working-title('TXTface');

Ok, so I'm quite motivated about this new project I'm working on, as I've mentioned in my last post. Here's a snippet of what the post on the website would look like (so far).
I am still looking for people to collaborate with me though, as I'm pretty sure my server-side/programming skills are seriously lacking.
The Empire Collective > TXTface

TXTface

A new project I'm working on.
TXTface would essentially be a purly text-based faux-social bookmarking tool, based on the internet. Drawing inspiration from great sites like FFFFound.com by Yugo Nakamura and with the obvious tip of the hat to Facebook.com by Mark Zuckerberg, but with the focus being given to purely literary examples. As a project, I'd like to find a Developer to collaborate with, but hey I could just do it myself.

UK's Best Handheld Advert

The MD at my new work, Line Digital (in Edinburgh) forwarded this charmingly witty advert, for The Sun newspaper, to me earlier. I think it's great. All the more so because I dislike The Sun (with a reasonable amount of passion) - so an advertisement that get me thinking positively about it, has obviously covered at of ground.

Not sure which agency produced this gem, but I hope to find out.

Bullshit!

Only recently read yet another great piece of design criticism over at Design Observer, called: On (design) Bullshit, its well worth a read. The following are just snippets:

"In discussing design work with their clients, designers are direct about the functional parts of their solutions and obfuscate like mad about the intuitive parts, having learned early on that telling the simple truth — "I don't know, I just like it that way" — simply won't do."

"... it's beside the point whether bullshit is true or false: 'It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.' There must only be the desire to conceal one's private intentions in the service of a larger goal: getting your client it to do it the way you like it."

"Calling bullshit on a designer, then, stings all the more because it contains an element of accuracy." - Michael Bierut

"I believe he used the term finesse to mean bullshit." - Niti Bhan

I've been working on some stuff for a local magazine here in Edinburgh, called Muckle Sandwich, with another designer that stays at the same hostel, I'll post some of it soon.

I came across this quote on ffffound, and although (due to it being on ffffound) everyone has probably seen it, it struck such a chord with me, that I just had to re-post it. And along with this one, I found another great quote, via WikiQuote.

"Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don't like to use the word 'art' at all" Banksy

Public Art

Following my own progress into critically considering the roll of graphic design, be it commercial or expressive, individual or collaborative, I found the above work entitled "Public Art", by designer Chris Clarke, his own words describe it best;

"The notion of ‘public art’ is an awkward idea to resolve. By definition, it encompasses any artwork which is publicly accessible, typically situated in outdoor spaces. It is expected that ‘public art’ somehow exists for the public, but typically does not involve them in its making. Its record suggests that the majority of ‘public art’ is not so different from the ‘art’ which occupies the gallery spaces of the ‘art world’, and is often taken by artists as a chance simply to try out bigger and more adventurous, weather tolerant projects. This canvas, entitled ‘Public Art’, is a proposed reality check on the term from which it derives. The piece comprises a collection of marks made in, and extracted from, the public domain. Sampling from a collection of pen tester sheets found in stationers and art shops around the city of Bristol over a four month period, the composition bears true public authorship in its form, capturing directly the voices of a random cross-section of Bristolians.

The result of this incidental public collaboration is a pseudo abstract-expressionist composition, essentially concerned with colour, mark and vocalisation. Both as a display of public identity and a record of the visual musings of the public unconscious, ‘Public Art’ brings value to the overlooked output of the Bristolian public, in documentation of the assumed banality of everyday public history." Chris Clarke

Design Education Criticism

My father recently bought me a book, Looking Closer Five: Critical writings on graphic design, to help with my critical thining on design, especially since I've decided I want to do my MA in graphic design.

While I'm nowhere near finished the book, I came across an article by Jessica Helfand entitled "Method Designing: The paradox of modern design education", and it really stuck home, especially since I've just completed my B.tech Degree and have been looking at my contemporaries and I, and analysing how we each dealt with our "design education" at DUT (Durban). The Article draws lines of similarity between the technique of acting introduced by Stanislavsky called "Method Acting" and graphic design. The quotes below particualarly stuck home.

"The good news is that in an effort to produce designers who can think for themselves, we ask our students to identify a method which becomes evident through the work that they produce. Such an emphasis on authorship is, by and large, a way to train young designers as thinkers — and not merely as service providers. (So far, so good.) At the same time, we encourage them to seek references beyond the obvious: the richness of their sources testifies to an ability to engage a larger universe, and their work benefits from locating itself along a trajectory they've chosen and defined for themselves.

The bad news is that as a consequence of seeking validation elsewhere, there is an unusual bias toward false identity: so the design student, after looking at so much art, believes that s/he is making art. The design student, after considering so deeply the intangible forces framing the interpretation of visual form, comes to believe that the very act of interpretation is itself the form. This is where the method backfires so paradoxically: in being true to ourselves, we distance ourselves from a more universal truth, the kind that designers, in making messages clear, are so naturally predisposed to understand."

Though I'm not really affiliated with the university that I studied at, beyond being a student, I wish I could pin this article up on the notice boards, but I know (havning only too recently been a student) that most of the people that would most bennifit from it, will mostly likely not read past the first paragraph. Its a Shame,really.

The article, although from the book Looking Closer Five, can also be found in it's entirety at DesignObserver where the author is an Editor. The site is in my opinion one of the leading Critical Design blogs, and well worth being read often.
I'm hoping (counting on the fact) that I'll find more articles like the one above that with influence me, no end, and hopefully help me flesh out my Masters proposal.