LET'S THINK OUT LOUD

From Monday 19th to Friday 23rd

3

4

5

Rhinoceros

6

7

How do we keep from being completely consumed by the demands for more style and better taste?

AIGA Journal of design, January 10th 2006

Space to fail, but no space for bad work.

Money is money, design is money, money is design, and so your design is only as valuable as the money it makes.

“American Mutt”, David Barringer, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 81.

Paul Haworth, Round Table 19th of may 2014, Chaumont Design Graphique Festival

The design behind all culture has to be deceptive enough to turn mere mammals conditioned by nature into free artist.

If you operate only as a designer, why should you go after what is successfull?

“About the Word Design”, in The shape of things: a philosophy of design, Vilém Flusser, Reaktion Books, 1999, p. 17.

Comment on “The politics of aesthetics” Interview with Daniel van der Velden, Michèle Champagne, in Questions/Questions, 2012.

Design is too important to be left only to designers.

Iaspis forum on design and critical practice: the reader, Magnus Ericson et International Artists Studio Programme in Sweden, Iaspis; Sternberg Press, 2009, p. 257.

Modernism made the issue of style much easier for designers to deal with, since it gave them a style that they could pretend was not a style.

“Style is not a four letter word”, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 94.

Anthony Sheret typographer

Benoit Hody graphic design student

Edd Harrington typographer

Mario Hombeuel graphic design student

Paul Haworth artist-writer

Gabriela Kühnhardt-Alvarez communication design student

Sam de Groot graphic designer

Lara Lancereau graphic designe student

Christelle Selliez-Vandernotte artist

Jan Paul Müller illustrator

Martha Salimbeni graphic designer and drawer

Jan Münz graphic designer

Thomas Bizzarri graphic designer

Vadim Shabatin graphic design student

Ève Chabanon artist

Alicja Sara Wańczyk graphic and product design student

Alain Rodriguez graphic designer Manuela Dechamps Otamendi graphic designer Loraine Furter graphic researcher Vincent Desclaux graphic designer Philippe Nolot president of Chaumont’s Festival Milena Albiez graphic design and new media student Aloïs Ancenay graphic design student Baptiste Guesnon graphic design student

Participants

10

Let’s Think Out Loud!

Is there any methodology of how you deal and integrate inspiration, influences and references in your working process?

No. (laughter from the audience) We got the questions a bit in advance so I’ve been thinking about it, and… No – methodology – I really don’t think so. Not just to be flippant and annoying, but recently I became much more aware of how shaped we all are by our taste, backgrounds and temperaments, and of course there is thinking involved, but I can’t say that I have a methodology in working. I try to avoid unnecessary “bullshit”, maybe? Of course, I am inspired and influenced, I reference things, but I try to not to make that an explicit part of my work.

Because I don’t find it necessary. Maybe someone wants to talk about this.

LO R A I N E F U RT E R Who wants to answer to “methodology equals bullshit”?

SA M D E G RO OT Oh yeah… no no no no… please do, but I don’t want to unequivocally say that.

C H R I S T E L L E S E L L I E Z-VA N D E R N OT T E I don’t have a precise methodology for my influences. I guess inspiration and references are not to be classified at first, so I guess… for myself it is more matter of time and how I can relate to them and talk about them. And then the more I try to share them as an influence, I appropriate them and I feel like they belong to me and then they go inside my work. But it is not a very clear link- it is very subjective links.

LO R A I N E F U RT E R Maybe about yesterdays’ presentation, in which you were talking about reappropriation so maybe Ève, would You like to react to this? È V E C H A B A N O N Ok can we speak in French? Je suis pas sure non plus d’avoir une méthodologie claire sur cette question des références. Après un diplôme en art, je suis finalement allé à la Sorbonne,1 afin d’appuyer une sorte de bagage théorique, comme dans le besoin d’un tampon sur le CV pour prouver que je capable de penser. Et finalement, ça a été un fiasco, puisque je n’avais pas eu tout le temps pour faire ce genre SA M D E G RO OT

1. Sorbonne, University in Paris, France.

11

Round Table

2. I’m not sure I have a precise methodology with my references, but I think it is a constant coming and going process. Looking for answers and re-ask the questions, also to others, to rephrase them.

de choses, car j’étais dans ma pratique. Je pense que c’est un va-et-vient constant, d’aller chercher des réponses et de reposer les questions. C’est justement cette façon dont on a travaillé sur le livre, autour de ces questions de va-et-vient. Toujours reposer les questions aux autres pour mieux les reformuler. 2 Every game has its own rules, but at the same time it brings fun and it is kind of a challenge.

