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Designers and their style

Thesis Statement
Designers after having gained enough exposure tend to frame a style of their own and
take the artistic pathway where in they are recognized for the style, which they have
created for themselves.

Hrudaya Veena Yanamandala


PGDP
Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology

The pre-industrial age was mostly agrarian and the Rich owned most of the products
and they were the ones who supported the Artisans. Poor were poorer and they had to
use what they made themselves which were of poor quality. With the advent of
Industrial Revolution, which although gave more employment to people and
improved the standards of living of the people, the basic meaning behind arts and
crafts was fading away due to mass produced items and the skills were being
forgotten. The material culture was being lost. The Arts and Crafts movement started
to bridge this gap between Arts and Crafts as things were getting replaced with massproduced goods. The idea of Less is more from the advent of the Bauhaus period
that gave way to minimalist objects and designs combining fine arts, crafts, socialism,
mass-production, technology, commercialism which gave way to high quality
products which are highly functional. It aimed at bridging the gap between the art and
the industry. This movement led to many changes in the fields of Art, Design and
Architecture. The Bauhaus school focused on subjects like artistry and crafts along
with design1.

Art comes from within bringing our emotions to express what one feels and convey to
people about what they would like to achieve by using different mediums. Art is a
form where in the audience is not taken into consideration, but it is the true passion
that is being conveyed through the talent that a person is born with. It is a medium to
express what one truly feels. Art is warm and there are artists who have given up so
much just for the sake of Art. An artist does not have to take the audience into
consideration but could just express what they feel and achieve what they would want

1 "Know Your Design History: The Bauhaus Movement - Designer Blog." The Creative Edge Know

to communicate to people through their emotions, that reflects through these great
pieces of Art. On the contrary, Design is all about comprehending and analyzing to
solve problems taking into consideration the clients views and design accordingly.
Design has its own usefulness and purpose to make things simpler and easier for one
to understand. Design is used for communication and to make things around us better,
it is a knowledge that is gained after years of experience through understanding and
analyzing of what must be done which one gains through teaching and learning.
Design projects are collaborative and the audience must be taken into consideration
where in each of the projects must provide a sense of purpose or usefulness to the
people. But at some point after making and breaking the rules, designers gain
enough experience and exposure that they tend to frame a style of their own and
follow the artistic pathway where in the client may or may not be taken into
consideration. They tend to reach a level where in they become experts in
understanding what they really want for themselves and have their own style
sometimes that the clients tend to identify with. It is the style that brings in newness
and creativity, which are both inspiring and motivating.
As a design student, the works of some of the worlds greatest designers when viewed
tend to bring out so many questions of whether these pieces could be considered as
the best because we sometimes do not tend to understand what the purpose of the
design actually is, when it is not taking the audience into consideration. Did these
designers have the style since the start of their career or was it that came through
years of experience of having understood the design world and being acquainted with
all the rules that they tend to break them to achieve the style that people tend to
recognize one with. Among the list of such greatest designers we look into the works
of Stefan Sagmeister and David Carson.

Stefan Sagmeister a New York based designer whose works cover the fields of
packaging, branding and identity, advertising, art direction, consultancy, print, event
design, environmental design and exhibition design reflects a style of his own.

Obsessions make my life worse and my work better


-Stefan Sagmeister.
The above quote says it all. His works generally tend to break the rules and taboos set
by the society and reflect truth that brings out the uniqueness and originality of work.
His work reflects truth and points out how obsessed he was with his work one time
he had got lettering carved on his body for an event and another time he had gained
around 25 pounds and took semi nude pictures of himself before and after gaining
weight, which he showcased for an exhibition poster. He points out that he wants to
achieve happiness through design. His works mainly involves packaging and design
and has worked for musicians like Lon Reed and David Bryne. The Happy show
one of Sagmeisters exhibitions 2012 organized at the Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia was organized to give the visitors an experience into the designers mind
by increasing happiness through meditation, cognitive therapy and mood-altering
pharmaceuticals via the means of analog and digital typographic investigations. His
work since then is to achieve happiness. He mentions that he obtains Happiness by
Design. He challenged himself to be happy by listing out what brings him happiness
and the list goes as follow Traveling to new places.
An open road and a motorcycle.
Working on projects that matter to him.

