Exploring the Poetic Gap by Tim Carpenter

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

the

TIM CARPENTER

Tim Carpenter

Exploring Poetic Gap

Designed in San Francisco

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

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Exploring The Poetic Gap is a personal inquiry into the state of contemporary graphic design, the role personal interpretation plays in communication, and techniques that cause design to become poetic. My writing assumes 1 you have more than a general interest in art and design and will be familiar with the history of those two disciplines and 2 are comfortable with some designerly slash muckety-muck lingo that is requisite for an essay of this sort. That said, hopefully the ideas presented here might be useful to you in some sense and (pie-in-the-sky-type-of-thinking) will give rise to additional questions and be useful in promoting design as a discourse and not merely a service industry (which, of course, all us designers really do appreciate). Like the introductory quote above, my essay does not pretend to offer the complete, definitive presentation of visual poetry or “expressive” graphic design, rather it is a conversation with myself about the work I’m interested in exploring and how I might move forward creating design that is poetic. I hope what I’ve written here is a bit entertaining and more importantly, instructive to those interested in design as an artistic expression. After all, that’s how I was drawn to design in the first place. I think the world still needs designers who challenge the status quo, who push the boundaries of acceptability, and give us all something to think about. In designing this book, I’ve attempted to provide additional, related content for the reader to consider. The main essay runs in this center column with any cited work being referenced in the inside gutter. Tangential ideas and work that has inspired my thinking in this endeavor runs perpendicular to the page.

Hazard. Preface. The Contexts of Poetry. Boston: Little, Brown, 1963. N. pag. Print.

“ Thepoem exists in literature, as a part of it, and can be understood fully as a work of art only in that context…. It is clear that a single book, and a small one at that, cannot do more than approach understanding so conceived. It must devise short cuts, allow itself to oversimplify, and simply pass over some important matters. What it can do is keep alive throughout its commentaries the sense of the poem as a work of art of a particular kind produced at a particular stage of literary history — the sense of the contexts in which the poem may profitably be viewed.” 01

"" Supportive and tangential materials run perpendicular to the page.

01 Adams,

face

From The Contexts of Poetry by Hazard Adams, 1963

Footnotes and cited work entries will be presented in this column.

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Harnessing the power of the Poetic Gap in graphic design blurs the line between art and science and furthers the discourse of designs potential.

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

Intro

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Like poetry, the type of graphic design I’m interested in — the work I consider “great” — is often challenging, ambiguous, and open to interpretation. This type of design is not only aesthetically pleasing, but can be read on multiple levels. It blurs the line between art and science and it furthers the discourse of designs potential. My research into poetic ambiguity and methods of opening up a space for personal interpretation in my design work led me to the discovery of what Martin Venezky called the “Poetic Gap.” What follows is my account of exploring this space.

By my thinking, great graphic design is much more confident in the ability of the audience to interpret a design and make up their own mind about its meaning. Great design functions not only to communicate information, but also to stir the viewers’ emotions — to arrest their attention and to make them think. This is an artistic or poetic experience that great graphic designers understand.

"" There is an abundance of good design out there — like this IBM poster by Paul Rand. It’s nice. Lots of people like it. It’s clever, huh? An eye, a bee, an M.... But I’d argue it’s not “great.” It’s not really poetic, is it?

I believe that graphic design is an artistic process through which a designer interprets a message, typically commissioned to him or her by a client, for a specific audience and purpose. “Good” design, I would argue, is less about artistry and the personal viewpoint of the designer and more about proficiency in skill and focuses on Modernist design principles (legibility, clear communication, etc.). As I see it, good graphic design typically is pleasing to the eye (aesthetics), but does not ask broader social questions we have come to associate with design theory — especially Post Modernism. Good graphic design assumes that the viewer needs all the information supplied to them in order to make the “right” choice — to buy or support the clients’ product or program.

"" On the other hand, this campaign by Stephan Sagmeister is pretty great. If you saw a giant white monkey around town, wouldn’t you take notice and remember it? Wouldn’t you wonder what it means?

