Colligo, Ergo Designo

I’ve been casually thumbing my way through Instant Graphics, an inspiring look at the creative processes of other designers, particularly those whose work relies heavily upon collage and the appropriation of clip art, found objects, ephemera, etc. One of the recurring themes brought out in this book is how people who are designers also tend to be avid collectors—collectors even (especially?) of things that many other people would deem “junk”.

Many designers and illustrators are explorers and archivists of their immediate environments, scouring the city streets, parks, river banks, gardens, markets, and even their own studios, for objects, textures, and source material…many designers inevitably find themselves becoming collectors and/or curators of certain types of imagery or objects—insects, sports cards, magazine clippings, old catalogs, engravings, or prints. Some develop a fascination with a specific type of image or object—perhaps from an accidental find—and set about actively researching and building collections of them, which, in turn, begin to influence their subsequent work. —p24

Sean Adams, of AdamsMorioka, has the following to say:
“I have never met a designer who is not a closet collector of something. Whether it’s thimbles, Japanese packaging, or rocks, everyone has one collection. Being a collector is just like being a designer; you don’t choose to be a designer, it chooses you.”—p98

As one who can certainly identify with this, I am driven to muse: do we become designers because we are obsessive collectors?…or is the impulse to collect driven by one’s work as a designer?…or is it all a vicious cycle with no beginning or end? I confess to being a collector of books, magazines (most notably National Geographic), newspapers, LP records, old photographs, letters, documents, postcards and correspondences, wine bottles, timepieces, posters, maps, prints, 8mm film and projectors, old shoes, spent rounds of ammunition, currency and coins, fragments of flooring, windows, hardware, masonry and woodwork culled from old buildings and other structures, samples of nature (flowers, leaves, bark, nuts, bones, feathers, dead cicadas, turtle shells, sea shells, and rocks), drawings that my kids have made, nautical and/or astronomical paraphernalia, and anything having to do with trains.

How about you? What collections do you keep? Or perhaps I should ask, what collections keep you?

Bad Type Sighting, 090723

Once again, an elegant script is given “the treatment” in hands that weren’t quite up to the task. Spotted outside Hardee’s in Sequatchie, Tennessee.

Graphiconomics

Strike a blow for tasteful design and sound economic principles all at the same time! The Ludwig von Mises Institute offers some snappy merchandise and apparel, including some items featuring this version of their logo—an attractive typographical arrangement of a font which looks vaguely familiar to me…

The Austrian Economists T-Shirt Collection is quite whimsically subversive as well.

New Logos

A couple of new logo projects to show off:

a suite of logos for LifeWay’s choral music preview subscription clubs…


and another for a surgical practice in Chattanooga, TN.

Case Study: The Advent of Evangelicalism cover

This is a project I completed a few months back, but it has occurred to me that it provides some useful examples of the range of sensibilities and breadth of knowledge that an effective design solution often demands. Starting with the most obvious, a successful designer must of course possess a competent grasp of the principles of visual communication: rhythm, proportion, balance, color, etc. But a truly successful designer is no mere visual arranger; compelling design must accomplish much the same things that a compelling poem must do. The best design trades in currency minted of metaphors, allusions and associations. In fact, though graphic design is usually thought of in strictly visual terms, it can in many respects be said to bridge the gap between the literary and the visual arts since it deals very heavily in both words and imagery. In addition, a reasonably well-rounded knowledge that extends into other spheres and disciplines (science, mathematics, literature, music, history, religion, etc.) often proves a very handy thing for a designer to have. That sounds pretty lofty, and the truth is that (thankfully, in fact) not every job is that demanding—sometimes the basic skills of a decent visual arranger are enough to get you by. But it’s certainly nice to be able to take advantage of the opportunities when the job calls for a bit more thoughtfulness.

Case in point: this project was a redesign of an academic title which originally released in Great Britain.

The book is a scholarly re-examination and assessment of the relationship between the Christian evangelical movement and the Enlightenment, both of which came into their own in the eighteenth century—rather heady stuff, to be sure. (Though I myself admit to having some degree of unprovoked interest in the topic, I suspect that places me on the outer fringes of the bell curve.) The publisher wanted something a bit more, shall we say, “inviting” than the original cover design, in the hopes that someone (other than myself) without a PhD in Theology might be persuaded to pick it up, at least.


