anti design
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- whatsup0
To have design there must be some sort of human intervention, otherwise there is no design. Therefore we have an anti-design. Whether the design is ugly or unusable, "hopefully" there was some sort of conscience thought into putting the design together. Although a major blur for discussion comes when we try to separate art from design. Whatever does not overlap must also be an anti-design. Here we are not trying to understand good design where bad design is an anti-design because a bad/ ugly design still a design.
What separates science from religion is the emotional factors that are involved. The same can be said with design and art, if you believe design is a science and not a mystical force of nature in which requires us to have faith, belief and emotionally bind us to it without any proof of existence. So religion is an anti-science where art is an anti-design.
- sarag0
i think wha's interesting is the contious way in which some things are design 'ugly'
persinally i quite like how some things look like they've been thrown together. but not so much 'extra stuff' added that its unecessary. i think the mess can look quite nice!
quite liked mia site (See bove) how about you guys?
any other sites you can think of?
- gramme0
I actually agree with francoisfido for once. This New Brutalism or whatever term it will be called in the art history books is like Dada + logic, or at least intuition retrofitted to logical explanations. The interesting thing about the Dada movement was its departure from intention, from reason, from logic. It doesn't work with design, which unlike art must perform a function based on logical objectives.
I think it's perfectly fine for designers to play around with faux-amateur ugliness in their spare time (it's their time, after all), but I have a hard time believing this approach to design yields positive results for clients.
- —and like neue, I would agree that it could even be a good thing to have around.gramme
- —but for academic purposes more than anything commercial.gramme
- http://www.manystuff… isnt design???fresnobob
- The use of type in composition does not design make.gramme
- And I'm a fan of the Dada movement, I find it fascinating in limited ways.gramme
- true... but who says designing chaos isn't designing? A chaotic system is still a system, no?fresnobob
- Yeah but in the case of Meire at least, it isn't chaotic. It's oddly stretched and vibrating but simple.gramme
- (vibrating in a way that I personally don't enjoy).gramme
- (that's wasn't intended nearly as dirty as it sounds)gramme
- lukus_W0
Yeah, but I think there's still a sense of 'getting it'; especially when dissonance is created, and the aesthetic that the audience expects is markedly different to the aesthetic that's supplied. I think the notion of 'anti-design' suggests that dissonance will be a noticeable feature.
If the audience is already exposed to the aesthetic in everyday life, maybe they're going to be even more confused when it's used in a very different context - and therefore less likely to understand it.
I see what you're saying about 'Akzidenz Grotesk'. It's the shock of the new - I guess it took a while for the whole of society to grow accustomed (or 'to get') the typeface.
The same can probably be said for the 'ugliness' of skinny jeans. For a long while their appearance seemed a bit odd and jarring outside of a rock band. Then, much later still, even my dad started wearing them. (though, the ugliness didn't really fade in that particular case..)
I'm really thinking about the idea of 'anti-design' as a highbrow concept, where the primary motivation isn't just straightforward communication. I suppose, in this case, usual rules of good design still apply - but .. by changing the cast and props, the task of telling the story is made challenging in a non-usual way.
I like your idea of embracing lowbrow and highbrow and using them interchangeably - and I think this is the approach that all designers would hopefully choose to take. I think it's more difficult for clients to think like this though.
If this line of thinking is accepted, sooner or later it's probably worth asking "why work according to anti-design principles?". Cynically, I think, once again, it's down to the shock of the new. I think trends are unavoidable. People will always flock like sheep.
But maybe it would be more realistic to start viewing 'anti-design' as just another range of techniques - a set of techniques to create contrast against traditional good design, rather than a fad.
I reckon 'anti-design' can also refer to a straightforward embracing, of the trashy design associated with disposable culture. I understand your fondness for the aesthetic .. and I think there's a lot of merit in using it to create design and art - maybe because it's interesting to create reflections of society as it actually stands. I think nastynets.com is good.
- decisionman0
If you can grab Design Anarchy by Kalle Lasn, I highly recommend it. Of course A) I hate Adbusters and B) it's a "how-to" guide to use for Capitalism blah blah blah
Sandwiches
- noob123450
There's no lack of clients out there who want stretched type and layouts. You should be a zillionaire by next week.
- janne760
Kenneth Hung, quite succesfull, also did the Koolhaas cover illu's:
http://www.tinkin.com/
- lukus_W0
I think it might hold value if your clients wish to be seen as 'edgy'. At least for a while, until the pendulum swings the other way again.
- oilpanllc0
so bad that it's not good.
- cannonball19780
id assume that anti-design protects the human experience from the dependency on the expectations that good designs engender
- kult0
- fresnobob0
I gotta jump in here and say David Carson is not "anti-design," and the Meire dude's 32c design is way more awesome than Carson ever was because unlike Carson, Miere is actually a designer and knows what hes doing. David Carson just ripped off other people's ideas (who actually had "serious" reasons for their design being that way) and managed to get famous at it.
Anyways, Carson was just a ripper of postmodernism in design, not defaultness and other things that make stuff "anti-design." HIs shit was hectic and illegible, which could be true of "anti-design," but it doesn't hold the same ideals that "anti-design" does. Anti-design is more of using "folk" type stuff in design, the exceedingly everyday stuff that dads use in microsoft word and things like that.
"Anti-design" is also always going to hold value because theres always going to be something to oppose what "real" designers call design. Its not a trend or an "edgy" (worst, least descriptive word ever, btw) thing, unless dudes really think the whole modernist utopia is actually going to happen...
- jimzyk0
Aunty Designs
- ukit0
But what is good design? You can't really define it outside of the time and place you live in.
There's no eternal unbending rule that says, for instance, you can never stretch type, or that clean modernist typography is the way to go. We think you can't and it is but it's all just cultural programming. Which was different 50 years ago and will be different 50 from now.
All this "anti-design" thing really is, is the latest movement to flip the middle finger to what's typically considered "good." But that doesn't mean it's easier to produce or somehow takes no talent.
- fresnobob0
^ Its not anti-design because Aunty M really designed her site like that because she thought it looked good. It only counts when its a conscious decision, otherwise the anti- is replaced with bad (or uninformed, or whatever)
- cannonball19780
Ukit, although you're mainly talking about applied style, I'm going to have to disagree with you in general terms. Good design is an effective arrangement of elements that was successful in it's intent. The rubric is in the solution.
- gramme0
Well, I see your point fresnobob on Carson vs. Meire, at least in regard to their differing intentions. Whether one is aesthetically better than the other is somewhat subjective I suppose. But what I think is ironic in this new brutalism is the (supposed) painstaking craft involved in making something that looks folky as you put it. Something that most people couldn't tell apart from the MySpace-inspired amateur stuff. In other words, the audience who will appreciate this work for its intentions is miniscule to the point of being practically obsolete imo.
- ukit0
Sure, but "effective arrangement of elements" doesn't tell you much, does it? It's basically like saying "good design is good design."
The details that make it good are the hard part, and that's always going to depend on the culture and the mindset of the audience. So I think we're basically saying the same thing. Even if you can come up with some kind of definition for design as a general approach, the details that matter are always going to change.
- jimzyk0
but it's an Aunty Design.... not an anti design.
she is anti design without even knowing it.she does good fun pouches!