OUGD502: Creative Report Evaluation

The creative report did not print right and has not even executed to any form of acceptable standard to be currently sent to professionals. I should have given myself more time for printing, but now know how stressful that can be and will take more time out to print in the future. I thought it would be easy, just doing a double sided print, however when trying to re-do it on the uni computers on my own stock for heightened texture and quality, the prints kept going wrong (literally 30 misprints, totalling £13)!! I hate printing and have learned that this is not an aspect of the graphic design industry I want to be part of. I created a double sided poster just to create a tangible graphic artefact, easily distributed and concise in its execution. This did not go wright, but I will continue to try and print better in the future and will send Kate a copy on nice stock, with professional folding. I have also noticed a typo I corrected but didn't save the changes to, meaning that the final print is not the final solution either way- I blame this on my own organisational skills at the Minuit. I have tried to improve these throughout the year but in times like this it really let me down but I have really enjoyed constructing the two sided poster none the less.

The photographs are also not up to standard due to time restrictions- something I need to. budget for time for in the future.

OUGD503: Evaluation

Throughout this year I have learn't I am much more productive, proactive and interested in design when it is not for myself. I see little value in the work I produce unless it has a purpose, its all very well and good to produce a fancy book for myself but unless that will be distributed for others gain or personal profit, what is the point? By doing collaborative work I have improved knowledge of dealing with clients and have since been selected for paid jobs just from word of mouth and how fairly I treat clients, which has been more beneficial than anything. By being proactive on the collaborations page and taking control of my own learning, I have networked vastly amongst LCA, getting to work with a range of photographers and fashion students- my two main areas of interest carrying my practice forward. Interviewing Kate made me realise that typography is not an area of advertising, so perhaps it is outside of advertising where I needed to look. 

I have learnt that by knowing history, knowing historical references and the work produced by influential designers, the appreciation for good design increases vastly. By observing design in detail, both critically and contextually you can apply those ideas and thought process onto your own design, allowing influence and room for play. The aspect of aesthetic quality is just as important portfolio wise as a strong concept, as the visual is the hook for a deeper conversation. By exploring collaborative work I have had to be more proactive about project management and improving my time keeping to manage around other uni led briefs. The experience this year with D&AD has been really enjoyable, after researching them at the start of the year I felt they would just be a blood sucking money corporation, however after attending the festival and seeing some mind changing speakers, it was clear they really do want to help put design students and professionals on a raised creative platform, which is something I want to strive to be part of in the future. The collaborative aspect introduced me to New Blood, a competition I am most proud of which also aided to my development in project management. Incorporating photography and illustration, the Monotype brief was a perfect representation of the power of collaboration and how I had a role in a group, which is something I've often questioned until now. The photographic aspect made me consider a much more technical aspect, as well as editing under time restrictions and painting standards and protecting concept throughout- all of this has led to me having much more confidence in my knowledge and ability, both technically and contextually. 

Last year I mentioned how my illustrator skills were not that strong, and this is something I have worked to improve throughout the year. After attending the Life After College Business program in summer, it was clear Graphic Design was a business- and how to make that business work for you is the most critical point I wanted to explore. Finding my way in the creative industry is a maze, however I feel the direction I am going in IS a direction, and is directly revolved around visual imagery, typographic and illustrative content. The emphasis of fashion is something I need to incorporate more, as looking to the future I want to be working in and living that kind of lifestyle. Ever since I was young I have wanted to work in fashion, and I feel by not pursuing that route it would be giving up on something which could be a possibility with enough effort. 


My personal experiences throughout the year have taught me to be much more skeptical of people, including clients and collaborative partners, whom (if negatively chosen) has the possibility to increase stress to maximum levels- something not needed when clashing with university deadlines. However, ironically I have discovered project management and helping others is my forte, I can use my skills of networking to benefit others by putting them in contact with other necessary collaborative partners, which could lead to a graduate creative agency, helping make these connections.  Interests in typography have also progressed this year, inspired by Paula Scherr and Michael Wayne have come through more in my practice this year, starting more computer based and moving away from the screen over time. The jewellery making course was another invaluable experience as it allowed me to focus on craftsmanship, something I set myself as personal goal in the 504 brief. This can develop into 3D typography and creating opportunities for myself to create branding, online shops to generate a business and a way to offset the course work with something less concept driven and hands on.