I provided three initial designs to the client: one tending toward elegant, the second rather understated or even minimalist, and a third adopting a more edgy and contemporary grunge attitude. The first was the initial favorite until concerns began to be raised that the scope of the material was broader than was suggested by the use of the single period image (of John Wesley). Finding and securing rights to additional images of that kind (along the lines of what was done on the original, British edition) proved to be unfruitful, and so the second concept, the one with the open window, was moved to the number one slot and came out on top at the end.

Now, I can hear some folks muttering that I pulled a fast one over on the client here by throwing together some run-of-the-mill type and a rather blithely irrelevant image, probably blowing a good deal of smoke in the form of trumped-up rationalizations and explanations in the process in an attempt to sell the concept. Actually, not at all. While this concept is the most simply executed of the three on the one hand, it is also the most thoughtfully executed on the other. The open window and the breeze-blown curtain allude to the Evangelical movement as a genuine “breath of fresh air” within the broader context of Christianity and to the Great Awakenings of the period as much-needed revivals and stirrings of God’s Spirit. (The word “spirit” carries the literal meaning of “breath” or “wind” in all the important ancient languages—Hebrew, Greek and Latin—and appropriately, the work of the Holy Spirit in Scripture is often accompanied by wind, e.g. Acts 2.) The image is also carefully cropped such that the muntins of the window at the upper right suggest a cross. As a final stroke, the font used on this cover was given special consideration: it is Baskerville, originally cut by Englishman John Baskerville in the 1750s—a thoroughgoing Enlightenment typeface if ever there was one—and its choice is intended to subtly reinforce the ties to the historical period with which the work is concerned.

Of course, probably fewer than one peruser out of a hundred will correctly identify all of those allusions and associations (particularly the last), but that really isn’t the point. Their sum total lends the sort of synergistic confidence to the design itself which generally speaks affirmingly to the onlooker, whether or not he or she can articulate precisely why, and that is what makes such subtleties an important part of the design process. And at any rate, I at least know they’re there—and now that I’ve spelled out my intentions as the designer after the fact, you do as well.

Art’s Self-justification

“Art needs no justification. The mistake of many art theorists (and not only of Christian ones) is to try to give art a meaning or a sense by showing that it ‘does something’. So art must open people’s eyes, or serve as decoration, or prophesy, or praise, or have a social function, or express a particular philosophy. Art needs no such excuse. It has its own meaning that does not need to be explained, just as marriage does, or man himself, or the existence of a particular bird or flower or mountain or sea or star. These all have meaning because God has made them. Their meaning is that they have been created by God and are sustained by Him. So art has a meaning as art because God thought it good to give art and beauty to humanity.”

—Hans Rookmaaker, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, pp229-230

Modern Art and the Death of a Culture

Originally published almost forty years ago, this work has certainly lost none of its relevance for those seeking an understanding of the forces behind the downward trajectory of both western art and western culture over the course of the last three centuries or so. This assertion in itself might seem a rather odd one to most folks—didn’t the problems (for both art and culture) really start during the 20th century? Actually, no.

Rookmaaker argues quite persuasively that the seeds of nihilism and despair were actually sown during the “Enlightenment” period of the 18th century and the obvious problems which began to manifest themselves in the 20th century were the resultant harvest. The intervening 19th century may be viewed as a period during which these matters were working themselves out and during which much art that might be deemed “beautiful” was still being produced, but the problems were there nonetheless, and with increasing clarity, as a mere scratch to the surface reveals.

Beginning in medias res, with the medieval period (it isn’t really necessary to go back further in time to prove his point), Rookmaaker demonstrates that there was a time when physical and spiritual realities coexisted comfortably and formed a seamless whole, both in the thoughts and lives of people and on the painted canvas. This view persisted, remarkably in some respects, even through the Renaissance and Reformation periods.