Thinking of graphic design as of a game, how do play your game and keep the pleasure in your design process?

I guess changing the rules of the game is probably how we would approach it. A game is a restrictive or restricted form of the process of play.

But if you change its rules, then it changes what you are doing.

A N T H O N Y S H E R E T I think, as we do set tasks and different things in our working process every day. We’ve been asked a similar question before and the best way to describe our working process is like a kind of game of tennis, where we bounce ideas at each other constantly, and that goes through not just ideas but actual working files and processes as well. So I’ll be working on one thing through one process or job and then I’ll pass it further and it returns to me. It happens multiple times throughout a commissioned or self-commissioned job. That’s how we kind of keep it interesting, because sometimes we’ll assign a different part of work to one another, and we will see or foresee different things that the other didn’t see.

PAU L H AWO RT H I am just thinking about a collaboration which me and Sam have done. A design collaboration where it has been a “fun” process. And one of them is when we were doing a cover for a single we did, called “Paint Your Favourite”, which was about painting and about the history of painting. And I liked just from the start taking a challenge of bringing together two of my favorite painters – Walter Sickert,3 a Victorian oil painter very traditional from the 20th century, and Keith Haring 4 which is the ultimate kind of 80’s bold, brush, line drawings.

It was a totally incongruous pairing, and finding E D D H A R R I N G TO N

3. Walter Richard Sickert, English-German painter, 1860–1942.

4. Keith Haring, American artist, 1958–1990.

Let’s Think Out Loud!

12

a resolution for those which would work was a simple, fun, game to solve that challenge.

LO R A I N E F U RT E R Anyone else? About the question of game and fun in design?

A L A I N RO D R I G U E Z No fun.

In the book The Blind Spot of Reading Design Katja Gretzinger writes amongst others about authorship and its positioning in design and art, and I will read now a short part of the text: “[…] a new polarisation is being produced: authorship is coming to be seen in an opposition to the “capitalistic marketplace”, performed through a kind of “radical subjectivity” – design as art.

Without diminishing the importance of the idea of authorship, it must be said that the image that is painted fails to take notice of its own involvement in economic relationships.

A “revolutionary” model of authorship can easily be viewed as “economically” motivated. A retreat from the classical clientrelationship and into the field of art, of course, allows for revolutionary gestures, and the creation of spectacular designs – but at the same time these designs work perfectly well as marketable unique selling points, in the way the designer becomes a brand and is connected to a more elitist idea of art.”5 What are your opinions on this theory and where would you position yourself.

I’m also critical of that idea, because on the one hand, working for pleasure and for the good of working is a very positive thing, and I wish everyone could do that and would do that. But depending on how it is done, it would be an illusion to think that doing a personal private graphic design project has more impact than for example making nice clay pots… Not in all case obviously, but the act of doing SA M D E G RO OT

13

Round Table

5. The Blind Spot of Reading Design, Katja Gretzinger, 2012 Sternberg Press, p. 174.

6. For me, being independent is refusing a form of commercialisation in one’s work. But at the same time, it is good to integrate one’s work in the market. Consuming is choosing one’s products and relate to ideas.

The real question would be: as a graphic designer or as an artist, how to appropriate this situation and find a balance, so that it is poetic.

it without client doesn’t make it inherently progressive or forward thinking.

