Design in the mind

OK - I’m being brave, I am going to talk about the dreaded Nazis and i feel a bit nervous about it - but I think that feeling sums up what I want to discuss about the Nazi movement - the impact of their graphic propaganda and the emotional affect it had on the German people and the world - and how, even now, the sight of the swastika makes people feel uneasy.

There has been no graphic visual more confronting in modern history than the presence of the swastika (traditionally a symbol of good luck). It is a pure form - just one step up from a simple cross.

It is suggested that Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag in the 1920s. The Swastika symbol had been used by the Aryan nomads of India in the second millennium. In Nazi theory, the Aryans were German ancestors, Hitler considered the swastika had been eternally anti-semitic. The choice of red as a dominant colour is also well considered as it represents power, life, vitality …

The Nazis exploited the power of visual design, they were the masters of the brand identity and creating a sense of unity through the confidence and power that was encapsulated within their striking and simple visuals - primarily the large symbol on a bright red background. It created a powerful sense of authority and was immediately recognisable. No where to be seen was the German flag - they appeared to present themselves as a power above even their own country.

Another lazy post featuring a wonderful illustrative animation/interview:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message - Vimeo

I Met The Walrus John Lennon Interview The Beatles Revolutionary Genius from JQuestionmarkH on Vimeo.

This is a lazy post where we can simply sit back and see/listen to artists/illustrators talk of their creative process and how they develop their visual vocabulary.

Brad Holland from Richard Solomon on Vimeo.

Artist Profile: Aaron Noble from By Osmosis TV on Vimeo.

It would appear that this blog is turning into a design history leason, not that there’s anything wrong with that - just that there are so many engaging, effective and inspiring examples from the birth of modern design and communication.

Man Ray, an avant-garde photography and painter, explored the modern technology of film back in the 20s and created some surprisingly contemporary works. As modern designers explore the power of computers and modern software, Man Ray explored the visual capabilities of film. This clip of one of his films from 1923 demonstrating his eye for composition, shape and texture - compiling apparently unrelated visuals into one artistic expression.

We see technology progressing at such speed that we see a generation of children unaware of what existed before digital - magnetic tapes, vinyl records, film, cut n paste, floppy disks - I recall not long ago using Syquest disks to send artwork.

Gone with this analogue generation are the fabulous graphics that adorned the packaging of these products - design that would find a contemporary place in today’s design world. Here are a few examples of camera film packaging from the not too far gone past. See more at photo, film & sound ephemera

As designers we are confronted by many visual challenges, and I would say, by far, designing complex information as diagrams hits the top of the scale. I’m not talking about bar or pies here, I’m refer to street maps, complex relationship diagrams, scientific theories. It requires the utmost attention to detail and the ability to communicate the concepts clearly, and above all, be engaging and integrate with what ever publication it is being applied to.

Below are some examples of extraordinary diagrams that attempt to communicate complex information - I say ‘attempt’ as I can’t actually make sense of them! Though if you can’t understand them then they can simply be hung up as art.

These examples are from Visual Complexity

From one of my favorite animators, Chuck Jones, is a fantastic graphic animated story created in 1965, which won him his only Academy Award - where maths teams with graphics and tells us a moral! Who could ask for more.

I think I can speak for all designers when I mention some of the comments from our clients that unsettle us - though we know where they are coming from, they can still create unnecessary blockages in the creative process - I speak of comments like “we need you to pretty up this document”, “our logo is way too small, make it bigger”, and “I had a bad experience with green once and couldn’t face that colour on our brochure”.

Design is a process in which all elements need to be considered, including: the audience, the client’s needs, the business brand, tone, colour, hierarchy, message, positioning, medium, image, to mention a few. As we like to say, “no brief, plenty grief” - a brief is essential for every type of project, including that 1 colour business card. A brief creates an unbiased outline of the requirements of a project and clearly addresses the objectives of the final outcome. Based on a brief we can determine whether a logo needs to be big, whether being pretty is a desired look or if in fact green need be considered at all.

This has been a struggle for designers and particularly with the overwhelming impact of computer derived design where changes can be instantaneous. Our client’s needs - to have input in the end result - are important to ensure the design is well targeted - as no one knows their audience as they do - but it is important to allow the designer to pull back and view the broader picture and be objective in their design decisions, to consider, size, colour and image based on conceptual thinking and considering issues of the project brief.

An article presented by AIGA called The Resistance: Designers and Clients Go Head-to-Head discusses the role of client and designer and raises some interesting points on this subject.

On a humorous note - a website, that has been going around for a while, makes light of this with their revolutionary cream that guarantees to relieve clients of their designers sensibilities and enlarge their logos at will - by simply applying this cream to their computer monitor to enlarge their logo - absurd but droll Make my logo bigger

And a rocking song along the same theme - “make the logo bigger” - by Burn Back

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I think we have all heard of the colour wheel - the organisation of colour hues in a circle that show their relationships with consideration to the primary (red yellow blue) and secondary (purple, orange and green) colours - but what of its origins - it would appear that most big thinkers of the past have put their minds to it and have created their own theories, and some of them are presented below, courtesy of the Colour Museum.

Don’t expect me to go into depth about colour - whoa! - too big for me, but if you are interested, a great place to start is at Color Systems and Systematization which goes into great depths and has some great colour examples from the past

These images are from The Colour Museum

Seeing designers and creators at work and discussing their process can be immensely inspiring - to see the thinking behind the process behind the end visual that we react and relate to.

Melbourne has a great culture of designers, artists and creators nestled in the back streets of inner Melbourne - they’re there, you’ll pass them and not realise it, and there are several opportunities to see their personal work through local galleries and through organised events such as ‘Saturday in Design’.

At www.inframe.tv we get to experience creators at work with short documentaries, or as they describe them - ‘vodcasts’. Here is an example from artist/illustrator Shaun Tan