越 yue

https://issuu.com/8yue8/docs/critical_regionalism

And so, after 12 weeks of Communication Design Studies, our journey of documentation comes to an end. This will be the last post about content, while I will continue with more progress about my zine project! All in all, I feel that this subject has been an extremely fulfilling and humbling experience in my time at RMIT. Although it’s been a rather short one at around 13 weeks, it’s quite astounding that we have gone from the early beginnings of script and writing to where design is even set to be headed in the future. We live in a time that is infinitely changing, and although many would say that it is for the worse considering the geopolitical and climate related issues. I do firmly believe that our generation has not only the capacity but also the responsibility of being the next step in progression of communication design.  Surrounded by us in this program is an endless sea of artists, virtuosos and thinkers. It’s important to keep the conversation going, we need to be synthesizing more, working more, and talking more. And I must extend my endless gratitude to the lecturers and tutors of this course; while at first my attention to the subject was at an admitted minimum, the content of Communication Design Studies were so richly and densely packed with interesting facets of our lives, history and design that it was impossible to not take attention to it. Overall, the Communication Design Studies program will be one that I look back on and long for again. I’m not sure if I’ll be a designer forever, nor am I sure I’ll be studying communication design, but I am sure that this wealth of knowledge will be useful for a long time coming.

The Seashore Library, by VECTOR. This would be a great addition to the zine.

This is the Church of Light, by Japanese architect, Tadao Ando. During my research of ideas for my zine, I came across the thought of having an architect as my subject, and the choice of Tadao Ando was natural. Being known as a “master” of light when making his buildings and designs, he represents the idea of critical regionalism, where the design philosophy focuses around the physical, cultural and geographical context of a building. The Church of Light uses almost only natural light to illuminate the premises, where the pews and lectern are lit by the ‘god rays’. I spoke to my lecturer about my selection and he raised a good point. While Tadao Ando’s works are very interesting and worthy of a zine exploring them, it would be disingenuous to make an interview with him while he’s still alive. Thus, I felt it would be better to make my project about the school of thought that Tadao Ando’s work represented - the Critical Regionalists.

As part of our course practical, we were asked to make a positive word with some cutout from magazines and publications that we have found. Our group eventually settled on the word “Happy”. In times like these, where we’re all stuck at home with nothing to do, it is really important to try to remain positive, to remain happy. Of course, there are definitely going to be factors that detract from this, as social beings, humans have an innate need and desire to interact with one another (despite what us introverts tell each other it’s probably still good to talk to someone once in a while). This exercise really affirmed the fact that design and the “grid” are all things that ultimately revolve around perspectives and how people see things. Patterns exist innately in nature and it’s really important to consider what other people may see in things that you may see differently to. That’s the importance of having conversations in design and art, in life.

So at this point in the course, we’ve learned that, over the years, we as humans have complicated design, we’ve gone and made a grid that words should go into, we decided that some words should go on certain parts of the page when paired with pictures. But why do we design? That was the question that prevailed. In 1964, the “First Things First” manifesto (Ken Garland) was completed and released. As such, it said that the designers of the time were being restrained too much by the industry. People were designing only for the corporate setting, where not enough experimentation meant an industry that was getting stale and old with its styles. Indeed, design was an art that had its theories and rules, but was it completely necessary to always follow these rules? As a result, designers were reminded to rethink and re-remind themselves of their priorities in designing. While the notions of designing for a corporate identity or product were still completely valid options, people were now encouraged to break rules, to make new workflows, and to broaden their range of practices and influences. This became extraordinarily apparent with the advent and introduction of the personal computers. Suddenly, artists and designers had even more products and tools at their disposal, eventuating into what we see now as contemporary design. This part of the course really reminded me of this almost-epiphany I had at the beginning of this year, shaping my question for the first assignment too. While it was important to make design that helped other people, that had purpose, it was equally important to make design that had no purpose.