I was asked once what I thought the difference between good and great design is. This is a dodgy question and from the many discussions I’ve had regarding it, I’ve come to understand that it’s highly subjective. It’s probably best not to attempt to answer that definitively and instead let you ponder it for yourself. However, the question did bring to mind my earliest memories of wanting to be an artist and how I first heard that there was a profession known as commercial art. By the time I began my undergraduate studies, the title commercial artist had matured to graphic designer and Post Modernism had superseded Swiss Modernism as the prevailing discourse of the day. It was in this visually exuberant and theoretically rich environment that I began to define for myself what great design might be.

"" Major themes of Post Modernism include: Writerly rather than readerly text. Plural rather than singular meanings. Metonymy rather than metaphor. Cultural position. Vernacular, appropriated, and default forms. Hyperreality and the importance of image. 02

"" Metaphor: A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. 03

"" Simile: A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox). 04

"" Metonymy: The substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing. 05

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Poet

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As with fine art, aesthetic judgment of graphic design is subjective — What one person considers great, someone else might feel is complete garbage. In order to understand why I would want to make my work more poetic, ambiguous, or challenging, which may seem contrary to many definitions of design, it’s helpful to understand how I define good and great design. To me, great (poetic) design elevates design from a practice to the level of discourse. It is the design work that is written about in heady academic books and is collected in museums. Rick Valicenti, designer and owner of the award winning design firm Thirst, put it this way, “As designers we cultivate conversations. We engage in a process of discovery and experimentation, focusing on concept, craft, and artful investigation. Our work lives at the threshold between art and science, resulting in keepsake artifacts and unique experiences.” Valicenti believes “design is integral to the human condition. It is ubiquitous, nourishing and transformative. Design allows us to connect with one another and compels us to slow down and pay attention.” 06 It is this ability to make the viewer deeply think about a design that partly differentiates great solutions from the merely good ones. Slowing people down and causing them to pay close attention to the material is a shared characteristic between great design and poetry. To understand this comparison it is important to begin with how poetry differs from our everyday, common language. English poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote that “Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be “the expression of the imagination.” 07 It is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities to convey emotion or ideas to the reader or listener. To do this, poets use a variety of tools including the use of metaphor, simile, and metonymy. “Poetry can be differentiated most of the time from prose, which is language meant to convey meaning in a more expansive and less condensed way, frequently using more complete logical or narrative structures than poetry does. This does not necessarily imply that poetry is illogical, but rather that poetry is often created from the need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner.” 08 In The New Cranbrook Discourse, Katherine and Michael McCoy, wrote, “Nothing pulls you into the territory between art and science quite as quickly as design. It is the borderline where contradictions and tensions exist between the quantifiable and the poetic.” 09 This suggests that graphic design can be of service to both the market (quantifiable) and to art (emotional). So then, how does one make design poetic?

02 Davis,

Meredith. Graphic Design Theory. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.

03 “Oxford

Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

04 ibid. 05 ibid. 06 Valicenti,

Rick. “Thirst / a Design Collaborative.” Thirst. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

07 “A

Defence of Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1909-14. English Essays: Sidney to Macaulay. The Harvard Classics.” A Defence of Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1909-14. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

08 “Poetry.org

- What Is Poetry.” Poetry.org What Is Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

09 Aldersey-Williams,

Hugh. Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse. New York: Rizzoli, 1990. Print.

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

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The Poetic Gap

Roland, and Stephen Heath. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1977. Print.

11 ibid.

Following in the footsteps of Post Modernists explorers

Notions of abstracting images and slowing down the reader through alternative typography are nothing new. Designers have long looked to literature and literary theory for clues as to how they might affect their work and provide a greater degree of personal interpretation for the viewer. French literary critic and theorist, Roland Barthes (1918 - 1980) wrote in his essay, Death of the Author, “We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.” 10 This is to say, “If meaning depends on context, time, and the past experiences of viewers or readers, then it cannot be closed, fixed, and the same for everyone.” 11 By applying literary theories like this to a design practice, Post Modernist graphic designers of the 1980s and ’90s showed that the Poetic Gap can be pushed wide open. Their work is a major influence on me as I seek to explore this territory.

