The canon, aimed at your back.
An exclusive, Web-only Critique by Rick Poynor for the Eye site and blog
This column has never addressed the subject of T-shirts, but we make an exception with the arrival of the Graphic Design Heroes series designed by GenPrag, alias graphic design professor Paul Nini of Ohio State University. Graphic design heroes? Is it really still permissible to use such an unreconstructed phrase in graphic design education? The approved line of thinking – for about twenty years now – has been to question the lamentable influence of the idea of the ‘design genius’ on impressionable students, who then enter practice only to find the real world isn’t like that. In 2009, shouldn’t a responsible, right-thinking series of design educator T-shirts be titled something more socially acceptable and inspiring to a young design worker, such as ‘Noteworthy group collaborations’ or ‘Exemplary instances of service design’?
Unrepentant, Professor Nini has produced 24 designs, available through Skreened, a company started by Daniel Fox, one of his former students at Ohio State. Each T-shirt has an emblem with the designer’s name graphically treated in the style of his or her work. So Saul Bass is represented by the arm from The Man with the Golden Arm, Herbert Matter by a seamless remix of his New Haven Railroad logo with HM in place of NH, and Otl Aicher – you can see this coming – by a modular 1972 Olympics pictogram. One can’t complain if the imagery seems obvious, since the whole point of an emblem is to be emblematic.
As these names suggest, the individuals Nini has elected to celebrate are among the best-known graphic designers of the twentieth century. A few remain at the forefront of attention (Tschichold, Zwart, Rand, Müller-Brockmann, Crouwel, Glaser, Vignelli), while others are less often cited now (Lustig, Sutnar, Stankowski, Odermatt, Tissi, Hofmann, Weingart, Greiman), though they are all significant figures who have been widely published and acclaimed.
The only unfamiliar name in Nini’s line-up is Peter Megert, a Swiss designer – Richard Hollis includes a single poster in Swiss Graphic Design – who taught for many years at Ohio State. In a comment on Design Observer in 2007, Nini mentioned Megert as an example of a designer working outside the main metropolitan centres (in this case, Columbus) whose work deserves to be better known. Megert is a ‘hero’, then, in only a local sense and his inclusion is a strategic homage. Nini and his faculty colleagues are working on documenting his story.
This generous impulse to record the histories of unknown designers points up the absurdity of complaining about the fact that some designers are already famous and influential. Nini’s desire to gain attention for Megert comes from recognising at first hand that his work is the product of an individual engaging with his circumstances, and that his story has value, and might, if better known, have something to teach others.
The reality of graphic design’s piecemeal history is not that too many designers of achievement are known to us, but that so many designers of achievement are barely known at all. Even figures of manifest stature and significance can later sink into obscurity. This has happened to the innovative German émigré Will Burtin, who built a career in the US as an information designer, specialising in the visualisation of scientific ideas.
During a recent lecture about design books at Sheffield Hallam University, I asked the audience if anyone had read Design and Science (2007), a monograph about Burtin (reviewed in Eye no. 68 vol 17). Not a hand went up. A well argued post about Burtin on Design Observer by Lorraine Wild received the same dispiriting lack of response, despite the existence of the book and some positive reviews (I wrote one myself).
It’s a shame there isn’t a Will Burtin T-shirt in Nini’s set, though this could be rectified. Rand and Crouwel hardly need the publicity, after all, while Tschichold, Müller-Brockmann and Hofmann are favoured with two designs apiece. Despite the presence of one or two left-fielders, such as Blue Note cover artist Reid Miles, these heroes tend to epitomise a particular strain of modernist Swiss typography, reflecting the narrowing of taste, if not the conservatism, in today’s graphic design. Where are the Japanese designers, the Poles, the Cubans?
The typographic emphasis seems to rule out designers whose impact comes from the creation or manipulation of imagery. Glaser is reduced to a red heart, while the spirit of Alvin Lustig, master of book cover symbolism, eludes Nini’s perfunctory motifs. Pastiche is more acceptable, it seems, when it’s applied to type rather than to something as personal as a handmade image.
May 1st, 2009 at 4:50 pm | by Paul Nini
Rick:
Thank you for the thoughtful critique of the series. It’s still ongoing, and I have plans to add some other designers in the near future. It’s also been mentioned that there are only a few women included thus far, which is something else that should be addressed.
As an educator, I also share concerns about placing too much value on the lone, heroic figure — it’s simply not a healthy model for current students to emulate.
Still, given the fact that Graphic Design History is not even taught in many US design schools, I have seen some positive effects of the series. Specifically, I’ve heard from students asking to know more about these individuals, because they haven’t been exposed to them in their design educations.
And you’re dead-right about Will Burtin + Peter Megert — they’re just the tip of the iceberg, as far as under-appreciated, significant figures go.
Our program at Ohio State has been involved with user-centered design, experience design, and collaborative, cross-disciplinary design for many years, so I’m no stranger to those approaches. However, I strongly believe that one should not progress to those more advanced practices without a strong grounding in the discipline’s history. First things first, if you will.
