DESIGNEXIST
A Personal Manifesto
What is important?
To me the most important thing in design is the viewer, design is the art of visual communication between the designer and the viewer. What I want to push in my future work is this relationship, I want to talk to more people, I want to reach them and make them react. Design is for the viewer not the designer.
A piece of Design is never finished by the artist, it is the viewer, the audience that completes the work.
This idea about open-ended artwork is something that I have always been obsessed with. It is what drives my work. To create work that is more than just itself, more than just a presence on a page or a canvas but an idea that exists in the viewers mind, that “beauty is no quality in things themselves, it merely exists in the mind which contemplates them”. Good design does not have to look pretty, it does not have to conform to society, it does not have to be cool. But it does have to communicate.
Graphic Design that does not talk, is not Design.
Design has to talk, but it can’t talk to everyone, different people like different things, people are themselves. For this reason design is never wrong, it is not a yes / no answer. Design should ask questions as well as answer them. I want my work to ask questions, to demand more from the viewer. I believe that my design should not be a passive thing, it should inspire thought and even action. Removal / Perfection of elements leads to clarification of Arguments / Ideas. Be careful not to over-design, do not dilute.
Addition by Subtraction.
Modern society is to an extent “over-designed” it surrounds us, and dominates our lives, we are constantly surrounded by design, most of it bad. Design is not easy, but it has become easily accessible, which inevitably leads to non-creatives creating. It is every designers job to differentiate themselves from this “bad design”. This is hard to do in such a commercial world, where the demand for “bad design” is so high.
Let commercial design pay the bills, but don’t let it become you.
Don’t become commercial, become design. “design is not a thing you do, it’s a way of life”. Design saturates life, it is often at the most unexpected moments that great ideas will strike you, it is important to grab these with both hands. To be a creative is all enveloping, and the world can never be the same, something seemingly insignificant can shape work and change your world. If you embrace and enjoy every day you will never be short of inspiration, design will just happen. Relax, if you think of design as a chore then it is a chore.
Don’t DO design, BE design, all day every day.
“designexist”.
This manifesto is a list of things that I like to think about on a daily basis, things that help me “designexist”.
- Those not willing to look will never see.
- Objects are perishable, but idea’s need not be.
- Embrace the Past, look forward to the Future.
- Design is not for the Designer.
- Addition by Subtraction.
- Embrace the everyday, from the mundane to the ultra-violet.
- Under-design.
- Money is worth nothing, time is priceless.
- ___________________ . It is up to you to finish this manifesto.
