If I learned anything after watching the HIllman Curtis: Artist Series it is that cleanliness and perfectionism does not equate to good design. Several of the artists and designers talk about how messy their desks are and implicitly make an argument about designed chaos and there being an order in what an outsider perceives as chaos.
This idea of non-perfection still being acceptable is amiable to me. I was never a color inside the lines kind of guy. Don’t get me wrong, I do love clean design but the idea that rough cuts from construction paper still look look good and have a place as good design is what I like to hear. There is a kind of hand-made feeling that newer methods of design seem to be missing. These little imperfections from the hands of humans give a feeling of the individualness of a thing; it was wrought by the hands of one person and unless it is directly copied, it is a unique artifact.
I think that is what today we lack most of all, individual artifacts and people like David Carson and James Victore realize this when they make their design. Carson talks about caring more about interpretation than if the story is necessarily readable even though it is not his point to make stories unreadable. Victore talks about being able to still do almost everything a kid with a computer can but better. We forget on a regular basis that design was no more than people with glue, scissors, and paper until the advent of the computer.
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