In the Anti Design Festival Manifesto (2010), Neville Brody proposes that design has been in a state of Deep Freeze for the past 25 years. If this correct, what are the likely causes?
September 2010 witnessed an all too easily forgotten eight-day
extravaganza of installations, workshops, performances and lectures in various
spaces around Shoreditch E2. The Anti Design Festival – note the strategic use of the noun ‘anti’, not
the adjective – was launched amid a blizzard of critical commentary
by the wannabe enfant terrible of British design – Neville Brody. Running alongside the established London Design Festival,
this chaotic celebration of failure was a proclamation that design had arrived
at the eve of a new dawn.
In the accompanying manifesto, Brody insisted that design
had become too comfortable with commerce, that money has usurped creativity. He
postulated that we had endured a 25 year ‘cultural deep-freeze’ [17]. There is
far too much navel gazing. The design for designers market produces artifacts destined
for design museums, with minimal cultural application. “Nothing is new anymore,
just new versions of the old”. [2]
The fact that a cultural chill has been
upon us for ‘25 years’ is significant. Rewind those 25 years and Brody was the
young designer du jour who was breaking all the rules with his exquisite,
groundbreaking work for The Face. [15]
The 1980’s heralded
the triumph of neoliberalism in the west. The prevailing economic policy insists
that services are best provided by the private sector rather than the state. This
political doctrine has seen a coercion of the arts to become financially self-sufficient,
to operate more like businesses.
The
Government decided that art and culture were no longer about the public
interest, but instead existed to make money, and that they should pay for
themselves. The direct result of this is that only projects and ideas that
stood a good chance of turning a profit or putting bums on seats would get
produced. [14]
The
cultural fall-out has seen a safety-first appetite for revivalism and the
procedural narrowing of the creative spectrum. As a consequence, culture appears
to have lost its momentum.
From deep
individualised complexity to mass generic simplicity. Less is less, and in our
trance-like state the options we are presented with are hypnotically familiar,
no matter where we are in the world. [14]
Until the
mid 80’s, design was essentially virtuous; its role was to efficiently communicate
the benefits of a product, service or organisation. The new political landscape
encouraged highly competitive markets to employ a range of nascent marketing
techniques. Graphic design was seen as a device that could best deliver the
consumer imperative of ‘style’. Design was compelled to adopt a deceptive
dimension in order to fulfill this service function.
The creative sphere has lost sight of its purpose; the enticements
of money and success have produced a culture of conformity, of second-guessing the market. [15]
of money and success have produced a culture of conformity, of second-guessing the market. [15]
Culture has become “mass
culture”, eagerly consumed by an increasingly style conscious audience. In many ways Brody and
his contemporaries were responsible for the popularization of design. The 1980’s and 90’s have been declared the age of design.
Design has been
hijacked by corporate and institutional forces in order to add spin and gloss
to all aspects of communication [14]
Starbucks is more
indicative of our era of design than the iMac. The company employs dozens of
designers to ensure their stores ‘design language’ remain fresh and
distinctive. [12]
25 years of stagnation may be a
reference to the creative explosion that occurred at the end of the 1970’s.
Punk was the anti-establishment, youth movement that became an empowering cultural phenomenon. Nothing
since has had the same wide-ranging impact. The underground is now exposed.
Subversion and dissent have become assimilated into the mainstream.
By the
90’s, design had infiltrated every aspect of underground and anti-establishment
style. What was once deemed revolutionary was by now standard commercial
culture. The radical fringes of design have been assimilated into the mainstream
in order to market trainers and soft drinks.
The radicalisation of British design that
started with Saville and Brody came to a crescendo with groups like Why Not
Associates, Fuel, Cartlidge Levene and Tomato, and represented a wave of
graphic expression that can compare favorably with Holland, Switzerland,
Japan, Germany and the USA [4]
The digital
revolution ushered in a new wave of designers. New technologies encouraged
design that was both highly complex and visually inventive. Designers Republic
and Attik were prominent in the early 2000s. In recent years, Jonathan
Barnbrook has combined politics and commerce in work that is part-protest,
part-art.
In a world
obsessed with appearance, design and advertising have become the ubiquitous texture
of popular culture. Everyone is design-literate, just as everyone is inherently
suspicious of its motives.
The gulf between image
and reality is an accepted part of political discussion as much as the
phenomenon of ‘spin’. Spin is accepted as the normal way to conduct public
affairs. Design has become too efficient to be believable. [13]
I suggest
that the following factors have had a profound influence on culture during the
past 25 years:
Political landscape
25 years
ago Britain was enduring Thatcherism at it’s union bashing, yuppie loving, bank
de-regulating, ‘lodsa money’
zenith. Tory policies spelt the end of traditional left wing
political opposition to neoliberalisation. Creativity is often at its most
potent when it has something to rail against. The removal of any seemingly
viable alternative to late capitalism has led to a pervading culture of
cynicism. By taking an ironic distance form the worst excesses of post Fordism,
we are free to consume with impunity.
