Design

The following is extracted from a series of lectures about relational design practices. A related article can be found at Design Observer.

A seemingly random selection of projects from various design fields with an underlying thread:

Rem Koolhaas/OMA, Hermitage Museum expansion plan, St. Petersburg, Russia, c. 2003.

An expansion strategy for the Hermitage Museum in Russia simply annexes the surrounding government-owned buildings in St. Petersburg, increasing the available space for objects from 629 to 1928 rooms.

Nucleo, Terra: The Grass Arm-Chair, 2000

A chair made of grass must be grown and then trimmed and watered by its owner in order to remain functional.

Worldbike.org, Big Boda cargo bicycle, Kenya, 2002-2005.

A worldwide group of bicycle enthusiasts borrow the open source model for redesigning and modifying inexpensive passenger bikes for transporting cargo in developing countries.

LettError, Twin, typeface for the Twin Cities commissioned by the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota, 2003.

A typeface designed for a city alters its weight and appearance based on changes in the reported air temperature.

Shared Space concept in England, c. 2005, most likely by Ben Hamilton Baillie after Hans Monderman’s schemes.

A Dutch city removes all of its traffic markings and signage in order to reduce collisions between motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians by increasing awareness among those sharing the roadway.

Diller, Scofidio + Renfro, Blur Building, Swiss Expo 2002

A pavilion on a lake containing thousands of jet nozzles adjusts to atmospheric conditions and dispenses a continuous mist around itself, the resulting fog both conceals and reveals the structure: a scaffolding with no “real” building.

Modernista! website, 2008

An advertising company launches its new “website,” which exists as a small navigation bar overlaid on any referencing page, directing users outward to preexisting forums such as Flickr and MySpace for much of its content.

THREE PHASES OF DESIGN

The history of modern design can viewed in three successive phases, moving from form to content to context; or, in the parlance of semiotics, from syntax to semantics to pragmatics.

This third phase of design—which could go by several names including relational, contextual, and conditional design—follows and departs from twentieth-century experiments in both form and content, which have traditionally defined the spheres of avant-garde practice. Relational design is preoccupied with design’s effects, extending beyond the form of the design object and its attendant meanings and cultural symbolism. It is concerned with performance or use, not as the natural result of some intended functionality but rather in the realm of behavior and uncontrollable consequences. It embraces constraints and seeks systematic methodologies, as a way of countering the excessive subjectivity of most design decision-making. It explores more open-ended processes that value the experiential and the participatory and often blur the distinctions between production and consumption.

Some examples of design as they move from form to content to context:

fig. 1 fig. 2 fig. 3

fig. 1: Peter Eisenman, House series, c. 1970, a formal language in which architectural elements such as columns and walls were separate from a “functional context,” used instead as part of a “marking or notational system;” fig. 2: Content analysis of vernacular architectural languages, in this case the meaning and symbolism of “movie star mansion” iconography applied to bungalows around Los Angeles, 1975 (analysis by Arloa Paquin); fig. 3: Estudio Teddy Cruz, as part of Manufactured Sites, 2008, a prefabricated metal framework, a designed element, is introduced into the ad-hoc, indigenous building practices of Tijuana’s suburban shantytown sprawl.

fig. 4 fig. 5 fig. 6

fig. 4: Dieter Rams, Braun Aeromaster 10 Cup Coffeemaker; a classically modern approach to simplifying the visual form of the product and process of coffeemaking; fig. 5: Michael Graves, Tea Kettle for Alessi, 1985, the bird connoting the sound of the whistle; fig. 6: Naoto Fukasawa, Rice Cooker for Muji, 2002, which has a rice paddle rest on its flat top, solving the problem of where to place this utensil after use. The rice cooker’s form is a result of its relationship both to the paddle and to the behavior of the user.

fig. 7 fig. 8 fig. 9

fig. 7: Karim Rashid, Dirt Devil Kone vacuum, 2006, in a form so refined “you can leave it on display”; fig. 8: Dyson DC15 vacuum cleaner, 2005, the articulation of the “ball,” the pivoting wheel of the vacuum, as well as its color-coded parts, imparts and expresses its functionality; fig. 9: unlike its predecessors iRobot’s Roomba vacuum cleaner, 2002-, maintains a relationship to the room rather to the hand of its owner and uses various algorithms to complete its cleaning tasks.

