As a second year design degree student (equivalent to a final year HND student) I was asked to write an essay to
To put it into context, this would have been written for a degree equivalent of a Unit 5 type Contextual Studies unit, and was really warming us up for our dissertation the following year.
For some reason it was a project I really enjoyed and in writing it I learned a great deal about the changes technology has made to the role of the designer and learned to see the designer's role more clearly.
Although written roughly a decade ago, on re-reading it tonight, I realise that actually, it is still very relevant. I include the text of my essay for you to read so that you can share the insight I gained at that time. Ultimately, that because computers and technology do so much (even more now that we are 10 years on), our main role as a designer is to
so that we can use these digital tools intelligently to solve the design problem - and that means we have a lot to learn.
Discuss the impact of technology on the working methods, processes, style or subject matter, of artists or designers.
Technology, once equated with progress, is perhaps more cynically viewed today and less readily accepted as a life improver. Though technology may not always improve life it is almost certain to change it. The development of new technologies has always brought with it change, the graphic design industry is no exception. 800 years ago the graphic designers ancient counterparts could be found painting carefully illuminated manuscripts, and painstakingly drawing whole books letter by letter with a goose quill pen, the sole means of reproducing the written word. Production was slow and laborious. The producers perhaps have more in common with today's graphic designers than may appear. These were the designers, typographers, and producers. Multi talented and underpaid.
The invention of printing in the mid 1400’s revolutionised the communications industry. Several pages of text representing hours of work by hand drawn means could be reproduced in seconds, and over and over again. Design and layout became very much the prerogative of the printer.
But this has changed again, with aesthetic decisions being put into the hands of such specialists as commercial artists, typographers, art directors and other ‘creatives’ the role of the printer split. To some degree continuing to produce work of their own design and specification but also production to specific requirements set by the 'creative'. This was accomplished with a variety of craftsmen whose role was specifically to convert design concepts into working reality. Manual setting of metal type later replaced by automated machines for letter press and for lithography teams of repro artists manually cutting and pasting , type setters, plate makers and more were vital steps in a tedious drawn out job, prior to the design actually going to print. This whole department Pre-Press became an important industry of its own.
Design, beginning in the lofty realms of the 'creative' was passed through the human mechanical machine that prepared it for print and on to public circulation.
In 1976 Apple was unveiled, in 1982 Apple II and in 1985 the Apple Macintosh. The development of computer technology had permeated many industries, science had long since been a beneficiary of this new technology, but now it had reached graphic design. Although a brief look at changes in the print industry may seem somewhat detached from the issue of new technology and design, even a vague understanding is important to appreciate the context in which the new technology has impacted on the design industry.
The greatest impact on the graphic design industry was on established working practices. This might be considered the greatest impact in that it affects both the academically inclined and the jobbing designer, the avant garde and the traditional.
Within the relationship between graphic design and print the change was particularly powerful. The role of Pre-Press, traditionally handled by skilled craftsmen was almost entirely wiped out, many businesses based on Pre-Press failed or embraced new technology becoming bureaus ‘outputting’ the films from designers digital information and sometimes becoming designers of a kind themselves. Sharing their previous work between the designer, the printer, and the computer.
The control was now in the hands of the designer as it had not been since perhaps the hand lettered books of 800 years ago where designer was also manufacturer. Schuitema would certainly have approved when we learn his own attitude towards the reproduction of his work:
“The printers did not know, for instance, whether the current typographical principles had any aesthetic value or not...The designer himself was hard, matter of fact, unwilling to make concessions, adopting a ‘take it or leave it attitude’...” (Between utopianism & Commerce, p.144)
Just as control and quality could be lost on a recorded tape if copied and recopied, or definition lost in photography each stage of processing it passed through, so control over the design could be lost over each stage of Pre-Press production. The working practice revolution bought about by the Apple Macintosh put the designer back in control once again. The designer is the type setter, the paste-up artist, and if they wish, they can produce the films ready for the printing plates.
With the obsolescence of many traditional jobs within print brought about by computer technology, it might be seen that yet again a man has been replaced by a machine. But this is not so. The computer does not replace the paste-up artist, it is the designer who replaces the paste-up artist. Of itself the computer cannot convert design visuals and specification sheets into press ready printing plates. But assisted by the computer, the designer can prepare his own design for print while in the very act of designing it.
As a designer, this will mean a requirement for a greater understanding of print processes. An understanding of technical constrains, best practice, what can be done, what is physically impossible. Now when the designer ‘clicks’ OK in the print menu, it may not be just an illustration of their concept, but might also be colour separations for printing plates. The designer needs to ask more than whether the composition is right, or whether the type style has the right feel. In addition consideration must be given to whether they have allowed enough bleed, or whether the specified colours are four colour process or spot, is that line too thin to be printed or that letter too small when the ink spreads. To ask these questions the new designer needs to understand the answers and how to remedy them. The designer must foresee the ‘concessions’ they may be asked to make and design their way round them, at this stage they decide how any ‘concession’ is implemented. If they want to avoid phone calls from reproduction bureau's asking about modifications for printing purposes they will.
The success of a designers finished work is no longer based on aesthetics alone, designing in the necessary production requirements is equally important.
