Amateur hour extends to the ranks of design professional?
Interesting take on the ugly vogue in design…
When ugly is done properly, the conventional-minded are properly outraged. This should never be admitted as the goal, however. “This is the most appropriate way to communicate to our audience,” offered Super Super’s Steve Slocombe. Or, as Mike Meiré says, “It is what it is.” But finally there may come a stage when the public’s outrage is too much to ignore: at that point, claim that this was precisely the plan in the first place. “Its design is intentionally raw, which means it doesn’t immediately sit there and ask to be liked very much,” said Wolff Olins’s Patrick Cox of the 2012 logo. “It was meant to be something that did provoke a response, like the little thorn in the chair that gets you to breathe in, sit up and take notice.” And what say you, Mr. Cox, to the inevitable complaint is lodged that a four-year-old could do it? “When people are saying that a child could have done it, or are coming up with their own designs, that’s what we want: we want everyone to be able to do something with it.” Check and mate.
And I can’t help being disgusted, even if it makes me feel a bit like a design-minded version of sniveling hack Andrew Keen. Cult of the amateur indeed — masters of design now trying to stand out as imbeciles? This is design? Sure, it’s “unencumbered by the profession’s history” — this is a worthy goal? Shall we look to 70s porn rag covers for inspiration?
Via Vitamin News.