Finding Your Voice
Watch out big bad wolf, designers are finding their voices again. After decades of being held captive by management, profits, agencies and overbearing clients, I hear the faint but unmistakable sound of designers discovering their God-given identities. Take a look around. The evidence is overwhelming that design is conversing with a unique voice and speaking from the heart. The adver-speak and agency mumbo jumbo is sounding more and more hollow as people hear the sweet song of Creativity.
You can see the handwriting on the wall, sometimes quite literally. What Stefan Sagmeister penned with his scrawling handwritten lettering into design is now a full fledged style. But what most designer's don't understand is that handwritten lettering in design was never meant to be a trend, just one of many forms of expression unique to each designer. Just as no two people have the same handwriting, neither should any to designers have exactly the same expression. When David Carson began those now legendary layouts for Beach Culture/Ray Gun magazine in the early '90s that spawned so many deconstructionist design copies, he was just learning how to express his own voice through design. And real people connected with this conversation. Others are catching on.
Look at photography. Every time I browse through a major stock photography site, I want to barf. They're all the same. On the whole, the images have no authentic human voice. They are all contrived people speaking advertising messages that no one wants to hear. Now take a look at the stuff being posted on people's "unprofessional" photo blogs or at Flickr. These works are full of life and creativity, ten times more interesting than the best rights-managed imagery. Why? Because they are not under the creative stranglehold of the big bad wolf. Yes, after years of institutionalization and corporatization, folks are finding their voice, and that voice is human. It connects one heart to another.
Surf through your favorite design firm or individual's websites. While the stuff in the official client portfolio may be quite well designed, the works in the experimental section or blog blows you away. Why? One reflects the emerging human voice and one reflects advertising or profit or client or management or deadlines.
What's happening? I believe we're beginning to see the end of design as usual. Thank Goodness. The cry of people wanting to be truly free to create something that both serves others and is part of who they are is being recovered from the corporate-ad agency asylum. Now the question is, what will we say with our voice that is worthwhile?
You can see the handwriting on the wall, sometimes quite literally. What Stefan Sagmeister penned with his scrawling handwritten lettering into design is now a full fledged style. But what most designer's don't understand is that handwritten lettering in design was never meant to be a trend, just one of many forms of expression unique to each designer. Just as no two people have the same handwriting, neither should any to designers have exactly the same expression. When David Carson began those now legendary layouts for Beach Culture/Ray Gun magazine in the early '90s that spawned so many deconstructionist design copies, he was just learning how to express his own voice through design. And real people connected with this conversation. Others are catching on.
Look at photography. Every time I browse through a major stock photography site, I want to barf. They're all the same. On the whole, the images have no authentic human voice. They are all contrived people speaking advertising messages that no one wants to hear. Now take a look at the stuff being posted on people's "unprofessional" photo blogs or at Flickr. These works are full of life and creativity, ten times more interesting than the best rights-managed imagery. Why? Because they are not under the creative stranglehold of the big bad wolf. Yes, after years of institutionalization and corporatization, folks are finding their voice, and that voice is human. It connects one heart to another.
Surf through your favorite design firm or individual's websites. While the stuff in the official client portfolio may be quite well designed, the works in the experimental section or blog blows you away. Why? One reflects the emerging human voice and one reflects advertising or profit or client or management or deadlines.
What's happening? I believe we're beginning to see the end of design as usual. Thank Goodness. The cry of people wanting to be truly free to create something that both serves others and is part of who they are is being recovered from the corporate-ad agency asylum. Now the question is, what will we say with our voice that is worthwhile?
posted by fivemcclungs at 11:08 PM
1 Comments:
Hi,
How I wish I have come across this website earlier. I have been reading the articles here for a good few month already and all I can say is I am utterly impress and am pretty much into achieving that very sense of designing passion in me.
All out of the blue, it seems right, it sounds right and I certainly hope that it will gain it's momentum and impact the entire nation.
God bless,
Howie C.
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