Discourse/Pub Chat - Monday 1st July 2013
Manchester
Deaf Institute
The first in a series of talks from emergent and established practitioners with Malcolm Garrett, Craig Oldham and David Bailey.
I was very excited for this event to happen as I've never been to one before. It was held at the 'Deaf Institute' restaurant in Manchester. I've never been to this place before so was really excited to see what this building was like and what it looked liked inside.
I went with my boyfriend as I didn't want to go alone and it was a great surprise to see one of my tutors there and a friendly women from college. After we sat down and got a drink the event started.
It was a great experience!
First to talk was a practitioner called David Bailey he is a photographer became a photographic assistant at the John French studio, then photographer for John Coles studio five before being contracted as a fashion photographer for British Vogue magazine in 1960.
Here is David Bailey;
He spoke about how you cant have perfection without imperfection as imperfection is our life's design.
He also talked about how he worked for designers republic in Sheffield and its good to make mistakes and to think about scale when you work and to be ambiguous.
I thought he also gave a great piece of advice to;
Quote - 'Don't go straight to a computer, especially when answering a brief - Use Your Brain!'
David also spoke about whether design is important?
Persian rug-makers made imperfections so they didn't offend God. Perfection may not be a good thing. If everything is perfect, what else is left to do?
I asked my boyfriend what he thought of this coming from a scientists perspective he said this links to 'Entropy'. Entropy is the measure of disorder of a system. The universe likes things to be disordered an this is a lower energy state.
I didn't quite understand what this meant so he gave me a simple entropic example:
Imagine if you had 3 balls, all red; the only way could arrange them is: RRR (there is only one arrangement)
If you paint one blue, then the possible arrangements are; RRB, RBR,BRR (now there is three different arrangements)
If we paint another red ball, but make it green, then we can have: RBG, RGB, BRG, BGR, GRB, GBR (now there is six different arrangements of the balls)
We can arrange the three colours in six ways, this is far more favourable, so would be a low energy state.
To move something from a disorder to an ordered state, you have to give it energy. Energy can not be created or destroyed, only converted and transferred. Therefore in order to give something energy, you must take it from somewhere (or yourself).
If you don't have energy, it leaves you either depressed or working like a robot automaton. I took this in the way that a high energy state leaves everyone with no energy leading to 'robot mondrony' and depression. I thought this was a very interesting view.
we then had break and the second person came on the small stage to speak about the topic of Failure.
He was quite funny and he swore a lot and he said right at the beginning this is just who I am so if you don't like it then this talk isn't for you.
He is called Craig Oldham he is a British designer based in the UK. Oldham has produced design work in design, film, tv art, retail, sports, entertainment and education.
Here is an image of Craig Oldham;
He wore bright red pants so from the duration of his talk people kept getting distracted by them and suggesting funny comments like his pants choice was a total failure.
He spoke about not to be afraid of failure and to embrace it don't be scared of it.
Be open minded and take risks!
Quote; ' Doubt is better than certainty'
He also gave four good steps to when your designing/working etc and they are;
- Be experimental - explore
- Do lots of research/ take risks
- Be original and unconventional
- Try to think of the Alternative
He said that appropriate experimentalism is good, fun, interesting and exciting, but it might lead to failure.
Don't be different for difference sake, be different to make original and innovative choices.
I asked my boyfriend what his view on this discussion was and he gave me a great question/statement that really gets you thinking;
'If there was no failure; how could we appreciate Success?'
which I thought was a great rhetorical question that gets your mind wondering.
Furthermore we then had another break and they saved the best to last.
Malcolm Garrett a British graphic designer has worked for music artists which he's most recognized for producing the front covers of albums for musicians such as 'Simple Minds', 'Duran Duran', 'the Buzzcocks' 'magazine' and 'Peter Gabriel'. He was an early convert to exploring the opportunities and challenges of design with digital technology and his London studio was the first amongst its peers to go totally digital in 1990.
This is Malcolm Garrett;
His topic was to speak about inspiration, however throughout his talk he touched upon all three topics of success, failure and inspiration.
Malcolm spoke about many things, he mentions how inspiration comes from anywhere and everywhere, Malcolm's inspiration comes from many things for instance; at the time when he was growing up 'Thunderbirds' was the big thing and when he watches them it reminds him of good times and memories, this is what inspires him.
He also mentioned that one of his inspirations is pop art with 'Andy Warhol's' images of Marilyn Monroe with the repetition of colours that are bright, vivid and colourful. He also loves the idea of 'pop art influencing the art of pop'. Which was then placed in an art movement like Post-Modernism and Dada.
Especially as now his work is not only symbolic but iconic. For example the album cover he created for the Buzzcock's 'Orgasm Addict' it was simple yet it gave meaning to the album.
The women he worked with whom designed the collage on the front is called 'Lynder' and without who input the cover wouldn't be great.
Here is an image of the Buzzcocks front cover;
Malcolm said; 'If you can draw icons with its graphics its Iconic.' also
'Whatever inspires you changes your culture.'
I think these are two great quotes that a quite spine-tingling and inspirational.
when working for a client, you cant do great work for them that they don't won't as their a partnership! so, 'Keep it Modern, Keep it Bold.'
Success is a double-edged sword, new ideas and technology do not replace old ones, they are simply their to provide new opportunities and directions to move in.
To help move forward!
In conclusion, it was a fantastic experience, I had a lot of fun especially as it was very interesting and I can't believe I saw Malcolm Garrett he's so cool. I enjoyed learning something new and taking away with me some great pieces of advice!
Throughout my projects there are bound to be ups and downs, success, failures, success ,failures and lots of inspiration but that's life.
So if your struggling with something as Malcolm Garrett says;
Quote; 'Go backwards and find the problem and see if you can solve it!'
No comments:
Post a Comment