Form Follows Fashion
Wolfgang Weingart participated in the revolt against the strict minimalist approach of his Swiss predecessors. While his work is considered within the Modernist idiom, his experimentation with form and structure rejected the “neutral envelope” approach of ostensibly objective form-making in favor of intuitive choice and personal expression. When visiting CalArts in 1991, Weingart commented with disdain that he was no longer in fashion, as though whatever had replaced him as current design-of-choice was merely a trend somehow not as worthy as the trend he once embodied. Did he mean that the visual expression of his ideas had lost its power to communicate as time had altered its context? Or were the ideas themselves no longer popular? Or was it just that designers had seen the style of his work for too long and now looked to something new, out of boredom alone? I asked Weingart if he could elaborate on what appears to be a preoccupation with formal fashion (style) within the graphic design profession. What is this affliction that makes graphic designers crave perpetual stylistic (r)evolution? Weingart evaded the question inhibiting inquiry into a realm that makes most designers uneasy.
Weingart’s reaction is not uncommon. I, myself, am reluctant to scratch the surface of most graphic design for fear of what I won’t find underneath. In the world of so-called legitimate style “trendy”, is a death sentence. When stylistic change in graphic design is tied to the rapid turnover and imitative nature of fashion, we begin to suspect that our work is merely shallow trend-following and empty form-pushing.
“I make solutions that nobody wants to problems that don’t exist.”
— Alvin Lustig, Nine Pioneers
In the fall of 1991, Nancy Skolos and Tom Wedell presented their work to the students at CalArts with a reserve common throughout the profession: the design conglomerates of the 1980’s have diminished, out of necessity, to the small offices of the 1990’s. With refreshing honesty, Nancy Skolos presented a gorgeous brochure that she admitted had unfortunately led to a decrease in sales for the client. That it was presented to an audience of designers for its formal qualities says that Skolos Wedell considered it one of their better (looking) pieces, in spite of the fact that it did not “function” in a way that was meaningful for the client who had commissioned it. When asked what was the purpose of graphic design, if not to aid marketing, Nancy replied, “I don’t know... to make the world a better place?”
Alleviating the contradictions of an oppressive and stratified modern society through design was a major impetus behind much of the work and theory of the Bauhaus. However in 1992 America, a graphic designer is most frequently expected to increase profits, not to dissolve class barriers. As the United States crumbles under deficit budgets, military muscle-flexing, and an impoverished infrastructue, that old Modernist desire for an improved world certainly exists. And it is a noble cause. However, gorgeous graphic design, regardless of its efficacy for the client, may or may not contribute positively to the world as a whole, (its content helps determines that answer), but it does enrich the visual vocabulary of the profession. And yet we seem to feel uncomfortable embracing that as a valuable contribution in and of itself.
We take pleasure in style. We thrive on form. The content of our work is for the most part predetermined; we design to indulge our obsession with the visual.
We take pleasure in style. We thrive on form. The content of our work is for the most part predetermined; we design to indulge our obsession with the visual. Our integrity is compromised by clients who want larger point sizes or a different color palette. We demote to “job” status the projects that fall short of our aesthetic expectations due to budget constraints or client-imposed parameters. This becomes the “bread and butter” work. While potentially functional, it is witheld from slide presentations for purely aesthetic reasons. Meanwhile, we seek out paper company promotions or clients whose projects allow more creative freedom: these are the projects we finesse into the wee hours of the morning.
And these are the projects upon which our reputations are made. They win the awards, the professional seal-of-approval that in turn guarantees we will be asked to lecture, to show this very work and to judge the work of our peers in the next design competition. That this work is rewarded on formal terms alone exposes our obsession with its surface value. Functionalist ethics no longer apply. How could they, when the work is judged out of context, in split-second time, by criteria that goes no further than immediate impression?
To admit that graphic design is bound to personal style and fashion as much as to client communication; to reveal that our system of professional recognition says one thing (appropriate communication) while acting out another (beautiful, cool, gorgeous); to confess that we revel in expressive artifice might be considered self-defeating when attempting to justify design’s relevance to industry. Yet in the internal dialogue of the profession, these acknowledgements are necessary when assessing the forces influential to our work. Communication, client needs and content have an indispensible role in what we do, but they tend to dominate most discussions. Few attempts have been made to evaluate what we suspect is an obsession with stylistic fashion, although its prevalence is frequently denounced. To understand the reciprocal relationship between style and culture and graphic design, it is helpful to examine it from a historical perspective, as well as to analyze its contemporary incarnation as what Neville Brody calls a “voracious animal...consuming itself.” 4 Yet we need to do this without losing sight of the aesthetic pleasures, as can happen when deconstructiong sex or humor.
That which we call typographic style is first and foremost determined by our way of life and our working conditions.”
–Jan Tschichold, On Typography, 1952
“...the history of modern design is very much about a history of style developing independently of ideology.”
–Dan Friedman, Modernism: Style vs. Ideology, 1991