Almost all the talks I saw started with glimpses into the personal background from early childhood and the beginnings of their careers. While this is good for building an emotional connection with the audience, it also leaves a a bit of despair for those who haven’t found their thing yet. And although they all talked about working hard and improving over time, it gave the impression that they were born like that. With this passion for something. But what if you can’t decide which passion you want to follow and if you would be good at everything but are mediocre at some things because you don’t follow just that one path?
At some point, all those speakers stopped doing other things to do only what they enjoy, and that worked out quite well for them. But apart from making me feel like they were born geniuses, they all gave two good pieces of advice: Experimenting and Perfect is not the goal.
I was really impressed by Rik Ostenbroek and Gemma O’Brien. Both followed the call of their passion, both just did what they loved, both are amazing artists. Gemma was really inspiring and encouraging. She showed her sketchbook and what inspires her, which gave an amazing personal insight into her thinking and creative working process. Rik also gave a very personal insight into his early days. He was really the one who always just did what he wanted, up to the point where he stopped going to school. For both of them, social media and spreading their work on the internet were important factors for their success.
A more practical approach came from the studio The Mals and Gab Bois. The Mals are filmmakers and showed us behind the scenes and explained their working process. Everything they show in their videos is homemade from scratch. They don’t work with 3D software or Photoshop, they build everything by hand. One video was about orange juice and how you should shake it before drinking it, so they built a mini roller coaster and sent the juice through the loop. Gab Bois also works exclusively with real things when making her work. She explained that she only uses Photoshop to clean up the images, not to create them.
David Carson’s speech was very polarising. Most people I spoke to after the talk thought he was just an arrogant, rich, white man who wasted their time. Those who studied graphic design knew him but were not very impressed either, I think. In fact, he should not have dwelled so much on life in the Caribbean but otherwise it was an entertaining interesting lecture about not taking life too seriously.
I appreciate people who don’t care about other people’s opinions or what you should or shouldn’t do and therefore I liked his wee bit sarcastic attitude towards public opinion. I also think that if the world saw Carson as an artist rather than a graphic designer, he wouldn’t polarise so much. Because graphic design still serves a purpose in our minds, so it’s hard for us to accept that graphic design should be so experimental.
Carson started his career with being different and he didn’t and doesn’t care if people like what he does. His career is about breaking the rules of traditional graphic design. From today’s perspective, that may be outdated, but it used to bring a more artistic vibe to the field of graphic design. I think, Carson is to the design world what Duchamp was to the art world. Carson satirised the self-absorbed design world by flouting its conventions of rules and beauty. Whereas Duchamp took his readymades very seriously (at least I haven’t heard otherwise), I get the feeling from Carson’s work and behaviour that he is mocking the industry a bit. And just as Duchamp questioned the definition of art, he questioned the definition of graphic design. I think the idea was also that this artistic rather than functional approach should make recipients question their view and thinking of graphic design. At some point, it is more attractive to break with conventions, to be different and unique, than to do a good job and stick to the rules. Just as in the art world today the Impressionists are far better known than the Salon artists in the wake of Jacques-Louis David, even though they were not very respected by the public at the time. The same is true of many artists of more recent art history. What distinguished them was their break with tradition. So, in the end, maybe the best way IS to just do what you love and stick with it and success will follow.
