'I'm Trendy So What?'
“It’s maybe the best / most depressing web page on graphic design” is the title given to the Trend List website by the New York designer Erik Carter on his Twitter, summing up the feelings of many people from the graphic design community. The sensational, and currently quite popular portal was created about a year and a half ago by Ondřej Zita and Michal Sloboda (Designboys) with a simple aim in mind: to categorise current trends and cliches in design according to simple and apparent categories. The idea and classification is so clear that it entertains one part of the audience, and angers the other part – as is the case with all powerful ideas.
The project currently also works in reverse – like a trend-generating application, where any bungler can make a hip design in fifteen minutes. And that’s exactly what eight guest amateur graphic designers did in this issue of Komfort.
When and how did the idea of Trend List come about? What makes creative designers start describing, categorising and sorting their profession?
Trend List was created in the spring of 2011 for a presentation at the Pecha Kucha Night in Ostrava. In the beginning, there were a few questions like: “How can we sell an almost identical-looking poster to the client, and still be able to call it experimental, conceptual, or progressive?” or “is it really all that important today to develop one’s own style?”. The similarities were numerous and it was impossible to not notice them. The Internet and its associated social networks and blogs are so widespread today that they’re able to create and dictate trends in various areas. Graphic design is no exception. It’s similar, if not the same, as in music or fashion, where you also see certain trends and tendencies associated with a particular period in time. If you then name things, pigeon-hole them, it makes it much easier to talk about them. That was our aim – to show and explain the situation in simple terms, which was successful. The project started a discussion and established itself on the international blog scene about graphic design.
The experience is however such that Trend List evokes some quite exaggerated reactions from some designers. Do they feel that they might be accused of being trendists?
The main argument of the opponents of our site is the fact that consistent and rigorous graphical solutions, where form emanates from the contents of the task, are presented on Trend List side by side with the superfluous ones, which thoughtlessly utilise trendy elements. This then consequently deforms the image of what design really is. They also object that highlighting several specific elements plays down the importance of the rest of the visual language of a given poster, which may not fit into a pre-defined category.
It was clear from the beginning that some groups of designers would protest. It’s probably up to each individual to judge the quality of the individual works. Some examples however cannot be denied a mutual similarity.
Why do designers in particular see it as an attack on their work, when one could say that it, in its own way, popularises it?
Graphical designers in general are really afraid to be “trendy”. They’re probably afraid of the word or something. But it’s really all right. Am I trendy? So what?! Graphic design always has been, is, and always will be trendy, one way or another. It’s interesting to see how many of today’s “professional” designers create “conceptual” design first and foremost, tailored to the client’s needs, putting content first and stating that formal execution is wholly insignificant to them. What if it’s the other way round? That is, these designers utilise a graphical language typical of visual communication of the past few years, which could be described as being trendy, so the content value of such a poster is then very disputable. It’s a generally flawed way of looking at graphic design, brought about during the last few years. A graphic designer is not an artist! He doesn’t have to be original. He should really just do his work well. The fact that more and more graphic designers work on orders for galleries is also only a trend. If then someone labels their work as a copy, then their whole concept of creative freedom reaches a dead end. This should be an impulse to similarly start thinking about form, as well as content.
Were there any positive reactions?
A few designers wrote to us, saying that they wanted to be removed from the selection, which we did. But since Trend List really has become trendy, no-one wants to be removed anymore. On the contrary, rather. Most people understand the project and are amused by it.
What are the sources that you select from? In what way is Trend List different from websites like Many Stuff?
In the beginning, things on Trend List would have been from other blogs, where it was possible to ascertain the author and the year of creation. Often, a graphic designer would have a link on his website to ten of his friends, who would do similar things, which made searching easier. We also saved a lot of time by letting people submit their works through a form on the website. We get things sent to us every day. But not all things that do get sent appear on the site in the end. Trend List doesn’t represent works as isolated “beauties”, as most other current blogs do. Trend List looks for similarities and recurring forms, and then names them and sorts them into groups. It searches for when they were created or where they became most widespread.
Which group of designers do you represent?
We’ve primarily focused on media for the cultural segment of the market since the beginning. In current design, it is these sorts of orders which allow the graphic designer relative artistic freedom and liberty.
Is it then a community of designers with a similar artistic taste, or is it more a case of similar themes that they work on?
Probably a combination of both. Some groups of people, in their quest for originality, dusted off long-gone styles and now spew them into the public en masse. The streets are currently full of posters that copy the principles of modernism (alphabets constructed against a ruler, overall composition, text layout). The original forms, strongly tied to function, are a mere decor in today’s context.
To what extent is today’s design, thanks to the Internet, actually globalised and unified?
The medium of the Internet and social networks of course homogenises design, and elevates nicely presented, but sterile works from amongst the different schools. Design culture is becoming a copy of a copy, or a reblog of a reblog, if you will.
Why is it that the use of the elements like “circle” or “diagonal” can be called a trend and a pigeon-hole for Trend List? A circle, for example, has been used as a graphic element for several decades.
It’s not only about the shape of a circle. It’s also its method of use and its placement. The Circle trend in this instance refers to a so-called “Flash”, that is, a circle which contains supplemental information about an event, book or album (for instance New! or Fresh!). That’s only a phenomenon of the last few years.
A lot of authors consider their placement on Trend List as an accusation of plagiarism or being part of a herd. It really works that way. How come that trends in design are so contagious?
Trend List certainly does not accuse graphic designers of plagiarism. It only wholly neutrally points out the fact that graphic design, like anything else, is influenced by fashion waves. A lot of designers refuse this point of view and keep on insisting on the originality of their work, stemming from pure conceptualism, where aesthetics don’t matter. But, in the words of graphic designer Wim Crouwell: “You are always a child of your time, you can not step out of that!”.
The interview wouldn’t have been possible without input from Zuzana Kubíková of Ex Lovers whose critical views on Trend List served as inspiration for some of the questions.
Interview was for KomfortMag. Many thanks!