From Word to Image

I admit that I am a sentimental fool; I have a soft spot for the old poets, and I believe there is so much sincerity in writings of the past. Before becoming a graphic design major I was an English major (and, incidentally, I plan on going back into English.) I consider myself a moderate-to-average reader. I’ve read a humble number of things from the Western canon, and I enjoy learning about cultural periods of thought, especially Modernism. Modernity implies a certain amount of purpose in what you read and write. Everything seemed more thoughtful (but that is probably the false lens of borrowed nostalgia,) and education was seen as self-exploration. Postmodernism came with a deplorable cynicism and a disavowal of structure. It reads like a criticism that offers no solutions. Now, we live in a post-postmodern culture. This is the information age -- or the aftermath of it. It is a very strange period to be young and in college. This the age of Wikipedia, the age of the iPhone, and the age of Youtube. Nothing is truly mysterious to us the young, and there are probably some very pertinent questions which should come to our minds which simply do not. In other words, the definition of understanding has shifted. And understanding has been democratized to a crippling degree. What we call an education is truly the bare minimum. Designers have a responsibility to make information accessible but not facile.

To use an analogy, imagine the difference between Halloween bite-sized candies and a three-course French dinner. The candies are portable, easy-to-swallow, and sweet. This represents information processed by design--edited to curt convenience and made accessible to a wide audience. They satisfy sweet-tooth cravings and they are technically food, but a good parent would hardly call this kind of junk food a meal to a growing child. And what of that three-course French dinner? It seems an antiquated notion. In effect you are eating three very small meals, not hastily, but with time to breathe and let the food rest on your palate. You appreciate the taste. You compliment the flavors. You give your stomach a chance to process the types of food. This represents a book or longer piece of writing, in general. Assuming you are reading at a pace you can manage comfortably, you are processing more information and pushing your brain to extract as much information and ideation from the work as possible. It is an amazing fact that our culture, seemingly consumed with the idea of large quantities in every other facet of living, drops the ball when it comes to reading. Most folks vote for politicians without even the faintest research of their platform. Religious and non-religious people alike say the most embarrassingly asinine things in the name of ideology which would become apparent to them if they only meandered into a book or two on the subject in question.

A quip from Samuel Clemens, which is as true today as it was then:

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”

And this leads into a Whitman quote I enjoy…

The past and present wilt --- I have fill’d them. emptied them,

And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?

Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,

(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.

Who has done his day’s work? who will soonest be through with his supper?

Who wishes to walk with me?

Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

-- Walt Whitman. 51 from “Song of Myself.” Leaves of Grass 1855, 1881.

Ah…

Yes….

Uh…..