Unsubstantiated rumours

An immediate response to ‘Fuck Design, let’s set the world on fire’

Tonight, I read an article on art and design blog ‘The Fox is Black’ titled ‘Fuck Design, let’s set the world on fire.’ In the article the author of the blog describes his feelings relating to the state of contemporary culture, those feelings being that we are stuck in a’ cultural toilet bowl’ and that ‘design is to blame.’

Comments on the article have been disabled, and I can only presume the reason behind this as being that the article has caused some stir considering the blog usually tries to engage and respond to its readership.

From reading the article it seems causing a stir is exactly what Bobby wanted to do. I don’t mean this in a attention seeking way or a deliberately controversial way, far from it infact, but he does state himself that he wants us to ‘piss people off’ and ‘fuck shit up.’ I agree with this somewhat and am glad to read a blog that starts debate rather than endlessly recycling what other blogs are posting, the problem I have with this article is the way in which the views are articulated and the disservice I feel it gives the design industry as a whole.

Bobby says that ‘when he thinks of the ideas of design and art’ he gets two different emotional responses but in a way that seems to be suggesting this is a bad thing. He goes onto say that perhaps ‘we need to start making art again.’ My own personal view is that this difference of emotion between art and design is exactly the point. Art is pure expression. People create art in order to say the things that they want to say. Design allows us to say things that other people want to say. Both can be subjective but both have, and in my opinion need, two very separate roles.

This is not to say that design can’t be expressive and I would say that I put a part of myself into every design piece that I do. It is my creation even though it is perhaps for a client but I am still exercising my expression and creative judgement. Design needs to obey rules, and this doesn’t mean that the rules can’t be broken, but design affects the lives of people regardless of whether they themselves have an interest in it. A commercial toaster or a tv set needs to act as a functional object. Yes they should be designed to be aesthetically pleasing but this is not their only function. They need to work. A painting doesn’t need to do anything other than cause an emotional reaction, aesthetically pleasing or not (I not taking into account say, art for political or social causes but I don’t think Bobby was either). 

I would never design a website for say, a hospital, by using the design ideas put forth by Carson (using graphic design as an example here) because it just wouldn’t, in my opinion, work as a functional object. However, Carson and similar designers took graphic design and flipped it on its head, uprooting the hold the 60’s era of design still had and challenged preconceived ideas. These ideas were ‘fucked up and weird’ and yet in some cases worked. In other cases they didn’t work. Things shouldn’t be ‘fucked up and weird’ for the sake of it otherwise it becomes a style and swamps true innovation.

There is true innovation going on in the design industry and in our culture at this moment. Just because there is perhaps an appreciation for the design ideals/ ideas of yesteryear doesn’t mean that culturally we are repeating.

I think we need to be proud of everything that we create whether or not it is influenced by things passed because, in the end, we are still creating and inventing and putting our emotions into everything we do.

This is what we need. We need to create things from the heart, regardless of the end use. And if we do this, we will still be moving forward.

You can read the original article here: http://thefoxisblack.com/2012/01/09/fuck-design-lets-set-the-world-on-fire/