10 Barthes,

In his 2004 RISD syllabus, Martin wrote, “There is a space between what we see, what we read and what we understand. This fertile territory, which I call the poetic gap, offers tremendous opportunities for the designer. In this space, the actor and the audience conspire together to build an imagined world. As designers, we have opportunities to add shades of meaning and frames of reference to a given project. We can pry open this gap to allow nuance and metaphor and surprise to infuse a work like perfume. This kind of design is collaborative by nature and involves a deep reading, understanding and conversation about a given text. And it also requires a deeper understanding of design as a literary and theatrical performance. There are times when we are given explicit direction to remove ourselves from the content. But (in my opinion) that means that we must use subtler, almost silent ways to intrude.”

"" Speak Magazine designed by Martin Venezky

In seeking to understand this spectrum through my visual experiments, I began to see that through the use of abstraction, one could open and close this gap between the literal and the imaginary. I related my discovery of this gap to my mentor, famed graphic designer Martin Venezky, only to learn that he too had stumbled upon it when he was designing Speak magazine in the 1990s. In fact, he coined the phrase “Poetic Gap” and even taught a class at Rhode Island School of Design with the same name! For a brief moment, I believed I had entered a truly undiscovered country. Alas, I had not.

"" 2004 RISD Syllabus provided by Martin Venezky

Graphic design can be understood as a spectrum of creative solutions ranging from straightforward and “corporate” to conceptual and “arty.” Corporate design is typically understood as clear communication. It may be artistic and beautiful, but it is generally not ambiguous. Conceptual design, on the other hand, is intentionally contemplative. It goes beyond discussions focusing on aesthetics and may be downright difficult to read or comprehend. The same can be said of literature in that prose is easily understood and poetry has more space for personal interpretation and aims to elicit emotion.

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Tiptoeing into a new land Exploration of this newly discovered (to me) Poetic Gap, helped me appreciate the nuances of the broad graphic design spectrum — from the instructive, clearly communicative to that which is abstract, a more personal interpretation of the subject matter. To help orient myself in this unfamiliar land, I set out first to explore territory others had already charted. I looked to the Italian Futurists and Dadaists as my first guides.

"" Visual poetry and typographic experiments of Italian poet and theorist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944).

Those Futurists certainly were a bellicose lot. F. T. Marinetti’s proclamation that “We want to glorify war — the only cure for the world — militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman” is a hard pill to swallow knowing that millions died in the two world wars that were just years off when he wrote those words in the Futurist Manifesto. His callous choice of words notwithstanding, the Visual Poetry that emerged from this period has inspired artists and designers for over a century. The Futurists explored ways of representing poetry that was “simultaneously textual and visual” 12 and was meant to express language in a new, disruptive manner. Marinetti declared, “The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt” and challenged the reader to not only read the text but to experience it. To this aim, he illustrated the emotions of his poetry through new expressive typography — elongating the sounds and expressing the poetic cadence — not merely setting the type on the page as had been the norm. Writing in Futurist Typography and The Liberated Text, book designer and author Alan Bartram describes the Italian Futurist Visual Poetry as “not mere exercises in typographic form. They are poems and as such attempt to create a new, more intense and expressive language of communication, neither literary nor graphic, but a synthesis of both. Created by poets, all of a piece, the words and the form of a presentation are inseparable. The form is part of the content and the content creates the form.” 13

12 “Looking

At and Looking Through: Futurism, Dada, and Concrete Poetry.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

13 Bartram,

Alan. Introduction. Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2005. N. pag. Print.

Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Print.

