I read this book after reading Jessica Helfand’s Design Observer post on Cat Woman and graphic designers being represented on the big screen. Jessica was hopeful that a designer would have a good portrayal when Pattern Recognition was released in the theaters. While Cayce Pollard isn’t exactly a graphic designer, I am still anxious to see something related to graphic design represented in Hollywood.

Like I mentioned before, Cayce is a cool hunter, visiting the cultural centers of the world and recognizing patterns before anyone else does. She then sells her knowledge to the fashion and design industry. I would be skeptical wether this was an actual profession, but after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point I know this career is not fiction. Fascinating life. I wouldn’t mind giving that career a try. Sorry, back on topic. The thing that makes Cayce highly attuned to logo design is her severe allergy to established logos. When she sees one of these aforementioned marks, she experiences something like a panic attack. With this “gift” she can look at a newly designed logo and immediately tell wether it will work or not. She is hired by a multi-national ad agency in London to use this talent on a new logo for the second largest shoe manufacturer. Cayce’s agreement with the agency is that she just has to say “it will work” or “it won’t work”. They can’t ask her for reasoning or anything else. With her track record she apparently doesn’t need a reason or even know how to defend her decision. She just knows. Haven’t we all heard that before? I think I speak for most graphic designers out there, that I am glad this character doesn’t really exist. I would hate her so much. All the designers work and thought, and all she has to do is say “yes” or “no”. Not exactly my idea of where graphic design should be going, but it works for the book. Of course, I think any designer would like the power and authority that Cayce has in these situations. Maybe I will start telling clients that I have an allergy that makes me highly aware and acutely accurate.

Now on to Mr. Gibson’s writing. It took me a while to get used to his writing style. There where so many times that I had to re-read the beginning of a chapter, just to figure out what was going on. I think many times he would start a chapter or section out this way to confuse and disorient the reader. Much like what Cayce was experiencing with jet-lag. A paragraph or so later it would become apparent what was going on. Another frustrating element in this book is all the random references. They were usually references about some designer or label that a cool hunter would surely know. Sometimes these annoyed me, mainly when I didn’t get the reference, but most reinforced that Gibson had done his research of current style, trend, etc. Of course it was rewarding when I did recognize the name of the designer or artist he was referring to.

This book is worth a read. I can tell that Mr. Gibson has written in the sci-fi category, but he was definitely convincing as someone who is active and aware of trends, fashion, design and marketing. He gives ad agencies a great deal of credit for their influence in today’s society. It would be interesting to see how much power these mega-agencies actually yield.

Overall: A fun and fascinating book to read. Most of what I reviewed here was in the plot set-up. The actual conflict does get a bit more exciting than approving logos and downloading movie clips. As exciting as that is in real life for designers, I don’t think that would have made a very interesting work of fiction.