Personal hero Adrian Shaughnessey has an interesting series of radio interviews with Graphic Designers like Michael C. Place, Neville Brody, Rick Poynor, Kim Hiorthøy and others. Good thing to have a listen to, if you’re so inclined.
Adrian Shaughnessey’s How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul.
We Make Money Not Art’s Regine saw the PSST! 2 movies at the Pictoplasma Animation Festival in Berlin last week and mentions us on her interesting and detailed blog. She liked Unreciprocated Surgery Zombie!!! in particular. Nice.
Pictoplasma has just released Characters in Motion – vol. 2 which has a DVD with over 200+ minutes of films on it. Wow.
Movie got taken down off of the Youtube, but check here if you want to see it. More of the film / interview as well.
PSST! 3 will be starting in January 2008.
Invites will be sent Dec. 1, 2007.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for the comments on the PSST! Things First post. I am really glad that I struck a nerve. I’m glad some of you are now reading First Things First, too. And I’m pleased that some of these issues have been brought up and discussed, even if for the hundredth or thousandth time.
My call to arms, such as it is, is really just a reminder to all of us that if you want something done you might have to do it yourself. So with that in mind, I am hereby establishing the Motion Graphic Designers’ Organization. Note the apostraphe.
Here’s what I’d love to have happen next.
1. Recruit “members” (interested people)
2. Establish an agenda or platform for the group
Thanks again,
Bran
I was reminded over the weekend at OFFF why I started PSST! Many of the presentations were truly inspired personal work that intersected the worlds of art + design. Not many of those were Motion Graphics presentations though. For the most part what Motion Graphics is concerned with is making commercials and promoting the products and by-products of the entertainment industry. I saw glossy computer commercials, glossy sneaker commercials, glossy soft drink ads, and myriad glossy floating logos that pass as soft branding.
But why I started PSST! was to provide an alternative to the dominance of advertising in our profession. A chance for a few of us to collaborate together and make our own work on our own terms without corporate sponsorship or a brief being pored over by an agency. There is no funding for PSST! and no one involved gets anything more than a pat on the back and hopefully the respect of their fellow artists.
What I’d like to see now is for motion graphics to do more. To become an art on its own. And for that it needs to reach for higher goals than making commercials, keeping the checks rolling in and doing what the agencies need.
I’d love to see more individuals and studios take the time to make their own self-initiated projects. Not to change the world necessarily, but just to realize their own vision. To do work free of the constraints of logos, brand guidelines and any marketing strategies. I’d like to see what happens when each of us reaches for our own goals: political, artistic, experimental, or humorous.
I seriously doubt any of us lay awake at night thinking of ways to market the next consumer electronics device or show on a cable network. Yet that’s most of what we see when it comes to Motion Graphics work. That’s what gets promoted and that is what is deemed successful. And that’s the endless loop we’re now caught in.
How many student reels have you seen that just imitate successful commercials from the last few years? How many director’s reels are filled with spec work for real products? How many concepts have you seen recycled over and over again by different studios for different products? We’re in an overloaded world of ads, viral content, short films and user-generated contests that, for me at least, are all starting to blend together. Too much sameness.
First Things First is a manifesto first published in 1964, updated in 2000, and more and more relevant today. I’ll quote one section:
Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.
For the whole thing, go here. Read it, it’s quite good.
There’s a very important point that they’ve made. That we as graphic designers and motion graphics designers shouldn’t concern ourselves primarily with the needs of the advertising community. In fact, this is harmful to us and to the general public. We need to have other concerns on our minds. We need to promote something besides the corporate agenda. I do realize that part of this argument is the classic Art v. Commerce debate that we’ve all had a hundred times since our undergraduate days. That’s pretty reductive. Of course it’s not as easy as saying advertising is evil. It’s not necessarily. And businesses need to do work, make money and keep their employees happy. I’m not asking them to stop. But what I’d like to promote and work towards is something else entirely.
I was part of Attik for a few years earlier in my career. While there I got to participate in Noise 4, one of their infamous monographs. Say what you will about design-wankery or the cult of personality that allowed Attik to make these books. I don’t think they’re perfect. But being part of a project like that, for which there is no commercial goal (beyond Fame perhaps) is pretty amazing. We were allowed to follow our own instincts and creative impulses. That is what design is, too.
And that’s what I’d like to see more of. From all of us. And for all of us.
PSST! is one such outlet. Smilefaucet is another. There are a handful of individuals like Emmanuel Ho, Defasten, Renascent, C505, and Robert Seidel, and a few collaboratives like MK12, Devoid of Yesterday, Friends With You! and WeWorkForThem that are all doing their own work that can’t be considered commercial.
So with that in mind, I am asking for like-minded individuals to help establish an organization that will promote these ideals. The Motion Graphics Designers’ Organization, perhaps? An AIGA that’s dedicated solely to time-based media. A BDA that actually exists for the artists. An organization that seeks out, discovers and encourages the non-commercial and non-corporate work that needs more attention and engagement from the rest of the community.
I have a laundry list of items I think should be addressed, but I’d also like to hear back from you.
Thanks very much for reading this,
Bran