C H R I S T E L L E S E L L I E Z-VA N D E R N OT T E Can I react more as an artist on this question? If you do things at home, as an independent and not showing your work, it seems a bit strange…

Pour moi le travail indépendant, c’est aussi de quelque part refuser une forme de commercialisation de son travail. Mais à l’inverse, en tant qu’artiste parfois j’aimerais aussi pouvoir infiltrer mon travail dans un marché. Consommer c’est choisir ses produits et c’est aussi se relier à une idée. C’est une consommation qui n’est donc pas ultra-capitaliste mais plutôt une façon pour le client de choisir une idée et de s’y rattacher. Pourquoi donc ne pas le penser pour des produits culturels comme certaines institutions le font déjà? Je pense que la vraie question c’est comment en tant qu’artiste ou designer, on se l’approprie et comment on peut faire passer nos idées dans des produits. Comment arriver à trouver un équilibre, pour que ce soit en quelque sorte poétique. C’est un peu idéaliste, mais je pense que c’est un équilibre et une sorte de relation de pouvoir.

Je pense que c’est plutôt ce qui est réaliste: s’infiltrer dans une économie qui est déjà travaillée et y faire passer nos idées.6 It is quite interesting because you were saying that if you would rephrase the question, it would be how to find a balance between these two opposites and try to integrate them both in the process, so more practically, how do you deal with those two opposites, if you deal with them? Some graphic designers are also involved in the art scene, through residences and collaborations, so if there is a link, how do you do to find this balance in your practices?

A N T H O N Y S H E R E T I’m going to come back to the text and the question. Everyone always talk about how graphic design is now changing and becoming this ever changing moment where everybody could be the editor, printer, publisher… That is what is the great thing in commerce and capitalism and Western world. The way that we can’t always be specific anymore, you have to do every single job, and that’s a really costly thing, LO R A I N E F U RT E R

Let’s Think Out Loud!

14

and that relates to doing what you’re good at, not good at. It is in relation to that kind of dividing of tasks…

“To criticise this visionary model must not mean that designers can’t claim their right to artistic freedom. What is missing in both fields is a kind of social-critical mode of reflection on the implicit roles and ideas that are communicated within it. Both sides address old clichés about genius, which have always been predominantly masculine and have long since been the subject of well-founded criticism, not just in feminist art theory. To claim an independent space in opposition to a ‘morally corrupt business’ or the “authoritarian state’ merely results in an endorsement of the projected “other side” and an affirmation of its power. Even more: a design which proposes a solution for all those problems is likely to attach itself to a universalistic vision of society. Here design runs the danger of reproducing the very societal norms it set out to question.” 7 Genius, both sides, which sides? I think the term genius is very seductive, because there are people that are very very good at doing things in all fields, and sometimes they are so good that we just think they must have been born with some magical spark that makes them that good. And maybe they were and maybe they weren’t, but it is quite convenient to call them geniuses, and I also do it sometimes.

SA M D E G RO OT

Normally, if someone if questioning me, name a few designers and artists you like, I’m starting with men, and after then I’m thinking about, what about the women?

So usually the concept of the genius has this heroic, possibly macho, quality. I guess that’s just the product of art and design being in a patriarchal society for a very long time, but if you think about it, in art and design, in music, in films, there’s women SA M D E G RO OT

15

Round Table

7. The Blind Spot of Reading Design, Katja Gretzinger, 2012 Sternberg Press, p. 175.

8. For me the term “genius” is a bit outdated, but I think that claiming an artistic freedom as if we couldn’t have one anymore out of autonomous projects is exaggerated.

I think there is still space for freedom, ethics, etc.

that also have this sort of elusive quality that sometimes there are no other words than genius.

Of course there is a definite imbalance, but I don’t know if that’s completely unavoidable just by using the term genius.

T H OM A S B I Z Z A R R I Pour moi le terme génie est un terme que je trouve assez daté, qui ne correspond plus à grand chose, pour moi en tout cas actuellement. Ce qui me dérange par contre c’est l’idée de revendiquer une liberté artistique comme si on n’en avait plus, comme si on ne pouvait pas en avoir autrement qu’en allant travailler dans un champ où on se crée une autonomie, et je pense qu’il reste de la place et chacun est libre de travailler comme il l’entend avec une éthique de travail, des envies, des qualités…8 Nowadays everybody has access to design tools, so anyone can create his own visit cart, his website, his book what makes a difference between everybody’s design and professional’s design, how can we identify professional design?

