Spring 2023 ︎︎︎Purchase College, SUNY
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(DES2460)DMD2
Reading: Designers and dilettantes
Elliott Earls, still from Catfish (Emigre no.62)︎Required Reading
Designers and Dilettantes
(From Design Observer, by Dimitri Siegel, 2007)
Background
This is our next reading. I have been thinking about it more in light of the “AI Revolution” and the acceleration with which it is heading, wherever it is heading (something we may confront/utilize in class). This article uses Elliott Earls and his work to have a greater discussion about the nature of design authorship; that is the idea of designers and their relationship to self-generated work. This was a relatively new, or at least en vogue, concept outlined by Michael Rock in the essay linked below. Elliott’s authorship was seen as part of a more “subversive” or at least, novel for the time, expression of this concept. He did performances, made typefaces, made sculptures, made music and, at the time of this article he was working on a feature-length film. Full disclosure, I did go to Cranbrook and Elliott is my personal friend. That does not mean you cannot express your opinions about his work or how it appears he runs the 2D at Cranbrook now. You might also ask Bill about his time at “the ‘brook” under the McCoy’s.
Other (Not Required, but Hopefully Elucidating) Contextualizing Material
- Cult of the Ugly︎ Steven Heller’s response to then-new work being produced in Graphic Design that Modernists (like Massimo Vignelli) found to be a “disease”
- Designer as Author︎ An essay about “authorship” through multiple lenses and in multiple disciplines and how it is perceived differently (in art vs. film for example)
Upload notes for this to the spreadsheet by 11:59PM next Wednesday, April 13th.
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