As print design celebrities go, you can't get much more entertaining than Knopf's associate art director, Chip Kidd. Since his TED talk a couple years back, Kidd has been riding the lecture circuit, which brought him to Edmonton this week. Earlier tonight, Kidd gave a talk very similar to the one posted below. While the aesthetic of his book covers can be hit or miss (usually hit, especially if you're fond of the 90s), I have yet to see one that doesn't succeed in making a strong conceptual impact.
Chip Kidd from Creative Mind at Brown on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
January 22, 2014
June 28, 2013
Material Leisure
Yes, the title of my new Tumblr site is a play on leisure material. I'll be updating it regularly with illustrations and other design-related projects, from posters and prints to random doodles.
Perhaps an odd title, but now that I'm working full-time it seemed appropriate. Given that I'm doing most of my work by hand, without relying too much on design software, I thought it would also be important to highlight my process. And, of course, there's the fact that the labour involved in producing my work has a material foundation. I thought it might be helpful to post an explanation, originally written during my first attempts to put the site together a couple of weeks ago. I realize it's a bit precious, so I decided not to bother with it. However it still articulates what I was thinking with regard to the title.
Material Leisure showcases my ongoing work without the pretence cohesion or, for that matter, coherence.
Material Leisure addresses the concrete relation between material conditions (i.e., the working day) and the leisure activities that assist in their reproduction. Leisure, in this sense, is a material phenomenon that emerges from the social and economic limitations we confront on a daily basis. Our habitual escape from labour’s routine is aided by various cultural forms, modes of entertainment, and therapies. Such commodities manifest the labour process and are, in this way, no less material than tools and activities used to create them.
Material Leisure is the vehicle that assembles the products of my leisure time for the leisure time of another.
February 15, 2013
William Morris and the politics of artistic production
In 1889, William Morris delivered a lecture titled "The Arts and Crafts of Today," which addressed the degraded state of labour and commerce in industrial England by working through the question of art's purpose in everyday life. Not simply an indictment of late Victorian society, Morris's lecture functions as a manifesto, justifying his radical position to an audience of artists while laying out the philosophy of the Arts and Crafts movement. Like the manifestos of later design movements, such as The Bauhaus, Morris's lecture assumes a close relationship between what he calls the "applied arts" and the complex form of society at large. For both movements, the design manifesto is a polemical call to all creative labourers to recognize their collective capacity to overturn and transform the status quo; it is an attempt to articulate an alternative vision of society in which art does not simply mask reality but actually improves it.
Modernist aesthetics can be seen as a direct engagement with the question of technology and its increasing dominance within industrial capitalism. In this way, the lineage of early twentieth century movements like The Bauhaus can be traced back to Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. If the design manifesto is itself the outgrowth of a modernist attitude toward art and life, it retains the same dialectical impulse that drove Morris to understand the applied arts as a sign of collective solidarity: it is at once critical of its immediate context and pragmatic about how to change it. As Morris's 1889 lecture demonstrates, the rise of the applied arts as a discipline directly follows from art's confrontation with capitalist modes of production and to social inequality.
In a landscape saturated with advertising and mass production, the applied arts provided Morris with tangible opportunities for intervention. His 1889 lecture recognizes this discipline as a site of labour that must be reconciled with degraded labour of the industrial factory. Art, according to Morris, has two related purposes. The first purpose has to do with use and consumption: art adds beauty to functional objects, it enables the enjoyment of everyday activities. Here, Morris suggests that in some forms of human labour (certain moments in agriculture, fishing, carpentry, etc.) beauty is already inherent in nature, or it would be if we recognized that this sort of work is necessary and dignified. Art's second purpose is to add pleasure to labour. Nature again figures into this definition because it models this relationship for us by making necessary activities like eating enjoyable.
