Space... The Final Frontier

Both images by Mark Rothko, American painter 1903 - 1970

S  P  A  C  E 

It       is       

                               Intriguing...

                                                   Informative (even in the absence of information)

            b  e  g  u  i  l  i  n  g

... it is an artist's most understated tool for expressing message and emotion. Space in the mind and on the canvas is pregnant with possibility. It is the promise of something more. Space is the hidden but implied message that is defined by the surrounding elements. 

Many years ago, I went to a retrospective show of Mark Rothko's color field paintings. In most circumstances, these paintings are shown individually but for this particular show, they were hung chronologically. The very theory of color and space and shape conveying the powerful emotions of Rothko's torment were so available in this setting. It was the hidden message in the space between the works that was compelling – the empty wall space that led you to the next work and the next revelation of the inner conversation within the painter’s mind. 

Lately I have been listening to a lot of music on my headphones in an effort to create a free space in my mind. The music occupies an image free area but generates it’s own image. My painter's brain solves the problem by combining the random images with the design on which I am currently working. This is one part of the creative process. Throughout the process my mind needs the S P A C E to think, to breathe, to sigh it's way into a relaxed state of inspiration. Similar to dreaming while awake (not to be confused with daydreaming.)

Emotion is another element that takes up space in my work and my mind. It needs to be directed or I find it difficult to creatively problem solve. Emotion expands and creeps into space even when you think it is not there. Rothko's paintings are a good example of harnessing powerful emotion and infusing it into the creative decisions he made as a painter. The work grabs you and insists that you feel as you view. It is undeniable what emotions are being conveyed because of the impeccable use of the space, color, and emotion along with a cultural and psychological reference. Through it all, space is the container – it gives room for the color to expand and enfold you into it’s spell. It is in a word, "beguiling."

Space to think. Space to create. Space to process artistic challenge. I am trying to be conscious of the spaces in my mind and what I fill them with because eventually it will all find a path into my work.

Does the Age of Communication Herald the End of Creativity?

 

Birds on a Wire © Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

Birds on a wire... a visual allegory for humanity perched on the wire of technology. It's precarious, and like the birds, humanity seems to be blissfully unaware of the imminent danger we are sitting upon. But should technology slip our grip, it will be our split second survival response (our creativity, our wings) will be the only thing that saves us. Dramatic I admit but how far from the truth?

I read the title for this blog post in a daily horoscope and it gave me pause. I had to stop and really think about this since I straddle the analog and digital eras within my career. I have certainly struggled with how to integrate and authenticate my artistic voice into my digital work. I have been outraged by the lack of innovation and rampant copyright infringement that abounds on the internet. But this question – so personal – begs to be contemplated.

The Age of Communication is a daunting title. There seems no definitive value to the word 'communication' within this label so I am led to believe that it encompasses everything from reality TV to Stephen Hawking. But along with other era titles, such as The Age of Enlightenment, or The Dark Ages, there is the burden of imbalance. The pendulum must swing back in favor of anonymity, authenticity and personal privacy.

Where do we go as designers once we have been sucked into the vacuum of this new age? It's easy for us to overvalue the tools we use, the messages we send, the marketing force we create BUT is it an authentic contribution to the world? Is it really for the betterment and advancement of mankind?

Communication is God right now. Communication is unbridled and stripped of all its checks and balances (honesty, respect for privacy, attribution) and running rampant as it irresponsibly educates the population into rules and ethics that are hardly worthy living by. Communication is in its most pervasive and destructive form right now. The NSA digging into our every move, webcams being hacked, personal conversations splashed across websites without the permission of participants, invasive sales tactics, and our personal information being sold over and over again in an effort to encourage us to buy more and more useless things.

As a designer it would seem that I am biting the hand that feeds me by raising these questions but I see a deeper responsibility here. This may be the Age of Communication but there is an almost childlike selfishness about living in the moment with this new mindset.