Designing a project that feels partly brand new and partly familiar.2
Sagmeisters work was truthful where in he saw himself as a product to communicate
and he took up works that he liked the most. His works inspire people and mostly
involves bringing an artistic approach for lettering.
Some of these works involved were Low expectations are a good Strategy,
Worrying solves nothing, and Trying to look good limits my life3 which were
published in magazines. His works are intense talking about the truths of life through
a graphic design approach.

Typography is an art of communicating through words and letters by arranging them


in a legible, readable format by keeping in consideration kerning, leading and tracking
and making it appealing for the viewer.
David Carson one of the worlds best typographers is famous to break the rules of
typography. His works in playing with typography with freedom without having to
follow a definite grid and without any fixed system and layout. He believes that every
design brings out an emotional response that gets us to the story of how the product us
made. In his TED4 talk he gives an example showing two images with No Parking

2 "How Stefan Sagmeister Blew My Mind." How Stefan Sagmeister Blew My Mind. Accessed October
18, 2015. http://www.braidcreative.com/blog/how-stefan-sagmeister-blew-my-mind.


3 "Stefan

Sagmeister." AIGA. Accessed October 18, 2015. http://www.aiga.org/medalist-stefan-

sagmeister/.

4 "Design

and Discovery." David Carson:. Accessed October 18, 2015.

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design?language=en.

written on it but the way it was written was completely different which conveyed a
different emotion, showing the difference that the same words conveyed a different
expression and conveyed a different approach. Of his works the most interesting was
a poster that said Dont mistake legibility for communication. In this project he
mentions that just because something is legible doesnt mean that it must
communicate the right thing5. He believes that it is the emotion that is being
communicated behind the words before even reading them that people connect to.
David Carsons works involve using blurred images and experimental typography
beyond boundaries for which he is famous. It is funny from his TED talk that he could
not read his own works for a few seconds during the talk. But this is his style of
communicating by bringing out emotional background for the story that has to be
conveyed to and also by bringing out an expression through his work that people
associate to.

This approach of designers taking the artistic approach reflects the avant-garde
movement, which refers to people, or works that are experimental with respect to
subjects like art, culture and politics.6 Dada and Bauhaus were among a few of the


5 " Legibility Vs Communication in Design - David Carson's Point of View." MA Graphic Design.
December 30, 2013. Accessed October 18, 2015.
https://postmodernmovieposter.wordpress.com/2013/12/30/legibility-vs-communication-in-designdavid-carsons-point-of-view/.


6 "The

History of Visual Communication - The Avantgarde." The History of Visual Communication -

The Avantgarde. Accessed October 18, 2015.


http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/avantgarde.html.

Avant-Garde movements that took place at that time. Dada involved fields of art,
poetry and graphic design for anti-art cultural works in Switzerland during the First
World War. And this movement sought to fight art with art.
As a Graphic Designer, although the above-mentioned works of Designers seem to be
vague in terms of principles and rules of Design, it is the standards, which these
designers have set for themselves through all the years of experience that people
relate and connect to.

Bibliography
1."The Bauhaus Movement." Bauhaus. Accessed October 18, 2015.
http://bauhausinteriors.com/blog/the-bauhaus-movement/.
2."Know Your Design History: The Bauhaus Movement - Designer Blog." The
Creative Edge Know Your Design History The Bauhaus Movement Comments.
August 15, 2013. Accessed October 18, 2015. https://99designs.com/designerblog/2013/08/15/know-your-design-history-the-bauhaus-movement/.
3. "Design Shack - Web Design Gallery, Articles & Community." Art vs. Design: Are
They the Same Thing? Accessed October 18, 2015. http://designshack.net/articles/artvs-design-are-they-the-same-thing/.

4. "Stefan Sagmeister." AIGA. Accessed October 18, 2015.


http://www.aiga.org/medalist-stefan-sagmeister/.

5. "How Stefan Sagmeister Blew My Mind." How Stefan Sagmeister Blew My Mind.
Accessed October 18, 2015. http://www.braidcreative.com/blog/how-stefansagmeister-blew-my-mind.

6. "Happiness by Design." Stefan Sagmeister:. Accessed October 18, 2015.


https://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_shares_happy_design?language=en.

7. "Design and Discovery." David Carson:. Accessed October 18, 2015.


https://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design?language=en.

8. The History of Visual Communication - The Avantgarde." The History of Visual


Communication - The Avantgarde. Accessed October 18, 2015.
http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/avantgarde.html.

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