Letter to the editor.
Re: Reputations of poacher-turned-brandkeeper Ian Anderson and TDR
Trick or treat?
Ian Anderson’s masterstroke of dissolving The Designers Republic and reinventing it as . . . The Designers Republic had the design press falling over themselves. When a recent editorial newsletter billed Eye 71’s TDR Reputations feature as a ‘treat’, I had hoped for a critical treatment of the agency’s trajectory. Instead the feature effectively offered a self-promotional platform for Anderson, who, like other poachers turned brandkeepers, resolves the contradiction of his position by claiming he only wishes to make us think.
In the 1990s, the TDR style and claim was innovative, and Anderson’s use of pastiche was inventive. Perhaps even the idea of using design to expose the mechanics of consumerism was novel. But if the new TDR is gearing up for another journey with Cola, then where is the brainwork – and, moreover, where is the treat here, unless simply as a historical review?
I don’t suggest that Reputations features must criticise their subjects, but Anderson is capable of his own inflation, and Eye is no Hello!.
Berlin
May 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm | by Christopher Murphy
Despite my admiration for a great deal of TDR’s work over the years, I can’t help but agree with the assertion that “Anderson is capable of his own inflation.” (Indeed this might even be an understatement.)
On reading Mr Anderson’s, “When I took a back seat…” assertion, that opens the piece, I can’t help but feel that he might be advised to think again about the asumptions he makes in this statement (which I can only hope is tongue-in-cheek, ironic - or both).
“The more obvious it became that Ian Anderson and The Designers Republic were inseparable.”
Really? What of Michael C. Place of Build; Matt Pyke of Universal Everything…
Whilst I’m all in favour of a little trumpet-blowing (and in this case - if reined in a little - it might be deserved), a little humility goes a long way.
Humility, it seems, is a quality that Mr Anderson might focus on as he embarks upon the next phase of his design adventure.
May 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm | by Eye blog » Kim Hiorthøy strikes again. Cult Norwegian music label produces graphic design monograph (with CDs)
[...] In a recent email exchange, I asked Kim whether he had designed many other books. He replied with the observation that books are difficult to make. ‘They’re like making films,’ he said. ‘They take up everything, in the middle of it you have no idea how you’ll ever be able to finish, and when it’s finally done you (or at least I) spend weeks agonising over things which should have been different.’ I replied that that’s why I like doing magazines – less time to agonise. (Though see the latest ‘Letter to the editor’). [...]