Revisiting the Avant-Garde

Armstrong, Helen. Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Pages 9-15. 

Questions / Prompts

  • According to this author, what role should design play in society?
  • What distinguishes the field, or fields, of design from other creative occupations?
  • Why should designers concern themselves with unsolvable theoretical questions?
  • What role does technology play in shaping design?
  • What are the most urgent problems facing designers today?
  • How, and why, is a designer responsible for solving these problems?

Revisiting the Avant-Garde

Armstrong, Helen. Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field, Princeton Architectural Press, 2009. Pages 9-15. 

Questions / Prompts

  • According to this author, what role should design play in society?
  • What distinguishes the field, or fields, of design from other creative occupations?
  • Why should designers concern themselves with unsolvable theoretical questions?
  • What role does technology play in shaping design?
  • What are the most urgent problems facing designers today?
  • How, and why, is a designer responsible for solving these problems?

Reading Response – Draft

According to this author, design should play a role in society that is more inclusive of all extremities and adaptations, but also focused on taking the roles of owning one’s own content, being open to taking part across entire communities and the world, as well as understanding and involving social aspects rather than detaching from them. The fields of and within design tend to distinguish themselves from other creative occupations due to their adverse adaptability to mediums, and how designers are now choosing to represent themselves rather than stay biased towards one subject-well, unbiased I’d say. Past designers such as Paul Rand and many others lived and created designs during a movement that was much more based on corporations and national representation within the faces of businesses whilst modern designers have a much more globalized and liberalized perception. Technology itself has played a large part in this shift of perspective from designers, as globally we are able to communicate and perceive each other across cities, nations and continents. In addition to this vast increase of communication, we are additionally able to interpret one another’s forms of design and gather insight and influences based on those observations. Of course prior to advanced internet and technology, designers were only able to gather regional influence or would have to make lengthy decisions to move across countries in order to pursue their career goals. In today’s society, what seems to be a minor problem is soon growing into an urgent one, being the concept of whether designers are able to keep up with a society that is immersed in production and consumerism. Of course, while many would love to pursue their design careers, it adds the questions of whether it is an essential career that can keep a nation running through contributing to it rather than keeping it individualized to oneself in authorship, along with social responsibilities. As designers face these issues of social responsibility, proper authorship and universality, it begs to question that are these issues meant for designers to solve? In an evolving technological society, and what I can gather from taking note of my peers and family around me, I would say that the impact designers have in the modern age is very large and it shapes ourselves, especially and literally down to the impacts of social media. The way we are able to see media online is almost entirely based on the way they are designed in function, and online “feeds” that are individualized for the consumer creates a domino effect in what they absorb. Through making sure that designers maintain a moral focus in their work and communicating across fields to create perspectives, it is important to note the responsibilities one would have when it comes to design and producing it.

Hypothesis Annotations

  1. Explanation/Response: Digital technology puts creation, production, and distribution into the hands of the designer, enabling such bold assertions of artistic presence. 
  2. Definition: Free Culture movements
  3. Definition: Ambiguity