Privatization
strategies have shaped the dominant political paradigm since Thatcher adopted
it as official political philosophy. Favoring free markets over government
regulation, associating liberty with personal choice of the consumer. [1]
As government set about stripping the state from everyday
life, free markets became the incorporeal fabric holding the social system
together. Design and advertising became essential business tools. Generating
value on the stock exchange is an exercise in branding and PR, marketing future
potential. This celebration of success culture inevitably led to market
crashes, the ‘dot com’ bubble burst and latter day global financial contagion.
Later, ‘young British
artists’ responded to sleaze and general right wingery by self-organisation and
tendencies to push the limits of taste. Co-opted, re-branded as part of Cool
Britannia [11]
A series of
‘velvet revolutions’ removed communist governments throughout Central and
Eastern Europe during the 1980’s. With the symbolic dismantling of the
Berlin Wall, western capitalist society could declare victory over socialism in
the east. The end of the cold war lifted the imminent threat of nuclear Armageddon.
This bland political landscape offers few of the ideological conflicts that have
inspired previous generations of politicised artists. Ironically, the
bewildering levels of bureaucracy inherent in late-capitalism are reminiscent
of Stalinist state control.
Since 1989 and the end
of communism, capitalism was hailed as the swaggering master of the universe. Political
philosophers declared history has ended. Ideological struggle has run its
course. [13]
The
collapse of communism spelled the meaningful ‘end of politics’. Popular culture
regards politics as corrupt and ‘boring’. Any attempt to debate the need for
social change is regarded as vaguely archaic. Political protest is reduced a
series of hysterical demands which have no realistic chance of success.
Cultural dynamics
By the last
half of the 20th century modernism, the last truly revolutionary
creative movement had been rendered obsolete by capitalism’s alter ego postmodernism.
Modernism proposed an
alternative, oppositional and Utopian culture whose class base was problematic,
and whose ‘revolution’ failed. When modernism (like the contemporary
socialisms) finally did come to power, it had already outlived itself, what
resulted from this postmodern victory was called postmodernism. [8]
Postmodernism
is the consumption of sheer commodification. Consumption is the only means of
obtaining the resources of life, whether material or cultural. Culture, the ideas,
customs and art circulated within a social system, has become just another
product.
The lack of any
alternatives to this cultural malaise is best illustrated by Jameson and Zizek,
who stated, “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine
the end of Capitalism”. [5]
Capitalisms
rapacious pursuit of profit is at odds with any notion of sustainability. The engines
of post-Fordism are fueled by a ceaseless diet of pastiche and revivalism. In late capitalism, stylistic innovation is no
longer practicable. The ceaseless rehashing of obsolete products and styles is another
signal that we are experiencing the ‘end of history’.
The
cynicism apparent in contemporary youth culture is symptomatic of a belief that
change is impossible. Instead of revolutionary demands for change as their
French counterparts of May 1968, today’s students only take to the streets in
order to try to prevent change.
Youth
movements have continued to influence design – most notably the late 1980s and
early 1990s acid house. However, every attempt to establish an alternative
lifestyle is quickly commodified and sold back to its instigators. ‘Alternative’
and ‘independent’ are no longer gestures of rebellion but are merely styles of popular
culture.
“There is no such
thing as underground because corporate culture has infiltrated youth culture
& utterly co-opted it. Youth has the comfort of material opportunity – but
as they hunt for something to believe in, corporate ‘cool hunters’ are lurking
in the shadows taking notes” – Rachel Newsome Dazed & Confused [13]
Hip-hop
with its uncompromising attitude and obsession with authenticity or ‘real’ has
been easily absorbed into the capitalist mainstream. ‘Reality’ originally meant
institutionalized racism, harassment by the police and social deprivation but
soon became a hedonistic celebration of the trappings of capitalism (bling).
Technology & media
The 1st
generation of desktop computers started to arrive in the workplace in the mid
80’s. The proliferation of these devices helped to break the cartel of the creative
industries, harnessing the power of the pixel to fuel the dark arts of
consumerism. These
devices provide a complete set of production tools for the user.
