.601 EXPERIMENTAL JETSET / One often come across the opinion (and it’s often set in a critical tone) that the international nature of today’s ‘Tumblr-culture’ has caused a certain homogeneity in graphic design – the idea that there is no such thing as ‘locality’ anymore. We partly disagree with this view. One has to keep in mind that it is often the ‘online precense’ itself that makes things appear similar, when they in fact aren’t. Websites like Tumblr (as much as we love sites such as Tumblr, FFFFound, etc.) do work as ‘equalizers’ – they ‘flatten’ all objects into digital, pixelated jpegs that often have the same size and resolution, and then show these pictures outside of their original, local context, as completely isolated images. It’s no wonder that in this context, all objects look alike, even when they are rooted in completely different contexts. To give a very blunt example – a poster carrying an image of a swastika will have a totally different meaning hanging in a German city than it will have hanging in an Indian city. And yet, when they are placed next to each other (or better said, under each other, in a continuous scroll), the unknowing viewer will have the feeling that both posters are alike – and that there is no essential difference anymore between German and Indian graphic design. While the opposite might very well be true. These two posters might look the same, but they are totally different – not only in meaning, but possibly also in size, in the way they were printed, distributed, originally perceived, etc. / But even if there would be such a thing as an ‘universal’ design language – would this be necessarily such a bad thing? It doesn’t automatically mean that local differences are ‘overruled’. In fact, where there are dominant languages, there are also accents, dialects, ‘pidgin’ subversions, etc. In that sense, one can regard a dominant (‘universal’) language as a stage, or a platform, for different accents, for cultural differences, to perform on.
01
As often is the case, it is exactly the ‘common factor’ (such as a shared language) that emphasizes, offsets and enables the differences (such as specific accents). So in that sense, even if there were such a thing as a ‘universal’ graphic design language, it wouldn’t mean the end of local differentation, of cultural variety. Think of the so-called ‘Swiss/International Style’. Somebody like Crouwel took this language, and turned it into something typical Dutch. While somebody like Vignelli took the same langauge, first added a typical Italian accent, and then set it in a New York tone of voice. Comparing Crouwel and Vignelli, one can easily distinguish their cultural backgrounds (for example, calvinist versus catholic), while both men are, in a way, speaking the same language. The same language, but different accents.