Learn Theory, Practise Aesthetic

• October 28, 2010
  10 Comments // Creativity

The most important thing you can do as a graphic designer is to practise as much as you can.

Practise with intention and thought and careless abandon.

Learn theory but realise that it doesn’t help you become a better designer, merely a more knowledgeable one. All the theory in the world won’t make a page more interesting to look at unless you understand how to marry the theory with aesthetic.

Aesthetic is the craft of our profession. I’ve heard some designers say that aesthetic is like the bastard child of design, it’s there but it shouldn’t matter as long as the functionality is solid or the design serves its purpose as a communicative artifact.

These designers are idiots.

Aesthetic matters more than anything else. Our profession is largely built on craft and gut feeling and knowledge that can be learned but rarely taught. This makes some uncomfortable as it suggests that any ol’ creative hipster could walk into our studios and do what we do. But like I said, designers who think this are idiots. We are not part of an industry done by rote, nor willy-nilly mark-making.

Forget All The Rules About Graphic Design

• October 25, 2010
  24 Comments // Graphic Design

In 1954 Bob Gill developed a design the he would later call more pleasing “than any other design job [he] had done up until that time…”

What pleased Gill so much was the Title Card for CBS sitcom Private Secretary, “because the result looks so inevitable and easy.”

He was 23 when he received this job and it served as the moment his career went into overdrive. Not only did it win him his (first) ADC medal and saw his name grow to demand more respect (he would joke it was the year that he finally got an answering service for his office), but it taught him something monumental.

Private Secretary was special because it helped him realise that a design can only be taken so far by an aesthetically driven solution.

“I stopped trying to ram my aesthetic prejudices down their throats. Why should clients have my tastes? … I talked to them about solutions and ideas instead of design.”

It is because of this attitude towards “inevitable” solutions that Gill’s clients thought so fondly of him. He was giving them tailored work that was concept driven and so well considered that he was able to effectively describe them over the phone.

He started to consider what the solution should be first, worrying about appearance second.