Dialogue is a series of interviews, discussions and opinions from designers, writers and students which formed the basis for reports completed on the BA and FdA courses. These were collected and published as part of a publication produced for the degree show. A digital version of this publication will shortly be available for download on this site.
Introduction
John-Patrick Hartnett
John-Patrick Hartnett is a graphic designer, producing print and screen-based work mostly for the arts, culture and education sectors. In 2010 JP Hartnett spent a day with the FDA DGC critiquing projects. Later that year he took part at a portfolio review session, organised by lead Tutor Paul Bailey, alongside the course’s active industry partners and mentors.
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Q: How important do you think it is for designers to be socially aware?
A: I think that the best way to answer this question, is to first replace the word “designers” with the words “human beings”. You might then ask “How important do you think it is for human beings to be socially aware?”, and question seems to answer itself. Design can’t be separated from the rest of life, and the characteristics that define people as “people” are the same ones that will define them as “designers”. If someone is oblivious about what is happening in the world around them, it is quite likely that this lack of awareness will filter through into their design work and it will suffer as a result. Design created through ignorance is rarely a good thing. However, social awareness as a term, should not be taken to apply only to work created for charity organizations or environmental concerns (as is often the case within graphic design). Having a ‘social awareness’ should simply imply having an understanding of one’s place within design, and an understanding of how the work that one makes contributes to society, or impacts upon it, or helps to shape it. This applies across the board, whether one is designing a commercial advertisement, a children’s schoolbook or an art exhibition. Viewed in this way: the future success of design depends entirely upon there being a prevalence of ‘socially aware’ designers creating work to be used our society – as socially aware designers are the only designers whose work will be able to respond intelligently to the changes experienced within that society.
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Q: Is it easier to get clients by doing work that stands out or work that buys into trends?
A: In my experience, it is always better to design the way that feels right for both you and the project itself. If you try and copy a style that isn’t your own, or one that doesn’t suit your personality or working methods, the chances are that it will be unsuccessful anyway – and then you will have succeeded on neither front: either in making a good piece of work, or consequently in making one that is likely to generate more work.
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Q: Do you think trends last as long now that the internet constantly reports on them?
A: I can’t really say, I try not to spend too much time looking at design on the internet. There is so much of it available that it becomes quite exhausting, and it all starts to look the same in a way – through no fault of the work necessarily, but through the homogenising nature of the presentation format. It’s quite unrewarding to look at design in this way I think – thumbnail, next thumbnail, next thumbnail, next thumbnail etc... If trends don’t last as long now as they used to, I think that this will be a good thing. In terms of typography at least, the trends are coming thick and fast: underlining, filling in counters, printing everything in one colour, crazy text justification etc. The more that people copy the trends and they become exhausted, the better – we can all get back to coming up with actual “ideas” then instead!
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Q: Where did you learn most about design, at school or while working?
A: I once read an interview with Experimental Jetset where they commented that one of the biggest mistakes that they made as students, was in believing that becoming a designer was a process that would start after college, out in the ‘real world’. They had since come to acknowledge that this was a false distinction to make: there was, in fact, no concrete split between the two environments – they were already a part of the ‘real world’ while they were still in college. I think that this is a very valid point to make, one that points toward a much more fully rounded understanding of the concept of education. But this could be taken further to it’s logical conclusion in recognising that education itself is a life-long process. It begins before we go school, it continues during school, and afterward into the professional world and whatever else comes then. In this sense, learning about design begins at a much earlier stage than most people consider, when they talk about their design education. If you think of a child experimenting with building a Lego house, they are already engaged in a process of designing, much like the one that we would understand as ‘design’ now – choosing colours, finding the most pleasing form, making decisions about the character of the building, how best to structure it so that it doesn’t fall down etc. These are fundamentals that we learn from a very early age. It is true that these skills become more focused as we become more specialised in our chosen field, but the process of design education can be traced right back to infancy. Although I can’t remember, I’m pretty sure that I learned a lot about shapes and colour while in playschool, I definitely learned a lot about design in art class while I was in school, and then also plenty during my formal design education in college. I’m still learning now, I hope to still be learning when I’m 60.
Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy is a graduate of the Design for Graphic Communication course. He is now a mentor on the course and works as a graphic designer within the charity sector.
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Q: Is it better to follow what you love, or what you should do?
