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...even if the eyes staring back at me jiggle.
Apologies for this recent spate of content; I shall soon return to the normal run of cat pictures, quiz results, and links to pointless funny things.
(I'm just worried, now I know people are linking to various posts of mine, that I'm going to have to start fussing about my typoes (You think they're full of typoes now? You should see them BEFORE I edit! Or just read some of my email). I gave up on grammar and punctuation long ago; I use semicolons because I think they're nifty, not because I have a clear idea of what they're for, and many moons ago as a child, someone told me that when you're reading out loud, you pause momentarily when you come to a comma. I seem to have internalized that backwards, as "you put commas in where you'd pause when reading aloud," and no amount of careful explanation of clauses and compounds and whatnot has ever made any more impression than that on me and I ahve accepted that the true use and function of the comma shall remain a mystery to me. If it's more-or-less readable, I'm all OK with that.)
That wasn't what I started out to post - I got distracted by a shiny thing.
Idelete without reading most of a bunch of RSS feeds through BlogLines, mostly librarian and web-design related things. A recent addition to this is Design Observer, which is basically a group blog of essays about graphic design. Today's essay is a musing on scrapbooking by a graphic designer, which I kept expecting to break down into the OMG HOW DARE THE PEONS ATTEPT GRAPHIK DESING!! but it didn't, pleasantly enough. You could tell the writer was a bit more weirded out that she wasn't as disapproving of what is essentially vernacular graphic design than she felt she ought to be. And most of the commentors agree with her, which is a pleasant change from elitist art snots who don't seem to think that making things that make you happy, whether they follow classic design principles or not, is just as valid as making things that make other elitist art snots happy. Speaking, myself, as an elitist manga snot. :)
You could have the same argument with writing, or art, or any creative procedure - no, you are not required to be striving to meet the goal of Improvement or Publication or even Wide Acceptance. It's perfectly OK to write because you want to write, because the process of pushing paint across canvas makes you happy, or even because pasting sparkly stickers with funny sayings all over photographs of your children fills some sort of primal need for glitter and googly eyes.
Anyway, a few quotes from the comments on the essay that made me happy, probably taken out of context:
=========================================
I can't just be down on this trend because it's not 'high art'-- that really is a bit arrogant. If people enjoy doing it and making these things for their personal pleasure/hobby time, who am I to criticize. None of them are pushing it as museum-worthy art or as graphic design; I think that's a bias that we as artists/designers are introducing here.
---
As for an embarassed Utah design community, open your eyes. If you're surrounded by a booming vernacular design phenomenon, why not figure out how to engage it, use it, or improve it instead of feebly wishing it'd go away.
---
Scrapbook is done by our mothers, like quilting was done by our grandmothers and samplers were done by our great grandmothers. It is a communitie's way to store memories. It is done to preserve rights of passage (weddings, baby births, graduations). It features the bright and joyful spirit towards life, a radical view that foregrounds the importance of everyday domestic. There is nothing wrong with cute, because cute has more honesty then hygienic modernism, cute is lived.
[...]
The children do this of course, but then everyone does. The one scrapbooking class I took everyone was there--infants to grandmothers. They supported each other--they gave each other tips. There was an exchange of information, of help, of websites and of magazines. (the grand thing is how quickly these people have developed the webs--many of them share patterns over bit torrent and p2p--they are not naive and they are not overly simplistic--there is a well honed sophistication.) There is a sophistication of the design too--but a refusal for that simplicity to leech out anything. A compounding then.
I say let us keep the venacular, let us hire the relief societies for our design--lets add colour and cute. Lets fire the designers who think they are too good to note how everyone else gets things done.
---
As a form of folk art, I'll continue to view this with open eyes, even if the eyes staring back at me jiggle.
---
On my last visit to a friend's home, I looked at some scrapbooks her mother had created for her. They were powerful storytelling tools, which I suspect is all that matters to the scrapbookers. If good print design is about communication, then she more than hit the mark of being a good designer.
---
Oh.my.god. This is fantastic. Where I would once have been horrified, I am now completely entranced. I cannot stop looking at the gallery samples posted at lifetime moments. It's just utterly, utterly fascinating. NOT in an ironic way ... I'm dead serious. The combination of technology, design, kitsch, history and real meaning is absolutely blowing my mind. This beats every single piece of graphic design I've seen recently. Thanks for this.
