I’ve always really liked Malcolm Gladwell. I know that there are plenty of people out there that don’t like him, but I’ve found his books to be interesting and informative.
I found the video to be fascinating, I particularly enjoyed the conversation about designing for a book, and the choices made in their process. Josh Liberson chatted about how books, in their physical form, are unfashionable. They are going out of style. Personally, I still love curling up on the couch with a good book, and have a bookshelf filled from top to bottom. I understand the sentiment though, when would be a better time to dive into the re-creation and design of quality books, than when they are unpopular? The theory that good illustration will add to the text, not distract from it makes sense, and achieving it successfully seems like a daunting task. I have never thought about the illustration of a book like Gladwell’s but I’m looking forward to reading something new and trying to imagine how design could function alongside it.
In class a few weeks ago one of the artists that Iris and I looked at was Lawrence Weiner, and we wrote an awesome rap about his typography and style. “that stone on the table could be used to crack your bones, or it could be used to build a house… but its still the same stone.” His philosophical grappling with life and art was fascinating. Design is of the moment, and after listening to him I thought, hey I could do that, I could go under or around the culture and pave my own way. And I think in a way that’s what this is all about. How are you, as a designer, going to create art that contributes to or challenges the world we are in now?
The Four Illustrators piece spends time going into that same concept. At one point they are talking about one small piece of political commentary one made. He says something along the lines of , you know I made it and the war still went on for eight years, but maybe if I hadn’t it would have gone for ten.
Art can influence. Its not zero-sum. Even if the art only influences one person for a little while, arguably it is still changing the world.