Good question… It is hard to tell, because I am a graphic designer, I have my own taste, I have my own vision of graphic design, so the term “professional” is maybe not really correct, if I can say that a professional design is a good design, well I don’t know if it is professional. Maybe it is not clear.

SA M D E G RO OT I think it might be interesting to think a bit maybe more anthropologically than in pure design.

I was recently watching a video of an interview with Philip Glass,9 where he said that at some point in his development as a composer, someone told him “all music is folk music”. Commonly, in Western musical tradition, there is Western classical music, there is pop music and there is world music, which is like everything else. And once he said – maybe I paraphrase him wrong – that he realized that Western classical music is just as much folk music as Flamenco or like Indonesian Gamelan 10 music. Because they all come from a specific time, or from a specific place, or from a specific tradition. They all have their codes, and their conventions, etc… It allows you to look A L A I N RO D R I G U E Z

9. Philip Glass, American musician and composer, born 1937.

10. Gamelan, traditional indonesian music from Java and Bali, metallophones, drums, gongs

Let’s Think Out Loud!

16

at different traditions in a normative way: seeing how did this phenomenon come about, what are the rules, the players in it, what time are we talking about. To some extends, you could look at professional graphic design in that sense also. It is a lot of conventions: reading from left to right, at least in the certain parts of the world, and all of that. What we consider professional, sitting here together, sometimes it can be helpful to see it as a construct: things we do and we like, that are recognized as being professional.

M A N U E L A D E C H A M P S OTA M E N D I To react to what you said Alain, when we talk about good design and professional design, that could be one question: is it because it is done by professionals that it means that it is better design, and that an amateur design is less good?

Because today anyone can do a visit card, his own website… And as graphic designers, how do you feel about that? Do you think that it is a good thing?

Are you sometimes afraid? Do you think there is some space for the users to do their own books for instance? Is it good, better, or worst?

LO R A I N E F U RT E R Maybe it could be interesting to ask this question specifically to the type designers, because in type design it has really become a tricky question today. It is also – sorry! – a very traditionalist field, and as we talked about gender before, it is completely patriarchal. So it could be quite interesting to discuss this question with the type designers who are here.

A N T H O N Y S H E R E T Yes. When you look at what the word professional means – professionals get payed for what they do – but in the context of design it doesn’t necessarily mean a good design. You can get payed for a design, and it might not be good in a subjective or personal taste, but someone’s perception of a professional design is always something very different from someone else’s.

Bringing it back into type design is tricky because it used to be this very very elitist select few people that were used to do it and trained their skills for years and years. And now it is becoming more and more democratic and open to everyone. Anyone can create their font online and even now there is software that you can use where you have all of these little sliders,

17

Round Table

11. The largest association of artists (visual arts/arts plastiques) in France.

with which you can change every aspect of the font, and create pretty much any typeface you want.

Does that make a professional design, I don’t know, but it does bring it into a different realm, with a different audience that maybe wasn’t perceived to be type designers initially, but now can be and that is just access to tools I think… Whether or not that is a good thing, that is something to debate.

E D D H A R R I N G TO N Yeah we just talked about that actually.

I think like a natural progression of the democratisation of tools: making them more and more widely spread so that anyone can be a designer or in a type design, and there are still a set of parameters that you can work within. And these tools that Edd has been mentioning are the kind of working tools that output forms, but I don’t think it changes what we do. Although you can maybe feel threatened by it, I think there is a kind of human touch as well, as anyone here knows. It’s not because someone has Photoshop that doesn’t mean that he makes great pieces of work. Here remains a human aspect, and the context of working and references, energy put into it that make great pieces of design. These tools being widely available is just a natural progression and an evolution of design and art in a wider sense, becoming into a sort of a wider audience. I think that is a good thing really.

T H OM A S B I Z Z A R R I I was just thinking about the previous questions, about art, and the connections between art and design, and I’m not sure we would ever ask the question: how can we identify professional art? È V E C H A BA N O N Cette question du professionnel me semble peut-être être propre au design, qui est relativement normé. Par exemple, je serais incapable de définir ce qu’est un artiste professionnel. L’État français le fait, avec la Maison des Artistes,11 qui est une caisse de cotisation qui permet d’avoir une assurance, etc.