Which brings me to the question of creativity. As more work is distributed to a less than critical audience where does the creative process belong in a world that really only values the revenue that is generated? There will always be a place for true creative geniuses but the audience that can truly appreciate their work may be shrinking. Creative process does not follow the linear pattern of binary code. It rambles, twists, and turns. The spark of an idea is in the the DNA of the person, in the rapid firing of our brain synapses, and the seemingly illogical combining of various influences.

Creativity is divine but the scientist will seek to define it, corral it, map it, and regenerate it. Can they? It is my hope that as we identify smaller and smaller molecular and atomic structures we will see that there is no end to the genius that is nature. We are drunk on a little bit of power and a little bit of knowledge but in the greater scheme of the inner workings of the universe we are completely ignorant. The pendulum will swing back to embrace the unknown, the spiritual and creative spark that works in tandem with our logical minds. And if we do it right The Age of Communication will create new ground rules for humanity.

Breaking the r / U / LE / s

 Raygun Magazine designed by David Carson

I have been thinking quite a bit about the "rules" of design and when I choose to break them. The "rules" make sense to me – following the grid – paying attention to balance with regard to scale and space. But when do I get to B-R-E-A-K the rules?

Knowing when to break the rules in design is as important as knowing the rules. One of my favorite designers is David Carson. I have reflected on the pure genius of his punk/grunge, groundbreaking design of Raygun magazine. Carson broke all the rules. 

If you have ever seen his TED talk he makes fun of the fact that his copy is often illegible and he happily claims to have a degree in sociology rather than design. He sees the world around him and interprets is differently from the rest of us and it all works. It works, because it defies your expectations. It works, because it makes your brain decipher the visual code. It works, because you remember it. It ALL works.

Carson didn't break the design rules because he was being rebellious, although there was a little of that I'm sure. He broke the rules because his design sense was telling him to. He was designing in the surf/sport industry and his audience had short attention spans and a lot of physical energy. If you think about his work it often has the sense of catching something as you pass by in a speeding car. The words would fly off the page, unfinished or difficult to read. There was a new energy to the work.

David Carson has been widely emulated by other designers, with distressed design and broken typography but when Carson did it his "rule breaking" design came from an internal place. He was having fun and using "whatever he had around the house." His xerox machine, photos from surfing trips or roadside advertising, emulating the dilapidated textures of the strange little surf towns he had visited. It was all present in his typography and photo manipulation. His design came from a personal place – that's how he knew when to break the rules, he had seen it done in real life and found the beauty in it.

I think about this and realize that if I follow the rules to a "T", I am doing what feels right for my subject and my audience. Of course my ego wants to create bone-ratteling, jaw-dropping, ground-breaking new work but if I were to pursue that as a goal I would fail miserably. So I listen to the little voice in my head and I play.

The first two issues of 3.1 Venice magazine have surprised me with regard to the final design. I thought that given my head I would, like a wild horse, run through the field, jump the fence, and stray wayyyyy out into the world of design. But I did not. Instead I went back to basics and applied restraint and discipline to my work. Balance became incredibly important. Flow. Keeping the reader engaged without tricks. My subject was the beach community of Venice, California and we are known for having one of the widest expanses of beach in Los Angeles.

Venice is a balance of congestion that ends on the edge of Pacific Ocean with expanses of blue sky, blue water, and beige sand. The magazine design reflected my internal feeling about the city. The expectation would have been to create a jumbled, crazy quilt design of graffiti art, wild color, and density but for me that is a design element, not the infrastructure of what Venice feels like. If you don't believe me just look at the large numbers of minimalist painters and architects that live here – obviously we are all picking up the same vibe.

Back to the rules – as designers we have favorite, "go-to" fonts, colors, layouts, and tricks. But what about that one new thing you have always wanted to try? When do you try it? I have one firm rule about breaking rules, if you are consciously deciding to do a design a certain way BECAUSE it breaks the rules... you have failed. If you are playing and experimenting and a happy "design accident" happens, be strong and roll with it. You just broke the rules and it didn't hurt a bit.

