The book asks the question of "why". Why pursue something in the first place? Why do you do what you do? And then the question becomes, do you love what you're pursuing? Taking the time to STOP and think about the "why" is crucial to finding what you're good at, and your place in the graphic design world.
Design is more than design. Design can inspire, destroy, and create new inventions. I connected with the quote "this book is about learning from ourselves" because I feel it's important to be able to learn from others that are in the same field as you. You can learn from their experiences, their mistakes, and their victories to help better yourself.
"Design is visible everywhere, yet it is also invisible—unnoticed and unacknowledged."
Before dipping my toes in the ocean of graphic design I never really looked at design or even noticed it. Yeah, that company created something with cute package design. But I never actually looked as if I were a scientist studying a micro-organism under a powerful microscope.
Since taking the typography class I can't help but notice typefaces that surround, and haunt me every day. And the different ways people use design (good or poorly). It's almost a curse...like a werewolf curse.
Design is an extremely strange thing where it's almost it's own story of Jekyll and Hyde. Graphic design moves in such a strange yet magical way. It creates polar opposites in ideas and methods. But by creating these opposites it fuels the creative mind of designers within the field.
Collective Authorship:
When it comes to design authorship vs anonymity I personally am on the ship named Authorship. I want people to know I created a specific piece. I want people to hire me because they like my style of work. I feel that being anonymous has it's perks when you're doing graffiti, or pulling a Banksy. And I can understand where the Swiss were coming from when they wanted to remain neutral in their designs. But I feel that embracing who you are and using it to create a design helps you make something far more creative compared to what other's are doing today.
I think that design has it's place to be what the Constructivists had in mind: creative work serving a practical purpose. But I feel that graphic design of today is a huge ocean of different opportunities filled with different species of organisms. Graphic design can be creative, serve a practical purpose, AND contain a piece of the person within the design.
I think it's the personality and background of the designer that makes each designer stick out. Those who do not place pieces of themselves into their work end up looking, and creating, like everyone else. I think that our different backgrounds and personalities help us to come up with different, and creative solutions to different design problems.
Universality:
"Designers currently create through a series of restrictive protocols. Software applications mold individual creative quirks into standardized tools and palettes."
I feel that the classic pencil and paper has more power to tap into the creative well, compared to using only software to design. I feel that software hinders creative quirks. There's just something magical that happens when you start by sketching on a napkin and using physical mark making tools to create something.
Social Responsibility:
I like that graphic designers aren't so much as focused on creating logos and package design, but they're also using their creativity to spark a change they want to see. Design has such a strong influence that even I still can't understand the phenomena.
With Constructivism artists were no longer individuals but rather worker bees in a collective hive. The Swiss style designers distanced themselves from social responsibility and chose to mind their own beeswax and serve the collective hive as well. Ironically, because of these design movements cultures still were capable of change.
I feel that we designers can be an extremely powerful force for good. I feel that it's important to not be a bee or a sheep in the design world. Design is more than creating logos, advertisements, etc. Designers are the people that are more capable of being the change they wish to see. We have the knowledge and power of visual design to help shape our communities and world.
The Wacom tablet pen is mightier than the sword.