For Morris, the vast separation between art and life was symptomatic of England's social and economic inequality. In his lecture, he points out that artists frequently fixate on a particular style or method and consequently lose sight of what that style might achieve. Such artwork finally expresses nothing more than the vanity of the artist: his self-satisfied ability to render a "clever" product, which simply mystifies and alienates his audience rather than working towards its edification. Within the conditions of capitalism, art cannot be commonly experienced: it becomes the lofty domain of aristocratic enjoyment; meanwhile, the factory work that sustains England's economy is stripped down to bare utility.
Removing art from utility does not make utility somehow more neutral; it rather works against the human spirit and against social progress. If we simply adhere to utility, suggests Morris, we have the choice between two dystopian futures. Either society will be organized in a way that allows for the exploitation of the many by the few (fascism), or, as a strict system of compulsory egalitarianism, not unlike the form of communism that would later envelop Eastern Europe. In either case everyday life is defined by the drudgery of work, which destroys creativity and instrumentalizes human energy.
In contrast, the true work of art for Morris must point to the unified bond of true society, where every individual endeavour is grounded, inspired, and made possible by collective interest. In this way, Morris's philosophy was grounded in the "constructivism" that would come to define the avant-garde in the early twentieth century: art is distinguished not by the finished product but by the social process that surrounds it and makes possible its creation (McGann 56). For Morris and, later, for The Bauhaus this impulse toward collective interest culminated in the work of architecture. In "The Bauhaus Manifesto" Walter Gropius suggests argues that arts and crafts must work together in unity in order to create complete objects, the most important of which is "the complete building." Like Gropius, Morris recognized architecture as a way to understand how art and life could influence one another. Even the fine arts, such as painting or sculpture, must be considered within the context of architecture and can aid in the construction of a unified space. The building, argues Morris, is "a unit of art": it is the pure expression of the lives of its builders and inhabitants. What bound these two groups together in previous societies was a common tradition. By Morris's time, that tradition had been superseded by the irrational demands of the market, all of which have led increased specialization and alienation for working classes. In this setup, ornamentation (what used to belong to the domain of art) is mass produced as an afterthought to utility, the ultimate purpose of which is to quicken commerce. The end of objects produced in this kind of context is profit, pure and simple. Beautiful work can therefore only be oppositional because it must, by definition, take into account the mutual conditions of production and consumption.
In his lecture Morris sees the buildings of industrial Britain standing in stark contrast to the cathedrals of the middle ages, not only because of their orientation towards commerce, but because such spaces reduce workers to blunt instruments. Because he is driven solely by commercial interest, Morris argues, the capitalist will either have machines do work of production or rely on "human machines": workers whose desire and creativity must be channeled into spare moments of leisure time. Under such conditions, the working classes are doomed to produce objects of mere utility. In other words, if ornamentation does make an appearance in factory products, it has no purpose beyond the self-interest of those who own the means of production.
Where other social critics of Victorian England, such as John Ruskin or Thomas Carlyle, valourized work as an inherently ennobling activity and risked having their arguments used to justify the further exploitation of the working classes, Morris was convinced that simple labour reform would not solve the problems of capitalism (Breton 43). Commerce, according to Morris, can only encourage exploitation and treat beauty as a superfluous ornament. When those engaged in the applied arts take seriously their conditions of production, they cannot but be aligned with rebellion. For Morris the free labours of applied artists are therefore the concrete appearance of utopian possibility; they carve out a space of critique and a space of hope. Such work, in other words, reminds us of what the industrial age has forgotten: that labour can be pleasurable, that social equality is attainable, and that both possibilities depend on one another.
Works Cited
Modernist aesthetics can be seen as a direct engagement with the question of technology and its increasing dominance within industrial capitalism. In this way, the lineage of early twentieth century movements like The Bauhaus can be traced back to Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement. If the design manifesto is itself the outgrowth of a modernist attitude toward art and life, it retains the same dialectical impulse that drove Morris to understand the applied arts as a sign of collective solidarity: it is at once critical of its immediate context and pragmatic about how to change it. As Morris's 1889 lecture demonstrates, the rise of the applied arts as a discipline directly follows from art's confrontation with capitalist modes of production and to social inequality.