15 Dickerman,

Leah, and Brigid Doherty. Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris ; Centre Pompidou, Musée National DẢrt Moderne, Paris, 5 October 2005 - 9 January 2006, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 19 February - 14 May 2006, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 18 June - 11 September 2006. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2005. Print.

16 “Looking

At and Looking Through: Futurism, Dada, and Concrete Poetry.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

14 Richter,

"" This photo (above) is of Hugo Ball, dressed in a Dadaist costume, reading his Sound Poem at the Cabaret Voltiare.

Visual Poetry attempts to express the emotion and voice of the poet and carry it on to the page; creating a typographic dance that is not always perfectly legible or even understandable. In fact, Dadaist Hugo Ball abandoned all intention of clear communication when he invented Verse ohne Worte (poems without words) or Lautgedichte (sound poetry) in 1916. First debuted at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, these poems were performed in front of a live audience and were “built solely of abstract phonemes, so that the weight of the composition resided on phonic rhythm and performative intonation.” 14 In visual form (see photo below) sound poetry appears to be a nonsensical page of type. Yet what this new form of poetry accomplished was to touch at the primal, “innermost alchemy of the word” and to “destroy the ideological potential for speech, it’s ability to serve as a vehicle for war or as a disciplinary medium in which social values are conveyed and enforced.” 15 This method of using typography as a visual element has been described as “Looking at vs. Looking through” the text — using typography itself as a medium for meaning, preventing people from looking “through” words and forcing readers to look “at” them. 16

"" To construct sound poems, language is broken down into its abstract parts (syllables and individual letters) and then reconfigured as meaningless sounds.

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"" The Cabaret Voltaire was a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland founded by Hugo Ball and Emmy Hennings in 1916.

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Visual Experiments

"" Plus Dome by Alli Warren

"" As I watch the moon wax again tonight I’m thinking of you Bubbles your trusses of riveted girders. Let’s start with autobiography. There are two distinctions I want to make My bluebook was blank now chiclets steady stream

all aboard daily. Thank heavens I think it’s real. Knock knock the milkman bears reference tracing the rim a river of O. Pounding that foghorn all the way to Watsonville grape jelly in the whiffs.

For my early formal studies, I chose to work with a single poem — Plus Dome, 17 by San Francisco poet, Alli Warren. To begin, I experimented with collaging type from cut paper, distorting type with glass lenses, curved plastic tubing, and even soap bubbles. By mimicking Futurist and Dadaist methods, I sought to slow down the reader and connotatively express certain words in her poem. This work not only allowed me to examine the resulting typographic forms, but also indicated to me that a space exists for personal interpretation of the resulting work — which I’d later learn is known as the Poetic Gap. Using physical, as opposed to digital, methods to distort the lines of Plus Dome caused me to slow down the design process, which is normally filled with a sense of urgency. This slower, more methodical pace allowed me to consider the results of the distortion and pick out areas that could be useful in composing later work. While not all experiments were visually beautiful, the process of constructing the situations that produced the work always provided an abundance of images that informed the next experiments. Ultimately, this was the greatest lesson taken from these initial exercises — iteration produces results.

17 Warren,

Alli. Here Come the Warm Jets. San Francisco: City Lights, 2013. Print.

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My early typographic experiments focused on cadence and ambiguity. I photographed bits of type through various glass lenses to distort the images and express the emotion of the poem.

Pages 12 - 17

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"" If a language is going to support a highly literate culture, rhetoric scholar Richard Lanham has argued, then the language itself must be made of simple parts. That is, the characters that are the building blocks of language must be easy to comprehend and the calligraphy unobtrusive. This is because a reader must be able

to internalize an alphabet and effectively look “through” the characters to the meanings they convey. For example, when reading a book, one is often not aware of looking at marks of ink on paper. One is much more aware of the ideas that live under the surface of the words.

"" This typographical philosophy—simplicity, clarity, transparency—has dominated print culture since the advent of the printing press, Lanham argues. But the twentieth century saw several movements in art and poetry that called this philosophy into question, using typography itself as a medium for meaning, preventing people

from looking “through” words and forcing readers to look “at” them. 18

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18 “Looking At and Looking Through: Futurism, Dada, and Concrete Poetry.” Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2013.

