Toronto-based designer Bruce Mau has long been associated with big projects and big ideas. His approach has been called 'intellectual,' 'ambitious,' and 'striking,' but Mau doesn't always ascribe such grandiose visions to his work. According to the designer, he simply chooses...
[more]Toronto-based designer Bruce Mau has long been associated with big projects and big ideas. His approach has been called 'intellectual,' 'ambitious,' and 'striking,' but Mau doesn't always ascribe such grandiose visions to his work. According to the designer, he simply chooses to respect the reader's intelligence because, as he put it, 'We contribute a small moment of dignity in a culture that all too often panders to the lowest common denominator and in so doing, insults the intelligence of its citizens.'
Where many designers are trained to take the concepts of others and turn them into something functional and visually appealing, Mau takes a different turn. Rather than remaining satisfied with merely adding window dressing, he prefers to create design work that is an end unto itself. His work with Zone Books is both daring and innovative -- incredible detail, gate-folded covers, and crisp type all combine to give each book a unique look and feel. Photographs and engravings are supersaturated with color, while text weaves itself in and out of other design elements. The subjects are always less important than the impact of the visuals -- whether Mau fashions a book about anthropology or psychoanalysis, the images and typography become as significant to the reading experience as the original copy.
With a design philosophy that is about as far from typical corporate communications as you can get, Mau has stated, 'We'd rather be happy amateurs than sad professionals.' Perhaps his philosophy is best embodied by his collaboration with Rem Koolhaas on 'S, M, L, XL,' a behemoth of a manifesto that was published by Monacelli Press in 1996. Clocking in at a mind-boggling 1,300 pages, the book mixes essays, manifestos, diaries, fairy tales, travelogues, a cycle of meditations on the modern city, complex illustrations, blueprints, and more ideas than one person could process in a year. With themes ranging from modernity, density, and the advent of mega-cities, Koolhaas's concepts are brought to life by Mau's indelible artistic flair. One reviewer dubbed it a 'drop in anytime book,' in which an uninitiated reader can literally open the book to any page and begin a new journey. While some have criticized Mau and the book as being too sprawling or disjointed, others merely stand in awe of what has been widely acknowledged as a seminal work spanning many disciplines. Indeed, Koolhaas has explained that the sheer size of the work generates its own internal logic.
Mau's solo work also reflects his view that each element must be considered, both individually and in its relationship to the whole. As he said in a recent interview, 'Every object...incorporates other objects just as it is itself incorporated by other systems. The discrete object must always be considered in its manifold of relationships to its milieu.' At bottom, the designer strives to recognize the complexity inherent in even the simplest things. To Mau, the challenge lies in the creation of work that demonstrates embedded intelligence and that can retain an attractive and innate simplicity despite the deepest intellectual scrutiny.
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