Published on Thinkingmrseaves.com
Design is ubiquitous in our modern, urbanised, digitised world. We wear it on our bodies, we move around in it, we entertain ourselves with it, we live inside it and fill our houses with it. There is no escape. Hence, one might expect that design is appreciated in somewhat the same manner as other expressions of popular culture, such as sports, TV, pop music, or movies, but it isn’t. Design (here defined as: devising the appearance of usable objects) is much less exciting than other expressions of popular culture.
Why is this so?
Firstly, generally speaking, sports, TV, pop music, and movies revolve around events – matches, broadcasts, concerts, screenings, etc. – that are reported about in the media. The design of something cannot really be made into an event. Of course there are product launches and design award ceremonies, but for the general public these are insufficient to cause much excitement.
Sports, TV, pop music, and movies are expressions that are experienced en masse, in an almost hypnotic fashion. Fans take sides for their favourites, immerse themselves in the play and the players, and share their experience at the same place and/or time. Everyone is an expert. There will always be cerebral types who claim that they enjoy competitive sports or a musical performance etc. for “objective” reasons and that theirs is the only true appreciation, but displaying preferences provides much more enjoyment. Ancient tribal instincts kick in, a state of collective ecstasy is achieved, the performance offers an escape from reality, and the players are worshipped like gods.
Design is never experienced this way (except very occasionally when Apple is involved), precisely because design is so ubiquitous and commonly taken for granted. You can’t be a fan of every single thing. It would be much too tiring, even though on closer inspection every single thing may well deserve our admiration. You simply wouldn’t get around to using them. When we admire a creation, we usually worship the creator, not the creation.1 Designers, however, are mostly anonymous to the general public.
What we have stumbled upon here is something I would like to call the disappearance paradox.
In 1930, Beatrice Warde (1900-1969) expressed the idea that good typography should be invisible (soundbite: “Type well used is invisible as type”), a view that since has often been cited to propagate the serviceability of graphic design.2 We can extend this idea to the design of other usable objects with a reference to Sein und Zeit (1927) by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Heidegger provided an in-depth analysis of the way things are present or are not present in our perception. Tools escape our attention as long as they are at hand. In use we don’t notice them; they “appear” only if they don’t do what they’re supposed to do, or if we can’t find them.3
According to Warde, typography is like speaking and writing, a form of something she calls “thought transference”.
... …and it is this ability and eagerness to transfer and receive the contents of the mind that is almost alone responsible for human civilization.
Typography is a means to an end and therefore typography that is ‘visible’ is self-defeating, she reasoned.
That is why it is mischievous to call any printed piece a work of art, especially fine art: because that would imply that its first purpose was to exist as an expression of beauty for its own sake and for the delectation of the senses.
Design that does its job well disappears from the perception of the user. This is the disappearance paradox.
Sports, television, pop music, and movies are primarily about entertainment, or expressing beauty, not about ‘thought transference’ (and according to some, neither do they have anything to do with civilisation). Like art they are an end in themselves. Art may seek a ‘higher’ form of entertainment, but the perception of the spectator is still pivotal. In the case of design there is no spectator, only a user. Conscious experience of a design obstructs its use. And, conversely, use makes contemplation impossible because the object disappears in use and therefore also its design.
It is possible to consider a designed object beyond its function as a tool. According to Heidegger, it can show itself just in this instance. However, it will instantly stop being an object of use. Design is always about designing something, and that something is what the user is interested in. The design is a means to achieve a goal, or a medium for transferring a message (elevated or not).
The disappearance paradox not only makes the design disappear, but the designer as well. For this reason, design stars shine so palely and for the same reason it’s so hard to make the launch of a new design into an unmissable event. As a user, I am not interested in the intentions and the inner life of the designer. Rather, spare me.3
Once we deprive a usable object of its function, however, its design immediately becomes visible. This transforms the user into a spectator. I would like to call this is the appearance paradox. We see this, for example, when design products are exhibited in a museum. Collectors know this phenomenon very well and one could argue that it even occurs when a car is parked, which is exactly the reason why it can serve so effectively as a status symbol (in which case it would actually perform a function, more about which later).
**
There are two additional reasons why objects of use disappear and reappear in our perception. Invisibility is not only a function of usability, but also of: (i) familiarity and (ii) discernment.
(i) We overlook things that we are accustomed to, but if they suddenly have a completely different look (or feel or sound or smell), they become very conspicuous. When coloured football boots were first worn by some daring players, it became very difficult to follow the game. Your eyes were glued to that pair of shoes that seemed enormous and scurried about the field like wilful animals.