The Circle of Design

 

thebubuzz.com

I recently completed the redesign of Boston University's, The BU Buzz — their online student magazine. This job resonated with me more than others because I was working with one of my former students, Leora Yashari who is the fearless Editor-in-Chief. I found myself reflecting upon the impact that out giving, our words, and our actions have on others. When you teach, your students are dandelion seeds taking flight, landing and blooming but a little bit of you goes with each of them.

Leora is no longer my student and yet we can start a new dialog because of the language of design. Design is constant with changing variables. Maybe once it would have been a print conversation and now it is a web conversation but good design is still at the center. The desire to create beauty, symmetry and effective communication spans all generations.

The process of putting this magazine together and watching my former student apply the things I had taught her in a real world setting was gratifying. So please visit this site and see the energy and creativity these dynamic editors are bringing to the web! thebubuzz.com

Button It!

 Button it!

Often I have uttered this phrase and never stopped to think about the use of the word "button." Even "zip it" would be more contemporary.

Buttons... those archaic remnants from a Amish lifestyle.
Buttons... which gave way to zippers.
Buttons... which gave way to velcro.
Buttons... which are now collectors items...

Buttons are symbolic of how design cycles through our lives as relevant, irrelevant and eventually collectable or discarded and forgotten. How many times have you thought about that Superman action figure or Barbie doll you had as a child and wished you had kept in the box? Or at least not ripped the head off and tried to give her a punk, razor-cut hairstyle?

The next time you loose a button you may wonder if that one button could be the thing you wish you had valued at the time when everybody else took it for granted - and button it!

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate...

The above illustration is from an insightful academic paper, "Mapping the Unmappable:Visual Representations of the Internet as Social Constructions," by Adam B. King, University of Indiana. This illustration – the tin can network.

I have been very busy in the studio, with my nose tightly to the grindstone, creating the holiday line for L'Image Graphics. While I work, I think about the people I want to benefit from these images and where I would like to donate money at the end of the year. The tag line for my company is "creating change one image at a time," and with every card I design that is the vision I hold.

Something is threatening the entrepreneurial spirit of this venture and the potential charitable benefits- Google, Verizon, or AT&T (among other.) Take your pick. They want to change the way free enterprise is executed on the Internet. Call me crazy but in such precarious economic times, it seems like an exercise in foolishness to change the way people access the Internet. 

I personally have seen the Internet become an immediate and gratifying way to connect with clients and consumers. After years of manufacturing my products the old-fashioned way with printers, warehouses, employees, employee taxes, shipping and billing this new way of doing business is a breath of fresh air. For artists the ability to print-on-demand has been a career changing development. As a culture, we have only just begun to see the influence artists will be able to have through the Internet.

Marketing was always a mystery, something you had to find the dollars for or else. Now if you can network yourself via facebook, twitter, google, blogger, and anything else you can think of you will be seen very quickly. Many people have found ebay and etsy to market their wares. Or they build their own small business websites. The best part… as small business owners on the web we have the world as our market. That was not easily achieved ten years ago.

So I have to ask–if we adopt too many guidelines and change the way we access the Internet what impact will that have in a borderline depression economy? 

As I work on my new line of products, I reflect on the looming possibility that the very business model I have built my re-emergence upon may disappear. If you would like to examine the issues for yourself visit Save the Internet for one side. Google has change their position on net neutrality since 2006 and Google's 2010 position are worth reviewing. If ever, there was a moment to be informed this would be it. 

The conversation is ongoing and it is important that we become knowledgeable about all sides of this important issue because it very well might represent a turning point in how we communicate with each other in the future.

Rhythm in Design - the music behind the art

Rhythm is the synchronicity that happens in good design when all the elements come together harmoniously. Your eye moves around the piece from point-to-point only to end up at the beginning again. Rhythm takes you on a guided tour of what should be noticed in the art.