The Studio Brief 02 part of the moduel has given me the confidence to continue contacting practitioners in the future, documenting and recording all interviews with the possible hope of producing a full, decade spanning archive of talks from creatives throughout my career. Advertising is already starting to be an area I am loosing investigative focus in, but know that the possibility of working in advertising provides a decent salary and access to a global platform to help shape positive ideologies, harnessing advertising for good.

I have also learnt that getting your work out their and getting interest in you as a person is extremely important, so partaking in additional briefs to aid your portfolio is essential. I also want to attend more crit's and be proactive if necessary in organising crit's. The aspect of project management has been something I have come to consider as a key skill I have developed, having learnt the ability to manage large groups of people logistically, improving time management and organisational skills. I enjoy the responsibility of leadership roles, and when there is some pressure on my shoulders I feel the need to preform well is heightened, motivating me to do the job well. The responsive model was hard for me, as I was prioritising the freelance work for other briefs and aspects (e.g.: jewellery), so it was hard to focus on the Greenall's brief especially as I was prioritising that last due to the far away deadline. Remembering this in the future, I need to consider time plans for university work as I do for collaborative practice, as that seems to be the area's I can thrive in. 

In conclusion, in one way it is good that I am more motivated by other people's work than my own, as when working in industry this will be the case. Over the summer I plan to partake in personal projects, including the collaborative fashion zine, my first jewellery collection, personal branding and potential placements. I have applied for aprox 13 placements at the minuit, mainly based in London using Kate's advice. Looking back at D&AD, I regret not taking the opportunity to ask Craig Oldham some preplanned questions, not just stumbling and being quite unorganised. It would have been good to get Craig's email or get him to remember me somehow, in order to contact as a Northern contact, investigating both scenes. Furthemore, by doing the recent experimentation in the ZOG branding process, I have discovered deep interests in typography and real enjoyment through attention to detail. I am quite a messy person, all of my work is never fully perfect when conducting my own practice, yet when the output changes and the purpose is for the client, there is a real shift in my perception towards the brief and my senses to design heighten to consider more aesthetic details, something I have learnt the value and necessity of through visiting talks from influential designers, including Stephan Sagmeister, Mike Rigby, Kate Allsop and Ruth Johns.  I have honestly done so much this year I don't have the time to blog about it all, which again is something I need to improve in Level 6 to fulfil my academic potential.

OUGD502: Creative Report (Interview FULL)

OUGD502: Producing the Creative Report

I wanted to include a small amount of hand rendered type which received positive feedback in my PPP Presentation, so felt this would be appropriate to continue in the creative report. As the intro is the aspect where I discuss my personal rational for looking at Kate Allsop, I thought this would be the most appropriate place to include this typography. I find this method of crafting really therapeutic, with the clean use of black and white possibly inspired by Matthew Wayne- someone else I respectively should have interviewed. 

Already constructing the outcome I have learnt I should have been more proactive in the earlier months of 2017, researching more influential people and pursuing more interviews from relevant and influential practitioners, including Matthew Wayne.

~* SEE SEPERATE BLOG POST FOR PDF OF FULL CREATIVE REPORT & SPREADS *~

After constructing the editorial and printing the simple composition of the type campaign, I didn't feel that it was enough for a sufficient submission. I felt that by developing the resolution and combining both aspects, I would be able to present more of the information in a more concise way.

I considered creating a double sided poster, stemming from the idea of the Real Women print. This can be folded as a little booklet, easily transported and distributed, and efficient in utilising space and layout. By investigating with this I was able to explore a range of folding techniques, using my brain to work out measurements and making sure they were accurate so the poster would print right. This attention to detail has been proven to be needed, with almost all influential speakers talking about this as a key skill for success. Planning has become vitally important in my practice, and even simple exercises like working out this folding is helping me develop little skills like this.

Setting up the document so it would work when folded, in the easiest way possible. I thought logically, breaking the problem down into simple steps, and splitting the page into two halves, with 1/4's in the second half. The formatting of this document was fairly easy, however condensing the content was quite challenging, as I wanted to keep the most interesting responses from Kate, as well as the questions most people may want to get answered.

I plan to print on a coloured A3 or A2 stock, creating a large scale poster on the flip side from the Real Women illustration. 

