cm, Charcoal on Paper © Yanni Floros. Used here with permission from the artist. |
 |
| © Sven Kovac, borrowed from Instagram. |
Drawing from my own city for example, Adelaide local Yanni Floros has produced a series of hyperreal illustrations of men and weapons to discuss masculinity and power using only charcoal as a medium. Joshua Smith creates incredible miniature reproductions of real dilapidated storefronts inspired by his love of graffiti culture and architecture, spending many hours developing new techniques to perfectly reconstruct tiny bricks, chains and milk cartons. And Lisa King, who paints aesthetically beautiful images of women in oil, inspired by the work of fashion photographers and designers and while her images may appear "simple" in composition there's many hours of mood boarding and concept development before she even begins painting. Then there are artists such as Tom Borgas who creates highly refined sculptural works that exist in reality but which he only completes if they "look good through a camera, as all work exists to be digital these days." (I'm paraphrasing Borgas here from a presentation he did a few years ago at the Relay design forum.)
Maybe I'm going off point but I feel that the position taken by Mireles assumes that most photographers are still steeped in traditional values only held by pure commercial studio photographers of the late 1990s but aren't necessarily here today. At least, they're not the same views held by many of my contemporaries (photographers in their late 20s to early 30s) who love and appreciate art in all its facets.
* How great is the phrase "conceptual currency"?!
Friday, March 3, 2017
Photography // Portraits as an image but not an identity
"Identity is not a fixed thing, and no person is one-dimensional, so the idea that a single photograph can stand in for the totality of a person is a polite fiction at best." – Phillip Prodger
Fleeting Truths: Thoughts on Portrait Photography
A fantastic article with photographer Phillip Prodger on why we shouldn't consider portrait images to be the end all and be all of the identity of the person photographed.
It's something I especially encounter when photographing actors for theatre, film and television—often times when sitting to shoot character portraits it's hard to see where the actor ends and the character begins and so it becomes unclear who it is exactly you're shooting. A look here, a slight adjustment to posture there. You take a shot and you've captured an incredible emotion that is fictional—the look of a character and story brought into being for a split second by an incredible professional talent. The final image might bring tears to the person who sees it but its origins are fictitious.
And my style of photographer, extending from my history as an illustrator, forces me to consider photography as a story-telling medium. I prefer to craft and exhibit series of images that have a beginning, middle and end, because it provides context for the single image. A single image may contain great meaning but a single portrait is often contextually void—is a look angry, frustrated, or concerned? Sometimes its hard to tell without seeing what came before it. Sometimes it just boredom on the face of a model, or a moment of serious focus listening for the punchline of a joke. The next frame might have been uproarious laughter.
Prodger draws comparison between film, motion and still image, describing how they're becoming quickly linked—the language of film informing the vocabulary of the photographer. Directors and actors Jo Stone and Paulo Castro of Stone / Castro Productions have described my photography as "cinematic" in the way that I captured their performance of 'The Country' by Martin Crimp. I shot still frames the same I would have for film and television and the comparison is legitimate.
I'm looking for shots that create a sense of distance, that heighten drama, cropping in to create tighter portraits full of emotion, narrowing the large space of the theatre. If you were to stand in the crowd you'd see the large, flat, dilapidated fronting of an old farm house and you'd view the actors walking back and forth across this set in its entirety. Instead, I charge in and capture that single moment of pain, shock and panic and freeze it. Tight and sharp. Agony and pain made large where live you may have only heard it in a voice. But it's a story—a single image can only give a glimpse of what the story entails. None of them is a whole story in itself.
And so Prodger describes "Narratives no longer have to be complete to be meaningful. Photographic storytelling is more about networks, nodes, and webs than it is about concise statements. In this world, relationships between images become central." And at the National Portrait Gallery of London has facilitated the acceptance of portrait series in addition to the single image, which gives me hope. Where a single image might split time, I feel a series of still images does more than minutes of motion capture to tell stories. It provides us the ability to take this network of nodes and then allow our minds to fill in the gaps. We don't need to see everything, and it's the photographers duty to pick the most poignant moments.
Anyway... enough rambling.
———
"...we’re just messy, organic beings, full of contradictions, uncertainties, inner thoughts and outer projections. Who we are is indefinable and unmeasurable."
"Photography excels at splitting seconds, not surveying lifetimes. It is by nature mechanical and distant, not warm and knowing. On paper, it is the worst possible tool for portraiture. Yet there is something undeniably magnetic about photo portraiture that defies easy explanation."
Fleeting Truths: Thoughts on Portrait Photography
A fantastic article with photographer Phillip Prodger on why we shouldn't consider portrait images to be the end all and be all of the identity of the person photographed.
