19
DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE,
2002
| Editorial
DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGENumber 19 of Design Issues which the reader has in
their hands is miscellaneous. Evidently, that means to say that the articles
found in it do not refer to one single issue. However, in this case it does not
mean to say that points of reference can not be seen, nor even that a kind of
shared spirit of the era cannot be found. In that respect, in support of this
coherence that we maintain exists here, it can be seen that beyond diversity is
the fact that all of our authors are fully aware that our era is dominated by
the change in values and ways of life. The feeling, the experience or the
verification that we are in the middle of a crisis (that is, according to the
primary sense of the term, in the process of moving from one situation or state
to another), abounds in all texts published here. Some of them focus their
respective questions from within the vortex which constitutes the current
cultural moment, whereas others look at the phenomena from the outside, taking
a critical stance (something which is truly rare these days but which we would
certainly benefit from recovering).
The articles have been divided into two broad
sections: 'Current design challenges' and 'Design and visual language'. The
first regards more general and sociological issues without losing sight of
design perspective, and includes big issues or later predominant issues such as
ecology or Information Technology. There is even one which reconsiders the role
of design, seen globally, in relation to the culture and economy of complex
modern day societies, in an exercise which has not been carried out since the
times of modernity. The second section deals with works of more traditional
design themes, such as printing, logotypes and the frameworks or reception of
shapes.
The fact is that from a design perspective, the cultural transformations of the 20th century have been undergone and suffered particularly intensely with all their good and badness. The modern movement lived through the optimism that provoked the feeling of having embarked upon a clean, clear and open era. Nevertheless, and all too soon, the old enemy which constitutes the killer irrationality that our classic, Christian, scientific and democratic culture carries within was unleashed. Following the enormous tragedy brought on by the war and genocide, designers hurried to make a new start, in the yearning to refind the path of compromise between social justice and 'good form'. Escola d'Ulm, New Bauhaus and, citing it without wishing to make comparisons, Escola Elisava. But too many things had happened and the mirage was cut off too soon, leaving us to face the obstinate reality: modernity had ended and we were moving into perhaps not unknown territories but certainly confusing ones. The are those known generically in the fields of culture and design as postmodern, although in reality they do not have a name. The attentive reader will find reflections on this recent history in this issue of the magazine, and it is for this reason that I would like to suggest going into the old and new problems from the perspective that a distanced viewpoint, the contained feeling and the diligent understanding offer. It seems clear that we already have a new economy, just
as we are a different society. Naturally, we have known that economy and
society are closely related since the times of Marx. This is a reality which
must never be forgotten in the world of design. Some of the articles published here concern the current
economy and its consequences in the consumption of developed societies in one
way or another. Clearly, we can no longer think in terms of mass consumption as
was done in the sixties last century. Society is very varied and organised into
groups and social class units in a more or less jointed manner, and
fundamentally because of shared interests; old class divisions are increasingly
seen to be more blurred. All this demands of design professionals the capacity
to acquire a form according to very diverse styles and aesthetics because there
is no dominant one. It is significant that the idea of craftsmanship is once
again mentioned in one of the articles here. With regards to this, the reader
will find the stance in favour of standardizing difference, as well as the
expressed need to intervene in the correction of consumption models and the
prevailing economic development of our times.
There are some new issues which correspond to dimensions and outlooks which are present in the societies of our age. It has come to light that we are increasingly concerned about the problems related to energy sources as well as pollution and recycling. The answer is what we understand as ecological design. There will undoubtedly be a growth in the demands of companies, institutions and consumers themselves to bear in mind at the production planning stage what has previously been known as sustainable development. The new generation of professionals are already aware of this; the next stage is to equip them with the appropriate technical knowledge. It goes without saying that one of the predominant issues of our era is the impact of communication on the net. Our knowledge of cultural history enables us to uphold that something as powerful as information technology has and will continue to have effect on the content of our culture. From Plato, Walter Benjamin and Marshall McLuhan we know that cultural instruments are not neutral and that they modify the content. Culture changed hugely with the use of alphabetic writing, and even more so with its mechanisation through the printing press. It is clear then that information technology will leave its mark on cultural norms. Old issues such as printing have resurfaced and been transformed with the widespread use of the computer. Audiovisual communication, so prevalent in our era, is not yet fully understood, in spite of its ubiquity. We are not equipped with many authentic approximations from nature itself to the specific visual and linguistic expressions of media productions. It is clear that cinematographic works, and above all televised ones, given that they are the most representative of the present, demand that we take the receivers into account. And that we take them into account not only as simple receivers but as agents who form a part of the transmissions right from the start. Now that the structuralist wave has passed, there is a definitive need to construct a theory of the image and, moreover, of the audiovisual without the cliched resources provided by linguistics and the philosophy