How come most designers suck?
Out of context: Reply #197
- Started
- Last post
- 212 Responses
- gramme0
We're getting theoretical here, which means francoisfido is getting the popcorn ready. I'll try not to inadvertently associate a grapefruit to a dog sled.
I think postmodernism, or a lack thereof, comes into play in a major way in design, and we're only now starting to identify the effects of it. Funny how design lags behind pop culture.
Anyway, one of the postmodern architects in the world of communication was McLuhan, whom most of you probably know about, aka Mr. "The medium is the message." If you really think about that, it's pretty depressing. It seems to me what he was basically saying there is that the vehicle, the husk, is more valuable than the contents, because the populace deem it so. It took some decades for his predictions to come true, but we're seeing it lived out now in the tremendous glut of style-based design, where the presentation screams louder than the content. The problem with McLuhan's fulfilled prophecy is that it's only been fulfilled from the outside, which ironically suits his claims (or maybe the irony was part of his prophecy, I'm not sure). This is because truth is not a matter of perception; rather, perception drives opinion or paradigm. Truth is immutable and impervious to opinion or cognitive dissonance. Popularity is not a determination of truth. So I realize this might make me sound like an old Presbyterian fart, but I think the message is far, far more important than the medium will ever be.