Experiments in legibility — photographing type through bubbles.

Pages 18 - 19

"" Fracturing type with glass lens suggested a sort of code which could be completely illegible at times, while at others strangely haunting.

"" These studies led to further experiments in glitching.

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again tonight Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m thinking of you

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Form studies using lenses and plastic.

Pages 25 - 27

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Recontextualizing found imagery through abstraction

" While working with Martin Venezky, I experimented with folding halftone dot pages. This technique inﬂuenced my future work with the Poetic Gap.

" It’s important to be always looking for inspiration. This bit of trash — crumpled, folded, and discarded — inspired much of the work presented in this book.

“Poems frequently rely for their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The interactive layering of all these effects to generate meaning is what marks poetry.” 19 From my form studies in connotative typography, I began to understand that the same methods used to create poetry out of common language could be applied to create poetic graphic design. With this awareness, I began to look for techniques I could employ that would control the amount of ambiguity in my work. Again, I turned to the past for guidance. The Dadaists (1916-1923) were well known for incorporating images from contemporary culture into their work in order to express their societal/political views. They employed abstraction — collage, photomontage, assemblage — and understood it as a way of gaining access to a more instinctive inner consciousness. 20 Appropriating and altering found images, also called remixing, is often a political or satirical act. Since all imagery carries with it its original context and/or intent, the act of appropriating it can be construed as a comment about or against the status quo. Appropriation then becomes a means of activating the Poetic Gap and needs to be carefully considered.

“Poetry.org - What Is Poetry.” Poetry.org What Is Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

“DADA - Techniques - Abstraction.” DADA - Techniques Abstraction. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2014.

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Methods

I surmised that if poetry is artistic language aimed at eliciting emotion through thoughtful linguistic construction, then it would make sense that the same effectuation could be brought to imagery alone. Using this as a starting point, I cut photos from contemporary fashion magazines and vintage books. I chose to work with this type of imagery, to begin with, because they are generally well composed and “artistic.” Like all images, these photos carry with them a certain context and message — a certain “charge.” To break this down and open up space for personal interpretation (the Poetic Gap) I employed folding and cutting to recontextualize the imagery. I found that the amount of abstraction applied to the imagery affects the viewer’s interpretation of the work — the greater the effectuation, the more space for personal interpretation.

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"" I tend to over-compose my designs — layering more and more “stuff” into the work. These studies of folded paper and appropriated images taught me how a simple method can affect the message in dramatic ways.

What also became evident from these early experiments was that including any text, beit a full poem or even fragments of text, will sway the interpretation of the work. In general, I found that the more legible the text, the less ambiguous the design was viewed. Even if the image seemed unrelated, the inclusion of text closes the Poetic Gap. Additionally, the clearer the imagery, the narrower the gap.

"" Poetry isn’t impenetrable. My compositions need have an entrance point.

I found that presenting the folded image without text opened a wide gap for the viewer to imagine its meaning (opposite page). Though text is present, it is fragmented and ambiguous and isn’t very helpful in determining any overt message or call to action. Conversely, by including a bit of legible text, in this case a poem by William Carlos Williams, seemed to provide more context, but closed the gap slightly (this page). Though abstracted, the image with the poem becomes an illustration of the poem. With this simple comparison, we can see that including text influences how a viewer understands/reads the work.

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Visualizing the graphic design spectrum To investigate the various shades of the graphic design spectrum and to learn more about controlling The Poetic Gap, I decided to try my hand at designing several alternative solutions for a single project.

"" A conversation with Jon Sueda inspired this study of the graphic design spectrum.

Working with a single poem — The Poem, by William Carlos Williams — I created five design variations in an exercise to visualize the Poetic Gap. Beginning from the left (below), which reads as a literal, neutral interpretation of the content — a poem and its author — and moving toward more ambiguous expressions displayed on the far right. In this work I’ve attempted to express the incremental stages of personal interpretation that define the Poetic Gap.