Et encore, remplir toutes les caractéristiques est très compliqué. Pour s’inscrire à cette Maison des Artistes et avoir le statut d’artiste professionnel, il faut cocher un certain nombre de cases, dont artiste, dont graphiste, dont journaliste, pour pouvoir profiter de tous ces cachets. Je crois aussi que c’est une façon de se positionner que de parler de professionnel.

Let’s Think Out Loud!

18

Par exemple, étant donné que j’ai évolué dans le milieu du graphisme, beaucoup d’amis artistes viennent me demander de réaliser des livres. Ce à quoi je dis toujours non, et j’essaye de les diriger vers ce que je juge être un graphiste professionnel, ou en tout cas des graphistes dont j’estime beaucoup le travail et que je pense en adéquation avec la proposition de l’artiste. Mais je finis souvent par le faire parce qu’ils ne prennent pas en compte cet avis là: ils cherchent une collaboration, un regard… Malgré ça, je ne m’identifie pas du tout comme graphiste.12 Do you, as a graphic designer, always agree with the content that you have to deal with?

Nice to be back. Of course there are always extreme situations, for instance I wouldn’t design for a Neo Nazi party. But less extremely, no, I don’t have to agree. I am doing a job and I am trying to do it well, trying to enjoy myself and trying to be payed ok…

And if I love the content, right, if not I can read a book after work, you know. And I also don’t think it necessarily leads to a better designed work. It just help if you can see eye to eye with the client about what the project should be like, what type of work it should be, and if you have compatible ideas about what “good” is, or what “producing interesting” things is. And it doesn’t mean you have to agree or like the content.

V I N C E N T D E S C L AU X Bonsoir. If you are lucky most of the time I think you do. Because this relationship with the client, or with a project is based on previous conversations and meetings that lead to a project that you understand and hopefully that you agree with. So I guess to have your mind at peace you are supposed to agree with the content. I don’t have a contrary example right now for what we do. But at least the process leads to something that you agree with, or during the process you try to understand what you don’t like and how at the end you can make it right.

E D D H A R R I N G TO N I don’t really agree with that, and it might sound a bit strange. There is a record sleeve designer who did lots of sleeves for jazz records and who hated jazz, Reid Miles.13 Distance makes the work

12. Maybe this question of the professional is something that is linked to the design field. In the artistic field it is not the same, I wouldn’t be able to define what a professional artist is. It is also a way of getting a position to talk about professional.

Since I’ve been a lot in the graphic design context, I’m often asked to do books, which I sometimes do even if I don’t identify to a graphic designer.

SA M D E G RO OT

19

Round Table

13. Reid Miles, American graphic designer, 1927–1993, covers for Bluenote Record.

14. For me, it is better to agree with the content because we are trying to build something in a kind of continuity, and we wouldn’t like to regret anything. It is more about agreeing than really liking.

15. Roland Garros, French aeronautical pioneer, 1888–1918.

better somehow, because you don’t love it, you don’t fall in love – lot less romanticise – so you can stand back and maybe look in a cold way… and maybe it makes it better. Another way of thinking.

T H OM A S B I Z Z A R R I Pour moi, il s’agit d’être d’accord avec le contenu parce que je n’aimerais pas regretter par la suite. On essaie de construire quelque chose avec une certaine cohérence, aussi pour avoir à faire le moins possible de travaux qui nous plairaient pas.

Donc il s’agit davantage d’être d’accord que de vraiment aimer. 14 M A N U E L A D E C H A M P S OTA M E N D I It is like being a lawyer: in a way, you have to believe your clients but you don’t have to like them. You really have to believe that it is true so that you can convince also the audience, the public who is going to buy the book or going to see the poster.

