Lessons on artists, design and life.

I went into this week’s blog post with the first flash project and a 30 source annotated bibliography looming over my head. I figured I could just watch one of the artists’ shorts from the Hillman Curtis series and write a decent blog. I was wrong. I could not only watch just one. These short films are not only intriguing, but also inspiring. Hillman Curtis does an amazing job in portraying these graphic designers as artists. Before long I found myself halfway through the short videos with a page of notes not only on design, but also life lessons.

Lawrence Weiner is a very interesting man with an even more interesting ponytail and beard. His ideas about how the universe is supposed to function are how he designs as an artist. He says “You are in the stream of life whether you like it or not. And if you like to be in the stream of life you have to accept the responsibilities.” Working more with words and typeface, Weiner has a strong opinion on Helvetica. He detests Helvetica because it is “totally authoritative” and all the information in Helvetica is “telling the same thing.” Instead, Weiner likes Franklin Gothic Condensed because it reminded him of the working class in which he is intrigued by.

The video on Stefan Sagmeister was my favorite. His art is a little crazy, beyond the boundaries and subjective with his art. He puts everything from his life on display to help explain the things he has learned in life so far. At the end of the video, Sagmeister lists some lessons he has learned that have resonated with me. Thinking life would be better in the future is stupid. You have to live now. Overtime you get used to everything and start taking it for granted. Worrying solves nothing. Complaining is silly.

Mark Romanek is a music video artist. His short video taught me some valuable lessons about film. Romanek says that while filming you have to think of every detail. However when you obsess over detail a lot will still get thrown away while editing. He says that he purposively plans very little while filming so editing can become a kind of journey. For his music videos he tries to leave people with questions so that they can interpretate and become engaged in the video. He suggest, “Try not to put it all out there.”

Milton Glasser’s interview started with one of my favorite quotes from Hilman Curtis’ short movies. He is asked where he is going with design and responds with “That’s hard a question because no one of has the ability to understand our path until its over.” Creating art is a process. An artist does not know what the finished product will look like until it is done. It is interesting to see Glasser’s sketches to final product in this short video, illustrating this idea. Glasser definitely loves what he does and as an older artist, he is still astonished that things still amaze him.

“With the arts, the possibility for learning never disappears and you basically have to admit you never learn it.” –Milton Glasser