Finally, I’d like to point out that the choices for the designers included in the series are totally personal on my part, and reflect what I enjoy. You’re correct — clearly I have a penchant for modernist Swiss typography, and I make no bones about it. If there are figures that I choose not to include, someone else can easily start their own shop on Skreened with other designs.
Many thanks.
Paul Nini
May 1st, 2009 at 9:50 pm | by new mexico
…we talk to ourselves once again: ‘why aren’t we more known/appreciated/respected/honored in society/known in the general public?
and I link here and what do I see? a piece on T Shirts and typography.
Until this ‘profession’ realizes that advertising and most of visual design is not as useful to anyone in the public knowingly, as it is to us in our self important careers, it will remain obscure. Organize a community for better housing, help at a women’s reproductive health clinic, drive seniors who can’t see to doctor visits or write a damn editorial now and then for the newspaper, and realize that there’s world of hurt out there that needs design talent thrown at it. But not with design; with time and money and sweat.
Designing clever face mask graphics for swine flu and Tshirts is not the same thing as actually doing some dirty hands-on, real work.
I am so tired of hearing the same commentary over 30 years.
May 2nd, 2009 at 7:23 am | by Derrick Schultz
A well argued post about Burtin on Design Observer by Lorraine Wild received the same dispiriting lack of response, despite the existence of the book and some positive reviews (I wrote one myself).
As briefly touched upon in my own response to Lorraine’s essay, I think part of the difficulty in discussing Burtin’s work in particular is that much of his truly great work can’t be shown with just a single image (nor does the traditional graphic design canon really accept exhibition design work, for various reasons)
As a designer interested in seeing design history as a study progress, its incredibly hard to move the discussion from the individual, heroic, singular pieces to a broader discussion of a designer’s complete career, much less move onto designer’s who weren’t featured in Megg’s History.
As an example, as one of the organizers of a collection of designer Erik Nitsche’s work, I find many designers would like to discuss the minutiae of his aesthetics, but not the cultural context in which it was done (i.e. “why is that stroke width such” vs. “why did General Dynamics present their corporation as such”). I can perhaps assume that this has much to do with how much of design education is passed onto students. I believe its getting better, but its still a major hindrance to the subject. As Paal points out, design history is rarely more than a class or two in most programs, if at all. My own education was one general design history lecture that was heavily slanted toward industrial design, with a professor or two taking it upon themselves to encourage further inspection.
Lastly, the sheer fact that there are very few intelligent reviews of books like Burtin’s hints at the underlying fact that there are very few people who can make a living reviewing such books—in most cases, its not even a living so much as an extracurricular passion that drives the reading and reviewing of these. This, as I know Rick is vocal about, means that a lack of strong writers and critics saying “this is important” means a lack of people hearing that and believing it. We must currently come to terms with the reality that many people will buy Greatest Logos Vol. 12 over deep and investigative looks at design, designers and design history. In no way am I saying we should resign to that truth, but we must look deeper into the profession to try to understand why it is that way. I’m not sure where that change can begin, but I do think acknowledging the habits of designers is at least a good place to start.
May 2nd, 2009 at 8:47 pm | by T-Shirt Series on Eye magazine’s blog « Paul Nini, Professor of Visual Communication Design, The Ohio State University
[...] May 2, 2009 · No Comments Many thanks to Rick Poynor for his thoughtful critique of the Graphic Design Heroes T-Shirt Series on the Eye magazine blog. [...]
May 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm | by Christoph „ksaen“ Stroppel» Blogarchiv » Autorschaft
[...] sehe eine sehr interessante Kritik (welche mich sicherlich auch dazu veranlasst hat diesen Artikel zu schreiben) über T-Shirts auf [...]
May 5th, 2009 at 3:56 am | by Youssef Sarhan
This might make some interesting reading that was inspired by this post. Further discussion on “Design Heros”
http://www.whiteinkblog.com/2009/05/04/over-reliance-trend-on-hero-designer/
May 15th, 2009 at 7:00 pm | by Darren
Yea, all the historical chatter is fine. But how about discussing the fact that these shirts lack the craft and “genius” of form that the original designers applied to paper? It seems a very generic response to their inspiration — to have these people’s most-iconic work and and their name graphically edited and distilled into the chunk-center of a white shirt.
May 15th, 2009 at 8:52 pm | by Paul Nini
Darren:
You’re absolutely correct — but what you describe is simply the nature of creating something to appear on a T-Shirt, due to issues of scale, printing limitations, etc.
Perhaps the overall concept that I’m working with for the series is too simplistic, but that’s what I’ve decided to do. As I said in my response to the original post, above — someone else can easily start their own shop on Skreened with other designs.
I’m also a bit shocked how seriously some people are taking the series, given that my intention was just to create something for fellow designers to enjoy. Not that our history and how it’s documented isn’t deserving of serious discussion — but these are just t-shirts after all, not a history book.
Thank you for your comments + best wishes.