Visualizing the graphic design spectrum (from left to right)

Neutral

Representational

Sympathetic

Ambiguous

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Richter, Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Print.

“THE COLLECTION — Geo/Metric: Prints and Drawings from the Collection June 11–August 18, 2008.” MoMA.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.

“Glitch As Symbolic Form.” Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

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In his essay, Glitch As Symbolic Form, Rob Myers states, “Glitching acts as a signifier of chance and Irony changes or inverts content without altering form. Meaning is introduced into systems by ironising non-signifying forms. It is modified and modulated by further ironising those forms. The glitches that once frustrated media professionals and home users of electronic media are ironised into aesthetic form in Glitch Art.” 23 By introducing chance through glitching — or more accurately in my work, the perception of glitching — I am interested in exploring a formal element that is a contemporary technical signifier, yet also acts as a rogue actor, over which I have little control. This presents the viewer with an additional layer of information, which must be assessed in order to “read” the composition.

Antithetical

Employing the element of chance in the creation of art is a powerful tool for creating space for personal interpretation. The use of seemingly random images, words, colors, and textures calls into question their presence, meaning, and context rather than simply supplying understandable visual connections or an unambiguous narrative. Chance can create doubt, which is a useful emotion when one wants to create a conversation rather than provide answers. The Dadaist believed that chance ought to be recognized as a legitimate stimulus to artistic creation and beneath all art lays “a genuine mental and emotional experience.” 21 They employed chance operations as a means of “relinquishing control — a kind of depersonalization of the creative process.” 22

" Whenever my computer has a seizure, I try to capture the glitching to use as inspiration. This image is from 2013.

Harnessing the power of chance

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Selecting color through chance operation

Inspired by the aesthetics of glitching (pg. 35) — fractured images, digital noise, “halftone” lines, etc. — I created a digital process using Photoshop Actions, to create random color palettes. By pasting any image into Photoshop and then applying a series of pre-selected filters and affects on that image, I was able to create large, colorful mosaics by chance (below). Though I knew the outcome would be a fractal type image, I was completely surprised by the specific colors and compositions produced. This method quickly provided an abundance of color alternatives for my visual experiments.

So then what is the role of composing in graphic design? If we understand the intention of composing is to control the viewers interpretation of a message, then applying chance as a compositional determinant can activate a greater sense of the Poetic Gap. Simply put, composing equates to control, whereas chance introduces uncertainty. The Poetic Gap opens wider the more ambiguous a work is. Personal interpretation, therefore, also increases as a design becomes less direct or clearly definable — to an extreme point where a work may become totally incomprehensible. Some might say this is where a composition can no longer be considered “design” and becomes fine art. Composing to control the level of ambiguity and creating a space for personal interpretation, I believe, can draw people in — it can be a tool of attraction. (see side note on attraction.) Hans. Dada: Art and Anti-art. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965. Print.

Experimenting with Chance

Chance became a useful tool to the Dadaists in their attempt to “draw knowledge from the realm of the unknown.” Hans Richter tells the story of how Hans Arp, a leading Dada artist, stumbled upon chance as an expressive device (i.e. artistic expression being an element that can introduce personal interpretation of the viewer).

He wrote, “Dissatisfied with a drawing he had been working on for some time, Arp finally tore it up, and let the pieces flutter to the floor of his studio on the Zeltweg. Some time later he happened to notice these scraps of paper as they lay on the floor, and was struck by the pattern they formed. It had all the expressive power that he had tried in vain to achieve. How meaningful! How telling! Chance movements of his hand and of the fluttering scraps of paper had achieved what all his efforts had failed to achieve, namely expression. He accepted this challenge from chance as a decision of fate and carefully pasted the scraps down in the pattern which chance had determined.” 24 (see photo above).

To explore chance as a compositional determinant I built a stage in front of a large monitor. From this structure I could partially suspend collaged elements and let gravity and motion affect their arrangement.