---
Let's face it. People create stuff. And if they like it more than our little polished manifestos then so be it.
[...]
I'm going to start my own damn scrapbook. While you're in the genre, check out altered books as well
=====
The occasional Elitist Art Snot weighs in, but the overwhelming majority of the comments are positive.
OK! Soon to go back to the process of how to become an elitist manga snot!
(I'm just worried, now I know people are linking to various posts of mine, that I'm going to have to start fussing about my typoes (You think they're full of typoes now? You should see them BEFORE I edit! Or just read some of my email). I gave up on grammar and punctuation long ago; I use semicolons because I think they're nifty, not because I have a clear idea of what they're for, and many moons ago as a child, someone told me that when you're reading out loud, you pause momentarily when you come to a comma. I seem to have internalized that backwards, as "you put commas in where you'd pause when reading aloud," and no amount of careful explanation of clauses and compounds and whatnot has ever made any more impression than that on me and I ahve accepted that the true use and function of the comma shall remain a mystery to me. If it's more-or-less readable, I'm all OK with that.)
That wasn't what I started out to post - I got distracted by a shiny thing.
I
You could have the same argument with writing, or art, or any creative procedure - no, you are not required to be striving to meet the goal of Improvement or Publication or even Wide Acceptance. It's perfectly OK to write because you want to write, because the process of pushing paint across canvas makes you happy, or even because pasting sparkly stickers with funny sayings all over photographs of your children fills some sort of primal need for glitter and googly eyes.
Anyway, a few quotes from the comments on the essay that made me happy, probably taken out of context:
=========================================
I can't just be down on this trend because it's not 'high art'-- that really is a bit arrogant. If people enjoy doing it and making these things for their personal pleasure/hobby time, who am I to criticize. None of them are pushing it as museum-worthy art or as graphic design; I think that's a bias that we as artists/designers are introducing here.
---
As for an embarassed Utah design community, open your eyes. If you're surrounded by a booming vernacular design phenomenon, why not figure out how to engage it, use it, or improve it instead of feebly wishing it'd go away.
---
Scrapbook is done by our mothers, like quilting was done by our grandmothers and samplers were done by our great grandmothers. It is a communitie's way to store memories. It is done to preserve rights of passage (weddings, baby births, graduations). It features the bright and joyful spirit towards life, a radical view that foregrounds the importance of everyday domestic. There is nothing wrong with cute, because cute has more honesty then hygienic modernism, cute is lived.
[...]
The children do this of course, but then everyone does. The one scrapbooking class I took everyone was there--infants to grandmothers. They supported each other--they gave each other tips. There was an exchange of information, of help, of websites and of magazines. (the grand thing is how quickly these people have developed the webs--many of them share patterns over bit torrent and p2p--they are not naive and they are not overly simplistic--there is a well honed sophistication.) There is a sophistication of the design too--but a refusal for that simplicity to leech out anything. A compounding then.
I say let us keep the venacular, let us hire the relief societies for our design--lets add colour and cute. Lets fire the designers who think they are too good to note how everyone else gets things done.
---
As a form of folk art, I'll continue to view this with open eyes, even if the eyes staring back at me jiggle.
---
On my last visit to a friend's home, I looked at some scrapbooks her mother had created for her. They were powerful storytelling tools, which I suspect is all that matters to the scrapbookers. If good print design is about communication, then she more than hit the mark of being a good designer.
---
Oh.my.god. This is fantastic. Where I would once have been horrified, I am now completely entranced. I cannot stop looking at the gallery samples posted at lifetime moments. It's just utterly, utterly fascinating. NOT in an ironic way ... I'm dead serious. The combination of technology, design, kitsch, history and real meaning is absolutely blowing my mind. This beats every single piece of graphic design I've seen recently. Thanks for this.
---
Let's face it. People create stuff. And if they like it more than our little polished manifestos then so be it.
[...]
I'm going to start my own damn scrapbook. While you're in the genre, check out altered books as well
=====
The occasional Elitist Art Snot weighs in, but the overwhelming majority of the comments are positive.
OK! Soon to go back to the process of how to become an elitist manga snot!
no subject
---L.
no subject
no subject
/end snark>
No-one knows that!
no subject
DAMN yes. In fact, I'd much rather have you write for these reasons then, as one asshole confessed in my presence the other day, 'wanting to become some kind of fandom god.' The first person you should always satisfy is yourself.
And good on the graphic designers. XD