the good/ bad old days
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- Horp0
Wow, I just read this...
"Design was barely a "creative" profession until desktop publishing came about. It was more of a Science than an Art. A rote process instead of a creative act."
Thats absolutely the most ridiculous and ill-informed thing I have ever read on the subject of design.
- amenmonospaced
- ahmen
desktop publishing was the beginning of the endalicetheblue
- fate_0
No it isn't. If you think I'm wrong, you're not familiar with the unchanging, modernist dreck that dominated design for most of the 20th century.
- johndiggity0
two things:
as brains alluded to, being a designer 30-40 years ago meant having to work with pretty unforgiving machines to actually produce work. it was much more of a craft. the learning curve was steeper. the profession was more exclusive.
the other point as horp touched on is what our idea of a designer is today. is a designer anyone with photoshop? does it come with a degree? is it a self imposed title?
i think if we can come to a consensus on just what a designer is today (and i know for a fact we won't, not on this forum anyway), then evan, you might be able to frame your argument better. seeing as that is a pretty certain impossibility i think you can throw in all sorts of historical references and at the end of the day it is still all conjecture.
- Can I just say this is a great logo? http://www.johnmchug…fate_
- thanks man!johndiggity
- Corvo20
Also, designers used to be more leraned, more close to literature and arts and their work wasn't as gratuitous and as stupid as it is now. Nowadays, if you analyse the works, you barely see any humanity in it. It's just "style" - an abstract and poor derivation of pre-made computer dingbats.
- ********0
"If you think I'm wrong, you're not familiar with the unchanging, modernist dreck that dominated design for most of the 20th century."
It's only clear that you lack a truly informed social-historical perspective when it comes to your understanding of the modern movement. You deny the precedence of your own technological mythification.
- fate_0
Corvo, you're wrong.
Case in point: "Die neue Typographie" and Swiss Modernism.
If anything these past 20 years have seen design become more and more relevant by shedding off the past.
- even tschichold recanted on this in his later years.johndiggity
- Exactly. But the genie was out of the bottle. It took a long time for design to break free.fate_
- I think modernism is still pretty alive if you ask me. And Punk and Grunge just brought the other face of modernism.Corvo2
- akrokdesign0
i would say, it was more work (harder) before also took more time.
- ukit0
See, I will say - yes, there was more talent in terms of craft required back then. And definitely some of those early works laid the groundwork for what we have today.
But to say it was ALL better back then - is ridiculous too. For one thing, we are only seeing the best of the best when we look back on that era. The fact that design is more accessible now, and therefore there are more amateurs churning out crap, doesn't change that. Pick out the very best of today's work and it would be equally if not more impressive, although in a different way.
- fate_0
The reason designers are so defensive about their history and their icons is because they reduced their profession to a rote act for 100 years.
How's that for social-historical perspective?
- johndiggity0
personally i believe a designer is someone who knows how to effectively break the rules of design. looking back at some of the milestones in the history of graphic design (which is short), most if not all of them have come at the expense of pre-existing ideas of what constitutes good design. tschichold and the constructivists challenging the notions of traditional typography, glaser with pushpin, carson with raygun (love him or hate him). these people all made progress in the design field and opened up new possibilities to other designers about what is acceptable.
- ukit0
Also, the basics of design may be getting more accessible but to really push things forward requires more work than in the old days.
- ********0
fate, who are some of your favorite designers of today?
- Folkert Gorter, but I like lots of designers, including many who frequent QBN.fate_
- Horp0
Modern design spews and pours out incessantly. Its just pixels, it takes nothing, costs nothing, doesn't take any effort to do it, change it, disregard it, shelve it, translate it, mutate it, reference it, copy it, distort it, treat it, make it more, less, old, new, colour, monotone, whatever, just spill it, pour it out, keep it coming, its like vomit.
You really had to get it right first time when it wasn't all virtual inside a TV screen. If you were going to draw some display type, fuck man, you HAD to know how to draw it right first time becuase if you fucked it up, there was no command Z.
Maybe this is why to you Fate, pre-digital design doesn't seem to be as inventive, as dynamic and exciting as what you enjoy about today, but look at the early work of Neville Brody and consider that he was creating typefaces on the fly, on paper, for monthly issues of The Face magazine, and evolving them by hand and eye co-ordination in each successive issue so that they mutated in and out of legibility for the enjoyment of the regular readers. He was doing by hand what many people could still not do with any flair on the best software today.
I hate to be a miserable old curmudgeon, but I still believe that the best designers are the ones who have an understanding and a respect for where the discipline has come from.
- ukit0
I feel like too many of us don't understand history in general - leading us to repeat our mistakes
- NotByHand0
"Would you have had the patience to do it all by hand?"
–
Pfffwww...
- Corvo20
Hohlwein (1874-1949):
http://www.yaneff.com/html/artis…
- MrOneHundred0
What? A lively and passionate argument about design on QBN?! Never!
- ********0
An actual design discussion. Keep it going!
I collect older books, magazines etc that I think is well put together.
Most of it done by nameless designers, but still allot better than the things produced today.
- Corvo20
Herbert Leupin:
- Corvo20
I think photography has ruined drawing. Browse through any dg history book to see what I mean.