P H I L L I P E N O L E AU The very difficult thing with graphic design is that you, you, and you (pointing at the stage and the audience), you understand this poster thing, but for all the others, it is something completely different, it is another world. We always fight, fight and fight to let them know that it is very important, they have graphic design all around them, all the time, and for them it is something “evident”… And I always say that evidence is a bit like when you see tennis players, it seems also very evident. Like when you see Roland Garros 15 you might think “it is very easy, everybody can do it!”. But in fact they have to work a lot to do it. We have a lot of work to explain graphic design.

The other thing is that it is always very difficult to show it! Because graphic design works are very complicated: sometimes to understand you have to be in the project. And showing this is very complicated.

Because you can show a nice poster, but that doesn’t mean anything! It is very difficult for us to make the link. Not with you (pointing at the room), but with the people from Chaumont for instance, it is very very complicated. It is where the link with art before, it is a very different language.

LO R A I N E F U RT E R Do anyone else want to comment on that or react on that, from the point of graphic design, about matter of discourses on the graphic design practice. Do you think that indeed the message is sometimes not so clear? Do you think

Let’s Think Out Loud!

20

your design talks to everyone, or is it something that is clearly for a specific community?

(Big silence– laughter from the audience) Je pense juste qu’aucun domaine de création n’est évident et que ça demande à chaque fois d’être justifié, ré-articulé, remontré, en fonction des contextes, c’est par exemple ce que Susanna Shannon 16 nous a reproché hier, quand Thomas présentait leur collaboration avec Thomas Hirschhorn 17 : le public ne sait pas forcément qui est Thomas Hirschhorn, ni ce que signifie cette collaboration, cette façon de faire des livres… et comment ils ont réussi à développer ce travail via le design graphique.

Je pense que la question se re-pose de manière inverse. Exposer le graphisme ce n’est pas forcément ce qu’on entend au premier abord, c’est peut-être aussi des workshops, c’est ce qui se passe à Chaumont.

Mais cela se passe toujours dans le même milieu, ce qui est toujours un problème… En même temps non, dans notre workshop on a des étudiants en art qui viennent avec différente sensibilités, et je pense que cette sensibilité est amenée par une éducation.

Une éducation en école d’art où, dans la plupart des écoles, les groupes se chevauchent et apprennent les uns des autres. Je pense par exemple à l’exposition Monozukuri 18 qui avait eu lieu l’année dernière à Chaumont, et qui a eu une certaine itinérance, en passant par différentes écoles. C’est une belle exposition du design graphique et qui a permis de réarticuler ces questions, et de les montrer à des publics différents, plus particulièrement à des étudiants.19 LO R A I N E F U RT E R So you would say that in Art schools for instance it works quite well? I’m trying to summarize it for the English speaking persons… What is also interesting with graphic design is that it is supposed to be some kind of common object for everyone.

A shared object with the public and everyone. But it depends I guess also of the cultures and the amount of money that is spent to support this kind of practises. I have the impression that in countries like the Netherlands it is something that was encouraged and was supposed to be part of the shared culture of everyone? È V E C H A BA N O N

21

Round Table

16. Susanna Shannon, French graphic designer.

17. Thomas Hischhorn, Swiss installation artist.

18. Monozukuri, book exhibiton held in Chaumont 2013,monozukuri.fr

19. No field of creation is evident, and it is always necessary to be explained and re-articulated depending on the context. At the same time, we could put it the other way around: exhibiting graphic design is not necessarily what comes to mind at the first time, it could be a workshop like in this context in Chaumont.

So… that supporting art and design or culture is been efficient for society at large?

LO R A I N E F U RT E R For instance, some friends from the Netherlands told me that they could very easily access to theater as children. It means there are educational programs, and investment of money in graphic design in general, so that they are “well done” posters in the streets, etc.

SA M D E G RO OT Well, yeah. Maybe the Netherlands is, or mostly was, like one of the the more active countries in that aspect but it is kind of a basic social democratic idea: making culture accessible is a form of emancipation for people. And… yes, it happens in the Netherlands.

LO R A I N E F U RT E R It is a bit difficult in some other countries.

