"Personal Work" in Graphic Design
I've been thinking lately of the concept of "personal work." Coming out of a Graphic Design undergrad some years ago, the concept of including a section of one's portfolio site labelled "personal work" was a badge of honor. Lately, I've been realizing that this concept seems very dated. My increasing interest in media art has led me to consider the tension between art and design, and just how personal the act of creating conceptual graphic design is.There is a certain politic to the notion of information design. The very nature of it is to hide the designer's intention, masking it within the realm of reader/user-centric concepts. Where does this leave the "personal work" of print designers?
"Personal work" is a form of masturbation.
That is not to say that there is no value in the act of practicing the
craft of self-referential design. Design for an audience is sex. Art is
sex. Both have an expectation of, and an unspoken contact with, an
audience of at least one (maybe two if you're lucky). In the age of
blogging, much larger audiences are willing to explore exciting and
unusual content online, and as one of those internet consumer/creators,
I say "stop pretending I don't exist." If its art, I want to know that
you're expressing something I didn't know about myself.
Design gets muddy. Should I be entertained by design... no. But I am. I have a very low tolerance for design fetishism. However, I often find myself witnessing bright sparks of wit and intellect from designers all over the interweb. As a consumer I want to be entertained, but as a creator, I want to feel empowered to apply the ideas for myself. Content becomes inspiration.
Perhaps the content I produce isn't so different from the work I'm seeking to critique. It's like masturbating to a video of someone else masturbating. Crude analogy, but hopefully, once in a while, all this content creation leads to something more meaningful. The real payoff is when work exists offline. Then its pornography when you see it filtered through the lens of the Web. If you're participating in it, well then, the choice is yours as to how much you want recorded for others to get off on.
Its posts like this that make me wish my Mum didn't read my sites.
-hack
Design gets muddy. Should I be entertained by design... no. But I am. I have a very low tolerance for design fetishism. However, I often find myself witnessing bright sparks of wit and intellect from designers all over the interweb. As a consumer I want to be entertained, but as a creator, I want to feel empowered to apply the ideas for myself. Content becomes inspiration.
Perhaps the content I produce isn't so different from the work I'm seeking to critique. It's like masturbating to a video of someone else masturbating. Crude analogy, but hopefully, once in a while, all this content creation leads to something more meaningful. The real payoff is when work exists offline. Then its pornography when you see it filtered through the lens of the Web. If you're participating in it, well then, the choice is yours as to how much you want recorded for others to get off on.
Its posts like this that make me wish my Mum didn't read my sites.
-hack
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