In a landscape saturated with advertising and mass production, the applied arts provided Morris with tangible opportunities for intervention. His 1889 lecture recognizes this discipline as a site of labour that must be reconciled with degraded labour of the industrial factory. Art, according to Morris, has two related purposes. The first purpose has to do with use and consumption: art adds beauty to functional objects, it enables the enjoyment of everyday activities. Here, Morris suggests that in some forms of human labour (certain moments in agriculture, fishing, carpentry, etc.) beauty is already inherent in nature, or it would be if we recognized that this sort of work is necessary and dignified. Art's second purpose is to add pleasure to labour. Nature again figures into this definition because it models this relationship for us by making necessary activities like eating enjoyable.
For Morris, the vast separation between art and life was symptomatic of England's social and economic inequality. In his lecture, he points out that artists frequently fixate on a particular style or method and consequently lose sight of what that style might achieve. Such artwork finally expresses nothing more than the vanity of the artist: his self-satisfied ability to render a "clever" product, which simply mystifies and alienates his audience rather than working towards its edification. Within the conditions of capitalism, art cannot be commonly experienced: it becomes the lofty domain of aristocratic enjoyment; meanwhile, the factory work that sustains England's economy is stripped down to bare utility.
Removing art from utility does not make utility somehow more neutral; it rather works against the human spirit and against social progress. If we simply adhere to utility, suggests Morris, we have the choice between two dystopian futures. Either society will be organized in a way that allows for the exploitation of the many by the few (fascism), or, as a strict system of compulsory egalitarianism, not unlike the form of communism that would later envelop Eastern Europe. In either case everyday life is defined by the drudgery of work, which destroys creativity and instrumentalizes human energy.
In contrast, the true work of art for Morris must point to the unified bond of true society, where every individual endeavour is grounded, inspired, and made possible by collective interest. In this way, Morris's philosophy was grounded in the "constructivism" that would come to define the avant-garde in the early twentieth century: art is distinguished not by the finished product but by the social process that surrounds it and makes possible its creation (McGann 56). For Morris and, later, for The Bauhaus this impulse toward collective interest culminated in the work of architecture. In "The Bauhaus Manifesto" Walter Gropius suggests argues that arts and crafts must work together in unity in order to create complete objects, the most important of which is "the complete building." Like Gropius, Morris recognized architecture as a way to understand how art and life could influence one another. Even the fine arts, such as painting or sculpture, must be considered within the context of architecture and can aid in the construction of a unified space. The building, argues Morris, is "a unit of art": it is the pure expression of the lives of its builders and inhabitants. What bound these two groups together in previous societies was a common tradition. By Morris's time, that tradition had been superseded by the irrational demands of the market, all of which have led increased specialization and alienation for working classes. In this setup, ornamentation (what used to belong to the domain of art) is mass produced as an afterthought to utility, the ultimate purpose of which is to quicken commerce. The end of objects produced in this kind of context is profit, pure and simple. Beautiful work can therefore only be oppositional because it must, by definition, take into account the mutual conditions of production and consumption.
In his lecture Morris sees the buildings of industrial Britain standing in stark contrast to the cathedrals of the middle ages, not only because of their orientation towards commerce, but because such spaces reduce workers to blunt instruments. Because he is driven solely by commercial interest, Morris argues, the capitalist will either have machines do work of production or rely on "human machines": workers whose desire and creativity must be channeled into spare moments of leisure time. Under such conditions, the working classes are doomed to produce objects of mere utility. In other words, if ornamentation does make an appearance in factory products, it has no purpose beyond the self-interest of those who own the means of production.
Where other social critics of Victorian England, such as John Ruskin or Thomas Carlyle, valourized work as an inherently ennobling activity and risked having their arguments used to justify the further exploitation of the working classes, Morris was convinced that simple labour reform would not solve the problems of capitalism (Breton 43). Commerce, according to Morris, can only encourage exploitation and treat beauty as a superfluous ornament. When those engaged in the applied arts take seriously their conditions of production, they cannot but be aligned with rebellion. For Morris the free labours of applied artists are therefore the concrete appearance of utopian possibility; they carve out a space of critique and a space of hope. Such work, in other words, reminds us of what the industrial age has forgotten: that labour can be pleasurable, that social equality is attainable, and that both possibilities depend on one another.