A: False dichotomy – you should go for the best work you can get, but whatever comes your way, be it a humble blacktext annual report or a beautiful piece of book design, do it to the best of your ability.
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Q: What is the future of design?
A: If you find out, can you let me know. It’s digital of course, which is terrifying. I feel woefully unprepared for this – take advantage of any extra modules you can at LCC on HTML 5, flash, app design, etc.
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Q: What will happen when everyone is excellent in Adobe software but cannot draw or do print making?
A: So guilty of this – what will happen (and is already happening) is that designers with those manual skills combined with good software skills earn more. People will pay more for a one-off handmade piece. Looking around, you’ll already notice many large corporations using handdrawn illustrations or strange installation pieces in their advertisements – think of the Orange ads over the last two years, for example.
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Q: What tool / skill / ability do you use the most? What skills/ abIlity should a new designer have?
A: In terms of design skill, I’d say speed – it’s sad how seldom I get to spend time thinking thoroughly about a project. Usually it’s needed yesterday, so quick thinking and execution of ideas. It also helps if you can stay calm when everyone else is panicking... and mind-reading is a useful skill too. Essentially a lot of the job is seeing the idea your client has in their head but can’t do themselves.
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Q: Is having a ‘style’ relevant anymore?
A: No, although if you’re an illustrator, you can become known for a particular aesthetic, which can get you a lot of repeat business. This must be annoying after a while, like being typecast as an actor who only ever plays bad guys, but it pays the bills.
Networking: Jo Spencer
SOUPA is an online/offline creative community. Jo shares her experience about setting up this platform. Jo is an associate lecturer at the University of the Arts London teaching on the BA/FdA Design for Graphic Communication course.
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Q: What made you decide to start the website Soupa?
A: SOUPA started with myself and a friend we were working at Time Out at the time and a little frustrated by the brand guidelines we had to follow on every book or magazine we produced. We wanted something which would be a creative outlet for us both. Not many individuals had websites in 2005 (surprisingly) and we were keen to get our work online and have somewhere to share projects, ideas and potentially collaborate - at this point I started talking to friends about it and launched the site showcasing around 8 peoples work. The site developed and grew gradually and I used it as a base to learn more about web design. Since the popularity of blogs was rising I decided it would be interesting to include a blog aspect to it where we could share news about SOUPA but also about creative events and competitions which also generated more interest and hits to the site.
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Q: What elements on your website do you think are most important for providing a creative community?
A: I assume people want to see work – new work being produced from up and coming designers, but also people want to hear about events and exhibitions happening, which is why I try and post as much as I can on the blog about this type of thing.
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Q: How did you test and decide on the design aesthetic for Soupa?
A: I have always used it as a personal design project as well as a resource for creatives, I want it to be contemporary and design fashion lead, so we look at keeping the look and feel along these lines to try and keep interest of young/contemporary creatives.
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Q: How did you go about promoting your website an d what do youthink were the most effective methods?
A: Twitter and Facebook generate most hits on the site. But recently the site won an award (CSS Design awards) and this definitely brought a new audience to SOUPA. Getting mentioned on sites such as MagCulture, Wallpaper, Creative Review, etc. helps massively but I personally don’t have time to actively advertise and promote the site, so when it does happen and there is a big surge it is a great boost for us and makes us keep going with it. We are not-for-profit so I don’t worry about it too much. It is more about the immediate audience (SOUPA members) feeling part of a community.
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Q: Is there anything that you do to maintain the interest in Soupa, or is there no need for this now that it is such an established resource?
A: It needs constant attention, in terms of the look and feel of the site but also the content. It definitely isn’t a self sustainable resource. It requires a lot of care and attention. But I do get a lot out of it and it gives me and other members a platform to get involved in other events such as the recent YARN fest collaboration. [link: http://soupa.co.uk/2011/02/23/yarnfest-round-up/]
Alex Jarvis
Alex is a London based graphic/ interaction designer, currently working for BERG London. He is also an associate lecturer at the University of the Arts, currently working at LCC writing and running creative briefs for students in their first and second years of the FdA course. This year (2011) he set the FdA students a project called ‘The Cloud’.
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Q: How important do you think it is for designers to be socially aware ?
A: Very. And culturally. Latching onto how people use things and they way they do things, and looking at how people SHOULD be doing things is one of the most important aspects of design, for me.
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Q: Do you think trends last as long no w that the internet constantly reports on them?
