#swissted

Research point

From my scrapbook...

I like this poster, which is part of a project by graphic designer Mike Joyce of Stereotype Design in New York, because of its innovative use of type in which the ‘a’ of ‘jam’ has been effectively inserted into the letters ‘j’ and ‘m’. It’s interesting that, while this might be confusing, in actual fact the eye reads the word ‘jam’ as if it was written normally. I think this is partly achieved through the use of contrasting colours - red, black and off-white. I like the fact that, while the poster is apparently simple, its concise effectiveness has been achieved by a clever graphic sleight of hand, harking back to the mid-century Swiss design of designers like Joseph Muller Brockmann.

J.P. Hartnett on design history and the Swissted book/exhibition/posters in Eye Magazine from 2016:

The study of graphic design history is impoverished without access to its original artefacts, but as these are frequently difficult to obtain in a classroom scenario, serious scholarship on the subject – well researched, written, edited, illustrated and designed – provides a vital support for learning. This kind of material generally finds its best articulation in print, while the internet, for all its vast educational potential, does not yet appear capable of supplanting these combined qualities, nor of competing with the more holistic quality of learning experience that sustained engagement with print provides. This is not a nostalgic position, but one borne of practical concerns – taking into account not only the still often superior quality of print content, but also other important considerations such as the immersive nature of non-hyperlinked reading (vital for in-depth study and critical reflection) and the implicit educational value present in individually designed objects that are visually distinct from one another. There is also an argument for the worth of these objects as physical embodiments of historical moments in time (even when just a few years old), as opposed to the endlessly recycled, reposted and editable sources found online.

We must find ways to facilitate re-engagement with these non-digital sources in post-internet classrooms. The question is how to do this without appearing reactionary: efforts must constructively accommodate all aspects of the all-pervasive digital context that we find ourselves in, exposing the deep problems currently inherent in internet-only based reading and research, while at the same time taking advantage of the internet’s powerful capabilities to develop new ways to learn. How this is to be achieved I do not know yet. But if we let the internet drive the interpretation of design culture within a framework in which quantity, frequency and ease of access consistently trumps depth, then we might well be concerned for the level of historical awareness that graphic designers will display in future.