Brendan Dawes
'Graphic design is for business success. Graphic design is for therapy. Graphic design is for sale. Graphic design is for art and science. Graphic design is for artists not thinkers. ... Graphic design is for loozers. Graphic design is for the customer. Graphic design is for women only. ... Graphic design is for making information, ideas and feelings tangible. Graphic design is for people who love to know how things work.'1 Graphic design as design in general, should be for everybody. If we are saying 'everybody' it means that design have to be legible for businessman, artist and the down-and-out. It should be created for them all . Nowadays term design gained wide meaning. Today the design means graphic design, industrial design, posters design, corporate identity and a lot of the other similar fields. Peoplewho design websites, innovative chairs or posters are being called the designers. Unfortunately, we often forget about the level of presented works, about whether they are functional, whether not. To what extent, creating of one sort or another work is needed?
Let us think what actually the so-called level relies on is. Talking about design the matter is simple: the project must be legible, understandable, innovative and functional, at least should be. It seems that artists very often forget about the general rules in aid of... exactly, in aid of what?
In Poland, where design tradition it is still new, there is huge dispute over the nature of design- is it art or not? When we think of art, it is consecrated art. After all we forget that in some cases we should to go behind the example of countries like Great Britain, Germany, United States of America where this problem has been solved, and since then, some terms are separated.
Because of those not solved cases, young graduates of Academies of Fine Arts are struggling with a kind of identity. It is not an artistic identity, but identity of choosing the devices in their works, and when we can say that this is an art or design? They cannot answer questions like if their work brings some kind of message and is this message simple to read or even if it is important? This is one of the main reasons why designers do not think about whether their work will be understood positively by people and whether they will pay attention to this, and if they will so in what kind of context?
In Poland design is still in isolation from public space- the place, where people like our neighbours, friends and teachers prosper in a natural way. It seems that reception of design and art in general is rather hard. It is known that in the face of everyday problems people have different needs than contemplation of art. That is why the main job of designers is to reach those people, but reach in a bright way. Right now the recyclable wastes materials are used more and more often, especially when the young artists come into play are also engaged socially2.(*) In spite of this, on the market of the art there are very prestigious projects which will not be used in ordinary circulation. These are produced just for galleries and for privet collections. To make meters worse, the biggest item of them cannot show the audience why they were constructed and an artist are based just on his prestige3. (**)
In the internet on the website: www.culture.pl we can read that more and more companies and designers give an account of fact that good, original design is indispensable to achieve success. A lot of companies consciously choose design as a distinctive factor on the background of the market competition4 . This sentence can be the first argument for that design is dominated by the big corporations where money is swimming with streams, this shows that design is dominated by corporations, therefore design does not have a chance to reach ordinary people. Big companies commission to design interiors, furniture, corporate identity, corporate gadgets. In this kind of institution everything is beautifully harmonised. Potential customer is surrounded by an ideal space, where even the box of matches is adapted to image of the company. 5(***)And when we see it, we have to start to think. Whether to such unusual space ever anybody like teacher, cleaner or salesman allow himself to rush into that kind of space? And if yes, would not be this a big mistake, something what looks like a coup, something that moves the busily built order and hierarchy?
