Art & Design

There is a significant difference between art and design. Art is about what the artist wants to communicate, what feelings the artist him/herself wants to express. An artist breaks rules and creates his/her set of rules; whereas for design, it's much more planned, it's about finding the best way to communicate visually to the targeted audience. The creator's presence is more evident in art than design, since every artist is 'unique' in their own choice of expression through various medium, color, subject matter etc.

Although art and design are very different, I see them as inseparable elements especially in product design. In my own practices, I try merging design with my fine arts photography, and merge 'artsiness' to my design. (refer to Design Issues hardcopy)

The difference between art and advertising is that advertising should never be open to interpretation. - Stephen Freeman

Female in Design

I remember in class one day, Charles mentioned that there are the most number of females in graphic design than other design industries such as interior design, architecture, and industrial design. I think that it makes total sense. To me, graphic design projects are much smaller in scale than architecture or industrial design. It is on a flat surface, which technically requires less consideration compared to 3D product design. Projects can be accomplished just on a small laptop, which is more accessible than models of architectural projects. Sometimes, it only requires one person to be involved in smaller graphic design projects, whereas with architecture, constant communication is a must between the architect, the designer, the engineer, the client etc. Design can be a one-person home-based business (women has always been associated with staying at home in history). Many design resources and blogs online are created by females such as swissmiss, Fuel Your Creativity, 6b Design. Our required book for Beginning Typography class 'Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students' is written by female designer Ellen Lupton.
Like many other industries, the graphic design industry is male-dominated. But because of the above factors, I think that the ratio of male and female graphic designers will change gradually. I mean, even in our graphic design department at school, there are much more female than male. I'm not saying that the gender ratio at school will be the same as the ratio in the real world, but who knows?

Name and reputation

My friends and I always ask each other, is it worth the high tuition fee to attend the 'most influential art school in the United States' — School of the Art Institute of Chicago (which always gets mixed up with the Art Institutes)? How is our school different from other design institutions?

From a job-seeking point of view, I think it is worth it. Recruiters in general prefer candidates who went to Ivy League school than those who attended community college, especially in Hong Kong where I come from. Most people are overly-realistic and it's all about your education, the degree you hold, your résumé, and which school you went to. Many prefer students who studied overseas and can speak fluent English. Even with parents, teachers and family friends, it is as though you have to go to a renowned school or else it's not considered a real education. SAIC is constantly ranked Top 3 in the graduate program, which helps build reputation for the school in general (which includes undergrad), which I suppose is an advantage for me.

But does attending a good school mean that you are better than others? I don't think so, and I think it really varies with individuals. Some people graduate from our school without giving a shit about anything, and just slides through the four-year degree program with the CNC grading system. But just because they went to a more well-known school, people see higher of them. It's all about the name and reputation, or is it?

Globalization

McDonalds and Coca-Cola have become emblematics of globalization. With a worldwide market, the two companies have to alter their logos to suit the local language. With Mcdonalds, the golden arches logo is simple, easy to interpret, and does not necessarily require a knowledge in the English alphabets to understand. To those who know the 26 alphabets, they can determine that the golden arches stands for M for Mcdonalds; for those who don't know English at all, it's simply two golden arches side by side. Unlike Coca-Cola however, their logo is a logotype - a logo created with the use of typography. Coca-Cola has to create logos in different languages but in similar style. What I found interesting with Coca-Cola, is that the logo of Coke in some countries are significantly similar to the original American one, but some are not. For example, the type in TAIWAN , KOREA and ETHIOPIA are not italicized, rather it's upright and geometric. I was wondering, how can people make the connection if the logo is so different.

With McDonalds, they don't have to worry too much since all they have to do is add 'i'm lovin it' in another language under the golden arches, and there's the localness of the logo, whereas Coca-Cola has to put on more effort. Personally, I think with logos, it's best to have a simple pictorial design since visual language is much more powerful and effective than verbal/textual language in this case.

Wordplay

After looking at everyone's wordplay assignment, I thought of my trip to the Apple store. I went to get my laptop fixed last weekend at the Genius Bar, and can't get the Genius Bar logo out of my head. I never did understand the use of the atomic symbol (and I still wonder how they got the copyright of it), but I thought that they were really smart at placing 'u' and 's' at the center of the image, creating a word within a word - US.

I don't know if this is intentional, but to me, having that US placed like that, it seems to be hinting that the Genius Bar is a place for US - YOU (the customer) and I (the Genius). It is a one-to-one service, and it takes both of US to solve the technical problems on Mac, iPod, Apple TV, or iPhone. The customer communicates the problem to the Genius, and the Genius finds ways to solve it. Without the customer or the Genius, this problem cannot be solved.

On a side note, from my research, I found that Apple's logo is very similar to American Atheists, and I wonder if there are any hidden meaning. And I, again, wonder about the copyright issue. I don't know much about copyrights, but the similarity is so obvious... how did Apple get away with it?

Advertising (Part II)

From Ji Lee's presentation, he came up with a conclusion that '[He] can't depend on others to make things happy.', and the solution was: 'I'll just have to do it myself.' So he worked on a personal project - the bubble project, which gained him recognition and ultimately forwarded his professional career.

The second issue raised from his presentation was the importance of self-marketing. When Chris came in, he mentioned about making good use of social networking sites such as twitter, facebook and linkedin. I agree supremely, without self-marketing, how do other people know what kind of work you do? I feel like everyone in the creatives industry has to promote themselves as an individual much more than in other industries. We as 'creatives' are identified by the body of work we create, by our portfolio. Whereas for other industries, it's mainly their résumé and the candidate's personality. And since art and design is relatively subjective, I find it even more important to publicize one's work, which may lead to unexpected chances or job opportunities.

