Design Heroes?
by Bennett Holzworth, (6 comments)
I wanted to get this out in the open before I am accused of name dropping over my next couple of posts. I recently made the five hour trek to go see one of my design heroes, Michael Bierut, speak at an AIGA event in Des Moines, Iowa. There was never a doubt in my mind that it was worth the time and effort to get there. These types of events usually seem to pay off as well. Not with job offers or instant fame, but the opportunity to learn from someone who has done it longer and better than I.
Talking to different people over the last few years, I keep hearing people referring to events like this as celebrity worship. Older members of the AIGA that I have talked to mention that it is something that young people join the AIGA for. I wonder what the problem is with this.
Of course if it is actually worship then it can be dangerous, but I don’t see a problem with calling someone a hero and flocking to events to hear and meet these designers. Even Adrian has mentioned that he thinks it is dangerous to have “design heroes”. I will be interested to hear his response to this.
My goal is to learn from the way they approach projects and work with clients and apply that to my design and career. I see these types of events as a way to learn from someone who knows a whole heck of a lot more than I do. I will keep going to these events as long as I keep learning from other people. The moment that I’m done learning from others, I’m done being a designer.
Comments (6)
Paul Berkbigler said:
I don’t think you stand indelibly guilty for this particular variety of “hero worship”, inasmuch as it is routed especially in an appreciation of their working process and the thinking / activities that they pursue while pursuing their work. The dangerous variety of “hero worship” enters the picture when it’s really masking an attempt to lift / borrow / steal a designer / illustrator’s stylistic conventions - where worship facilitates nearly plagiaristic replication.
With the design world being as small as it is, the beauty of AIGA involvement is precisely these amazing opportunities to meet-and-greet the names that we grow to love by encountering them in the trade publications, print materials, and in any of the other graphic alleys we all haunt. One of my professors at Tyler hit it nicely on the head by saying “The beauty of this business is that you can still get the all-stars on the phone whenever you want to - Sagmeister still generally answers his own line.”
It’s wonderful to take the opportunity to rub elbows with someone like Beirut and have the chance to pose some of those burning questions that come up when you’re perusing his work (writing or designing) - it’s also the chance to really flesh out the individual behind the product / process.
Posted on September 27, 2004
David said:
I agree with Paul both that I don’t think Bennett is guilty of “hero worship,” and that the danger of such worship enters the picture when it results in stealing.
We are a funny little sub-culture, and by the very nature of what we do, it is easy to deify a designer simply by putting their work in a magazine or book. Mix that up wit the fact that designers tend to hang around with the other .2% of the population that actually cares, and voila you have instant celebrities. This is at its worse when a designer is in design school, where these in-group associations are most concentrated. The result is designers telling their friends “can you believe I was in the same room with [insert designer].”
Yes, I can. Design is a small world.
I think the root of the “stealing” problem stems from the fact that many designers who get so excited about other designers lose sight of the fact that the designer they worship didn’t get where he / she did by copying the style of designers they admire. They did it by learning the underlying process and philosophy, of those designers, and then injecting their own personalities, interests and curiosities into their work.
If one tries too hard to “learn” from other designers, they can miss out on all of the things they can learn from themselves.
Posted on September 27, 2004
Adrian said:
Bennett, you are my hero.
When I talk about the danger of having design heroes (in addition to the points Paul and David make about plagiarism), I think we have to be careful about putting people on pedestals. We read all these books about great designers, and we never hear about the bad or mediocre work these designers did. There is an interesting essay In Looking Closer 4 talking about why there hasn’t been any critical discussion in the design community about Herbert Bayer’s contribution to the design of Nazi propaganda. To quote Sol Sender, “writing tends towards the history of form-making, or provides a shallow romanticization of design heroes.” So we read about how great these designers are and they become our heroes based on a selective understanding of who they were and what they did. Then we start to be deceived about our own profession. We think to ourselves, “If I only could get projects like redesigning the UPS logo, I could be a great designer,” or “I will never be able to design something as good as…” “If only I could win more awards.” In reality, our heroes are just people doing the same thing as us little people. For some reason, my personality would rather knock celebrities down to size, than inflate people to hero status. With that being said, I know I would have been more star-struck talking to Bierut than you were.
Posted on September 27, 2004
Paul said:
What a delightful little nerve we’ve touched on here…Great dialogue around this…
It seems also necessary in the midst of this to touch on the joy of artistry and the community that forms around it. It’s a captivating force and a driving passion, and it gathers the people it involves by both. Within any artistry, however, there will forever be lights both bright and dim (even if we can’t always find the dimmers!)