It was the Enlightenment, with its dogged insistence upon rationality and empiricism as the only standards for gauging “reality”, which drove the seemingly irrevocable wedge between the natural and the supernatural. Artists (and everyone else, for that matter) since that time have come under increasing pressure to choose between the two. The predominant approach has been to reject the latter in favor of the former, resulting in a growing crescendo of meaninglessness and despondency. Certain movements (Romanticism and certain enclaves of Christian art) have sought the opposite approach of asserting the supernatural over the natural, but with limited success, largely because at heart they have continued to accept the fundamental dualism of the Enlightenment view.

My only reason for not rating the book more highly is that, although Rookmaaker’s insights are keen, I find his style a bit exacting, and the increasingly depressing nature of the material begins to weigh down on you after a while. (I actually started this book a good while back and had to take an extended break about two-thirds of the way through before finishing.) There’s great stuff toward the end though, so don’t fail to persevere if you encounter the same difficulties!

The Theatre of the Absurd

“There are enormous pressures in our world that seek to induce mankind to bear the loss of faith and moral certainties by being drugged into oblivion—by mass entertainment, shallow material satisfaction, pseudo-explanations of reality and cheap ideologies. At the end of the road lies Huxley’s Brave New World…”

—Martin Esslin, as quoted in Hans Rookmaaker’s Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, p218

The Last Emperor

My wife and I re-watched this Best Picture Award winner (1987) together last night. For those unfamiliar, the film is a biopic about the last Chinese Emperor, Puyi, who assumed the throne in 1908 at just under three years of age, and lived (in deposed obscurity) well into the Communist era.

First, there are a few things I don’t like about this movie. Whether this reflects some personal bias on the part of the film’s director and/or producer or represents a sort of compromise which was necessary in order to secure and retain the good graces of the Chinese government (which made the astonishing allowance for the movie to be shot in the Forbidden City) I couldn’t say, but there is a subtle yet definite attempt to tug the viewer’s sympathies in the direction of the Communists. The manifold cruelties and atrocities perpetrated by the Reds are conveniently ignored or somehow painted quite benignly for the most part, while those of others (the Japanese) are not. Most notably, the warden of the Communist prison is portrayed sympathetically as a stern yet essentially kind-hearted individual interested in genuine “reform”. (Incidentally, my dad has travelled extensively in China and was actually in the train station in Harbin, which is featured in the opening scene, right around the time of the filming. I was discussing this with him today and he concurred with the above assessment, while offering further insight into some of the political intrigue alluded to in the film.) There are some scenes of decadence that, despite restrained handling, are a bit hard to watch and this fact, taken in light of the film’s 164 minute overall length, does create a bit of a drag in the latter half.

Be all that as it may, the movie certainly didn’t win nine Academy Awards for nothing. It is a very moving drama, full of very deep ironies which provide much meditative fodder on how much the world can change within just one lifespan. It is gorgeously shot and boasts perhaps the most stunningly beautiful opening credit sequence that I know of—a graphic designer’s garden of delights. (I have access only to an old VHS edition and am wondering if any of the recent DVD or BluRay releases include any special features which highlight this aspect of the production?) The score is delightful (some of it composed by David Byrne of Talking Heads fame), and, while the storyline is decidedly un-redemptive, there is nonetheless a very touching stroke of magic in the final scene which amply rewards the viewer’s willingness to endure the more tedious stretches of the film’s middle portion. All told, it exemplifies the cinematic medium in that it tells the story primarily by showing the story, in graphic images which leave an indelibly rich impression upon the audience’s psyche.

One final, personal tidbit. I have long admired the font (Carlton) which is used for the main title, and have employed it myself, both in the masthead for this blog and in my own company logo.

New Looks for 2 Old Brands

These overhauls to a couple of eminent brands have caught my eye recently—and produced similar reactions of ambivalence.