Prestige Elite typeface, Serif and typewriter-esq, denoting a crime report or 'creative report', yet still very minimal and not very creative. 

Experimenting with possible self branding. I wanted to highlight the use of this information for personal, informative use, rather than large scale publishing, so thought I'd name it exactly what it is, rather than an ambiguous name like 'steps into advertising' or 'advice from Grey' etc etc. 

OUGD502: Producing the Creative Report

Initial ideas for displaying the creative report

• Include a range of interviews/advice from creatives, including all areas of personal interest- including Kate Allsop (Grey London), Benjamin Craven, all of the D&AD speakers including elements of Stephan Sagmeister's Q&A and talks from Craig Oldham and Mike Rigby. I could also include advice from Helen Russell and the instagram designers I have contacted. 
• The above idea could also be simplified to just look at advertising and illustration, all combined into editorial content, combining three of my main interests, yet to pursue this it would be more relevant to also interview a photographer or editorial designer to have a more holistic link to my own development and learning throughout the year.
• Create a poster, reappropriating the Dove Real Women advert, focusing on Kate Allsops interview. Place the typography into the shape of the women in the advert, constructing the interview into Kate's advertising environment- most 
• Creating an editorial showcasing the interview with Kate Allsop at Grey London. I feel that her interview was the most full and useful to me personally, sharing many experiences other people may be interested in hearing about, as well as giving quite controversial advice at times. This does not have to be printed necessarily as Kate's practice doesn't focus on print necessarily.

Feedback:

I showed the interviews to some peers and asked for their advice on what to include

- Focus on Kate Allsop, not a lot of people will have access to her or look at advertising

- Do whatever's most relevant to your practice

- Display the content in a way you feel your style is progressing in, using the persons medium, e.g.: Advertisement for Kate, illustrative for Benjamin.

- Including D&AD speakers may become overcomplicated and irrelevant as you haven't directly interviewed and asked the speakers--does that count??

- The idea of having it as an advert is clever... an advert is designed to inform more people and reach a wider audience, telling them about a product, so putting the interview in this space is going against how it is normally presented, going against the grain.

To go about creating the creative report I wanted to focus on Kate Allsop, putting the interview in her setting, using her most famous campaign as a template. This advert resinates with me personally, I vaguely remember the campaign and I feel it is really important to tackle social issues, such as unrealistic presentations of women in visual communication and beauty/fashion in particular, creating negative implications in society. Also, the possibility of a placement at Grey means that it would be good to send her a copy of the final piece as a thank you for taking part!

Exploring compositions 01- The interview would be typeset in the positive space of the women. This advert crop shows a wider composition of the women, meaning the line lengths could be longer in the centre. It could be interesting to suggest the bikini/leg shapes, yet I don't want to somehow sexualise the typography and disrupt the legibility. 

Exploring compositions 02- Much fewer women with a more varied spacial awareness, creating a more clear silhouette of a group of women. Looking at the interview, the aspect relating to real women is quite short (when slightly refined), so keeping the typography tight to highlight the suggestion of human features may be more interesting for the viewer, as well as displaying all the information in a clear (hopefully legible) manor. 

 I tried to split each piece of information up into groups, with each figure representing that group. I considered letting the line lengths run fluidly, as naturally thats what the eye wants to do, but as this is a personal exercise, I want to take the opportunity to be creative and create something unique to Kate's practice.

 Using digital methods was not going well, it was taking so long to get each letter warped in the right way, I did't feel that the effect was worth it. I chose Helvetica Neue relating to the Dove Real Women typography, an extremely legible font juxtaposed by its usage in 6pt warped human forms. Learning from past experiences, I prefer creating illustrative compositions (and often typography), by hand, so after seeking some more brief feedback I chose to move away from the digital rendering and go back to pen and paper.

Dove Real Women section of the interview, returned into the format and silhouetting the women. The formal structures and rivers don't look as good as planned, but I used the thought process of those deconstructing typography, cutting off words half way with a hyphen as well as curving some words to follow the flow of the body. I needed to incorporate a thin gutter between each women to define the shape. Craig Oldham said if you were going to do a parody, do an accurate parody 

TESTING// Checking the illustration still looked like women from a distance.. I sent this photo on a social platform to about 30 Graphic Design peers.. 27 of them said it did look like women and I targeted the remaining three for feedback in order to improve the design.