fig. 10 fig. 11 fig. 12

fig. 10: Vignelli Associates, New York City Subway Map, c. 1972, a classic of modern information design and the belief in the clarity of abstract form in communication; fig. 11: Durst Organization, The National Debt Clock, New York, NY: “a symbol and metaphor, particularly highlighting the fact that the clock ran out of digits when the U.S. public debt rose above $10 trillion on September 30, 2008”; fig. 12: Laura Kurgan, Spatial Information Design Lab, from Million Dollar Blocks project, c. 2006: informatic mapping of individual incarceration costs to inmates’ former neighborhoods in the hopes of shaping public policy.

CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONAL DESIGN

In relational design, the role of the designer is closer to that of an editor or a programmer, not an author but an enabler, while the consumer is recast as a more creative agent (in the guise of the designer, DIY-er, hacker, or “prosumer”). It prefers pragmatism over post-structuralism, or Dewey over Derrida, and the prosaic and banal over exotic vernaculars. It is governed by social logic and the network culture of the many to the authorial culture of one. It embraces generative systems over formal iterations and contingent solutions to variable interpretations.

Some examples from one strand of the diagram: open-ended processes and generative systems.

OPEN-ENDED PROCESSES AND GENERATIVE SYSTEMS

Experimental Jetset, John&Paul&Ringo&George T-shirt, 2001, and variations from others: the archetype as meme.

Luna Maurer and Jonathan Puckey, workshop with kits for poster-making using game-like, rules-based instructions for participants. Graphic Design in the White Cube exhibition, 22nd International Biennale of Graphic Design Brno, 2006.

(more…)

Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore is hosting a AIGA Design Educators Conference this October. The focus of the conference is to address, “the social life of design.”

I’ll be giving an expanded talk on the Designerless Office, but there will be a whole host of interesting presentations and keynotes on where the world of design education is and where it is heading…

http://www.socialstudiesconference.org/

The last 4 years of Insights design lectures are

available to watch online at the Walker Channel.

Ed Fella

Project Projects

Work Worth Doing

Marian Bantjes

Jop van Bennekom

Stuart Bailey, Michael Bierut, Debbie Millman

Daniel Eatock

Chip Kidd

Armand Mevis

Bill Grant

Wink

Blu Dot Design

Paul Sahre

Mooren & van der Velden

Antenna Design

I was recently introduced to two distinctive books that share common ground in terms of their use of atypical typewriter typefaces. These typefaces function, at times, as simple typographic flourishes throughout the unwavering pages of these two books. But what I appreciate most about these typefaces is that they are unexpectedly refreshing while also holding stylistic relevance (especially in light of such contemporary, typewriter-derived, typefaces like Courier Sans).

The first of these books is Herbert Muschamp’s File Under Architecture (fig. 1), a book published in 1974 by MIT Press that encompasses Muschamp’s brashly worded views and critiques on architecture. The second book is Maurizio Nannucci’s self-titled artist book (catalogue d’exposition) (fig. 2) published in collaboration with the Internationaal Cultureel Centrum in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1979.

fig. 1fig. 2

File Under Architecture—with its cardboard cover, grocery-bag-like text paper, generously spaced lines, absence of imagery and its appearance of being completely typeset on a typewriter—is impressive in terms of its restraint and pragmatism (fig. 3). The combination of these nuances, in my mind, are features that make this book a precious and more noticeably tactile object. As for the typefaces that this book is set in, there are four supplemental typewriter typefaces used as sidenotes (in addition to the standard typeface used for the body text). The varying characteristics of the typefaces give the sidenotes of this book a distinct feel and an almost distracting voice. But despite the irregular cadence and the non-unified system seen throughout this set of sidenote typefaces, they beg to be read.