I have always been a fan of the (old) Jack in the Box logo. It is so tightly executed yet appropriately playful. The double tilting of both the box itself and text inside is pure genius, as is the delightful typography of the letterforms, which are so audaciously intermingled, yet with such subtle craftsmanship that the eye hardly even notices (e.g. the HE and OX). Frankly, I don’t see why this mark couldn’t have continued to serve the chain triumphantly for years or even decades to come. That said, I can’t exactly say that I hate the new logo either, though there are some peculiarities to it that may or may not grow on me. I can’t decide if the visual pun that drives the whole thing (Jack is literally in the box, get it?) is really clever or just oh-so-obviously trite. (On second thought, is Jack actually in the box or on it?) Anyhow, I think I might have been more willing to acknowledge the former if they (they being the corporate suits, no doubt and not the designers) hadn’t been such chickens and given in to the compulsion to spell it out anyway at the bottom. The overall look is certainly playful enough, but I’m not sure that the understated and quaint whimsy of the smile formed by the leg of the k conveys quite the spirit of wackiness that folks have come to associate with the brand, with its laugh-out-loud television commercials. Speaking of which, I’m rather astounded that Jack Box himself didn’t manage to insinuate his own image into the new identity somehow. Seems that would have been a no-brainer. At any rate, a professional hats off to Duffy & Partners for creating a new brand that definitely has some nice touches and conveys a spirit of creative fun, particularly in the few glimpses I’ve managed to get of the look as it has been extended into various other applications (packaging, etc.).



A stronger case could certainly made for updating the venerable Holiday Inn logo, though I’m not sure that even here I wouldn’t have opted for a more subtle reworking that would have retained more of what the former version had going for it. That left-leaning italic was just too distinctive to warrant complete liquidation. And maybe I’m just weird but I even kind of liked the orange, seven-fold flower/star/severed Tic-Tac thingy that graced latter manifestations of the old mark. The new mark is definitely eye-catching; I noticed it right away the first time I drove by one of the updated locations. It also definitely follows the established trend of logos in the digital age relying more upon gradations of color and "tricked-out" applications of highlight or shading (often rather illogically rendered, as here) to capture the eye than upon sturdy craftsmanship of the forms themselves. Used in one color only (for which the need these days is admittedly rather scarce, if not quite to be ruled out altogether) this mark would appear quite generic, perhaps even homely. The new typeface does have a certain appeal, though I again think I would have tried very hard to give an even stronger nod to the original, both in the name and in the H icon. Interbrand gets credit for this one.

The Gold of Havilah

Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there.
Genesis 2:10-12 (NKJV)

These seemingly parenthetical remarks in the midst of the creation narrative provide some fascinating insights with regard to the dominion mandate, or the cultural mandate as it is sometimes called. The very fact that it seemed worthwhile to the Holy Spirit, speaking through Moses, to note the presence of gold within the land, along with the added pronouncement of its goodness (an echo from Chapter One), is significant and a cause for meditation. Scripture, along with much uninspired human literature and poetry down through the ages, often casts a hue of disfavor upon the natural glimmer of gold. To be sure, the inordinate lust for gold is a sin which brings a great curse, but that is all a result of the Fall. The gold itself, and by extension man’s thoughtful appropriation and use of it, is proclaimed as an unqualified good here in the pre-Fall context.

The gold and precious jewels mentioned here can be taken as a synecdoche for all of the precious resources which God saw fit to embed within the earth at creation. The obvious expectation is that man would discover and seek them out, extract them from the soil and rock, study and analyze them, and subject them to various processes of molding and transformation, culminating in their glorified use for a variety of practical and aesthetic ends. This has man, as a sub-creator, mimicking God’s own actions as described in the previous chapter wherein God creates, then further transforms what has been created by a process of division, separation and refinement (light from darkness, waters above from waters below, dry land from water, one kind of light from another kind of light, etc.).

Gold and other valuable resources are only in exceptional cases found just lying around waiting to be picked up. Locating them and separating them out from the other, less valuable elements typically takes a lot of effort. (Again, we see that the principal of work is not a result of disobedience.) Proverbs 25:2 says that It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. God did not lay out everything in easily accessible terms for Adam and Eve, the king and queen of his new creation, right from the beginning. It would seem that God’s original plan for mankind involved a process of maturation wherein man was to employ his faculties of thoughtful observation and creativity (recall what has already been noted with regard to tending and keeping) to guide the creation through a progression of glorification.