 Feedback:

I asked 10 people if it looked like the shape of the advert 
I asked, should I print this as a simple poster/advert? 
Put it in a studio environment and print that as a poster/advert? 
Combine the full interview in somehow (as i'm worried this may not be a full 500 words??)

- Just showing the illustration on its own shows the simplicity
- Hand rendered type looks extremely personal so it doesn't need to be formalised
- It would be funny and personal to photoshop yourself next to the women, as i'm a real woman too and conducted the interview.
- Definitely include the full interview, it won't be enough on its own
- Women looks abit like an amputee with a spike leg, so soften the corner of the type.
- 'Crime profile on advertising'

First mock up of a possible setting, using the official advert template and typography, removing the product and Dove branding, replacing it with Grey's, and a possible stamp identifier I am experimenting with for my own branding. 

Comical and personal but looks much better with a simple composition. Quite unprofessional but I wanted to use Kate's advice of humour.

Presenting the issu document as an online editorial, presenting all the information and illustration in setting. This will allow me to show all the information in a more creative way than just a standard pdf, exploring areas of personal interest and experiment with design. I enjoyed experimenting with layouts and experimenting with grids.

OUGD502: Contacting Designers 04

Interview with Benjamin Craven

I met with Benjamin in LCA and bought him a cup of tea and rocky road for his time, I had preplanned some questions and tried to remember to breath before speaking, so not to seem rushed or confused, as well as fully listening and waiting for him to finish before asking another question.

<full Craven interview pdf>


The interview went really well, Benjamin is a really passionate creative, dedicated making any opportunity work for him. I am happy I preplanned the questions with enough scope for the conversation to go off on many tangents. His versatile use of screen print and product bases are great inspiration to me. Benjamin mentioned how some of his main influences to get visuals out is music. I feel that I can relate to this greatly, often allowing a certain beat or musical mood influence the tone of a piece. 

Benjamin highlights that this influence is not a bad thing, "just because we cannot put our finger on the source of our creativity does not mean it is invalid."

OUGD502: Prostate Cancer Calendar SUMMER 2017

In collaboration with HOC Manchester, we have decided to create a calendar to raise money close to the clubs heart, prostate cancer. The club decided they wanted to do a pants down shoot, incorporating a humorous tone of voice juxtaposed with their leather jackets and HOC patches. 

This is a vital opportunity to me to practice professionalism, as well as potentially working on a brief with possible large social impact. This project will involve strict time management and project management, coordinating people from all over the country who are much busier and older than myself. I have been given full creative control of the outcome, yet my experience from the club indicates that everyone has an opinion they want to see come to life, leading to 'too many cooks spoil the dinner'. I need to learn how to say no to people I have known my whole life but who do not know the first thing about design or photography, in order to fulfil the potential of this brief and drive the outcome to my personal intentions. 

The idea is to create a calendar, using 12 different locations and 14 different models. One of which will have prostate cancer, and may act as the campaign figure head if he is willing. This will outline him as the 'hero', getting the wind in his hair and moving away from the current cancer patient stereotype, adding an energy and a vividity into project. My intentions are also to contact cancer research, hoping them to give us a bit of free advertising as effectively all proceed's are going to them anyway. If social media collateral is produced, this can be sent to the charity in order to drum up awareness of the 'bikers for cancer', changing perceptions of Harley culture and raising money for the charity! This could potentially be great exposure for me too, perhaps creating a video or other audience targeted interactive content to drum up attention. 

Shots will feature the biker patches, possible bikes and bare bums, following a consistent style to allow the calendar to be constructed. This is a HUGE responsibility for me as the photographer and designer, as the success of this mission lies on my shoulders. As this is conducted by a personal reasoning, the whole club (myself included) knows the heartache of Tony caused by this horrible disease so I need to do justice whilst still integrating humour.

DEADLINE:  Ready for sale at Chester Rally September 2017. Printing needs to occur August 2017.

