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Designism

By Allan Chochinov - September 22, 2006

in Events

You have to give it to the Art Directors Club for gathering a stellar panel to launch what may or may not become a new movement--Designism. As branded gesture, or the first gathering of a nascent manifesto posse, the evening swirled around the fundamental question of "whether design can and should do good." But it wasn't a question at all, of course, since the panelists have been plain in much of their take-no-prisoners work, and the political-style buttons laying about the entranceway foreshadowed a movement indeed.

After welcoming introductions by ADC vice-president Brian Collins (who conceived of the event) and moderator Steven Heller, Tony Hendra provided some hearbeat-raising forewords, wondering if the U.S. was, indeed, in a "bloodless civil war" right now. George Lois grabbed the mic next (Lavalier, actually, but he hung on with all his might). Showing his infamous Esquire Magazine covers from the 60s and offering a patter so curse-filled it would make a sailor blush, he fired up the crowd with contagious passion. (And kept on firing through the night, for the record.)

Jessica Helfand, articulate and inspiring, pointed to some initiatives that she and partner William Drenttel are engaged in (D.O. Winterhouse Writing Awards, Below the Fold), each pushing the design community to engage in smart dialog and move the ball up the field. The uncompromising James Victore, so disgusted with the state of the Bush administration that he could barely bring himself to speak about it, was next. (Tied, at that point, with George Lois on the potty word count.) He drew a poignant line separating the post 9/11 crap that people churned out with their InDesign packages and the actual stuff people "made and put in the corner," showed a couple more things, then closed up shop. There was power in his brevity. Milton Glaser commented on the political swirl of the evening, noting that "left wing/right brain is a good combination." He talked about modesty, modestly, but I'm not sure that this resonated with the audience. It was a nice, if semantic, gesture to balance the bombast of the other half of the panel, but the work that he showed didn't pull punches in the least.

Kurt Andersen, with his awesome voice and hypnotizing cadence, provided some synthesis at the end, admitting to the obvious preaching-to-the-choir quotient, but urging us all to "make the middle squirm" just a little bit. Anderson also raised the issue of a fractured media and its reduced power to shout through a single megaphone, but then backstitched to sing the praises of the internet and the awesome power and speed of user-generated content on sites such as YouTube.

With a logo designed by Milton Glaser but no clear mandate of what was to happen next (indeed, a Q. from the audience asked if there was going to be a "10 Commandments" for the movement), the evening ended with a fitting conundrum: do I get busy myself, or do I join forces with others? Do I look to the ADC to continue this initiative, join the club--literally--and attend future events?

Closing remarks from Hedra were on the money: "We can get into people's bloodstreams, or we can get into their faces. But what we can't do is do nothing."

ADC site: www.adcglobal.org Podcast of the evening: www.adcglobal.org/podcasts/designism.MP3

[Thanks to Sascha Mombartz for pics!]

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Taylor Lies

18 years ago

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In response to Todd's last thought, it's not quite your Match.com approach but myself and some other young designers have started a small organization, Design for Social Need. It was started in response to mounting pressures on our communities and in light of the vast potential that we as designers share. Our mission is to bring together all types of designers with local social service organizations on volunteer design projects that span from research to development, from planning to implementation. It's a little different focus I'd say than the Designism but hopefully interesting to you nonetheless. Check out the link.
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Adrian Hanft

18 years ago

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I am taking a poll of designers about designism on Be A Design Group. I think it is interesting to take a survey of what designers think of the whole designism idea. If you get a chance, I encourage you to check it out and cast your vote.
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Todd Zerger

18 years ago

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Thank you for that sobering and insightful response Sam.

I confess that I look to stretch my creative wings when doing pro bono work but I also look for work that supports causes I care about and can do good, thoughtful and appropriate work for. This is because working at an advertising agency I actually get many opportunities to be fiercely creative but very few opportunities to apply my skills and experience in service of something I actually care about.

Your perspective as both an activist and designer is valuable but your analysis seems to skew a little toward your activist side. If I may, I would ad that the relationship between client, creative and audience is just that, a relationship, and as such everyone involved is responsible for it.

Therefore, if being more 'artistic' means more creative, more powerful, more unique, more innovative, even more edgy, I think that can be a great opportunity for both the creative and the pro bono communities. If, on the other hand, 'artistic' means going off on a personal whim divorced from the needs of the intended audience then I would argue the result does not count as design at all. It’s mass produced graffiti. Design is the process of solving a problem. What makes design wonderful and difficult is that the solution must be both appropriate and beautiful. That’s hard to achieve if everyone in the relationship doesn’t care passionately about it.

Creatives need to bring a level of maturity to their pro bono work, particularly in service of underdog causes. But, grassroots organizers also have a responsibility to search for a good fit. Don’t assume you can only afford to work with college students who need to fill the pages of their portfolios. Don’t assume 'Pro' creatives who spend their days in the hallowed halls of big famous agencies bring 'credibility' to your message. Take responsibility and don’t let anyone work on your stuff if you can’t see the passion in their eyes and hear it in their voices.

Let’s use stereotypes to keep things easy (we love stereotypes in advertising). Grassroots workers; your mission is to save the whales, to stop the spread of AIDS, to rescue the environment, to secure peace, right? That’s important stuff that should not have to suffer second rate creativity. Madison Avenue’s mission is to sell perfume, expensive pharmaceuticals, gas guzzling SUVs and military hardware. That’s mostly a lot of useless, eventually self-destructive mental noise and landfill waiting to happen. But Madison Avenue and avenues all around the world are trod upon by fabulously talented and passionate creatives who feel like they are selling their souls to the corporate machine during the day and are therefore eager to fight the good fight whenever they can.

I’m glad there are Designism conferences. I’m glad people are impassioned about the issues. I’d like to see a recognition of the life-cycle of a design career so we can match the work that needs to be done with the talent prepared to do it. Perhaps what we need is a way to match cause to creative. A dating service where pro bono work and hungry creatives can meet up and fall in love. Hey… that sounds pretty useful, maybe I’ll put something together and start making some calls. Just as soon as I finish this idea for our telecommunications client.

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C

18 years ago

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Isn't that button at the top the same logo as Deathwish Inc. ? - http://www.deathwishinc.com/ . Look around and you'll find it on there, like at the bottom of 'Downloads' section.
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Sam Pratt

18 years ago

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It's notable (and eyebrow-raising) that this panel did not include a single activist to temper the abstract opinions of these designers and critics.

As I've commented to Bill Drenntel before (much to his displeasure), high-end designers and advertising people often completely misunderstand what kinds of designs work at the grassroots level.

Despite paying lipservice to notions of contextuality and working with clients, most designers and ad people view pro bono work as an opportunity to be more "artistic" than their work-for-hire.

But often these designs and campaigns are completely out of step with the target community and the needs of the activist groups for whom they are created.

In my own work as both a (successful) activist and a (self-taught) designer, I repeatedly fended off very bad ideas from Madison Avenue and downtown "pros" who insisted their proposed campaigns were the only way to go. This was the one constant -- their utter certainty in the rightness of their ideas.

Sometimes, in a local or regional campaign, the slickest, cleverest, boldest, or most "dramatic" message is the one most guaranteed to alienate the target audience.

But since the designs which win awards (or get featured in books) are handed out by others in the same peer group as the creatives, not by activists, inappropriate campaigns keep getting rewarded, while effective and contextually smart work is ignored.
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wellfellow

18 years ago

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Ugh. Is this for real? Can we have a discussion of any issues in this country without foul mouthed temper tantrums? I suppose that's the level of discourse available to left-wing ideologues.
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