It's something I especially encounter when photographing actors for theatre, film and television—often times when sitting to shoot character portraits it's hard to see where the actor ends and the character begins and so it becomes unclear who it is exactly you're shooting. A look here, a slight adjustment to posture there. You take a shot and you've captured an incredible emotion that is fictional—the look of a character and story brought into being for a split second by an incredible professional talent. The final image might bring tears to the person who sees it but its origins are fictitious.
And my style of photographer, extending from my history as an illustrator, forces me to consider photography as a story-telling medium. I prefer to craft and exhibit series of images that have a beginning, middle and end, because it provides context for the single image. A single image may contain great meaning but a single portrait is often contextually void—is a look angry, frustrated, or concerned? Sometimes its hard to tell without seeing what came before it. Sometimes it just boredom on the face of a model, or a moment of serious focus listening for the punchline of a joke. The next frame might have been uproarious laughter.
Prodger draws comparison between film, motion and still image, describing how they're becoming quickly linked—the language of film informing the vocabulary of the photographer. Directors and actors Jo Stone and Paulo Castro of Stone / Castro Productions have described my photography as "cinematic" in the way that I captured their performance of 'The Country' by Martin Crimp. I shot still frames the same I would have for film and television and the comparison is legitimate.
 |
| Nathan O'Keefe and Natalia Sledz in 'The Country' by Martin Crimp, directed by Paulo Castro // Stone/Castro Productions © Daniel Purvis |
 |
| Stage and lighting design for 'The Country' by David Lampard and Daniel Barber © Daniel Purvis |
And so Prodger describes "Narratives no longer have to be complete to be meaningful. Photographic storytelling is more about networks, nodes, and webs than it is about concise statements. In this world, relationships between images become central." And at the National Portrait Gallery of London has facilitated the acceptance of portrait series in addition to the single image, which gives me hope. Where a single image might split time, I feel a series of still images does more than minutes of motion capture to tell stories. It provides us the ability to take this network of nodes and then allow our minds to fill in the gaps. We don't need to see everything, and it's the photographers duty to pick the most poignant moments.
Anyway... enough rambling.
———
"...we’re just messy, organic beings, full of contradictions, uncertainties, inner thoughts and outer projections. Who we are is indefinable and unmeasurable."
"Photography excels at splitting seconds, not surveying lifetimes. It is by nature mechanical and distant, not warm and knowing. On paper, it is the worst possible tool for portraiture. Yet there is something undeniably magnetic about photo portraiture that defies easy explanation."
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Cobalt mines in the Congo // Smartphone
Dropping this here as future reference when discussing the role of the designer in a globalised economy. Should also be useful for a discussion of ethics, recycling, and other new-tech related issues.
Also, find below the Facebook video for comparison. Rather than sticking to "straight journalism" like we see in the YouTube video (thought it's still going for the heartstrings), the Facebook video below is all depressing music and emotive words, which is entirely the reason I have Facebook autoplay videos disengaged!
https://www.facebook.com/skynews/videos/1659591590722098/
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
GRAP 2030 // What is a Designer?
What is a designer?
A confusing selection of responses based on who knows what. What is a designer? This is something that Poynor gets at to some degree in his piece "Time for being against." If the general public don't have a clue what we're doing then we've failed at communicating our own role. How are we going to convince a client we're valuable?
But then again, if you put a designer on the spot how well will they respond? Is it possible to communicate exactly what we do in just a few seconds in front of a camera?
Off the top of my own head...
What is a designer?
A designers role is to interpret information, sometimes complex, and turn it into something useful. It's a problem-solving position that requires one to look at the world and question the status quo and investigate if things can be done better, if things can be communicated better, if practices can be smoothed out and made simpler. We take ideas and make them reality. We create new things, or fix old ones. A designer uses their "creativity" to craft messages in such a way that their meaning can be predictably interpreted by the receiver. Much of our knowledge comes from semiotics—how signs signify meaning and how that meaning is understood by others. We navigate cultural norms seeking to exploit and subvert them for the good of society (well, that's the goal anyway!).
Not a bad start but needs far more critical support.
A confusing selection of responses based on who knows what. What is a designer? This is something that Poynor gets at to some degree in his piece "Time for being against." If the general public don't have a clue what we're doing then we've failed at communicating our own role. How are we going to convince a client we're valuable?
But then again, if you put a designer on the spot how well will they respond? Is it possible to communicate exactly what we do in just a few seconds in front of a camera?
Off the top of my own head...
What is a designer?
A designers role is to interpret information, sometimes complex, and turn it into something useful. It's a problem-solving position that requires one to look at the world and question the status quo and investigate if things can be done better, if things can be communicated better, if practices can be smoothed out and made simpler. We take ideas and make them reality. We create new things, or fix old ones. A designer uses their "creativity" to craft messages in such a way that their meaning can be predictably interpreted by the receiver. Much of our knowledge comes from semiotics—how signs signify meaning and how that meaning is understood by others. We navigate cultural norms seeking to exploit and subvert them for the good of society (well, that's the goal anyway!).
Not a bad start but needs far more critical support.
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