Breton, Rob. "WorkPerfect: William Morris and the Gospel of Work." Utopian Studies 13.1 (2002): 43-56.
Gropius, Walter. "The Bauhaus Manifesto." Maria Buszek, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Gropius, Walter. "The Bauhaus Manifesto." Maria Buszek, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
McGann, Jerome. "'A Thing to Mind': The Materialist Aesthetic of William Morris." Huntington Library Quarterly 55.1 (Winter, 1992): 55-74.
Morris, William. "The Arts and Crafts of Today." Marxists Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
Morris, William. "The Arts and Crafts of Today." Marxists Internet Archive, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2013.
November 30, 2012
Notes on Gothic architecture
The paper is bland so I won't post much of it here, but some of my sources proved rewarding in the end. Most of all, it was Roland Recht's recently translated book, Believing and Seeing: The Art of Gothic Cathedrals (The University of Chicago Press), that gave the best analysis of my subject. I decided to write on the architecture of Gothic cathedrals; more specifically, I gave a brief analysis of the reconstruction of Canterbury cathedral in the later part of the 12th century, right around the time of Thomas Becket's dispute with Henry II and the archbishop's subsequent martyrdom/veneration. Recht's book argues that Gothic cathedrals supported an emerging appetite for images that made visible the signs of scripture: "Metalworkers, for example, fashioned intricate monstrances and reliquaries for the presentation of sacred articles, and technical advances in stained glass production allowed for more expressive renderings of holy objects." Recht reads this growing emphasis on the visual alongside developments in the theory of optics, the elevation of the divine Host in the ceremony of the Eucharist, the increasing influence of tradesmen and their consolidation into a pivotal class.
I started out hoping to use some of John Ruskin's writing on Gothic cathedrals to frame my argument, but I wasn't all that surprised when Ruskin's sweeping projections weren't of much use. Reading through parts of The Stones of Venice again after almost a decade, I was struck by the bizarre dynamic he sets up between architecture, labour, and history.
Whenever the workman is utterly enslaved, the parts of the building must of course be absolutely like each other; for the perfection of his execution can only be reached by exercising him in doing one thing, and giving him nothing else to do. The degree in which the workman is degraded may thus be known at a glance, by observing whether the several parts of the building are similar or not; . . . if, as in Gothic work, there is perpetual change both in design and execution, the workman must have been altogether set free. (93)This positive view of human labour, which arises from Ruskin's deeply Christian humanism, is nothing surprising. It's fairly well-known that his valourization of medieval Europe had less to do with historical conditions than it did with specifically Victorian concerns over crises of faith, the brutal working conditions of English factories, and profound confidence in scientific progress. But when you actually look at the way most Gothic cathedrals were built, their stylistic incongruities had little to do with the unique wills of their workmen or a space of freedom in which to pursue their individual desires. Ruskin's affirmation of the workman's freedom has more to do with the fact each individual will was reigned in by the humbling framework of Christianity. In the case of Canterbury, for example, the addition of the Gothic style to an already existing Romanesque foundation occurred because a French architect was charged with rebuilding a choir that had been damaged in a fire; five years into the project William of Sens fell off a scaffold and the project was given over to an Englishman. Further changes can be traced back to the political disputes between the Catholic church and the English crown, not unlike the conflicts that led unsanctioned murder of Thomas Becket. It should also be remembered that these buildings took decades (or longer) to finish, which doesn't really allow for the kind of flippancy Ruskin ascribes to their planning. At the same time, Ruskin's interpretation of Gothic architecture does do us the service of distancing the medieval imagination from the formal limitations of our own:
And it is one of the chief virtues of the Gothic builders, that they never suffered ideas outside symmetries and consistencies of what they did. If they wanted a window, they opened one; a room, they added one; a buttress, they build one; utterly regardless of any established conventionalities of external appearance, knowing (as indeed it always happened) that such daring interruptions of the formal plan would rather give additional interest to its symmetry than injure it. So that, in the best times of Gothic, a useless window would rather have been opened in an unexpected place for the sake of surprise, than a useful one forbidden for the sake of symmetry. Every successive architect, employed upon a great work, built the pieces he added in his own way, utterly regardless of the style adopted by his predecessors; and if two towers were raised in nominal correspondence at the sides of a cathedral front, one was nearly sure to be different from the other, and in each the style at the top to be different from the style at the bottom" (Ruskin 98).For Ruskin, such irrationality reflected human conditions of understanding and fallenness; like a good Augustinian, Ruskin believed that such epic inconsistencies actually glorified God and avoided the pitfalls of idolatry and hubris. Yet it's hard to imagine the medieval workman as a free individual, or as someone whose daily toil was actually dignified and ennobling, unless such work is read through a nostalgic lens that privileges a theological structure (for its own sake) over a social and economic one.