“Offset printing
changed what we could achieve on a press, Photoshop reinvented imaging,
Fontographer made everybody a type designer, and the PostScript page
description language made all of us production experts.” - Erik Spiekermann
[16]
The microcomputer was
an icon for neoliberalism and the power of free markets. Gorbachev said it was
the west’s success in high technology that inspired the Soviet Union to rethink
their economic model in the 80’s [3]
Demand for
graphic design has increased along with its do-it-yourself capability. The
audience has become the author. However, pre-set parameters encoded into
software mean that by definition everything digital is designed to look the
same.
The
‘information superhighway’ appeared in 1993 and quickly became the self-referencing
forum where ideological debates over meaning, pleasure, knowledge & power
are played out. The
web has liberated mass media. Prior to the Internet, a narrow elite of cultural
gatekeepers guarded access to the audience. The price of emancipation is a
digital blizzard of mediocrity.
“Instead of a dictatorship of experts, we’ll
have a dictatorship of idiots,” “Many bloggers flaunt their lack of training
and formal qualifications as evidence of their calling, their passion,” [6]
The Internet is producing the cult
of the amateur, a dumbing down of culture, in which innocence is replacing
expertise as the determinant of value. [10]
The World
Wide Web has become the connective tissue of society. It is the perfect vehicle
for today’s introspective digital narcissism – isolated in the connected world.
Andrew Keen sees this as ‘hypervisibility’ – being everywhere and nowhere
simultaneously. [9]
The Internet represents
perhaps the final step in the process of our rejection of the very notion of
culture having any value at all [6]
Conclusion
There are more qualified designers, producing more design,
than at any time in history. The power of the tools these designers are using
contribute to an increasingly complex and sophisticated visual dialogue. It is
difficult to believe therefore, that it is possible for there to have been any
quantifiable drop off in the quality of work produced during the past 25 years.
What is apparent is the socio-economic landscape has
diminished the cultural impact of graphic design. The all-pervading nature of
late capitalism ensures that any radical diversion is tempered by a combination
of cynicism and commodification.
Popular culture is not
consumption; it is culture – the process of generating & circulating
meanings & pleasures within a social system. [7]
Like many of his contemporaries, Brody has succeeded in
constantly re-inventing himself, ensuring the ‘brand of Brody’ remains relevant
fresh & spiky. In fact, one could easily come to the conclusion that the
whole ADF exercise is one of pure self-aggrandisement.
Where the ADF manifesto is more pertinent, is the assertion
that we stand on the brink of a new era. The political and cultural sterility
of the past 25 years may represent the final twitches of a doomed economic
ideology. Whatever ethos finally replaces late capitalism, it will need to
harness imagination and creativity in order to negotiate the impending threats
to mankind.
Bibliography:
[1] Barber, B.R. (2007) Consumed. 2nd
ed. New York: Norton
[2] Brody, N . (2011) Untitled.
(Lecture 18 February 2011 as part of the Faculty of Design Lecture Programme at
the London College of Communication, curated by Sarah Temple and Joshua Trees)
Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LmPKwfHABk&list=PL21AE901DF8436463&index=7&feature=plpp_video
[3] Calabrese, A, Sparks, C. (2004)
Toward a political economy of culture. Marylnd: Rowman & Littlefield
[4] Dennis, T. (2010) Iconic eras of
UK design. Available online at http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/iconic_eras_of_uk_design
[5] Fisher, M. (2009) Capitalist
realism. London: Zero Books
[6] Flintoff, JP (June 3, 2007 ) Thinking is so over,
interview with net entrepreneur Andrew Keen. The Sunday Times
[7] Fiske, J. (1989) Understanding
popular culture. 2nd ed. London: Routledge
[8] Jameson, F. (1991)
Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso
[9] Keen, A (2012 ) Digital Vertigo. Available online
at http://www.ajkeen.com
[10] Keen, A and Bell, E (2007)
Andrew Keen v Emily Bell available online at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/10/andrewkeenvemilybell
[11] Merron, A (2010) Speakers
Corner. Available online at
http://www.ameliasmagazine.com/art/anti-design-festival-as-seen-by-participant-dave-charlesworth/2010/10/12/
[12] Postrel, V. (2003) The
substance of style. London: Harper Collins
13] Poynor, R. (2001) Obey the
giant. 2nd ed. Basel: Birkhauser
[14] Relph-Knight, L. (2010) Guide
to the Anti Design Festival Design Week. 14/09/10 pp15
[15] Sharratt, C. (2010) An
anti-design for life. Available online at http://www.creativetimes.co.uk/articles/an-anti-design-for-life
[16] Webster, G. (2010) A decade of
graphic design. Available online at http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/a_decade_of_graphic_design
[17] Anti Design
Manifesto (online) Available at http://antidesignfestival.wordpress.com
