Due to the graphical excess and complexity that is often encountered in the work represented in this chapter, is it necessary to be literate in the language of visual communication in order to interpret the intended ideas or motives behind the visual forms? If so, has this led to design being taken at face value by people who haven’t developed skills to read, understand, the ever changing and varied graphical systems that are being created? What effect could this have? Has it allowed (GD) to be (further?) consumed by trends and fashions? Or is this just an inevitable outcome due to the consumerist society that we live in? Consider this sentence: ‘In this quintessentially postmodern view, there is no moment of arrival, no meaning to form itself, just a perpetual journey in which signs that no longer refer to a pre- or post-existing reality offer their own mainly sensory forms of satisfaction and solace.’ Rick Poyner, No More Rules (p114)
Comments
I tend to think people in general are well versed/rehearsed in graphical excess these days. We've grown up playing increasingly complex video games, and movies too. It's interesting, my students hate old films – they think they're boring and move to slow! These are design students, but they're essentially hooked on the overload of spectacle, action, humour, and violence . . . and anything else is just boring to them.
In terms of design being taken at face value, I think that we need to accept that 99% of the time it will be. Is there really anything that complex here that people won't be able to read or understand it anyway? Maybe the Norm example? But most of it seems to be fairly obvious I think . . . My cousin had a couple of those Nike cyborg posters – he's really into soccer and playstations, he's not smart, he's unemployed, but I certainly don't think anything in those posters goes over his head. Maybe my grandad wouldn't be able to decode them, but I don't think he's seen much Sci-fi or played spacies . . . probably ever?
Posted by Luke at April 4, 2004 03:17 PM