The College of Visual Arts, in conjunction with AIGA Minnesota, recently brought Patrick Coyne, editor and designer of Communication Arts Magazine, to speak at the Minnesota History Center in Saint Paul on the occasion of the publication’s 50th anniversary. Slide after slide of clever, beautiful, remarkable, memorable, brilliant design flashed across the screen as our engaging design-meister/moderator guided us through the revered annals of visual communications mastery.
Founded in 1959 by Richard Coyne and Robert Blanchard, Communication Arts — known in art schools and design firms everywhere by its initials, CA — is the largest international trade journal of visual communications in the world, featuring excellence in graphic design, advertising, photography, illustration and interactive media. CA currently publishes six issues a year; conducts five juried competitions; and hosts two websites, commarts.com and creativehotlist.com.
Word on the street is, “Communication Arts magazine is a great source of inspiration, with profiles and features on top designers and work.” It’s a well-designed magazine that keeps up with the latest trends, showcasing excellence in exhibits, styles, designers and design firms — work from both established Big Dogs and pink-cheeked up-and-comers. Even B.C. (before computers), CA Magazine and its competition annuals were held as the Gold Standard of good design. Students would pour over its starkly laid out pages finding inspiration and intimidation all in one swoop.
Starkness by design - Rather than be a designed element itself, CA’s senior management believes that the magazine’s role is to unobtrusively showcase the work of the designers as a “museum of visual communications.” This could be a big part of the reason why its pages carry themselves as solidly now as they did in the early days. The magazine, like premier designs of eras gone by, has been able to maintain a presence and integrity, communicating on a level that is as fresh and relevant as the day the first perfect bound edition rolled off the presses. Editors note in a section on CA’s current homepage that “[while time and technology have changed many things], they haven’t diminished the power of a compelling image.”
So, the Q&A session was well under way when a student in the crowd asked,
“So, what’s next in design?”
Coyne didn’t skip a beat and replied, pointing directly at the guy,
“You are. You are what’s next; and I can’t wait to see what you’ll do.”
He went on to talk about how technology has brought design tools to everybody, … about how anybody can produce a flyer, newsletter or website, … and how the consequence there is that designers are forced to bring value to their clients as strategic thinkers instead of just image makers. He reassured us that this is a good thing; what used to be primarily communication through graphics and language has become something bigger, deeper and more complex.
Our own Cecily Sommers ratifies Coyne’s point suggesting that design is rapidly expanding from “things” (the arrangement of visual elements) to “experiences” … from experiences to “perception” … and from perception to “meaning.” The designers of “what’s next” need to be fluent in the language of meaning … metaphor … symbol … archetype. Sommers points out that at the structural systems level, a brand, when it works, becomes a steward for a territory of meaning.
“The well-designed brand says, ‘We have a point of view, … we invite you into our world, … a world where experiences, perceptions, objects, humor and tone will be consistent.’ The job of designers, businesses, artists or whoever, is to build a portal that opens up into a world that is designed and engineered to support and promote a continuity of meaning. They need to be able to communicate an experience and its underlying meaning to the marketplace such that people are able to make it their own, to feel that they are a part of a community. If you’ve done a good job, you become a trusted and frequented resource. You can bundle your products and networks with your preferences and P.O.V. … and the whole shooting match reflects your world and the values held therein. You become a curator … a steward of that territory of meaning.”
Curator … the Oxford dictionary defines it as “to look after and preserve” … the NY Times Magazine Sunday Style section defines it as … “a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded.” Previously confined to exhibition corridors, the modern curator moniker tags anyone who engages in activities that involve “culling and selecting” …
“Now, among designers, disc jockeys, bloggers and thrift-store owners, curate is code for ‘I have a discerning eye and great taste’ … Even news-aggregator websites like Tina Brown’s Daily Beast, promote themselves as cultural curators … sifts, sorts, … Putting things together in a certain way is a creative activity in itself … things like structure, flow and revelation are considered an art.”
As Coyne and others suggest, in today’s design marketplace, the “what’s next” curation/juxtaposition of variable elements is the new value add. Indeed, even our PUSH Institute “Drill Down” bills itself as “a highly-curated sort and analysis of global trends and issues.” Looks like what’s next is what’s now.
Article By: Katherine Emmons
