Illustration’s actions will always have consequences and although
a concept can take a year to get permission from an agent, production must be
fast and the idea spread quickly. Fine art has no rules in the same way which
puts what is high or ‘good’
work in the hands of critics and curators in order to control the chaos.
Professionalism is environmental and amateurism anti-environmental. But the
beauty of the day is that amateurs can afford to lose.
In George Lois’ book ‘Damn Good Advice’ he explains how as a
master communicator he knows ‘(good) advertising is poison gas. It should bring
tears to your eyes, unhinge your nervous system, and knock you out’- he
believes in insanity, brain-destroying simplicity and words before visuals; iconic
images so clever they hurt –and scar- definitely a good type of ‘bad’[1]. As a campaigner, he
campaigns that advertising is indeed an
art form and a heroic public service[2].
George Lois Esquire magazine covers, 1969 and 1968
Although designers like Lois reject themselves as scientists,
mathematical rules can dictate probability; and design works in a similar way-
scale and mass won’t change the fact ideas are either accepted or declined.
Working objectively, probability is predictable and you will make a pattern because information in society is pattern
based.
In book ‘The Creative Process Illustrated’, Sally Hogshead defends
that ‘creative people defend the world from predictability’ and that
‘creativity is the difference between information and genius’. Griffin &
Morrison give an outlook which suggests you have to be bad or perhaps scary to
be effective[3].
So whether you prefer algorithmic or heuristic solutions, it is the problem not
the solution which determines bad-bad work; a formula comes before an equation.
This acceptance-process of ideas is called ‘Sociocultural
Validation’ as named by Arthur J Cropley, professor of psychology at the
University of Hamburg. In the ‘Handbook of Creativity’, cognitive psychologists
Thomas B Ward, Steven M Smith and Ronald A Finke insist ‘the capacity for
creative thought is the rule rather than the exception in human cognitive
function’ –which suggests a good-bad idea allows us to make it good-good or
bad-bad, which is ultimately more pleasurable.
Following J P Guilford’s 1967 Structure of Intellect Model, a
miserable conservative thing to say would be that the death of the good idea is
relative to the deterioration of intelligence: Contents + Products + Operations
= Intellect –But the things he stated as the components then have changed since. We now allow the application of ‘implicit
theories’ to people by themselves, as their own methods which work in parallel
to others. A sort of parallel universe of idea-ghosts which designers aren’t
afraid of, but know they can use to scare or shock their audiences. Many still
deem conceptual art an excuse for unintelligent people to express bad ideas,
but in a less conservative way, is this really such a bad thing? Intrinsic
motivations are the drives of people who crave love as a reward; Extrinsic
motivations the drives towards money and power. But either way, motivation is a
virtue.
In his book, ‘Bob Gill, So far’, Gill defends recycling in design
by blaming fine artists of doing the same[4]. He celebrates the
relationship between art and commerce as a healthy one, but which needs the
public to tell designers when they’re doing it wrong because it is not an
elitist industry[5].
John Berger in ‘Ways of Seeing’ proves that this has been the case
since the 70s[6].
Even observation art where information is the subject can never be still in the
same way as work based on ‘pure’ observation. Bad taste is no longer obvious
banality, but instead work which isn’t
obvious and that not everybody can understand.
The ‘good idea’ falls into the cliché trap of ‘no selfless good
deed’ and so success becomes the fine balance between controversial and
offensive.
According to ‘The A-Z of Visual Ideas’, high culture makes people
receptive, is striking, fresh, exciting, engaging and memorable. Ross Cooper
says ‘When a viewer understands an idea they feel good about it’. Therefore we
can confirm the two types of bad idea:
A comprehendible bad concept = Good-bad
Something incomprehensible = Bad-bad
Because good-bad art is more difficult to analyse and value- it
has risen above the simply ‘beautiful’ because it arguably requires a higher
intelligence and is aesthetically more difficult to make commonly attractive.
Arthur Koestler in ‘The Act of Creation’ is ambiguous about his
stance on recycling; supposedly dependent on whether the recycled is rubbish or
has been made rubbish (ready-made).[7]
In a questionnaire aimed at those in and out of creative fields,
it was concluded by the majority that styles such as kitsch and pop art are
tasteful and culturally worthy because they have been designed to be so (See
appendix two for questionnaire results).
David Crow’s ‘Visible Signs’ explains this
modern divorce between meaning and form as ‘duality’. The book explains the
difference between signified (image) and signifier (word or meaning): ‘All that
is necessary for any language to exist is an agreement amongst a group of
people that one thing will stand for another’; thus is global agreement the
signifier for the death of the ‘good’ (and innovative) visual idea?
ICON(IC) – Resembles the sign, resembles the
thing they represent
INDEX – Direct link between the sign and
object i.e. smoke is an index of fire
SYMBOL – No logical connection between sign
and meaning i.e. requires learning
The categories of sign could be a strategy for
analysing a concept; the type if not
the measure of how good it is.
[1] A memorable visual, synergistically blending with memorable words
that create imagery which communicates in a nanosecond, immediately results in
an intellectual and human response.
The word imagery is too often
associated purely with visuals, but it is much more than that: imagery is the
conversion of an idea into a theatrical cameo, an indelible symbol, a scene
that becomes popular folklore, an iconographic image.
[2] Creativity in advertising and graphic design, as I practice it,
is art. My professional practice derives directly from romantic ideas of the
superhuman artist. I insist on the inevitability of my graphic work, all
created with an ethos of allegiance to art rather than science even though they
powerfully serve a commercial purpose.
[3] (ad folks) help us make decisions, form opinions and develop
habits with a level of skill and authority commonly associated with parents,
priests or police officers
[4] Designers are not the only ones with sticky fingers. Fine artists
have been doing this for years.
Stealing is good. There is no such
thing as a bad cliché.
[5] If designers had their own way, we’d be living in an even more
homogenised environment. Anyone who’s visited an English New Town will confirm
that well-meaning designers and architects designed the life out of anything
they could get their hands on; they succeeded in eliminating the ‘lows’ in
design, but they also eliminated the ‘highs’ and the idiosyncratic designs of
non-designers
[6] The art of the past is being mystified because a privileged
minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the
role of the ruling classes, and such a justification can no longer make sense
in modern terms
[7] The perquisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the
proper moment, what we know… Without the art of forgetting, the mind clutters
with ready-made answers, and never finds occasion to ask the proper questions
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