Left

24 Richter,

"" Chance as a composing method isn’t devoid of formal control or consideration. The artist still chooses the materials and even Hans Arp was thought to have “fixed” or rearranged his chance compositions for greater aesthetic appeal.

I’m not alone when I admit that I have a strong desire to make beautiful work. I take it as a given that both good and great design is before anything else, attractive. After all, it’s the first principle of my graphic design practice — to Attract, Inform, and Invoke. If a design is not attractive, it doesn’t even make it into the good category — people will not participate in something they are not drawn to or aware of.

"" In using the term attraction here in terms of composing, I am not speaking solely of creating something that is pleasing or beautiful. That can be part of it, but often we are attracted to things that are chaotic or ugly. We are still drawn to look at these things... they still “attract” us.

The Challenges of Composing

"" Image: Jean (Hans) Arp. Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance). 1916–1917

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"" The Oxford Dictionary defines Attraction as: The action or power of evoking interest, pleasure, or liking for someone or something.

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In my own work, I have experimented with how chance can affect a composition — sometimes with a great deal of frustration — and how a viewer reads it. Building on my past work of poetic interpretation — collage, abstraction of found materials, and glitching — I constructed a series of pieces that would test my ability to activate the Poetic Gap. Though I possess a BFA in Graphic Design and have practiced the trade for let’s just say “quite a few years,” this exercise was incredibly valuable.

"" The randomness of television provided the backdrop for these collage experiments.

"" The combination of color, images, pixilation, type fragments, etc. all mix to recontextualize these images.

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Folding language

"" My initial experiments with “folding language” came from plundering text from Twitter.

"" Special thanks to @verona_vm who unknowingly supplied the words for this period of exploration.

Having experimented with various methods of abstracting images to increase ambiguity in my studies, I began to ask myself, “Beyond overt manipulation of imagery (poetic abstraction), what methods are available to the designer that can affect the Poetic Gap?” To answer this, I looked to process text in the same way I had been working with the imagery — that is to recontextualize language itself — what I call “folding language.”

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In pursuit of this idea, I rethought how I was sourcing the text for my work. Until this point, I had been experimenting with formal, professionally written poems. Now I looked to the world around me as a resource for poetry. Of course, what is around us on a day-to-day basis doesn’t seem poetic, but the source of poetry is within every sentence we speak. Words, phrases, and sentences taken out of context and reimagined, immediately seem artistic — more poetic. To practice this concept, I sourced several lines describing life in post-war San Francisco from an old copy of Insight Guides, San Francisco. A few of those lines read: “The ‘anything’s possible’ years seemed finished.” and “In the basements of out-of-the-way cafes, in the close-quartered-rooms of struggling artists, and in claimed, described an emotional state akin to ‘a kind of beatness.’” To “fold” this language and create a more poetic version of the found text, I redacted certain words to come up with:

"" To experiment with the idea of “folding language,” I collected fragments of text from this book — San Francisco by Insight CityGuides, 1989.

“ANYTHING’S POSSIBLE” YEARS— GO-TO-HELL —OUT OF THE WAY—CLOSEQUARTERED ROOMS

A slippery slope

This new, ambiguous version — stripped of its original context — was then worked into a series of visual studies. Placing this folded language along side images recontextulizes them and asks the viewer to make their own connections. The work that came out of this exercise shows how I can sometimes over complicate my designs. The extreme edge of the Poetic Gap where there is a greater degree of ambiguity, is a slippery slope. I find it challenging not to go overboard and make designs that are undecipherable.

Design ought not be presented as an overly complex puzzle that is unapproachable to the average person. This goes against my second design principle of informing the audience. Although there are “moments” of interest in these compositions, it’s clear I’ll need a bit more practice to become sure-footed along this part of the Poetic Gap.

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

TIM CARPENTER

Experiments in layering folded imagery, type fragments, and fields of color.