First step- finding the models and coordinating them to a month (done in club. 12 real men allocated to individual months, some in pairs)

Second step- finding out the models availability anytime within June or July, ideally for a full day/half on the weekend. Once we know the availability of the models we can organise shoot days per location, either going to the models or having the models go to a set location/studio

Third step- contact all models and allocate a date with them to do the shoot

ORGANISING SHOOT DATES

Looking at time scales and printing considerations, the shoots need to take place in between June-July. This will be difficult managing peoples time with summer holidays and other commitments.

- 24th & 25th June
- 1st & 2nd July
- 8th & 9th July
- 15th & 16th July

Everybody contacted is really up for it and wants to support Tony, and Tony is really happy that we are all trying to do something to help.

GROUPING THE MODELS BASED ON LOCATION FOR TIME PURPOSES

Shoot the months (people) in the same day around the same location- e.g.: 

- All people from Yorkshire being photographed in one day

- All people from Lancashire being photographed in one day

- All people from Manchester being photographed in one day

- All people from Warrington/Liverpool being photographed in one day

Locations.  (12 needed split amongst the above 4 counties).

- Seaside
- beautiful countryside
- Forrest of Bowland
- big bridges
- industrial settings
- signifiers of location (butter pies/yorkshire tea covering privates)
- rural and private for aspects of nudity
- access for vehicles/bikes

This also gives a good opportunity for us to maximise the locations of each place, shooting on a range of scenic locations, moving away from studio shots giving a higher intrigue in the imagery for the calendar viewers to enjoy. Will also need to consider taking some form of changing room, giving privacy for changing and instilling self confidence in the models, learning from the issues we had with nudity on the Monotype shoot.

Initial speaking with Tony/Initial research

"every penny helps, hopefully we'll help others"
"cancers like having a 24 hr tag around your ankle, you can't go anywhere, not even 200 yards down the road on your own".
"its not the cancer its the things the cancer causes"
"it can effect anyone and no-one ever knows"

1/8 blokes get prostate cancer

By speaking to Tony I understand the importance of the calendar, making this issue a really heartbreaking one and giving me more understanding and drive to do this well.

Visual research

Bare bum used as a simple sign of protest. In our case, protest against cancer, rebellion against the clinicsm of how cancer is currently portrayed, whilst incorporating the element of 'fight' currently used in 

Cancer Research marketing.

Annie Leborbvits Black & White on beach, emotion and natural representations. Shot on medium format. Timeless and emotive.

Richard Avedon 'elephant woman', juxtaposing safari with fashion and humour. Black and white, shot on medium format.  Timeless and emotive.

OUGD502: Contacting Designers 04

Benjamin Craven is an LCA alumni and rising print designer and creative within the Leeds design scene. I have known about Benjamin's work for a while, being especially interested in his bold illustrative style and tactile use of design and product integration. His style is very botanical, similarly to my early illustrations on the course, and he seems to be thriving doing freelance work and selling this style. Benjamin works as a multi-disciplinary designer, focusing on screen print but experimenting with clay, furniture and woodwork. I am really interested to learn about (and from) his experience growing as an independent creative, working on his own and on freelance briefs to make him an income.

The importance of a freelance designer to have a 'bread and butter income' is especially relevant, and was something in the business course I did earlier in the year, and wonder if Benjamin has any large clients he supplies with art regularly in order to provide this- or he explores other aspects of commercial design on the side which he does not publish online? Either way, I am interested in speaking to Benjamin and applying his knowledge of the freelance industry to my own evolving practice.

Work by Benjamin Craven

Work by Benjamin Craven

I found Benjamins email on his website http://www.benjamincraven.co.uk and decided to email him. Learning from the unsuccessful attempts of getting a response from companies (Harlequin Studio's), I kept the tone upbeat but considered sentence structure and grammar so not to sound confused and unprofessional- I've identified this as a weakness in the COP module and don't want it to effect how I come accross over other platforms where I'm speaking quite formally. 

After these emails, Benjamin added me on Facebook and messaged me organising a meet up in uni, over a cup of tea. These were quite informal, establishing a light tone of voice and personal connection between me (the student) and him (the designer). As I've met Benjamin before when I was making some jewellery, it doesn't need to have the awkward atmosphere which can be present in some formal meetings with creatives. When I spoke to Craig Oldham at D&AD I had to think of questions really fast, so learning from this I want to preplan questions to be fully prepared.