In Polish quarterly design magazine '2+3D' we can read an article about international design fair in Poznan6 (****). On the one hand we may say that this event gathers a lot of great designers from all of the world and also big engaged audience. On the other hand,as the author of this article notices, on this event everything what we can see is 'great'. But in that 'great' word we can detect the irony. Not quite the artistic education in the country is based on a very low level; in addition persons who design things aren't presenting the better level at all. The author points to the situation, in which departments of individual companies presenting with pride the entire arsenal of lighting accessories and different type of furniture, and they present themselves, as if they were a part of some of artistic arrangement. Authors are surpassing themselves and they believe that what they are doing is standing at the highest design level. Sometimes you just have to say that you're a designer and then people believe that you are making something extraordinary, unusual, even if your work isn't good. But how can we expect from other people awareness when designers do not know anything about their work? Unfortunately myth of the artist appointed as the divine hand is still alive in our culture and it is very possible that it will take a lot of time to change thinking about this. In some cases also artists believe that their work is unique, special, and remarkable. Therefore, very often they forget about aims connected with this work, what are his responsibilities and what the results should look like. Of course no one is perfect. You cannot be always on the top. That is why the role of curators and critics of art is to be honest and focused, and watchful. Tomasz Andrzej Rudkiewicz is the one of the well-known polish designers whose work we can see on the international arena. He worked for Nokia company, designed very interesting modern city transit.,everyday articles, trains and buses or even cash registers. He is becoming a part of the model of ideal designer, who exactly knows what are his aims, and he gets them to the highest design level. This is the person who does not have to pretend that he is the God's anointed . In his opinion the best way to reach people is the mass production. His work is at the same level as Coca- Cola bottle or very famous Italian Vespa- it is the same group of products. Unfortunately those kinds of products are still rare on design fair, where predominate more ideological than useful projects, too much expensive to introduce to mass production. It does not mean that they are not good. Some of them are really great, but they balance between conceptual art and pure design. An example of that kind of product is a module wall which was made by couple of young polish designers- Marta and Lech Rowiński.7 (*****)
When you want to be a designer you have to fight with question why, what for and for whom? Sometimes designs come into being as a result of compromises between designer and the client. It is sometimes continuous argue what is more important: idea or usefulness. The author of of a book titled 'What is the graphic design for?' Alice Twemlow quotes words of Michael Bierut who said that “it is interesting how many of us see the choice between satisfying ourselves and satisfying the client.”8 In these words we can see that there are several situations when you as a designer if you are clever you can something what is hard change in yours favour. History of art shows a lot of situations when we can find entire row of works linking these two issues . One of them is graduation work of Michal Hibner, a student of Warsaw Academy of Fine Art.. In Poland year after year there is a competition of the greatest design diplomas and Michal is one of the laureates of this competition. On the exhibition organized by quarterly design magazine '2+3D' he showed the prototype of public toilet. He adapted this toilet to individual needs of children, people on the wheelchairs and for blind. There is very simple instruction how to use it written in English, polish and in Braille alphabet. The toilet is with regulation of height of the toilet bowl and connected with the urban canalization. In addition, we can find a table for changing children's nappy, washbasin, dispenser to soap and air blowing. We could say that this is innovative project, because most Polish investors, local authorities and academic professors are forgetting to think about simple things like toilets in the public space. Hibner's project is very innovative, modern, good constructed and with great purpose and especially useful, as the good project should be like.9(******) Unfortunately we cannot say the same about very famous project of pink deer by Hanna Kukczyńskiej and Luiza Marklowska. 10 (*******)It was made for a competition to decorate the Warsaw underground station. Yes, exactly, it was made just for decoration. In fact project was noticed by Bogna Świątkowska from New Culture Foundationn 'Bęc zmiana', because that it was something out from nowhere . It means that the deers are not useful. We cannot sit on them, they are not moving, interactive, they just shine in the night. We can't hide that it is easy to notice- big pink deer standing on the pavement. Why it is so famous? Because it is something what we don't need and we don't know what to do with it, so let it be. In addition one of the deers is standing in front of Silesian Design Centre in Cieszyn. But it doesn't change the fact that this is a piece of art between kitsch and design. And right now the only attraction is to make a picture while visiting Cieszyn but this work does not include anything more. Regrettably, there is a lot projects like this and not just in Poland. When we see on the exhibition another set of salt cellars we can start doubt if more creative people who are not conformists exist?11 (********)
The truth is that sometimes designers forget about the useful side of their projects. They forget what for they make their work, for whom and what are the rules of design. Although works like pink deer and recycle projects may be fine, they will never come to light. Still, designers create them because of the exhibitions, competitions (where the only prize is money), private collections. You can ask - is it right? If the design is to never be used by simple, ordinary people, can we still say that this is design? Maybe this is some kind of design? Maybe we just need new terminology?
When you talk about Polish design, you have to know the context and then you can compare it to work of designers form other countries. It is natural that we can see the difference, but also we cannot definitely say that this way of making things is the worst. The fact is that design and also designers are treated in Poland very different that in other countries. Maybe because there is still no good definition of art and design and because of that there is still big discussion about this. And in the middle of this discussion are artists and designers who are so confused that they even do not know exactly what to do.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1.Twemlow, Alice. What is graphic design for?Hove: RotoVision, 2006.
2.Artinfo.pl gallery. “Design- the Polish roads”.
3.Budzyn, Tomasz. “International design fair?”
4.No author.
5.
6.2+3D nr30.< http://www.projektydyplomowe.pl/edycje/2007-2008/hibner-michal/>
7.Kowalska, Agnieszka. “The pink deer in Powiśle. ”
8.Antonelli, Paola. Objects of design. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003.
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