And for instance in Belgium, as the coordinator of a Prize for best book design, I have always this question coming up about the “greater public” interest and involvement. The thing is that when this cultural policy doesn’t really exist or got lower, then it is really hard to recreate this kind of shared culture of visual culture. I have no clue for that, but I guess it is something that needs to be built for a long time and now with the crisis it is getting harder and harder…

SA M D E G RO OT In the Netherlands there have been a lot of cuts in art fundings, but I think we also shouldn’t assume that before these cuts everyone in the country had an active interest in art and culture…

But in all kinds of politics, when the train is moving and keeps moving, then when it stops it is hard to start again. In the Netherlands there were always people skeptical about if it was actually effective or if it was done the way it should be done. But it was and is still largely is a luxurious position from which to be skeptical.

SA M D E G RO OT

Let’s Think Out Loud!

22

23

Round Table

“Critical Graphic Design Interviews”, Anna Craemer, in Questions/ Questions, 2012.

“Ten footnotes to a Manifesto”, Michael Bierut, in Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design, p. 54.

“The beauty part”, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, Rick Poynor, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 43.

In a Manner of Reading Design, Katja Gretzinger (Ed.), Sternberg Press, Casco, 2012.

“Style is not a four letter word”, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 94.

“In a Manner of Reading Design”, Katja Gretzinger (Ed.), Sternberg Press, Casco, 2012, p. 128.

“Intentions/Inventions” in OASE #90 What is Good Architecture? = Wat is Goede Architectuur, Kersten Geers, nai010 publishers, 2013.

“Designers are Authors”, Max Bruinsma, Lecture at Icograda Congress Johannesburg, 2001.

“Designer As Author”, Michael Rock, 1996.

“Fuck Content”, Michael Rock, 2009.

“Why does creating content seem to be a more valuable act than creating form”, Anna Craemer, in Questions/Questions, 2012.

“Ten Answers For the ASC”, Els Kuipers, in After School Club II – Content or not?! – About the concept of content in the theory and practice of design: reflections in images and text, 2013.

“Regrets Only”, Michael Bierut, in Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design Princeton Architectural Press, p. 87.

“American Mutt“, David Barringer, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 77.

“The birth of the user”, Ellen Lupton, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p. 23. babel ½, “So Social”, who are we designing for?, Hochschule für Gestaltung, Offenbach, 2013.

“The Small Crit”, Steven Heller, 2004.

“Editorial”, in OASE #90 What is Good Architecture? = Wat is Goede Architectuur, Véronique Patteeuw, Hans Teerds and Christophe Van Gerrewey, nai010 publishers, 2013.

“The Vow of Chastity”, in Looking Closer 4 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, Michael Bierut, William Drenttel and Steven Heller, Allworth Press, 2002, p. 114.

“Critical Graphic Design Interviews”, Anna Craemer, in Questions/ Questions, 2012.

Iaspis forum on design and critical practice: the reader, Magnus Ericson, International Artists Studio Program in Sweden, Iaspis, Sternberg Press, 2009.

“The birth of the user”, Ellen Lupton, in Looking Closer 5 – Critical Writings on Graphic Design, M. Keedy, Allworth Press, 2006, p.23.

“The Designer as Producer”, Ellen Lupton, 2004.

Forms of Inquiry Annex, Zak Kyes, Capucine Perrot (Eds.), Bedford Press, April, 2009.

“About the Word Design”, in The shape of things: a philosophy of design, Vilém Flusser, Reaktion Books, 1999, p. 17-21.

“Good Architecture ?”, in OASE #90 What is Good Architecture? = Wat is Goede Architectuur, Bob Van Reeth, nai010 publishers, 2013.

“The politics of aesthetics” interview with Daniel van der Velden, in Questions/Questions, 2012.

Bibliography

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Chaumont Festival, France, 2014 Let’s Think Out Loud! workshop Manuela Dechamps Otamendi Loraine Furter Milena Albiez Aloïs Ancenay Baptiste Guesnon Benoit Hody Mario Hombeuel Gabriela Kühnhardt-Alvarez Lara Lancereau Jan Paul Müller Jan Münz Vadim Shabatin Alicja Sara Wańczyk Paper: Munken Polar white 120 g.

Print: Risograph Font: Value Serif & Value Medium, Colophon Foundry 50 copies May 2014 This book will be available on lulu.com Thanks to Chaumont’s International Poster and Graphic Design Festival, its team, and all the participants!