The new designers, with these many roles are perhaps more like the ancient book lettering scribes than they realise. From total control, to manufacturer control, to shared control and back to us it seems we have almost gone full-circle, in fact just hook up your ink jet printer in place of a quill pen and you’re there.
Computer technology has also changed the role of the designer in other ways than production. Paste-up is not the only job a designer can take over. Before the computer age, designers would work in conjunction with other creative people with different specialities, one that still exists is the illustrator. A certain reliance was placed on them to produce high quality images to, or based on, designers specifications. But the input of new technology has made it possible for the distinction between designer and illustrator to be eroded.
Creative Review in June 1996 published an article that discussed some of the changes technology has brought about. One of those changes specifically discussed in detail was 3-D computer graphics. They show examples such as Bjork's Hyperballad a 3-D a disembodied head surrounded by immaculately rendered 3-D fruity shapes. To say that such an image could not have been produced 10 years ago would be an naive statement. A designer could have commissioned an illustrator, who with time, skill and an airbrush could have produced a comparable image. The significance in this piece of design is not in the image itself, but that an illustrator is no longer needed to produce it. The article talks of designers and creators, but illustrators do not get a mention. Referring to the new 3-D technology Andy Altman of Why Not Associates said “It is the airbrush of the day...”.
3-D design is less about handling a brush, no techniques related to paint, pastel or masking are required, and only a hand steady enough to use a mouse or tablet. The designer then, already aesthetically aware, and who would have had to brief the illustrator as to the requirements anyway, already knows what they want and can do it themselves.
Again this places the designer in a position of much greater control than before new technology. The designer puts it how they want, instead of how the illustrator provides it.
Dan Fern in his article At The Images Edge discusses this event:
“Designers learn to solve problems, to be rational and logical, to subordinate self expression to the demands of the brief. Illustrators, on the other hand, are encouraged to look inside themselves for answers, to develop a highly personal style, to become artists.” (Creative Review, June 1996, p.36)
What of the designer producing their own images then? It does put an added responsibility onto the designer. Is it about learning to play two apparently contradictory roles to both look within for deeper self expression as well as keep a detached view always with the brief in mind? I don’t think it can be done. Images are likely to become more sterile, or complete designs are likely to become more self expressive. Of course we can expect the same from illustrators who are allowed into design by the new technology.
We are looking at a fundamental change, that reaches thought as well as working practice. Ronald Labuz in his book ‘From Technology to Style’ writes:
“We have experienced, and continue to experience, a profound cultural change. The printing press was a seminal invention that helped to foster a new historical epoch, modernism. The computer may prove to be the device that aids in the creation of the epoch that follows...the ways in which we learn, work, create, communicate, and think have been undeniably altered.”(From Technology to Style, Ronald Labuz, p.1)
Technology in this sense has extended the boundaries for designers and might be seen as a typically post-modern event. Breaking away from the TV dinner compartmentalised design process where illustrators and designers were separate but taste good if put together in the right combination.
Putting image making more into the hands of the designer although allowing greater self expression is not always seen as a good thing. This seems to be one of the main issues raised by Steven Heller in his well known article ‘Cult of the Ugly’. He has a lot to say about the results of what might be termed self expression. Referring to ‘Output’, a “design manifesto” from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and University of Texas Steven says:
“[it is] another experiment in the current plethora of aesthetical questionable graphic output. Given the increase in graduate school programmes which provide both a laboratory setting and freedom from professional responsibility, the word experiment has come to justify a multitude of sins.”(Cult of the Ugly, Steven Heller, Eye, September 1993, p.52)
So what is the cure for the newly freed designer? Technology freeing the designer from old constraints has not necessarily led to better design. Heller refers to some ‘design experiments’ again in his article as being "...given by instinct and obscured by theory, with ugliness its foremost by product.”
Like a kite is held up in the air by the same string that holds it to the ground, it seems that releasing design from its constraints design has hit the ground with a crash. Although computer technology has enabled such freedom to proliferate, it is not to blame, the computer is for the most part in the hands of the designer. This being the case Steven Heller mentions an appropriate cure to the ugliness problem:
“Experimentation is the engine of progress, its fuel a mixture of instinct, intelligence and discipline. But the engine floods when too much instinct and not enough intelligence and discipline is injected into the mix.”
New technology has brought greater freedom to creativity, but with it it has brought a need for the new designer to perhaps be more disciplined than before.
Ivan Chermayeff, great expounder of how he sees the designers role, who has even now on his web site, would agree with the need for designers to be more disciplined with their new technology given freedom. He says in a paper he authored in 1969 that designers ought to presume “a highly cynical, objective, and unbiased questioning attitude...”(Chermayeff & Geismar, Idea - special issue, p.108). A difficult thing to do if self expression is the order of the day, but an important thing to do. the new designer amid experimentation and self expression needs to be brutally strict in a way, and intelligently select the good and throw away the bad.
New technology has reformed the design industry, or in the words of Paul Ferrar, an independent creative and printer who witnessed the changes for 25 years, new technology has “turned it on its head”. It means more work for designers, more thought, more discipline, more creativity, more experimentation, more knowledge of production processes. What Ivan Chermayeff said in 1969 before the technology revolution of the design industry is perhaps more relevant now than it has ever been:
“Designers should read.
Designers should make themselves aware of everything.
Designers must be selective.
Designers must think”
(Chermayeff & Geismar, Idea - special issue, p.108).