The artist book from Maurizio Nannucci is also quite special considering its unbound nature and the range of delicate and rare materials (prints on tissue paper, photographs, a 7-inch vinyl record, etc.) included throughout the book. In a similar way to File Under Architecture, I appreciate the raw and semi-processed spirit of certain components of this artist book. In this particular context, typewriter typefaces are used more simply. There is a typeset interview within a standard stapled document that is housed in this artist book in which one alternate typeface is implemented as a way to differentiate one commentators words from the other. What I found most striking about the typeface defining the words of “P.S. Vraag” on these pages is that it was unlike anything I had seen in the realm of typewritten documents. The cursive and stylized features of the typeface (fig. 4)—much like the cursive typeface found in File Under Architecture (fig. 5)—are a complete contrast to what we typically visualize when thinking about typewriter typefaces.

fig. 3fig. 4fig. 5

Looking at both of these books and their lo-fi aesthetics, it’s almost as though I can imagine Muschamp and Nannucci sitting at their typewriters, manually interchanging their typeface cassettes for an alternate typeface, or, even completely switching typewriters for that matter.

This notion of using alternate typewriter typefaces sparked my interest in many ways. I began to think about how I only wished that making typographic selections were that simple and hands on (a sort of no-nonsense approach to typography). One of the things that I became most curious about was the names or types of custom typewriter typefaces that had been used during the height of typewriter technology and how many typefaces were commercially available to typewriter owners.

After a bit digging around, I found a fantastic resource at the Walker library—a journal about design and typography titled Typographica. I was fortunate enough to find issue #6 from 1962 in which an entire section of the journal was dedicated to typewriter typefaces (fig. 6). The article was introduced by a simple explanation of how typewriter typefaces were manufactured and how they functioned. In addition to this intro, the supplemental pages of this article were used to display the large number of typefaces available within the typewriter market in 1962. As you will see in the image below (fig. 7), I have selected a few of my favorites from the collection put together by Typographica.

fig. 6 — Opening page for article about typewriter typefaces, Typographica magazine, 1962

fig. 7

In the end, after discovering these two books and the article from Typographica magazine, I was happy to learn a little more about the wide variety of typewriter typefaces made available during that time. And although the idea of typesetting on a typewriter in this technological age could be considered a nostalgic trap, I admittedly find the idea to be a very charming and fundamental one. I also find myself wondering: will we ever look back at our tools—G5 Apple computers, Adobe InDesign, etc.—and think of them in the same way we do the typewriter?

Nearly two years ago I designed a poster for a typeface named Pistilli Roman in my Design Systems class at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.[1] Since then, I have received over 20 email inquires concerning the typeface. Most of these inquiries include comments and simple questions[2] about how one goes about obtaining Pistilli Roman (I usually respond by telling people that the typeface does not exist as a digital/functional typeface, but some similar typefaces do exist). Aside from these smaller inquiries, I have been fortunate enough to have made correspondence with some very interesting people who have revealed additional details to me about the history of the typeface and its designers, John Pistilli and Herb Lubalin.[3]

Most recently, I have been contacted by a man who was quite familiar with the typeface. Here is what he had to say:

“ I first saw this face in the summer of 64-65, when Arnold Bank, a type designer who was teaching a course in the calligraphy studio at Reed College, put up a copy on the wall. Later on, Lloyd Reynolds, the Art History professor and calligrapher, commented how difficult it was (in those days of letterpress) to print such a face. If you used enough pressure to get an even impression on the wide areas, the thin lines cut into, and even through, the paper…”

This man also had an original pamphlet about Pistilli Roman that was put out by Aaron Burns & Co. He was nice enough to transcribe the promise/guarantee that came with the typeface:

Pistilli Roman

We are pleased to present this first of a family of modern roman typefaces designed especially for our company by the American designer, John Pistilli. Designed in the classical French Didot style, this bold and delicately sensitive face will be followed shortly by Pistilli Roman Italic, Pistilli Roman Light and Pistilli Roman Light Italic. We hope that this booklet will serve as a helpful guide in your specification of this beautiful typeface.

fig. 1fig. 2fig. 3

This pamphlet also included a biography of John Pistilli: John Pistilli is head of lettering design at Sudler & Hennessy, Inc., where he has been employed since 1949. Born December 4, 1925, he attended public schools in Astoria and Long Island City, N.Y. He graduated from the Jean Morgan School of Art in New York City, where he studied lettering under J. Albert Cavanaugh. He has also completed art courses at the City College of New York and during World War II served in the U. S. Navy.

In addition to the above emails, I did happen to receive another very special message this past summer when I was contacted by John Pistilli Jr. (the son of John Pistilli). In his email to me, he briefly described his father’s history as an artist and as a type designer. He also thanked me for taking interest in his father’s work.

