Abstract
In case you haven't heard about the Netflix Documentary called Abstract: The Art of Design, it's a series that document famous designers including architecture, photography, automotive, footwear, graphic, illustration, interior, and stage design.
I've been saving episodes 1 and 6 for last because they are Christoph Niemann (an illustrator) and Paula Scher (a graphic designer). If you read my last post, you know that Paula Scher led the design of the Shake Shack identity system. Hoping they would talk about that project, I was ready to watch her episode. They never talked about it; however, they did have Ellen Lupton talking in front of the original Shake Shack location.
No matter what area of design you create in, there's always something that can be learned from another area which can be incorporated into yours.
Watch now: https://www.netflix.com/title/80057883
The following are some of my favorite quotes from Season 1 of Abstract: The Art of Design.
Episode 1: Christoph Niemann
*Quoting Chuck Close*
Inspiration is for amateurs, us professionals we just go to work in the morning.
The one thing I really love about that quote is that it relieves you of a lot of pressure. It’s not about waiting for hours for this moment where inspiration strikes. It’s just about showing up and getting started and then something amazing happens or it doesn’t happen. All that matters is you enable the chance for something to happen and for that you have to sit at your desk and draw and do and hope for the best.
The only way to grow is to loosen up.
This approach of not planning opens a new door. It leads to these magic moments.
Being more free spirited is necessary. I found that I need to develop these two personas separately be a much more ruthless editor and be a much more careless artist.
But when I realized my fears threatened to take a toll on my work, I decided I had to deal with them. Relax. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
I actually totally disagree. You have to practice and become better. Every athlete, every musician, practices everyday. Why should it be different for artists?
Design celebrates the world.
My goal is to speak visuals like a pianist speaks piano, like someone can control the keys and can convey different emotions through that language.
Episode 2: Tinker Hatfield
A basic design is always functional but a great one will say something.
One of the problems in design is how you’re going to make it newer and different year to year.
If people don’t either love or hate your work, then you just haven’t done all that much.
Episode 6: Paula Scher
Go into the lady’s room, put on your lipstick, and figure it out.
You have to be in a state of play to design. If you're not in the state of play, you can’t make anything.
I never thought about myself as a feminist. Yet when I working at CBS records in the 70s, women in the design business at that time were agents, they were reps....
It’s quite wild when you see it first hand. All of a sudden you turn around and go “oh my god” *slaps her own face* “that was sexism!” You know, there it is and it’s like any other ism. If I’m sitting with a new client, I can see in the first glance that he’s wondering why he’s got this old lady. I just thought, “I’m a designer. Look at it!”
Design a visual language where you don’t have to see the logo to know who it is. You’re not changing somebody, you’re making them a more perfect vision of where they started. Your job is to get a person, a group, or a whole coporation to see.
The design of the logo is never really the hard part of the job, it’s persuaded a million people to use it.
I’m driven by the hope that I haven’t made my best work yet
Episode 7: Platon Photography
“Why me?”
This old lady in the bed next door said “young man, why not you? What's so special about you?”
After a while I realized if I can harness the experience of what happened to me, I now know what it is to hurt. That is a door to something you've never had before. That is empathy.
I realized from now on, the hero is the person who inspires us to think again about our own moral compass and our own responsibility as global citizens.
