While perusing the New York Times Magazine yesterday I came across one of those page-long interviews with notable individuals they have, where the writers treat Midwesterners like cutesy curiosities and manage to half-way extract the subject’s attitude and philosophy if they’re lucky. This past one wasn’t so bad though—featuring Bruce Mau, a rather interesting conversation took place in which Mau does what he typically does, talked about design in a much grander sense than most.
After spending the past year as an “art director” I sometimes forget that I once looked for “graphic design” jobs and even referred to myself as a graphic designer, but this particular interview sparked the internal debate later that evening as I drove to the bowling alley. The term “graphic design” never appealed to me that much, but if I told someone I was a “designer” they’d immediately ask “okay, of what??” Once I got into specifics, yeah, I sounded like a graphic designer, even though I’ve designed chairs and shopping carts.
Mau has an intriguing, highly intelligent approach that appeals to some and irritates others, an approach motivated by curiosity, wonder, and ambition. Projects for Zone Books and collaborations with the artist Douglas Gordon and everyone’s favorite Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas defined the studio, and I think it’s admirable that he doesn’t limit himself to those sorts of things despite the success they’ve brought him. On a personal note, I’ve always been interested in the studio’s work because unlike many other high-profile designers, he’ll work on just about anything—everything from designing exhibits, to imagining an urban park, to conceiving panel fabrics for cubicles. Instead of just designing posters for the next cool play or making the CD cover for some band’s newest release.
Massive Change is the studio’s next big thing and while talk about “change” usually bores the living hell out of me (not that I’m opposed to it—it’s just that people end up having the same conversation over and over again), this looks pretty cool. And the “Massive” part of the title is no joke, just skip over to www.massivechange.com for a preview of everything that goes into it. Mau himself clearly expects design to contribute something to the world, which flat-screen monitors and other yuppie-style collectibles do not succeed in doing. In his interview with the Times, he instead focuses on a device that turns seaweed into “pure H2O,” which if it actually works efficiently, could have tremendous impact all over the world. Presumably, he feels the same way about fuel cell technology which ideally leaves water as the only by-product.
Here’s the thing. It’s not exactly what MOST designers of any variety would think of. Hell, the training involved in understanding the science behind such a thing is incredibly difficult to master, much less knowing how to, you know, make it. It does, however, require intangible skills like an active imagination to conceive of daring, world-changing objects and Mau’s studio excels in this. He also briefly talks about how his studio has been commissioned to “design” the future of Guatemala for the next ten years—now we’re REALLY straying from what designers, in the conventional sense, know and understand. When you start dealing with an entire nation, you’re dealing with all sorts of things that different types of people with highly specialized training work on for years. The study of economics has been a formally established field for an extraordinarily long time and people still can’t quite figure out what causes cycles in the market. In other words, there’s a lot to this.
I applaud the ambition and the intelligence behind even thinking of tackling things that go beyond selling products or setting type the right way. Mau’s conception of design isn’t necessarily brand new, given that a few schools officially teach “experience design” (or something like it, whatever the title may be—consider the Institute of Design in Chicago), and that firms like the Doblin Group in Chicago still exist, along with Matter in Atlanta. Mau has simply been the most public, publishing a monograph that came in hot pink and getting the right type of exposure in the right type of environments. If you take the “world of design” (an artifical construct if I ever saw one) you can roughly divide it into two sections, one that’s concerned with beauty, the other intent on improving the human condition. No, they’re not mutually exclusive but I’d venture that designing alternative forms of energy creation is more valuable to human beings than the titling sequence for next summer’s action blockbuster. But I firmly believe that people who buy Ziploc bags and canned vegetables deserve to have well-designed packaging and see marketing messages that aren’t insulting to their intelligence. There’s room for both types. One is more “design” in the general sense, the other is a bit more…well, “graphic design.”
Do you think it’s possible and advisable for design and designers to move into some of the realms discussed here? Or do you think that doing so might dilute the profession and lead it down an even more ill-defined path?
>Do you think its possible and advisable for design and designers to move into some of the realms discussed here? Or do you think that doing so might dilute the profession and lead it down an even more ill-defined path?
Some designers become marketing people and call it 'branding', some become futurists and stick with 'designer'. Simply put, design is preparation and planning; and thank god someone's trying to set their sights a little higher.
On Sep.27.2004 at 03:04 PM