June 25, 2012
the summer situation
I realize I haven't been posting much, and it's not for lack of free time. It has more to do with my enthusiasm, my energy; but mostly it's just boredom.
I've been applying for jobs here in Edmonton for several months, and I've come away with a month of employment (starting in July). Perhaps all the cover letter writing, resume adjustments, and scrolling through the job listings has taken its toll on my spirits. I've also been waiting to hear back from my supervisor about my first draft of my thesis for several months now. She hasn't given me much to go on besides empty encouragement. So there you have it. I'm feeling a bit unproductive. Perhaps things would be different if I weren't going back to school in September and didn't need to make a lot of money in a hurry.
That's right. School. More of it. But not on the track I've been heading down for the last few years.
I'm veering off course to work towards a diploma in design and illustration. There are plenty of reasons behind my decision to do this. The first and foremost is that the program (which balances fine arts and digital media) is as close as I can find to the kind of training I want. I'm also looking forward to doing creative work that has more tangible results than reading and writing. The other main reason is also the most pragmatic, as well as the most painful to admit: I need a job. Hopefully a fulfilling one. And where the academic route is riddled with discouraging news about the job market and the usual paranoia over the state of the humanities (and debates over the usefulness of professional degrees in general), design seems like a pretty sure thing; at least, if I do end up getting a PhD, I'll be able to depend on another source of income while I look for a job.
But before I begin my new program in September, I still have a thesis to defend, a job contract to fill, friends to visit, and too many weddings to attend. That's the summer situation, so far.
I've been applying for jobs here in Edmonton for several months, and I've come away with a month of employment (starting in July). Perhaps all the cover letter writing, resume adjustments, and scrolling through the job listings has taken its toll on my spirits. I've also been waiting to hear back from my supervisor about my first draft of my thesis for several months now. She hasn't given me much to go on besides empty encouragement. So there you have it. I'm feeling a bit unproductive. Perhaps things would be different if I weren't going back to school in September and didn't need to make a lot of money in a hurry.
That's right. School. More of it. But not on the track I've been heading down for the last few years.
I'm veering off course to work towards a diploma in design and illustration. There are plenty of reasons behind my decision to do this. The first and foremost is that the program (which balances fine arts and digital media) is as close as I can find to the kind of training I want. I'm also looking forward to doing creative work that has more tangible results than reading and writing. The other main reason is also the most pragmatic, as well as the most painful to admit: I need a job. Hopefully a fulfilling one. And where the academic route is riddled with discouraging news about the job market and the usual paranoia over the state of the humanities (and debates over the usefulness of professional degrees in general), design seems like a pretty sure thing; at least, if I do end up getting a PhD, I'll be able to depend on another source of income while I look for a job.
But before I begin my new program in September, I still have a thesis to defend, a job contract to fill, friends to visit, and too many weddings to attend. That's the summer situation, so far.
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