What will generally begin as simply likeminded workers and likeminded individuals gathering in alleys and bars to swap stories and experiences gradually transforms into associations of people doing these same things and making some public indication of where others of the same ilk might gather to do the same. Carry that a step further and these grow to professional organizations doing the same on bigger scales, and finally carrying some capital to make their interests and awareness manifest in documents and publications (it sort of just dawns on me the great relationship between the terms “manifest” and “manifesto” - ideas/words/philosophies made tangible and existant…)
All that to say that even though the overall number of those likeminded folks may be .2% of the overall population, the world created inside that .2% stands a pretty familiar chance of bringing the characteristics of the world outside it, Superstars and all…All the more within an environment where a large amount of its focus is on the development and refinement of skills of any sort. As we chase the craft on our personal paths, we can’t help but put our eyes on the other paths that we can view and try to see both where the footsteps have fallen and where they are currently falling.
So bundle that all up, simmer it lightly or vigorously, and then spice it up with the fact that the artistry we’re engaged in has such a remarkable public presence - Sure, not everyone on the map is going to recognize or necessarily appreciate the fact that Paul Rand figured out that by put a beautifully wrapped package on top of a heraldic crest you could tell a country and a world how much a particular shipping company cared about the work they did, but so many still experience the effect that this visual solution has had on them. For those in the know, studying Paul Rand or actually seeing Paul Rand is a palpable effort to get even more directly in touch with where that came from to begin with…It’s the chance to bump into that sort of artistry in a tangible sense.
So let’s put ourselves on the shoulders of giants to see what’s in front of their eyes and above their heads, let’s rub elbows with them at any number of professional cocktail parties, and let’s do everything in our effort to check their scholarship and research and find out where their successes AND failures lie. After all, those who aren’t keenly aware of history are doomed to repeat it…
But we are, at the end of the day, all involved in that artistry at whatever level our paths accomodate - we might not all have that vellum covered, embossed and embellished monograph to our names yet, but we might also not all be in pursuit of celebrity as much as we’re currently involved in craft. The two hang out in the same circles and are often enough not mutually exclusive (particularly in a vocational bunch like ourselves), but they’re also far from contingent on one another.
Celebrities ARE us with a distinctly different body of opportunities and experiences, and whether we acknowledge the same accomplishments that have been announced of them is our participation in their reputation. Our like or dislike / our approval or disapproval won’t erase or author the contents of their lives, but it may significantly influence the reaction to those contents both in ourselves and others. For some they’ll need to remain sainted images and for others they’ll need to become common drinking buddies before their impact is really felt - take them as you will and let it move your work and your working.
In all of this, I love that we’re in this digital alley and bar trading the joys and woes of what we’re doing - what our artistry costs and offers in equal portion…And who knows what big shot might drift in at any moment? The beauty is that we know they won’t really seem that unfamiliar once we’ve sat down with them…
Posted on September 28, 2004
Bennett said:
This is an interesting argument, especially since I donít think any of us disagree. Everyone is making great points. In response to Adrianís comment, I think one of the greatest things about an event like this is that the ìCelebritiesî usually do turn out to be normal people. They might work on 5th avenue and have huge clients, but they turn out to be very normal.
After Adrian mentioned that we never see their worst work, I immediately thought of Critique Magazine and their section called ìMy Best/My Worstî. Instead of the normal display of a designerís work, they would have the designer pick out his or her most and least effective design. As it turns out, Mr. Beirut was the designer featured in Critiqueís second issue for this exact section. If you happen to have this splendid magazine at your disposal, check out Number 2, Autumn 1996. With that said, I wouldnít mind having his worst in my portfolio. The layout is nice, but he makes the point that he ìtried to design something without knowing the first thing about the subject.î He designed this specific piece fresh out of college. His best was the signage system for the Minnesota Childrenís Museum.
Iím sure it is very difficult to pick out your worst piece, especially with the thought of offending a former client or losing a current one. It would be nice if there was a little more critical thought in this industry, but I donít see how to keep it from turning into finger pointing and name calling. Maybe we as designers need to take the first step and show some pieces that we made mistakes on and share what we learned from it. Iím not sure Iím ready for that yet. Is anyone else?
Posted on September 28, 2004
Matt K. said:
Hey, I was at that event, too (in fact I helped organize it).
Dropping by your website, this comment interested me because I’ve always considered myself pretty skeptical of ‘superstar’ designers. I suppose there are various reasons for this, but two stand out. As others have pointed out, it’s graphic design. There are no stars, at least not in the sense that they will be instantly recognized in public.
Second, I feel as though treating other designers like stars places me in the position of a mere fan, whereas I figure that I’m good enough to be in the same room as any other designer. I may not have the work to equal theirs, but I still don’t think I should accept the role of ‘wannabe’ only a few years into my professional career (or ever, probably).
All that said, I see no reason not to be interested in great work and the people and thinking behind it. That isn’t hero worship. Michael Bierut was a very impressive speaker, for example, but the only reason I felt embarrassed was because I couldn’t figure out how to dim the lights in the auditorium. heh!
Posted on November 22, 2004