Vignelli v. Wild

Long Live Modernism
Massimo Vignelli

On Overcoming Modernism
Lorraine Wild

The more I read about the battle between Modernism and Post Modernism, the Cranbrook and CalArts approach versus that of the Bauhaus and designers like Vignelli, the more I find myself cemented in the middle of this debate. I don't often take the cop out road of undecided, but it this instance, this argument, I can't decide. Cranbrook and Post Modernism are all about experimentation and form over function, aesthetics over relay of message, and Modernism breathes the phrases "design is Communication, design is problem solving."

Vignelli is the ultimate Modernist. Initially I was not a fan of modernism, back when I was a "art student." To me it was all about aesthetics, "Oh that looks cool and that attracts my eye," never about the works function or purpose. But when I read the interview with Vignelli, there was two things that he said that made me re-evaluate how I work...

"Design must solve a problem, then the design is exciting"

"There can be a fascination in vulgarity, but there is no beauty. A vulgar woman is never beautiful"

Honestly reading these two quotes put Modernism in perspective. For a large portion of my life that is all I was doing, creating vulgarity. It makes sense, people stare at vulgarity just as much as they do beauty, but it's not in the same way. Vulgarity is stared at because if it's shock value, it's stared at so it can be mocked and ridiculed. It's starred at because it doesn't start with a problem and end with a solution, it only enhances the original problem. It is that respect of Modernism that I agree with. If your not designing to problem solve, then what are you doing it for? If not, then it's just art, and I am no commercial artist.

But I have found that there are Post Modernist writers who feel as deeply about their movement as Vignelli does about Modernism. Lorraine Wild is one of them. The way she explains the Post Modernist, lets me see that it is necessary as well. Again, it is something that she said that made it click.

"Someone who refers to a design as beautiful, ugly, good or bad is not talking as much about the object as about himself"

"The pressure on the young designer is not to become a star, a master or mistress of the universal, but to be a participant in communication process, a co-conspirator, a co-author maybe even an author/designer. This is why the development of the personal voice or agenda has emerged as an important new aspect in the training of young designers today."

This is where my struggle starts. Vignelli's comments made so much sense, and they still do, but this aspect if the "personal voice" is so important to me. I like to have my own style, I like people to know that hey, that is Jarred Kolar's work, but I also want them to know my work is not purely aesthetics. I want to have beautiful complex and signature work, but I want it to follow the rules, I want it to also be known as tight and well thought out, to achieve a solution for the problem presented and that it was successful in that right.

In this aspect I cannot call myself a Modernist or a Post Modernist, I fall into that vague middle ground, a Semi Modernist a Middle Modernist, and to me that is okay as long as I achieve the aspects of both movements in harmony with eachother.

What is GD? Is what you want to make it, Modernism Post Modernism, who gives a shit, just do you.

What is TYPE? Same as GD, make it you but make it work.

RESPONSIBILITIES? To help other people understand what is being communicated, clearly.

More VALUABLE?Take this time to decide my style, my path and find out what works for me.