(ii) In order to perceive things you have to know they are there, you have to learn to see the small differences between things that look very much alike, i.e. you have to develop discernment. This is an absolute condition for being able to express a preference of taste. To a layman all typefaces look the same, so you don’t have to ask whether he or she prefers Arial or Helvetica. A professional typographer can be in love with Helvetica and get stomach cramps from Arial (the reverse is rare).
Because of the disappearance paradox, design is almost exclusively discussed in specialised magazines and even there it can still come across as an exercise in vanity. When new products are discussed in general media, their designs may be discussed briefly, but it’s unthinkable that anyone would want to buy a thing solely because of its design. After all, aspects such as usability and price–quality relationship should always outweigh a product’s appearance when making a rational purchase decision.4
**
Heidegger and Warde did not know TV. Radio and film were the new media of their time. Remarkably, Warde’s claim not only involved book typography, but advertising typography as well. At the time, advertising was still a relatively new phenomenon.5 Her argument was based on the distinction between form (means) (medium) and content (end) (message). Nowadays, we would say that the two can’t be separated. We have grown up with McLuhan’s slogan the medium is the message, i.e. design can quite comfortably be means and end at the same time. Form, not content, is often the actual message.
If design has to be invisible to be fully subservient, this is not to say that all design should (always) be subservient. Making a design that manages to deny itself is an art and can be useful, but the result is not only invisible but is most probably also neuter, tasteless, boring. That is what Warde’s ideal leads to in the end: the typographical equivalent of Muzak. Design can also be used to spice up life. A story that is typeset in a skilfully designed font with some delightful aberrations that reveal themselves in unexpected moments, is more enjoyable.
It takes an expert eye to perceive the subtle difference between different typefaces. Possibly, a layman somehow ‘feels’ it but doesn’t see it and hence won’t have a conscious preference for one typeface or the other. A lack of discernment makes him unable to perceive design and in that sense – and in that sense only – a layman has no taste and there’s no shame in that. The ability to discern is a prerequisite for being able to appreciate design. Design aficionados develop it for obscure reasons, just like stamp collectors or wine experts become deeply familiar with the object of their affection. Professional designers are expected to have it, the general public not so much.
**
Although by (my) definition design relates to usable objects, not all usable objects are equally utilitarian all of the time. In addition to their utilitarian function, objects of use can also have other functions that at some times or even permanently eliminate the disappearance paradox. Take decorative objects whose function is nothing more than a relic from their past, like a brooch or a tie pin. Or take obvious status objects, such as a car or a house. Or take fashion. In all these cases, the owner precisely does not want the object to disappear.
Neither does a talented, ambitious designer want his design to disappear. And even less to disappear himself. A lot of rhetoric about pure functionalism from the era of Modernism was pure bluff. True functionalism implies that the design disappears and that was the exact opposite of what those vain men wanted. A strikingly beautiful sober design loses as much of its usability as a strikingly beautiful exuberant design, if it refuses to disappear in use.
The added value of a design that doesn’t disappear is that you can enjoy it more and it may even positively affect the appreciation of its functional use. In the words of a famous Dutch designer: “Of course a beautiful chair is more comfortable. I want it to be more comfortable.”6
Tastes differ and that is exactly why design is so diverse and not all design has to be visible.
‘Not to disappear’ emphatically does not mean to stand out as much as possible. In the vast majority of cases, subtlety is key. The mechanism used is that of the appearance paradox. Make sure that the object is somewhere in between very much and only a little different from what is usual – in relation to the object itself, the user, or the context – and one can control quite accurately how much or little it stands out. This delivers a signal to the good observer, i.e. everyone who has a more or less developed taste in a given area. This works somewhat like radio or TV: you broadcast at a certain frequency and whoever is tuned to this particular wavelength captures the signal.
The rest perceive noise, or nothing.
Notes
1 For some this even constitutes a proof for the existence of God.
2 Beatrice Warde, The Crystal Goblet. Sixteen Essays on Typography, London, 1955.
3 Martin Heidegger, Seind und Zeit, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen 1979 (1927), p. 68 ff.
4 Perhaps for the same reason some design enthusiasts prefer vernacular design over signature design.
5 It remains to be seen how rational most purchasing decisions are. Psychological research suggests not to expect too much. This undermines the
usefulness of consumer guides but also sets the door wide open for design.
6 As assistant librarian of the American Type Founders Company, Warde had studied the history of typography. She joined the Monotype Corporation as a publicity assistant in 1927. No wonder she formulated an opinion that not only tried to bind publishers and printers to Monotype but also the then emerging advertising agencies.
7 Quote from Benno Premsela. Source: Hester Wolters.
No comments:
Post a Comment