Above

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

TIM CARPENTER

Refining my methods My next steps in exploring the Poetic Gap will be a series of visual studies focused on one particular theme — Close-Quartered Rooms. Through this work, I will endeavour to create designs that are 1 visual striking, 2 contemplative, and 3 generate conversation. These designs will build on the skills I’ve been refining. I’ve learned that overly complex collages tend to become puzzles that appear inaccessible. This type of imagery is easily passed over or judged too quickly as meaningless. Fewer, more relevant images prevent this from happening.

Whenever possible, it’s better to construct my compositions as separate layers that I then photograph individually. This gives the design the feeling of a screen printing project — with each layer being a hit of color. It also means that composing the work is done by hand and not in Photoshop where its far to easy to employ filters for “cool” effects.

CCA

MFA IN DESIGN

TIM CARPENTER

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

CCA

MFA IN DESIGN

Onwards! When I began this journey of exploration, I was primarily interested in visual poetry and it’s influences on graphic design. Driven by my love for Post Modern graphic design, I sought to understand what makes some design more contemplative and worthy of discourse. After having made some personal discoveries into this subject matter, I have concluded that I am not as interested in poetry as an artifact, but rather, in the qualities that make design poetic. This seems to be a useful tool for any designer; especially those interested in teaching and/or practicing in a broad range of aesthetic styles. I’ve learned that all design projects have the potential to be poetic. Through the various methods I’ve described in this essay — abstraction, collage, folding language, chance operations, glitching, etc. — It is possible to express the Poetic Gap with a high degree of sensibility. And like all things, to do it well will take practice.

Acknowledgments Thankfully, I have mentors that have and will continue to act as guides along this journey. I’d especially like to thank my parents, Tom and Mary, and brother, Thom, for being consistently supportive of my dreams and aspirations. Martin Venezky has been the greatest teacher and mentor I could have asked for and I am so thankful that he has given of his time and experience to lead me in this research. My instructors at California College of the Arts, especially Leslie Carol Roberts, Geoff Kaplan, Brett MacFadden, Laurie Seidler, Jon Sueda, Scott Thorpe, and Ignacio Valero — I am so grateful to all of you. A special thank you to Alli Warren for allowing me to work with her poetry during the initial phases of this project.

And finally to my 2014 MFA classmates — I’m so glad we were on this journey together. You all inspire me. Do great things!

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

TIM CARPENTER

Thank you all so very much.

Bibliography of Additional and Inspirational Work Bartram, Alan. Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2005. Print. Poynor, Rick. No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2003. Print. Aldersey-Williams, Hugh. Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse. New York: Rizzoli, 1990. Print. Davis, Meredith. Graphic Design Theory. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print. Brereton, Richard, and Caroline Roberts. Cut & Paste: 21st-century Collage. London: Laurence King, 2011. Print. Wang, Shaoqiang. Scandinavian Graphic Design. Berkeley, CA: Gingko, 2012. Print. Ginsberg, Allen. Howl, and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Pocket hop, 1956. Print. Bierut, Michael, and Rick Poynor. Looking Closer 3: Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York, NY: Allworth, 1999. Print. Bierut, Michael. Looking Closer 2: Critical Writings on Graphic Design. New York: Allworth, 1997. Print. Fussell, Paul. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form. New York: Random House, 1979. Print. Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989. Print. Raffel, Burton. How to Read a Poem. New York: New American Library, 1984. Print. Williams, William Carlos, and Charles Tomlinson. Selected Poems. New York: New Directions, 1985. Print.

Design: Tim Carpenter San Francisco, CA 2014

Typefaces: AauxPro and Archer

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Tom Bonauro Broadcast Design, Graphic Design, Advertising. Tom Bonauro Online Portfolio.â&#x20AC;? Tom Bonauro Broadcast Design, Graphic Design, Advertising. Tom Bonauro Online Portfolio. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

EXPLORING THE POETIC GAP

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TIM CARPENTER

Tim Carpenter

Exploring Poetic Gap

Designed in San Francisco