In many obvious ways, this stands in direct opposition to the radical environmentalism which is currently in vogue. It should be noted though, that traditionalist or reactionary conservatism is also just as much to blame in ignoring biblical principles of thoughtful stewardship as laid out in Genesis and elsewhere. (Deuteronomy has some poignant examples.) Practices such as clear cutting and strip mining naturally result in a curse rather than a blessing.

As a final observation, a glorious prefiguring of the cross can be seen operating on at least a couple of different levels as we consider these things. It is noteworthy that there are four rivers flowing out of Eden and into the lands beyond. Symbolically at least, if not literally, these four rivers would be regarded, particularly to the ancient mind, as stretching out to the “four corners of the world” in a cross-shaped pattern. Some scholars (e.g. James Jordan) have sought to do some informed speculation as to what the progress of history might have looked like had the Fall not interrupted. It seems likely that man, in fulfilling the commandment to multiply and fill the earth, would have spread outward from the garden and the land of Eden, most likely along the convenient routes of the four water courses mentioned above. This motion would likely not be in one direction only but would involve a sort of ebb and flow: initial forays into the outlying lands, followed by revisitations to the garden sanctuary, followed in turn by progressively longer, farther and more permanent journeyings to the hinterlands. As the gold, precious stones and other resources were discovered by man in these other regions, they would be carried back to the garden in order to enhance its own glory and, gradually over time, the borders of the garden itself would be expanded outward. Step by step, the whole of creation would be transformed from glory to magnificent glory until the whole earth were a vast horticultural temple.

But the Fall did interrupt, as we are painfully reminded after a few brief moments of such tantalizing reverie. However, an essential and often over-looked aspect of the Good News is that everything that was lost in the Fall has been regained in Christ – plus much more! This spectacular vision is no daydream; it is the inexorable reality toward which our world is being carried, suggestions to the contrary by the circumstances of any given moment notwithstanding. We can take great encouragement and inspiration, knowing that our faithful labors – in the arts or in any other lawful endeavor – are used by Christ as decisive means for manifesting His Kingdom in our midst with ever-increasing clarity and glory.

Mozart + Branagh = Pure Magic!

So I watched the whole thing on YouTube last night and my initial enthusiasm was confirmed – and then some! This really is a delightful film and a wonderfully fresh adaptation of Mozart’s great opera, The Magic Flute. If you are a fan either of Mozart or of Branagh (and who shouldn’t be?) you really should check this out. The production has strong echos of Moulin Rouge, despite being decidedly less dark overall. (And of course the music is superior!) Branagh has received some criticism for a few of the casting choices, but I really don’t find fault with anyone; I think most are really superb in their respective roles. My only complaint is that the discernability of the lyrics is rather inconsistent, especially with the choruses and ensembles. But that just sort of goes with the territory of opera and doesn’t really present much of a problem – you pretty much get what is going on anyway. If you watch on YouTube, follow the posts by operafan1975. They are numbered sequentially (Overture, Act 1.1, 1.2, etc.) and pretty easy to follow. Also might not hurt to read a short synopsis of the libretto, if you’re unfamiliar.

Let me mention one specific thing which I find intriguing about this production. Mozart, as many are perhaps aware, was a devoted follower of Freemasonry, and this opera was originally conceived as an embodiment of Masonic beliefs and ideals. (Mozart composed the music and his friend and fellow Freemason Emanuel Shikaneder wrote the libretto and also performed the part of Papageno in the first performances.) What this amounts to, in the original version, is a rather thickly spread adoration of Enlightenment rationalism on the one hand and the infusion of a good deal of quasi-pagan mumbo-jumbo on the other, both of which have always made this opera rather off-putting for me. But in this adaptation both of those aspects (especially the second) are considerably downplayed and there has even been a subtle but effective replacement of much of the original symbolism and language with that which is more explicitly Christian. All very interesting and rather surprising. I can’t say what Mozart and Shikaneder would have to say about it, but I’m delighted that Branagh opted to give it that delicate fine-tuning. As a result, the gospel, latent in virtually all myths and fairy tales, shines forth in this work with even greater clarity.

This is one I’d like to own (to say nothing of simply being able to watch in greater clarity!), and I really hope it is available in the U.S. soon.