6 replies to this topic

[CartooN]

Im currently a graphic design student. Recently this artical came up in one of our lectures:


For anyone who cant be bothered to read it, its basically about a group of people against design for consumer purposes. They believe that designers work could be used for so much more inspirational and influence things, rather than commerce and advertising.

It seemed to cause a bit of a stir in my class, everyone seemed to be very for it and found it a quite powerful statement. But myself, I was totally the opposite.

I felt that while yes, a lot of design thats used to make powerful statements is very inspiring, there are a lot of great works in the advertising world too. And from a more realistic look at the world, thats where the money is. In 20 years time I dont see myself putting a roof over my head by the artistic/inspirational pieces I create. I see my self perhaps designing a magazine cover or creating an advertising poster or billboard.

If I see an advert or poster thats really well designed, I see the skill it took to create that. But I find that a lot of the people we have to speak at our college would see it as dull and without artistic meaning. Im not saying that I dont find inspiration in artistic pieces, I just feel that creativity doesnt necessarily have to have artistic meaning to be a visually pleasing piece.


Am I wrong or closed minded because of this point of view? Sometimes I feel a little alienated when we have a speaker or student talking about vast political/artistic/powerful reasons behind their work and I just create something that I feel is visually pleasing. Makes me wonder if Im in the right place sometimes.


Whats everyone elses opinions, can commercial pieces be art? Can something created without artistic meaning be successful?

Edited by CartooN, 01 November 2010 - 12:53 PM.

[lolcrica90]

i agree wit you

Whats everyone elses opinions, can commercial pieces be art?

i believe so. art is very very subjective. you can only dictate what constitutes art for yourself. everybody has different tastes yadda yadda yadda ya. also vice versa this question is also true, pieces of art becoming commercially viable. i was watching television a while back and this short skit about a street in melbourne, australia was airing. well 30-20yrs ago the place was basically the deadbeat part of town, being in this state this made it a prime area for street artists to freely express themselves. well long story short, the graffiti brought back business to the area. it's now full of cafes, and stores, and people go there for their wedding photos. and it's probably one of the best damn places in australia.

Can something created without artistic meaning be successful?

boom

[Emotive]

"If anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself. There's no joke here. There is no rationalization for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers. You are the ruiner of all things good. You are Satan-spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Suck a tailpipe, kill yourself." - paraphrasing Bill Hicks

Ways of Seeing. If your work is born in any sort of visual capacity, this series is gold and wealthy in knowledge. The episode linked here is the basis from which my opinions on advertising are created.

We live in a society where we're told we need to buy things, and we need to buy them all the time. Constantly, consistently. The realm of advertising moves us opposite to progression of human growth and evolution. To me it does not matter how skilfully crafted a "work" is, what sort of technical mastery and aesthetic sympathies a designer possessed, if it's senseless barking adding to this harmful consumerism much or most of the world is caught up in.

Is that what you want to be? A barker?

This is another designer speaking, by the way.

(Need more Coke! Need more Snickers! Am I happy yet!?)

Edited by Emotive, 06 May 2011 - 08:37 PM.

[ThrashTitan]

So you would rather live in a socialist society than one based on democracy and capitalism? I highly doubt it.

[lolcrica90]

So you would rather live in a socialist society than one based on democracy and capitalism? I highly doubt it.

china is a socialist society, maybe not in the purest sense of the word but it still very much is socialist. and that place is commercialized as fish sticks.

but yes advertising thrives off of fear. fear that if you don't have a six pack that you won't be attractive to females, so therefore you should buy that ab pro machine. fear that if you don't have perfect wavy hair you won't truly be happy so therefore you should buy that shampoo. fear that those chest pains won't go away unless you swallow this pill so don't bother changing your diet and exercising, just head on down to the nearest pharmacy. but i don't think all the blame should be placed upon the advertising people, humans' gullibility in taking these partial truths as law is partly to blame also. because females do like staring at six packs, nice hair is attractive, and that pill probably will help you with those chest pains but they are not the miracle cure to your gut, hair, and chest problems.

the irony of all of this is that commercialized societies are the richest in the world. yet the people who live in them are never satisfied with their lives. always gotta have that new ipod, better get that new cellphone, better wear those new sneakers. always bitching about what we don't have when we should probably just be thankful for what we do.

fuck those advertising people making me discontent.

[MaxDamage]

I approve of the message.

Also: "educational aids"; I had that once.

I got better.

I grew tired of commercial graphic design very fast.

It's difficult to remain passionate about your job as a designer when you're confronted with so many tedious and uninteresting projects, but I do think it's still as much down to the individual.. some people are annoyingly brimming with a ferociously creative dynamism.

You don't sound very artistically aspirational, but you don't have to be - the bulk of design relies upon solid workhorses who can get the job done; not just those perfectionistas who need everything to be super special.

Those people can charge a lot more for their services, though.

Cheers for the link Emotive.

Edited by MaxDamage, 25 September 2012 - 05:46 AM.

[Skanky Yoda]

Before I start, I want to say that Bill Hicks is a nutjob for saying that.

On Advertising
I don't think it's "good" that artists have come to the point of designing products for maximum profits, but at the same time, it isn't bad that they do. It is a way of making an income by making certain arbitrary products look appealing. Advertising, although can be used for the wrong purposes, is not all that bad. In my ideal world, all product packaging would have to have a detailed consumer label detailing all the ingredients and manufacturing process; but is this plausible? No.

Equally as bad as the world we currently live in, would be a communist system upon in which we get no freedom of expression in our product purchase, and all products come as an army green can with a black stamp written on it what it is. At the moment, we are slowing moving towards and evidence based society in which an evidence based approach is taken towards products and advertising.

On Commercialism
Complaining that a job which makes a lot of money is one that is commercialist, is somewhat self apparent. It is not just designer who are faced with these problems. In Psychology, if you are a Developmental Psych, you are looking at a 5 figure pay check, and pushing six in your later years. If you are a clinical or a clinical neuro psychologist, you are looking at anywhere between 80,000 and 140,000 (more if you are very very very good). If you are an industrial organizational psychologist, which specialize in the maximizing of performance and profits for companies, you are looking at 150,000+.

On Fear
Also, interestingly, advertising doesn't just primarily work in fear. That is an incredibly oversimplified model of the human brain. Humans want more than fear, we want to associate ourselves with positive feelings. We will not be driven by fear only. Advertising works by displaying the product as a solution or a social norm. By associating itself with concepts. That is why Coke has got such a name for itself, it has somehow managed to associate itself with happiness, and with parties, with quality times. Likewise, Nike has managed to associate itself with sport, so when we think of a concept we think of the brand/product. There is a wide range of social psychological principles that advertising works on beyond fear.

On the the human mind
Now the thing is, even if there was no advertising, none at all, it is not as though humans would be freed from our commercial ways. We would still blindly associate products with desirable things, because that is the way humans work. I could list all the psychological biases we have towards things, for example, copying the behaviour of someone with power. Copying the behaviour of someone more similar to us.

If there was no advertising, we would buy beverages that the president drinks, we would eat the food our friends eat, we would buy the products that people like us buy. You may have anecdotal personalized stories to claim you would not, but evidence invariably shows that you would. Why is it that you wear the clothes you wear? Why is it that you bought an nVidia vs AMD. Why do you eat the kind of food you eat?