Designers in Gestalt: The Grouping together of Artists.
Before even gazing through each video in Hillman Curtis’s Artist Collection, my anticipation provoked questions of “who are these artists” and “why are they significant”? I presumed that regardless of niche profession, it was observable that all artists to some extent remained anonymous figures in our creative culture—ones that had created buildings, billboards, posters and even graphic illustrations which subject more emphasized than even the creator themselves—a notion little reflected on by the masses.
However, through watching several of these short films, and denoting the roles of the architect, typographer, novelist and videographer, I further realized that design in its concept is the some of all parts (Gestalt theory), where all that comprises the design component is not necessarily narrowed to one element but is rather a composite of the whole. A “whole”, that is to be interpreted, engaged with and emotionally impactful to its audience at large.
The first video I watched was one that featured the architect Daniel Libeskind, and the founding principles behind his architectural creations. Outlining the intense years of planning, founding, mounting and executing, he offered introspective into the mind behind the buildings, and the design intricacies, such as high sensitivity to form, design theologies and emotional disposition for creating them.
“There is something about visceral appeal, a building needs to not just be a building but evoke something more”–Daniel Libeskind (The Architect)
Affirming a purpose and direction behind the design, Libeskind avowed that every work of design, no matter how vast or small follows the same envisioned perspective, to provoke visual stimulation, to initiate a particular attitude or sentiment and simulate the method of madness for construction from the artist’s/creator’s perspective.
There is a similar point of appeal to be understood from videographer/designer Mark Romonek, who outlined during his interview his video creation involves a random order of video capture that rarely follows chronological order or linear structure. When asked why he shot video the way he did, he paved an interesting perspective that abides creative content production and storytelling.
“One of the secrets of not having something complete is that it cannot be understood to easily left brain v.s. right brain—there’s something to do with leaving a question with the audience, as soon as it is interpretive then the audience is engaged” “If a broken chair has more potential meaning that an unbroken chair, then break the chair, at the end of the day, the resonating meaning is what matters–doesn’t matter how I got the shot”–Mark Romonek (the videographer)
In shooting video and illustrating type alike, similar design processes continually resurface. Watching Lawrence Weiner, the typographer in motion, one such concept that he divulged is that “design is of the moment”. Currently evolving to radiate the collection of radical movements of thought on what art and design should and shouldn’t be. Similarly to the reformations of the past, formalism to expressionism, romanticism to post-modernism, this is a truth that has not been altered with time, but rather the advancing human perspective and technology.
As the times continue to advance, and our technology undertakes various shapes and capabilities, we as artists will be continually forced to create illustrations that are correlate with existing design principles and still maintain their relevancy in terms of audience construal. However, one can always apprehend that “knowing that graphic designers are artists in the 21st century is a tremendous benefit to the discipline”.