Special thanks to Mathilde Lomberger, Lise Brosseau and Colophon Foundry.

ICONOGRAPHY Baptiste Guesnon 3, 28, 31 Mario Hombeuel 4, 25 Lara Lancereau 6 Jan Paul Müller 26, 27 Jan Münz 7, 29, 30 Vadim Shabatin 5

EDITORIAL TEAM Milena Albiez Aloïs Ancenay Benoit Hody Gabriela Kühnhardt-Alvarez Alicja Sara Wańczyk

Wil

l Ho

lde

r

Wo eas rds, d ont y Manuela Dechamps Otamendi & Loraine Furter com e Let’s Think Out Loud!

We will organi se a round ta ble whe of th re e fe ac st to iv rs al w ill be invited to visions. The pa sh ar e th ei r rticipants of th ew th or en ks sh ho ap p e will th e ideas raised during the ro table an d und m ak e a publication an presented in d posters an exhibition in Chaumont. ho

p

un

de

rs

ta

nd

En

gl ish

w

el l.

In the graphi c design field it is sometimes diffi cu lt to ac ce ss platforms an d authors that offer sp ac e fo r th ou ghts and criti It is much easie cal analyses. r to find essays with a historical ap pr oa ch w hereas in rela ted fields such as architectur e and art, spac es dedicated to cr iti ca l an d reflective appr oaches have existed for a long time.

We propose to ta ke th e opportunity of workshop to this think and shar e vi graphic desig ew s ab ou t n, its practices and its relatio to the public. n at

th

e

pa

rt

ic

ip

an

ts

in

th

is

w

or

ks

In t h diffi e grap hic cult d offe r sp to acce esign fi ace eld It is ss p it l f m rica uch e or thou atform is som s an l ap asie e g h t s an d au times as a pro r to a d r to c chitect ch whe find ess critica thors t h r a u r exis itical a re and eas in ys wit l analy at h ted s nd r r e a a l r ated t, sp hist es.

We for efle o a a p c f wor ropose long t tive ap ces de ields su ime dica ksho p ch t o r o . t grap achfield tited ake graphic design p to In the es h is sometimes to t hic des think the op ave he p a to access p ig difficult platforms and authors that ubli n, its p nd sha ortunit re thoughts c. offer rspace for y and critical analyses. a v c We ti e i w of thi s with a histos an e w It is muchceasier to sfind aboessays of t ill orga d u its r h approach whereas int related fields such e l a visio e festiv nise rical tion a ro a architecture and art, spaces dedicated und then ns. The l willas t b a p e b s arti to critical and le wreflective approaches have hap i n tab v ited cipa h e th le a e nts for existed a longertime. e n pre of t to shar actors sent d mak ideaWe s h e tthe r propose to take opportunity of this ew ea aise ed i pub d du orksh heir n an workshop to think and share views about l i r o c exh in pw at ib ill and its relation n an g tits hepractices ition iodesign, graphic r o d un i C p to the n public. hau osters d mon t.

We will organise a round table where actors of the festival will be invited to share their visions. The participants of the workshop will then shape the ideas raised during the round table and make a publication and posters presented in an exhibition in Chaumont.

-

d

de

en

m

m

co

re

ly

ng

ro

st

is

It

-2

t& oo Gr th de wor m Sa ul Ha Pa

th

e ur Fo enn Dim

-9-

-9-

U drigu s Bizz en ne mez & Ăˆvarri & c o es e Ch Alai u le se aba n n u on r s * Th Ro oma

“

…

… …

?…

…

…

…

…

… you know it‘s very difficult to … …

…

…

(pointing at the stage and the audience)

…

…

… ehmm …

ehm

… …

… … … IT’S VERY EASY, EVERYBODY CAN DO IT. ehh … ehh …

!

: … eehh …

…

…

… … ehmm …

…

… toehm …

.

…

.

…

… … … (pointing at the room)

… …

…

…

ups …

… (laughter) … …

eeehhh … … different

…

… eh,

eh, a language a very …

?”