Other people have interviewed Benjamin, so when considering questions I don't want to overlap too much, and keep it more personal to what I want to know (as well as not generating stale answers from Benjamin). Using these as a guide I have prior knowledge of Benjamins practice, using screen print, furniture, products and architectural inspiration to conduct his practice. After observing Craven's Instagram it is clear he uses photography as a tool to capture inspiration, especially when observing interesting architecture all over the world. I can learn lots from Benjamin's process, as well as hoping to gain him as a good connection in the industry. These can be found on the links below.

http://www.material-lab.co.uk/blog/post/design-life-benjamin-craven/
http://www.wemakeapair.com/en/2016/04/05/benjamin-craven-young-and-promising-pattern-designer/

OUGD502: Design From Reason: Experiencing with Meaning

Hosted by Benjamin Hubert from Layer studio, a multi-disciplinary designer focusing around product design and social enhancement through problem solving. Hubert was another really inspirational speaker at D&AD festival, taking a Thursday Morning slot at the Truman Brewery Stage. Hubert has worked in studios across the world, being known as an award winning furniture designer and set up his own studio called 'Layer'. Hubert's design shifted from high end to pro-bono, encouraging a more charitable aspect to his practice and allowing craftsmanship contribute to solving some of the worlds problems.

By coming to D&AD I wanted to explore areas of Graphic Design, Hubert's argument was that by creating a product in some cases, this can be more powerful as it can rely less on a logo, allowing the brand to speak for itself via transparent communication. 

LAYER was approached by Maggie's Cancer Charity to help increase their donations via a branding campaign, yet when decoding the brief Layer asked 'what do you really need?'. This lead to the answer of donations- the charity needed an increase in money to do more things for their stakeholders and patients, and then asked himself how can we solve this through design? Hubert talked through this creative development, which then stemmed to a re-designed of the change pot, increasing donations through identifiable and simplistic design. This approach increased donations by 83% and educated the audience visually about Maggie's.

Hubert discussed when designing products for large scale use, for example a chair or even a change pot, no design is done for the first 6 months. He would stream all the design language and concept whilst gathering feedback from the target audience. 

From this talk I have learnt the power of ideas can be transformed on multidisciplinary scales, and asking the right questions can lead to a much more successful and long term solution. Also, product design and graphic design are two different things, yet the principles apply to both and aspects of the project management side can be carried over into my own practice, experimenting with a wider range of materials and platforms to convey my creativity.

OUGD502: Stephan Sagmeister Q&A

"The James Bond of Graphic Design"

One of the highlights on Thursday afternoon of D&AD 2017 was a Q&A with Austrian Graphic Designer Stephan Sagmeister, ran by the editor of Creative Review, Patrick Burgoyne. The discussion was very inspiring about how people respond to beauty, and developed to a discussion on the concept of beauty, being a simple pleasure accessible through everything. Beauty is power in conviction and something done well, an area explored in depth by Burgoyne. The interview was fairly casual and was open to a Q&A from the floor, so I was preparing questions throughout as how often do you have the chance to ask Stephan Sagmeister a question? Not a lot.

Q&A  (27/04/2017)

Explain your interest in beauty and what prompted you to investigate it?

Well i think ultimately it might not have come out in the talk that much yes its true i saw a transparency between architecture from the medieval times to whats being built in the 60s, 70s and 8-0s, but from a much more studio related level, we actually came to beauty through function. Like we discovered whenever we took form seriously then it just seemed to work and that we keep it a number of times, and we found out how this really worked, so the goal of the client could be achieved.. And if the form, and the form related, and that played a big part in that then I just started to investigate it. Years and years ago I did a short talk about it in India that was loopy and didn't make much traction at all, then i resurrected it amongst the projects and our own studio project kind of rose and I had to shorten the talk quite bit to keep within that 45 minutes distance. Normally I have quite a few number of projects from the studio in there where I can show actual ‘this is a project where we took form and really pushed it and these were the results’. There was one which it was for a cloud company, basically its a company that wrote a very sophisticated piece of software that wrote a large number of data onto the cloud, and they wanted to show security, normally this was all done through padlocks and big metal and heavy type with bars infront of it, that sort of thing, and we came in with something completely different and the client who pulled in all the data and really reaped the reward, it was the most successful solution and it had something to do with form that nobody else did, and the interesting part is that when it was published also on design blogs it was badly reviewed by other designers, but it was also designers who said ‘yeah yeah this shit is just for Sagmeister & Walsh’s Portpholio’, but actually in real life this model works. And unbeknown to us, the scene over our client wrecked those blogs and exerted himself in the discussion, and said ‘no no you guys don't get it’, the only reason isn't that we really made it this way because we hoped it was going to work, this was a really functional piece; yes it looked pretty but it really functioned to its purpose.

