Poverty®
This is part of a series of highway billboards I designed for a National Advertising competition. I got the silver prize and a month of public display of my work. However, I am constantly haunted by the images I designed. Sometimes I think I have deciphered some sort of design method to create beauty out of whatever set of images and topics are before me. Other times I think I am going nowhere in the middle of the globe; sitting, and hoping to find a way into the first world, even if that means selling poverty by design. Lastly, I think I am very good for having achieved this state of mind until I find and see something like this and realize that my path is long and rough indeed before I can call myself a good visual communicator.
design is a strange world. sometimes i'm in love with it. i go through a time where i come up with ideas and more ideas. how just by re-organizing & redesigning something you can change the impact and meaning. And in turn you're making things look, as well as work better. that excites me and pumps blood through my veins.
then i actually do it & show it to people and i get the reaction, "that's too designy, that's too conceptual no one's going to understand it -why don't you just do it like this". which in turn i respond, "what? that's how it's always been done. this is actually changing it and giving it some meaning."
eventually they win out and i just rehash what's always been done and realize no one wants anything "designed". they want the standard with a different picture and different colors.
my whole point is, Guido you did something you are proud of and people didn't force you to change your idea. people understood your point and liked the idea. that alone is the silver lining.
At risk of sounding sort of adolescent, I just wanted to say that I was reading this bio of Jim Morrison the other day (a great book by Stephen Davis, actually, who doesn't lionize the Lizard King, but actually presents a nuanced portrait of a complicated, conflicted and troubled person). Anyway, in the book, Jim Morrison is quoted as saying that any art is all about giving form to experience. I thought that was a powerful way of describing the act of writing or painting or, as I imagine, doing graphic design. We have to translate our perceptions in some kind of (visual) langugae of form that stirs some comprehension or reaction among an audience, and if you did created a form well and beautifully (as I think you did), you should be proud.
I used to be a Toni Morrison (hmmm...a connection to or obssession with the last name) fanatic, and I used to say I loved her writing because she could take something absolutely terrible and violent and write about it so beautifully that most readers couldn't turn away. The better the form, the more people you'll reach, and I won't forget your images anytime soon.
Congratulations on that fantastic award. Good luck.
wow, alice, those are some mighty fine words you are using. i, being a graphic designer, couldn't have condensed our charge any better. ever thought about switching careers?
and guido, if it weren't for a little (or a lot) challenge, what would keep us going? embrace the difficulties and allow that to push you harder and further.