PS - some of my own individual projects - http://lielaine.blogspot.com/search/label/Self-initiated%20project

Advertising (Part I)

I recently watched a video clip of Google Creative Lab's Creative Director, Ji Lee giving a presentation. It started off with him talking about a project that he worked on when he was in a big advertising industry, addressing the issue on creativity and inspiration. The client was General Mills, and the brief was 'to communicate that Cheerios comes in five different flavors'. He came up with this solution - 'Only their holes taste the same.'

They presented the idea to the client, and everyone loved it, saying that it's simple, clever, smart, incredible and funny. Until one of the clients said wait a minutes, you are supposed to be talking about flavor (the corporate language) not taste. This led to a 45-minutes discussion on taste vs flavor. The smart and awesome idea ended up in the trash, muddled in corporate dialogue and ego etc...

The issue raised here is the line between creativity and effectiveness. From Ji Lee's presentation, and a real marketing case from the PBS documentary Frontline: The Persuaders, I learnt that marketer's main concern is to boost sales, which makes total sense because that is what advertising is all about. Whereas the Art Director or CD's concern is to find ways to produce a new and innovative ad creatively and without being cliché. I've always wondered how and where do you find the balance between the two? Through endless meetings and negotiations? Are there really times when both sides are happy?

Pricing

I participated in the Spring Art Sale, selling photography work both in small prints and large framed prints. What I found hard most wasn't printing and framing, nor was it the way to display my pieces. It was pricing my work. I don't want to overprice my work or else nobody would buy it; and I wouldn't want to underprice my work or else it will decrease its value. It was really hard for me to determine just the range of pricing. This made me wonder how much do I price my design work? I always get family and friends saying 'Hey Elaine, design a birthday card for your grandpa!' or 'Can you make me a cool logo?' And I always end up saying yes and doing them this favor FOR FREE, as though design is a service that you don't have to pay for. (my designs turn out bad because I don't give a shit on these favors but whatever)

I then came across this Killer Jellyfish of Graphic Design Favors poster, and saw this: "As a graphic designer, fully 92% of your time will be spent on unpaid favors." Is this true? Because if it is, that is a problem. I mean, you wouldnt' expect someone not paying a family friend who is a doctor to treat your illness, would you?

Skills or concept?

Attending an art school, I always wonder where the balance between learning technical skills and learning how to develop a creative mind lies. Our school is known to be 'conceptual' rather than 'technical'. A lot of students I know tend to see the term 'conceptual' as bullshit, they prefer learning skills like how to use Adobe Creative Suite in Vis Com, Final Cut Pro in film or different types of camera in photography. But if the class is all about skills, why not just buy a thick guide book from Borders?

I think that skills and creativity are equally important. Skills are the basic requirements for one to look for jobs. From articles and interviews I looked at, many successful designers started out doing plain technical things. Things like doing layouts designed by senior designers, simpler tasks like creating brochures. But once you move up, the creative mind becomes more and more important since you are the one who makes decisions such as brand development and corporate identity. This is particularly true in theadvertising industry, you must have a solid concept to start off and then communicate that to the wider audience.

I suppose this is one reason why I am majoring in Visual Communication Design. I find a nice balance in skills and creativity in this particular department at SAIC, which I don't find in other Fine Arts departments. I once heard a professor saying that you can graduate with a BFA in painting from SAIC without knowing how to paint. That I find funny but sad and true.

Image by Victor Maury for SAIC T-shirt contest

Mao

Model: Du Juan (IMG)
Photographer: Quentin Shih (a.k.a. Shi Xiao Fan)
Stylist: Unknown

Chairman Mao is one of the most recognizable figure in the history of China, especially in the West. His face is on everything from t-shirts to coffee cups to Chinese contemporary art. I visited Beijing's 798 Art Space, and noticed that a lot of art are in some ways related to Mao or the propaganda posters from the 1950s. It has gone to a level where Mao has become so cliché that I don't appreciate much of those work by artists, even if they are conceptual enough. Yet I came across this editorial spread called Revolution from Vogue China's April 2010 issue. Quentin Shih, the photographer successfully merges concept and technique in his fashion photography which I find very amazing.

People usually see commercial art as 'fake' art, that the commercial artist is never true to him or herself because of boundaries. Yes indeed there are boundaries, but those who can break the boundaries and create quality work that not only looks good but have a strong idea I really admire.

A future in Design?

The definition of 'design' has been changing continuously. The most drastic change is when design programs become overly accessible, along with the growing popularity of social networking websites that allow customization.

With the over-accessibility of design programs to anyone, it seems that everyone can be a 'designer'. Some people take photos with their digital cameras, manipulate them on Photoshop by adjusting the colors, making it look 'cool and artsy' and call themselves a photographer. Some produce design work just because they know how to use the computer software. But does knowing these softwares make someone a designer? What makes someone a designer? Can everyone be a designer? Does design need to be taught? In addition to that, there is an increase in graphic designers loosing their jobs because companies are giving the work they do to other staff members who have a certain degree of knowledge in 'design'.

In regards to networking websites, I'd like to talk about myspace. Myspace allows users to customize slash 'design' their own page, some users utilizes it well while some don't. I remember that I used to come across so many customized pages that are so badly 'designed'... for example a page with white text and repeated headshots of a celebrity as background, or a yellow text on bright pink background.... you can hardly read the words and the color choices are just blahh... but because it is so easily customizable for users, they have the freedom of 'design' and that freedom sometimes leads to them thinking that anyone can design.