of language. When everything is said and done, this edition of Design Issues invites to think according to abstraction and concretion, something which continues to be a healthy exercise notwithstanding the fact that at times it can appear to be obsolete. It is the belief of many people that in the world we have created after the Utopias of modernity, anything and everything can be done - given only the technological tools within our reach, everything can work. This is clearly a mistake. As powerful as they may be, current social engineering, economics and politics do not save us from the exercise of free (which means critical) thinking. Lastly, I think it is worthwhile remembering that whilst artists allow themselves to try and forget rationality in their work, preferring to refer to emotive sensitivity, designers can by no means embark upon their work without composed and clear reflection about the world they live in and the needs of society. In accordance with everything that has been argued here, it is the desire of this publication that a reading of its articles serves to put a bit of order into the particularly untidy area of current culture and even that of design. Some will not be entirely mistaken in thinking that the 'anything goes' which rules our days has the advantage of favouring creativity. We must not forget, however, that the core of culture is style but also norm. It is for this reason that the best artistic and scientific creations are those which have been achieved through a balance of the old and the new, through remembering and creating. Jordi Berrio |
Contents
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DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE,
2002
JULI CAPELLA No two objects are the same. The normality of difference. Standardisation versus individualisation 19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 FRANCESC MARCE PUIG Logotypes: form and effectiveness This text consists of a synthesis of the work carried out and theoretical reflection prior to the empirical research currently underway. It focuses on the study of formal factors with regard to their function in the effectiveness of the visual sign. The images on which work is done are brand signs. We are concerned with determining the relationships between formal variables and legibility and impact, as well as the relationships between the latter in their determination of the effectivenss of the message. On entering this field we find that certain theoretical and methodological problems must be resolved before beginning the empirical research. [...]19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 JOAN RIERADEVALL I PONS Eco-design in the framework of integrated product policy (PPI) The constant increase of product consumption in Europe is creating global impacts on the environment that originate from the stages of its life cycle. For this reason, the European Union is trying to encourage eco-products, given that it has been detected that the main decisions on environmental effects are made in the design stage. The strategic document elaborated by the European Commission in order to favour this charge is called The Green book on IPP, which aims to promote eco-design, buying green products and internalising environmental costs. The IPP will allow the policies on the improvement of environmental products to be harmonised as well as helping to put the concept of sustainable development into practise. 19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 JORDI PERICOT Design and its future responsabilities It would be naive to adesign will be like in the future, even if it were only within a few decades. The only thing we can do is to analyse the general ideas upon which the history of design subsists and project onto them the significant events which are shaping social behaviour and deduce their effects in the field of design projection. To this end, the traditional symbolic/utilitarian relationship which implies a society hierarchically divided into classes has been chosen. Evidently, throughout the course of the history of design, the balance between these values has fluctuated according to the socially prevalent cultures and ideologies in each era. Currently, the phenomena of globalisation has emphasised this division whereas the serious political and military conflicts being undergone by humanity foretell huge economic and social changes which undoubtedly call for a redefinition of design practice. 19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 ENRIC SATUÉ Typographic design. Chronicle of a chronicmarginalisation Taking advantage of the Encuentro Mundial de las Artes (World Arts Conference) held in Valencia in October, 2000, I will make a descriptive analysis of the progressive impoverishment in the knowledge of typography (understood here in the sense of a type of printed letter) on the part of graphic designers, of the general indifference that has been shown over five hundred years of the printed letter and the decolonisation of the historical and stylistic origins of available fonts that computers are responsible for, according to companies that sell them. Finally, I shall finish up by pointing out the paradox by which Internet users, for the first time in half a century, have finally realised that there are many types of different printed letters. [...]19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 NORBERTO CHAVES Rule, style and times. The dilemma of design referents in a "style-less" time. 19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 MARGARITA LEDO ANDIÓN The documentary eye There is a way of producing images which drags with it the inevitability of the spectator, the relationship between author, characters and representation, towards an out of scope in which a caryatid maintains with its translucent hand the passing of time and the construction, contingent, of time on the part of the spectator. The one and the multiple, in Porto or Lyon a déjà vu is filmed: the factory and the factory exit. An icon of modernity so that it can be recognised by the public just at the moment in which the public establishes itself as spectator, that is, at the moment of projection. And if from orality we had been approaching visibility, and if with the illusion of movement as well as the articulation of truth-effects we have been moving towards the audiovisual, in the last decade, as much for technological as ideological reasons, we have entered -as in the case of the Gulf War- the audiovirtual, where the spectator occupies a non-place. [...]19 DESIGN'S PRESENT CHALLENGES. DESIGN AND VISUAL LANGUAGE, 2002 ANTONIO PETRILLO Design in new economy |