–

Notes:

[1]

I first discovered Pistilli Roman for myself after I saw a specimen of it in Herb Lubalin’s monograph, written by Gertrude Snyder and Alan Peckolick. At about the same time that I learned about the typeface, I had noticed that Work in Progress (a design studio based in New York and Paris) was using a very similar typeface (named Galeere) for their design in Self Service magazine. Shortly thereafter, I learned that Pistilli Roman does not actually exist as a digitized typeface. It was then that I decided to recreate/vectorize the typeface from a high-resolution scan for use within this poster project.

[2]

A selection of unedited excerpts from e-mails concerning Pistilli Roman:

“ …I can’t for the life of me get hold of Pistilli font! Seeing it on your site could you help me out on this. I’m doing a stone carved identity and really want to use it. Your help would be appreciated.”

“ …I’m a designer and I saw the work around the Pistilli Roman Font, Do you have any idea where I can find it digitilised ?”

“ …good to see im not the only one obsessed with that typeface.”

“ …saw your website the other day…loving the lubalin respect! can i ask where you got pistilli roman from? didnt think it had been digitalised?”

“ …I was wondering if you had the Pistilli Roman typeface. I’ve been looking around for it lately, and can’t seem to find it for the life of me”

“ …Do you have Pistili? Is there any chance you can send me the ampersand from Pistilli?”

[3]

Pistilli Roman is a typeface collaboratively designed by Herb Lubalin and John Pistilli. Pistilli was a partner with Lubalin in New York City at the firm Sudler & Hennessey from 1949 to 1964. The typeface was accompanied by 3 alternate weights: Bold, Open No. 1 and Open No. 2, each of which varied exclusively in the thickness of the hairline strokes. Given the technology of the time when Pistilli Roman was produced, the typeface was only designed and made functional for use on a typositor.After the demise of phototype and typositor machines, the typeface was never revisited and as a result, the typeface has never officially been digitized. Because Pistilli Roman was a very exclusive typeface that gained acclaims as a result of its highly elegant and unique ampersand, many look-alike typefaces began to surface. In 1969, Phil Martin, of Alphabet Innovations, produced a Pistilli Roman replica with many of the same swashes and alternate characters named Didoni. The difference being that Didoni had hairline strokes that were typically thicker by a small percentage and also lacked the fancy ampersand that was a trademark of Pistilli Roman.The first unofficial digitalization of Pistilli Roman had supposedly been attempted by a type foundry named Castcraft in the early 1990’s. The typeface was classified under the “ OPTI” font range as “ OPTI Pirogi Roman.” Not long after that, another look-alike version of Pistilli Roman was made available by a media company named GreenStreet. As a part of a large software CD titled “ GST 500 Elegant Fonts,” the copycat typeface was hidden under the name “ Galeere.” Galeere, like the other typefaces contained many imperfections and did not offer the trademark ampersand. Besides Pistilli Roman’s rare appearance inside of the type specimen book titled “ Phil’s Photo Book” (published in 1985), it is a largely unknown and mysterious typeface.The only acknowledged versions of the original hard copy phototypes for Pistilli Roman are located in Brooklyn, NY with a company named Incipit. Incipit is a design firm that also houses a rare photocomposition library with approximately 3,500 available typefaces, including four different weights of Pistilli Roman.

[*]

fig. 1 – fig. 3 are scanned images from Self Service magazine that showcase the use of the typeface Galeere.

Designed by us.

The new website is now up and running.

Balloons, Spilt Liquids and Paper Constructions

Are the prior mentioned the inklings of a full-forced zeitgeist in graphic design and photography? Or simply the whimsical fancies of a small but distinctive community of visual communicators and cultural producers? My mini-endeavor into this subject matter leads me to believe that it lies equally between the two.

Concerning these three elements and their pervasive tendencies, not much explanation is needed (with the images (fig.1 – fig. 8) shown below as proof) when attempting to convince someone that each (or a combination of) has the potential to become the new black.

And while I am not one who has actively pursued the practices of trendspotting, I could not help but notice the recent and many occurrences of balloons, spilt liquids and paper constructions on a variety of design blogs and portfolio websites.

fig. 1fig. 2

fig. 3fig. 4

There is no doubt that each of these elements are visually interesting, but besides that, I have had little luck finding an explanation to their existence (or even their emergence) in current graphic design and photography. Perhaps the use of spilt liquids originated with Swedish designers, RGB6 and their poster for the typeface Kada. While it’s even possible that the use of paper constructions could have stemmed from the intricate workings of German photographer, Thomas Demand.