  If there is a lack of ornament or experimentation with form, how much of that comes from fear? How much of that comes from putting something out there where there is lots to disagree with? A very simplified almost psudo-modernist approach is a safe bet because there is less to argue about?

Yes, absolutely. You know lets say if you do a gallery the safest thing is to do white walls, and if you’re doing a book then the safest thing is to put everything on white, and its true if you put everything on white then the chances you are going to fuck up is somehow lower, than if you use something or really insert something into it. I also feel that this has gone so unbelievably far that so much of that stuff that works in meanings when you can go through a piece infront of a client and say this thing and that thing and this thing, but it never works in real life. I mean an easy example would be airline exit cards, you know its pure its all built on the principles from the 1920s, working on a symbol syetem introduced by another Austrian, and so basically all the way until about four years ago all the airlines were doing cards like this- they were built that way for purely functional reasons, and I am on the plane maybe once a week- its a rare week when i’m not on a plane- and I have never ever seen a single person take that card out of the pocket and actually look at it. So, very clearly from a functionality point of view this is zero. This does not work. But, it didn't seem to deter any of the airlines- I have a collection of hundreds of these cards, I steal them because they say do not remove from the Airplane, and I have hundreds of them built on this idea from the 1920s, and its so interesting because if the airplane designers were to be as dull and as stupid as graphic designers are then we would all still fly the plane from the Night Brothers, this is not the 1920s, and somehow these things get there momentum on their own, some airlines must have noticed this clearly isn't working, so instead of putting it on a card lets print it on the little shift table, so you would basically have to stare at it for the duration of your flight- and that still didn’t work. And I think it really started working when either New Zealand Air or Virgin first discovered they had a video screen on their plane, and so they could make a fun video out of this stuff. And I know the Virgin video has at least 60million views on Youtube seen by people not even on planes. I feel there is a manor about the classic modernist layout, yes it looks appealing because you can read it, but it doesn't mean someone will actually read it. I mean there are so many, three are whole categories about, like if you take an architecture book, by its design it is already not readable because if you have a book that is this large and has a lot of text in it, how are you going to read it? Are you going to sit at a coffee table like this and read all long text? Likely you’re not, its just this faux intellectualism, its just an faux-interlectual ornament.

(Austerity. SS: Yes exactly)

I remember having very excited arguments about this with a UK critic who shall remain unnamed, who was a very much a champion of the classic format for a design and an artwork, and my opinion is that it also feel like designer, it should not just be a white box that features some of that work but the whole thing should feel like that. He was very much against that, from my point of view I wanted the argument as it seems tat the books that are designed holistically are doing much better; they are selling much better and other designers have more interest in it.

If there is this fear of ornament how much does it come from this ideas that designers like to portray what they do as the solution to a problem, that there are a series of logical steps that leads to this solution and only this solution?

I’ve heard specifically in regular press i’ve seen interviews with designers in the regular press where the journalist asks ‘so you’re all about making things look good’ and invariably the answer of the designer is ‘oh not thats not what we’re about at allll.. we’re all about concept or solving problems to whatever it is, my feeling when this is a suspicion, that most of the people who are saying this don't know how to make something look good and I find that its actually incredibly difficult to make something look good and i’m not talking about copying art decor and it looks fine, but to come up with something that is aesthetically pleasing in a 21st century now kind of way is incredibly difficult. Max Bill actually wrote very eloquently about this and his stance (Max Bill being the original modernist designer, before Muller-Brockman/Tshichold/Vignelli etc) his view was that it has to functionally work, but beauty has to be a goal for anything to actually work. Say a chair, a chairs main function is to sit on, however that chair can have many side functions, and an easy one might be that if that chair is totally gorgeous, you can expand its longevity..if its a really beautiful chair then one might get it repaired as apposed to an ugly chair that you throw out after something breaks on it. Beauty might have a total environmental effect as people are keeping things for much longer, i’ve been waling around with a leather bag i’ve had for 25 years. I’ve had it repaired a dozen times simply because I think its beautiful not because its particularly practical or anything.. so I have not bought another leather bag in 25 years as a result. But theres many other side functionalities a bag or a chair may have  which can be improved by beauty.

