Precis: Graphic Design Theory “Design and Reflexivity”

Precis Graphic Design Theory Design and reflexivity by Jan avant-garde Toorn, 1994. Verbal and Visual Rhetoric, University of Baltimore Publication Design Masters Program, Spring, 2011 Dutch graphic designer Jan van Toorn is kn protest for his radical ideas about what the social occasion of design should be, and what qualities designers should possess and promote with their designs. Van Toorns distinctive expression is messy, peculiar, and deeply interwoven with political and cultural messages, unapologetic with their intent to extort critical thinking upon viewers.Van Toorn advocates design which encourages the viewer to reach their own conclusions, pressure that designers shouldnt function as objective bystanders, but instead, designers constitute an grand contribution to lead. Design is a form of visual journalism and van Toorn urges designers to take responsibility for their role as journalists. Van Toorn begins his argument by stating that all professions contain a cer tain level of schizophrenia inevitable contradictions, including graphic design, which must balance the interest of the universal with the interests of the client and the world-wide expectations of the media profession.To survive, design must strive to neutralize these inherent conflicts of interest by developing a mediating concept aimed at consensus . to accepting the world number of the established order as the context for its own action. (Page 102, source paragraph) By reconciling the differences of various i deliberates and opinions, and establishing a cultural norm, design develops a possible and conceptual coherence in mass media, thereby legitimizing itselflegitimized in the eyeball of the social order, which, in turn is confirmed and legitimized by the contributions that design make to symbolic production. (Page 102, second paragraph) The cultural industry, comprised of corporations, the wealthy, the educated, and the powerful elite, dictate to the rest of corpora tion what is popular, distasteful, and overall socially acceptable, imprisoning design in a false horse sense of genuineity. Design becomes stagnant as it conforms to the ideals put forth by the judgment class. Van Toorn refers to this stagnation as intellectual impotence and designers tend to deal with it in two ways.Designers either resist the assimilation into popular husbandry by attempting to re bound or renew the vocabulary or they meld smoothly into the existing symbolic and social order. (Page 103, first paragraph) The lines separating these two approaches have become blurred with the rise of post-modernism and proliferation of niche marketing, as competitors try to distract themselves. Van Toorn observes that official design continues to be characterized by aesthetic compulsiveness and/or by a patriarchal fixation or reproductive ordering. (Page 103, second paragraph) Van Toorn then begins to examine what he refers to as symbolic productions, specifically ads, comme rcials, etc. , which misrepresent reality. These symbolic productions are ideological instruments, dowery private interest in the guise of a universal unmatchable. (Page 103, work paragraph) The so-called dominant culture doesnt serve to integrate antithetic social classes rather, it contributes to the facade of an integrated society, by forcing all other cultures to define themselves by an established set of rules, fostering a communicative dependency. (Page 104, first paragraph) Van Toorn argues that everyday life is falsely represented and causes tension amongst ethics and symbolism. In order to make what van Toorn refers to as an oppositional cultural production, the designer must take care not to create a specific alternative to an established convention, but to simply present it in a creative and new way, while keeping the universally recognised concept intact.A designers opportunity to upset the status plagiarize can only be sought when a political or ideological shift is underway, which results in creating new public polarities, usually targeting real social problems. (Page 104, last paragraph) Now the designer can encourage an oppositional stance, one that goes against the communicative order. The ultimate goal of this approach is to evoke questions and reflection among the public and encourage a more pragmatic view of reality, forcing them to identify their own needs and desires.Van Toorn cautions that despite the ever-changing nature of culture, design has to be living in its social ambitions. (Page 105, paragraph 3) The awareness of the unstable relationship amidst the symbolic and the real world requires a high level of sharpness and critical thinking ability. Design must recognize substance, program, and style as ideological constructions, as expressions of restricted choices that only show a crushed sliver of reality in mediation. (Bottom of page 105, to top of page 106)