Rant Over

Right, rant over. People started getting worried—no really. This module and in particular the way of teaching drove me up the wall. Imagine you're trying your best to succeed somewhere and then you work out that it doesn't help you at all and that people are taking the piss. I just don't like being treated like a child. I'm at university for a reason, for academic tuition, not for pissing around. I know that a lot of not so bright people choose to go to design school, because they're no good in other areas (eg. areas that actually involve intelligent thinking). However that doesn't mean that people who are ambitious and willing to really achieve something should suffer. If a piece of paper says "brief" on the top, I expect it to be a brief, with instructions or at least a description of what I'm expected to do and why. Is that asking too much? Briefs we got in this module look like they're copied and pasted together without even bothering to spell check or at least delete superfluous commas that remain as a result of a quick copy&paste. If they don't take me seriously, why would I take them seriously?



We're being told that it´s important to consider design aspects in every situation of our life if we want to be good designers—in a concrete example we were asked to photocopy the cover of a book we were given and leave the lid open so they all look good together. Yes, they actually gave us a 10 minute rant about considering the composition, lighting, contrast and kerning in our name on the sheet of paper that was blatently just for their reference so they won't forget what book they gave us. In their own pieces of visual communication (ie. the briefs) they don't even consider spell checking let alone a legible information architecture or readable copy! Please someone tell me how am I supposed to take any of this seriously?



But some people don't seem to have the slightest issue with this. They're happily designing away and produce things that actually look good. What am I doing wrong? I refuse to kiss ass. I was actually told by the senior lecturer that nobody seemed to have any problems with a particular brief that I complained about and that I seem to be the only one who takes issue with this. In this particular example however, I had about 3 people sending me e-mails and asking me to explain the brief and there was a discussion in the discussion board on facebook for 2 months about how confusing and unclear it is. This incident showed me that there is no point in discussing these issues with the person in charge. I'm always going to lose. Maybe I should just kiss ass.



The whole thing just made me think a lot about Graphic Design as a whole. Why am I doing this? Graphic Design seems to be an awful lot about bullshitting. It´s a form of art, very often about self expression, inevitably vulnerable to bullshitting. Graphic Design needs content, where does content come from if there is none? It needs to be made up (they like to call it research). But why? Is Graphic Design just an art form? Is it to entertain people? To make them look at a piece of design and say "ohh I like it – what is it?". This is not the Graphic Design that I want to do for a living. I want design with a purpose, I refuse to be an artist for arts sake. There is no point in designing for designers. Graphic Design is a service industry, on this course we're being tought as though it was a self-pleasing art form. Graphic masturbation. I'm disgusted.



You might have noticed that I recently posted two more projects that I created as part of this module. And you might have looked at it and thought "oh I like it" followed by "what is it?". And that exactly was the point of both of these projects. I'm such an artist. I was fed up with being fed up. Looking at my fellow design students' recent work I was inspired to just go with the flow and design something that would gain instant acceptance by just anyone. Looks good doesn't it? Yes, but that´s about it. The problem with these pieces of work is that it is completely made up. There is no real substance, nothing that would help anyone to get anything out of it. It´s pushing all the buttons that the audience (designers in particular) want and yet leaves enough room to criticise just minor issues. Fancy paper, sustainable forests, pseudo-scientific language, entirely made up content. Nothing of this actually works in any other than the design way. Think about it when you look at a piece of Graphic Design, not here but elsewhere. It might just be 90% smelly faecal matter of a large male cow.



But back to topic—I said rant over. And that´s right. With just a few days to bear this module and still a few projects to go, I decided to bite my teeth together, smile and get on with it. Having figured out that I don't need to take this seriously and that I shouldn't 'give them to much credit' (like they actually said) I can make this enjoyable for myself if I just have some fun with it and play.



Simon Waterfall might just help me through it again.