So are you equating beauty with ornament?

No, not at all. I think that i didn't make that quite clear in the talk. No not at all, I think that the easiest way I could say it is from a philosopher from the United States who said that ‘we find beauty in things done well’, and this can be completely minimalistic, meaning i’ve just literally spent a night in the ‘house of light’, James Thuells private place that you can rent out and sleep beneath the sky scape, it couldn't be any more minimal, it was simply a square hole in the ceiling and it was overpowering beauty. Beauty that you could feel and touch and, and I went with a friend who is not in the art world and not necessarily swooned by art pieces and she was completely transformed by it. There is not an ornament to be seen anywhere in that figure so its not about ornament, its very much about the maker putting a lot of love, care and attention into this thing.

Presumably this could be expressed in non visual aspects as well? You were talking earlier about things like app design, surely there must be a certain beauty in things which just work well and leaves you feeling good rather than frustrated.. thats a form of beauty surely?

What I find is key is that area for a second is that in many of the wrong line application, including digital applications, there is quite an absence of beauty as a goal. Even if we keep with the most quoted company, look at Apple, there is a clear delight in the product, meaning we haven’t quite got use to them yet. There is clear delight and thought that went into the packaging, I mean so many people comment on what a little theatre it is when they unpack an iPhone or whatever it is; and I find much less of that on the Apple website, yes, it seems to have a somewhat similar aesthetic but not the same amount of thought or sacrifice that goes into it. Johnathon Ives was once talking about the stand of the old iMac, and how he worked to have that same thing made out of a single piece rather than living with the tiny seam that would be there when made out of two pieces, and the result of this was actually changing manufacturers. For those of us who have ever made anything in large numbers, changing manufacturers for a company like Apple is craaazyyyy that is too much work that there are so many difficulties to change your entire production line for something thats made in the millions, and all that trouble just because Johnathon thought he didn't like that little seam line that was there, at the back of the iMac that most customers would likely not see. I don’t see that same power and will of absence with their online office.

I wonder how much of that is because of the impact of UX, UI and data on the digital world..I guess that collision of a soft wear engineering mindset, a science mindset and a design mindset mitigates more towards universal standards rather than things departed from ‘the norm’?

I’ve fallen into this trap myself and I think a good example for me would be charity work, I mean when we take on a charity we don’t do it to enter it into D&AD we do it because we think we can help that charity, and we only take charities on that we really believe in, and i mean that mindset of what can we do to really help them? Beauty goes out the window because its like ‘who gives a shit about beauty we have to save whatever,’ the rainforest or whatever it is and I’ve just had an example of a young designer that use to work with us, very form heavy, who is muslim and he got involved with a charity close to his heart, its some sort of anti-trump charity that protests about the signing off of muslims, and the stuff that he sent me to show on my Instagram was extremely cold and was just a map of the US with just some san serif type  and because I did actually believe in his cause I did actually feature it and it got the lowest distribution, i’m not even talking about likes, it got the lowest distribution of the month. And i’m not just saying this because all our followers are pro-trump, they have responded extremely well to lots of anti-trump things we have shown and I am convinced that this was totally connected with its formal coldness. I actually advised him to totally redesign it and run it again again, or stay with that subject for a second, I have talked to the chief designer of a very large online platform about at least testing if a more beautiful version of this would work better, and even though its so possible, they never even considered it. They never ran a version that was more form based next to the one completely modernist and grid based and see if their was a difference. 

From the Sagmaister Q&A I realised that ideas again are at their most powerful broken down, and the value of beauty can be an emotion just as much an aesthetic quality. The most powerful design can also be the most simple. Sagmeister was a calm and collected speaker, and looks at design fully holistically, something I want to take on in the future as it was clear from the whole D&AD experience, that design is in no way a stand alone thing- design is the silent partner making everything function efficiently, or at all! The removal of design is the removal of soul and the removal of a brain from the designer is removing any potential the design could have on the world. Keep it simple.