Is there a cultural barrier between the meaning of these elements and my understanding of them? Certainly, as a young designer in the United States, I have not ruled out the possibility that much of this is beyond me, especially considering that a majority of these designs come out of Europe. Specifically, I am most curious to know if the black balloon is a symbol or a metaphor that has some greater meaning.

fig. 5fig. 6

fig. 7fig. 8

As an attempt to better understand what balloons, spilt liquids and paper constructions could possibly entail within the context of graphic design and/or photography, I have started a word list (see below). I invite anyone to offer their insights, stories and opinions on the prevalence of these elements.

Balloons: celebration, youthfulness, pop, expressive/abstract typography, party, etc…

Spilt Liquids: spontaneity, irresponsibility, mysteriousness, happy accidents, playfulness, etc…

Paper Constructions: exaggerated representations of actual objects, a play between reality and fabrication, artificiality, etc…

—

fig. 1: Top Left: RGB6 / Top Right: Benoit Lemoine / Bottom Left: RGB Studio / Bottom Right: With All Ten Fingers

fig. 2: Top Left: Conor & David / Top Right: Mistake the Beautiful (Bryan Dalton) / Bottom Left: Acne Paper / Bottom Right: Stiletto NYC

fig. 3: Top Left: RGB6 / Top Right: Olivier Pasqual / Bottom Left: Olivier Pasqual / Bottom Right: Round

fig. 4: Top Left: Mejdej / Top Right: Mejdej / Bottom Left: Olivier Pasqual / Bottom Right: Olivier Pasqual

fig. 5: Top Left: Mattis Dovier / Top Right: Mattis Dovier / Bottom Left: James Musgrave & Anthony Sheret / Bottom Right: James Musgrave & Anthony Sheret

fig. 6: Top Left: Mattis Dovier / Top Right: Olivier Pasqual / Bottom Left: Thomas Adank / Bottom Right: Thomas Adank

fig. 7: Top Left: RGB6 / Top Right: Fulguro / Bottom Left: Fulguro / Bottom Right: Node Berlin

fig. 8: Top Left: Pixelgarten / Top Right: Pixelgarten / Bottom Left: Stiletto NYC / Bottom Right: Stiletto NYC

Purchase Peter Seitz: Designing a Life at the Walker Shop.

Today we received the very first, fresh off the assembly-line, Peter Seitz book.

By studio request, here is an image of the unfolded book wrap. Dependent upon which way the wrap is folded down, there are two possible cover designs (see fig. 8–11 in my previous post, From Ulm to Minneapolis: Tracing Peter Seitz’s Modernist Traditions).

Hi everybody. I was a WAC intern from October 2000-2001. My co-intern was Jodie Gatlin. The rest of the Designatorial staff was: Andrew, Kathleen, Pamela, Santiago Piedrafita, Linda Byrne, David Naj, Gina Bell (publications manager, replaced during my last week by Lisa Middag who had worked in New Media) and sometimes Eric Olson. There were a lot of exhibitions that year, but no books for the interns to work on. The studio bought its first digital camera. There were no condos on Nicollet Ave. And the H&dM expansion was announced that spring.

During my internship, I was known for having a good supply of peanut butter and crackers, chocolate chips and Coca-Cola on hand (ask Scott Winter). I think I spent more time going through Andrew’s bookshelves and magazines than designing. I really enjoyed working with the editors. I wish I had spent more time in the library with old issues of the Everyday Art Quarterly and in the basement with Kirk and the crew. I also wish I had Takashi Murakami sign my copy of Superflat. (But I did backdoor a piece of Arturo Herrera’s All I Ask when it was taken down after Painting at The Edge of The World.) I worked on everything from Franz Marc and The Blue Rider to Murakami’s Superflat to tiny cards for WACTAC.

My favorite professor at school was Sue LaPorte, a WAC intern with Laurie Haycock-Makela. Kindra Murphy was an intern from 1997-1998. My wife, Erin Mulcahy, was an intern from 1999-00.