Dystopian Reality
A Collection of Visual Imagery inspired by Peter Saville
Designed by Rebecca Masiker Be Careful What You Wish For authored by Peter Saville Biography authored by Design is History Infographic information authored by All Art Schools
Be Careful What You Wish For
“Being a designer used to be like being on a crusade – we were fighters, evangelists. But in the last ten years, since the recession of the early Nineties, the situation has changed. Our establishment has suddenly ‘got it’ and they want ‘creatives’. Creativity has become part of the business of social manipulation. The problem is that everybody got what they wanted.
Morals
The cultural adventure has been consumed by business. Making things better is a moral issue, but morality and business don’t go together – business is, if not immoral, then amoral. We know we should be keeping people out of stores but we all have to work with business. It can’t really be all about idealism and altruism.
Meaningless Design
Much of the work being done now lacks meaning and the designers know it. There’s a reasonable chair design once every five years and that’s usually the result of a new manufacturing or material innovation.
We all see what’s happening at Milan – there are countless new chairs and they’re nearly all a waste of space.
Where are the NGOs?
Everyone does their best but you have to pay the rent. Even hospitals have to run to profit. You can’t avoid the issue merely by working for an NGO – even Amnesty and Greenpeace have to be “business facing”.
The only bastion of free speech could be the art world, but even that is a preciously engineered marketplace with its own complexities.
Value finding
Creative people have to believe in the value of their work. If you don’t have any belief then you can’t give anything – designing is an act of giving, and a belief in the value of the work fuels the desire to express something. It’s important to know what your values are and to take care of them.
Post-war Socio-Cultural Democratisation
It’s a long term, but broken down it’s simple. Over the last 50 years culture has been disseminated to the wider public rather than being the domain
of the privileged. There is an inevitable loss of substance in the process of becoming a culture of entertainment. If it’s not popular, it’s not happening.
Design as Drugs
Pop culture used to be like LSD – different, eye-opening and reasonably dangerous. It’s now like crack – isolating, wasteful and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Dystopia
In the early 20th century designers envisaged utopia, they were optimistic
and visionary people. We now acknowledge the dystopian reality.
The New Cause
I was part of a system that wanted to change the look of the everyday
world. That ideal, manifest through consumerism, doesn’t sit well with me now. I am not wealthy and completely understand how we all have to pay our way” (Iconeye).
Iconeye. “Manifesto #01 Peter Saville.” Last modified N/A. http://www.iconeye.com/404/item/3019-manifesto-.
“Probably most noted for his record and album cover designs for Factory Records, Peter Saville was a designer whose career spanned several decades. His early work, in the late 1970s and early 80s, included album covers for several bands on the Factory Records label, but the ones that achieved the highest level of fame were for New Order and Joy Division. The bands that really brought the record label into the spotlight, Saville designed the covers for many of the two groups albums between the years of 1979 and 2005” (Design is History).
Design is History. “Peter Saville.” Last modified N/A. http://www.designishistory.com/1980/peter-saville/.
“He was notably influenced by the book Pioneers of Modern Typography by Herbert Spencer. The book included information that explained how modern typography had actually developed out of the ideas of 20th century painting, poetry and architecture, and not from the development of the printing industry. He was particularly influenced by the work of Jan Tschichold and his disciplined, yet subtle approach to typography. After Factory Records he worked for DinDisc, spent three years as a partner at Pentagram, was an art director at Frankfurt Balkind and eventually started his own studio. Throughout his career he has worked in the music industry, creating album covers for bands including Duran Duran, Wham! and Roxy Music” (Design is History).
Design is History. “Peter Saville.” Last modified N/A. http://www.designishistory.com/1980/peter-saville/.
Saville’s Manifesto holds true to contemporary graphic design. His ideology of the dystopian reality of the late 20th century is similar to the 1907 art group, the Deutscher Werkbund. Saville urges present-day designers to create meaningful and original designs.
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Years “40% of graphic designers leave after two years. 30% leave after 5 years. 30% stay in their positions past 5 years” (All Art Schools). Is Peter Saville’s take on how dismal contemporary design is heading a reflection on the small percentage of the artists staying in their profession? All Art Schools. “Graphic Designer Job Outlook.” Last modified N/A. http://www.allartschools.com/graphic-design-job-outlook/.
Manifest Originality. Get Involved. Design.