Reading through Michael Bierut’s essays on design, I felt like I was getting more of a psychology lesson than a graphic design lesson. Bierut talks more about the methods and the reasons behind graphic design than the actual form. I’ve written this sentence 1,600 times (exactly 1,600, I’ve counted) but it really is more about the mental process than the actual artform.
Let’s talk about fame. Fame is abstract. And stupid. We can agree on that, right? Fame is stupid. And like Bierut pointed out, it’s ridiculously subjective and formulaic. You can fool people into letting you become famous through graphic design. Although, obviously, money(fame)=happiness, Bierut hints that this isn’t the thing that should be strived for. I mean, it’s something to achieve if you want, but not necessarily the people who produce the best things don’t necessarily get the acclaim.
That last sentence basically could of came out of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” which leads me to my next point: plagiarism. I’ve probably done it. I mean, I read a lot. There’s no way I don’t subconsciously incorporate ideas from other writers when I blog about whatever I blog about. But I really don’t think that’s plagiarism. In one of my 900 word ranting blogs for Lackaff I pointed out that music is almost entirely self-referential. The Beatles made it big by hammering out old American rock songs in Germany before breaking out with their own solo stuff. But you can’t get to creative genius without picking up on things people have done in the past. Western culture is too pigeon holed into specific stylistic elements.
But the point being, design comes from the past. And you have to adapt to the current methods and mediums, but being well versed in all aspects of it give you more of an arsenal than it hinders you from being successful.