How do you establish rhythm in design? It is similar to music - there is a visual "beat" to how you look at something. The beat could be color, color, TYPE, or PICTURE, picture, picture, LINE. Think of the design elements like counting beats in music, 1,2,3 or 1,2,3,4. There are half notes (pieces that are equally strong in color and type, for example.) And there are long notes, four full beats of a full page photo or just type. The "full beat" design is calculated to have you hang on the entire image and let it impact you. A good example is the think different Apple ad campaign (one example is the Yoko Ono and John Lennon ad below.)

 

Design is music in visual form. Whenever I am struck by the balance of a work I feel the 'music' behind the design. The rhythm creates the bones of the work to help guide the viewer. The Man with the Golden Arm poster, circa 1955, by the great designer Saul Bass is a wonderful example of "visual music." The pieces of the design dance on the page causing a vibration that varies from bold and sharp, to a light "melody" created by the type floating above the solid black elements.

I would love to ask various designers to show their work and see if they can remember what type of music they may have been listening to during the process of creating it (if any.) I think it would be an interesting experiment to see how the music may have influenced the visual rhythm of their work.

The next time you look at a great book cover, billboard or movie poster see if you can "hear" the design.

Nothing up my sleeve...

I have been having fun in the studio for the last few days. The process of creating and exploring new ideas is positively magical. I entered full of angst and worry, and I emerged…well I emerged!

Below is a new design I did for a t-shirt. The message is my friend's but I think it is so appropriate for the times. I am about to put the finishing touches on my new line of products and what is driving me is my belief in myself. To everyone who has a dream –

 

copyright Taylor Barnes © 2010

FAIL U R

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1853 - 1890

“Men succeed when they realize that their failures are the preparation for their victories.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Failure - to fail, the act of failing, to royally mess up! Why are we so afraid of making a mistake? I wrote the title "Fail U R" to demonstrate, in type, how personal failure is when you are making a creative effort in a public arena. I did not say "Fail I M" because to fail as a designer is usually very public. We are judged first by our own standards, then by our client's and finally by the customer/public.

Within this process our egos as designers tangle with our need to creatively experiment. Without experimentation we lose the opportunity to benefit from the happy accident.

I illustrated this post with two paintings by Vincent van Gogh because during his lifetime he sold only one painting and that was to his brother. He was unappreciated and probably considered a failure. Despite this he never stopped producing art that was important to him. In the end his work succeeded brilliantly - how do you analyze the irony of such success?

I once had a painting professor who taught me to not value the part of the painting that I found perfect. He said that if I found one area too precious I would paint around it and not respect the work as a whole. I learned technique from painting that one small part perfectly but I learned far more from painting over it and retaining the memory of painting it perfectly. I gained confidence every time I destroyed my "perfect" work that I would be able to paint that way again and again. It was one of the cornerstone's of my artistic evolution.

"Fail U R" means you are only a failure if you allow other people to define you as a failure. Failing is part of the process that helps us grow - if we learn from it. How we define failure is subjective, one person's failure is another's personal best. If the standards are so arbitrary why do they matter?

Why?... because in the end we do the work because it makes us happy and doing the work to the best of our abilities makes us even happier!

Emotion + Design

Emotion is an essential component to any design. It is this subtle element that binds the visual together. Sometimes emotion is not so subtle - such as the work of designer, Tibor Kalman for Colors Magazine. He was a rule breaker and creator of wild, emotional conversations through design. His visuals were controversial and inspirational. Such as the Colors cover below...

Issue No. 7, Colors Magazine, 1997

Typography can convey an emotion with its shape and carefully chosen juxtaposition to the word it is rendering. Consider the following examples and how the mood shifts from word to word. Once all the emotional words come together they create a comprehensive mood along with the individual tone.


Finally, words and images together create the total emotional impact. "A picture is worth a thousand words," or perhaps one emotion. Add a word to that picture and it becomes either trite or moving, depending on the sensitivity and artistry of the designer. Consider the next illustration which I designed to portray one of the seven deadly sins, Wrath. This word and the illustration were full of emotion and it was my responsibility to pick the words, images and colors that conveyed the proper emotional meaning of wrath. You tell me if I succeeded or failed...

