Walter Benjamin, in his classic "Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction," foresaw some aspects of the design zeitgeist that would come in the late twentieth century, but no amount of Frankfurt School prescience could have predicted the new wave of... [more]

Walter Benjamin, in his classic "Art In The Age Of Mechanical Reproduction," foresaw some aspects of the design zeitgeist that would come in the late twentieth century, but no amount of Frankfurt School prescience could have predicted the new wave of maverick pixel pushers who dominate the current design scene. Classical forms collide with colloquial forms to explosive effect in the designs of the Digital Era. Low-tech, bit-mapped "grunge" typography and layout strategies, which have been pioneered in magazines such as Beach Culture and Raygun, seemingly work to dishonor content. But often in the same layout, elegant new fonts extend the symbolic language of type. Californian designer April Greiman sends a life-sized, low-resolution, black and white, digitized, nude self-portrait to numerous Los Angeles art directors to attract corporate design clients. Typographic iconoclasts Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko bypass the design establishment process of approval, nurturing a cult following through the simultaneous activities of their type foundry, magazine, and record label, all run under the corporate umbrella Emigr'. They've even published their own career monograph, the invaluable "Emigr' (the Book): Graphic Design Into The Digital Realm." The similarities between the latest breed of digital designers and Punk and Electronica musicians are unavoidable. Thanks to digital scanners and sound sampling devices, the appropriation of imagery and music has increased to epic proportions since the 1980s. Sophisticated means of production, virtual equivalents of the recording studios and press facilities of yore, are readily and inexpensively available to run on a personal computer. Renegade designers are less likely to cite the pioneering work of a Brand or a Brodovich, preferring to follow the example of the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten, a vocalist who couldn't sing, but whose anarchic drive inspired the formation of countless bands. The new graphic talents have not remained underground for long -- popularizers of radical design such as David Carson (often implementing Emigr' fonts within his torturous layouts) have moved from edgy zines like Beach Culture to ad campaigns for Microsoft and Giorgio Armani, describing a comet-like career trajectory in the process (chronicled in "David Carson: 2nd Sight: Grafik Design After The End Of Print" by David Carson and Lewis Blackwell). That a designer such as Carson has ascended so quickly without an academic grounding in design is no longer considered unusual, either. Like the hordes of techno artists functioning out of bedroom studios, graphic artists in the Digital Era are increasingly ruled by a plug-in-and-play ethos that skirts the formal constraints of established design paradigms. In a parallel stream of activity no less admired, the hands-on approach of Edward Fella yields slippery, organic forms on the page, the result of his revival of near-obsolete press and layout skills. "Utilitarian Pop art" was a phrase used by musician Frank Black to describe the album covers rendered by the English firm v23 -- the para-archeological visions of designer Vaughn Oliver -- for Black's band and fellow acts on the 4AD label. One cannot hear the word pop at this end of the century and not be reminded of Warhol; just as so many artists cultured entire careers from one brief phase of Warhol's work, the new crop of designers has reinvigorated the pop focus on the riotous colors, tattered edges, and off-register lithography of the Warhol print, the beauty latent in peripheral flaws. They will not be constrained by a sensible idea. "Six Essays on Design and New Media" by Jessica Helfand provides a concise and pinpointed dissection of this movement. [show less]