A: If anything, I think they probably get exaggerated more because of the internet. Although I guess there’s a danger that the ‘next big thing’ is always coming up. Definitely working, for me anyway. I only really clocked onto what I wanted to do while I was in the 3rd year of uni. I always say design is like learning to drive – uni teaches you the core skills and the very basic elements, you only really learn when you’re among people doing the same thing and pushing yourself a little bit (driving on your own after you’ve passed your test).
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Q: With nearly everyone having access to a camera, computer and printer, how important do you think good design is to the general public ?
A: To the general public good design just makes things easier. It’s very easy to get stuck inside a world where you think everyone’s judging the minute details of a piece of work... really, no-one cares that much. Good design should make people smile, and not get frustrated in the middle of it.
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Q: Are you worried that advances in technology will render the skills you learnt at school obsolete in the next 5–10 year s?
A: No, not at all. Technological advances aren’t moving quickly enough to worry about replacing human emotion and common sense in the next decade. Not at all. The more I work the more I realise there’s much, much more to it... project management, presentation skills, user experience, they all need to be taken into account to make something successful. You need to solve a problem before you produce a final outcome, much like you’re doing research before you product a final piece. If we just coloured in there would be a world of pointless, lovely looking things that just existed to look cool, rather than changing the world in some way.
Kate Melsom
Kate Melsom is part of Creative Interpartners, a vibrant, young team backed with 30 years of experience to guide them. Creative Interpartners is a highly active, through-the-line with a varied portfolio ranging; from identity to advertising, fashion and luxury brand jewellers to structural engineers.
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Q: How important do you think it is for designers to be socially aware?
A: It’s very much dependent on their outlook – what are they researching? Where do their interests lie? Some designers are renowned for setting a precedent that fights a social norm rather than complying with it. Being culturally aware is essential if you are working for differing groups of people so you can better understand why they’re setting a brief and who the target market are that will understand it. It’s not always about answering with the latest media trend to “keep up”. The question is what would illustrate or begin a new social trend not just blur into what’s happening already.
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Q: Is it easier to get clients by doing work that stands out or work that buys in to current trends?
A: I would tend to believe there’s no “easy” way at all. Good design usually stands out because of its effect; usually because it solved a problem. Clients are invariably drawn to agencies that lead trends – not simply follow them – as copying/reproducing current ideas is easy but doesn't make you stand out as you’ll always be a follower rather than a developer/leader. I think there in lies a real problem with design now – once people see something they like, they believe its fair game to use it – even if it’s inappropriate to the brief. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s important to be aware of current visual trends and take part in their evolution – you never know where it’ll take you!
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Q: Do you think trends last as long now that the internet constantly reports on them?
A: I think they can last even longer but they become far less distinct. So many will be available to view at any one time there’s less obvious movement in one look or idea. Having said that it has meant that things get re-developed and re-expressed in so many new ways, it means we get exposed to so many more everyday. We’re no longer reliant on being close to centres of design or inspiration to feel the effects of a trend – but it can mean we never really experience one either.
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Q: Where did you learn most about design, at school or while working?
A: I learnt very different things about design. School/College/Uni was about opening your eyes and mind to ways of thinking and expressing visuals, I feel it was more about learning to focus on creativity as a language which was amazing. By the time you reach work you’re more focused on what you’re doing and although my agency does all sorts of things it means I now have experience in different media and commercially how design is expected to function to non-designers i.e. clients, so my technical knowledge has improved there. So I’ve learnt very different things about design. It would be foolish to say I’d learnt the most anywhere, as if you’re truly passionate about design you never stop learning.
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Q: Are you worried that advances in technology will render the skills you learnt at school obsolete in the next 5–10 years?
A: Not at all. What I learnt at school was a starting point – it gets you in the door – what you do from there is up to you. If after 10 years you’re still doing the same thing I’d worry unless you’d got a specialism that was so well honed you’d made a living from it. Look at photographers and typographers, those basic skills will stand them in good stead for a lifetime but they build on it. The rest of us use these foundations as a jumping off point. I feel sad sometimes looking at animated tube signage, wondering if print will die and if Kindles will kill books but society celebrates historical media as much as it loves modernity, so I really think for every web designer or 3D film-maker there will be someone else learning masonry or book binding.
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Q: What is the one thing that clients expect from you?
A: A real conversation about their needs and a real response about that.