From the "Mona Lisa" to Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie-Woogie" eliciting emotion is one of the primary vehicles every artist must use to connect with the viewer.


How well you manipulate this element will determine the success or failure of the work as much as the execution and design. I will sign off before I become too emotional about this topic.

S
T
R
U
C
T
U
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E

The "E" bothers you, doesn't it? It is incongruous to the meaning of the word structure. The word feels as if it can't stand on its own. As you read down the letters you expect a certain symmetry to follow the function of the word.

I picked this photo of the Paris airport because of the structure. Everything in the photo is composed based on the architect's vision. As I was looking at this picture I was thinking of the need for structure in our lives. Our moral structure, our societal or governmental structure, our personal structure that we impose on our lives. It occurred to me that in design we start with structure but some of the more challenging designers then break from the the obvious formulas or expectations. Designers like Tibor Kalman or David Carson made entire careers out of breaking the rules.

The question to ask is when is the right time to break the rules and mess up the structure. Obviously not by moving the "E" off the bottom of the word. Even that could have worked if I had used a very stressed font that already felt "unstable." Then the off-balance "E" would have been expected or almost anticipated.

The second part to the question of structure is how do we break the design to make it even stronger than before? I know there are no easy answers to this question but I would say that many new inspiring new ideas are born out of instinct, rebellion and experimentation.

But in the act of breaking the structure it still needs to be respected. Order needs to be formed even within visual chaos. It can happen by the chance of colors grouping in not so arbitrary ways, or scale being used to define space and then the chaos is laid upon it. However we choose to risk breaking the structure we alway have to offer the viewer a new way to see that creates a new order in their thinking.

But the truth is that even in breaking the rules the most rebellious designers often become predictable for the particular set of rules that create the structure to their individual look - and they become imitated. Eventually their rules become the rules to be broken. Structure prevails in the end because of the human need for order.

Venice Beach - seductive and inspiring

graffiti on a store window in Venice Beach

You may not see what I see in this photo but it is inspiring to me. The play of texture, the white accent of the type, the natural grid formed by the window; it is the type of street art that goes into your subconscious mind and creates a library to pull from later as a designer.

I have watched Venice Beach change along with the rest of the world but there is something different - something resistant to change in this community. It has a "spiritual vortex." Every time I think development is going to smother the spirit of this unique place it rebounds and shows its funky side again. The weather brings out the performers on the boardwalk. The election brings out the aging hippie political reformers. The close-knit community brings out the grass-roots publishers and organizations.

In a sense this is a barometer for that old saying "the more things change the more they remain the same." As the world of design zips along with one technological breakthrough after another the basics never go away. We still need to get our ideas across in the most succinct manner possible. As designers we have to make color and font choices but we also need to keep our spirit. That is what makes us unique and our work worth looking at.

I wrote "dare to be square" as I reflected on this indomitable spirit of Venice Beach. This place inspires me because it takes on the new, integrates it with the old and creates a fascinating hybrid. That is my personal goal... to be a 'fascinating hybrid.'

Venice is covered with outdoor art; stencil art on the sidewalks, graffiti, wall murals, tagging, sculpture and if you count the street musicians and outdoor painters it is almost too much to take in. The rules get broken here because there is no monetary reward for what the artist is doing. It is simply a pure expression of their "spirit." But if you look closely street art has the roots of all other great art movements at its core. Social expression.

If I had a nickel for every client who came to me and said "I want an edgier look" I would be very wealthy now. But edgy changes and is not easily defined - until you look at the art people are creating on the street, then you see it. The best of these cutting edge ideas will later make it into the lexicon of modern design.

But to translate those ideas and make them work for the larger public you need to "dare to be square." The basics of good design make those gritty street ideas work for the rest of the world.
'Daring to be square' is the method by which one becomes a fascinating hybrid.