Design legend Milton Glaser: “Design has nothing to do with art” | Hacker News Reader

Design legend Milton Glaser: “Design has nothing to do with art”

qz.com

23 pointsadamnemecek16 comments

This is very anachronistic and factually untrue. Design has only been a commercialized and institutionalized occupation for the later part of the modern era. Before then the roles were reversed. Art before then was always the heavily institutionalized and rigid practice. An artist studio during the renaissance was more akin to a factory with highly educated staff churning out stylized and "functional" artwork for church and state. This all changed in the 18th and 19th centuries when the artist became more associated with bohemian life and the mode of production and the art market changed (became more privatized and merchantilism expanded). Design and architecture on the other hand changed from something that lowly "craftsmen" and random educated people engaged in on a hobby basis into a regulated industry. This processes got crystallized with the ideals of modernism and functionalism in the early 20th century. Ideas which prevail to this day.

I love that this article thinks the oracle has spoken, even though qualified designers disagree with Glaser.

From Design as Art by Bruno Munari:

> The designer of today re-establishes the long-lost contact between art and the public, between living people and art as a living things. Instead of pictures for the drawing-room, electric gadgets for the kitchen. There should be no such thing as art divorced from life, with beautiful things to look at and hideous things to use.

Even Glaser's own office on 32nd street says "Art is Work" above the door! I thought he was a "Graphic design legend"?

Design is about solving problems in a particular medium.

It's staggering the number of young graphic designer divas out there that believe are making art.

"Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one"

Problem solving is necessary for design, but it's not about problem solving. Design is a synonym for fate for a reason. It's about eliminating possibilities and degrees of freedom, a sort of enslavement.

But what about the aesthetic part ?

"The aesthetic part" is always there, regardless of the intent of the designer. If you have a problem that requires catering to some specific aesthetic demand, then that should obviously be part of the design focus.

I think pier25's point is that most designs don't have such requirements, but young artists shoehorn them in anyhow, even when they are not appropriate.

What about it?

Aesthetics are part of the problem that needs to be solved.

People are quoting Jobs, hinting that design means "mechanics" (in an abstract sense) rather than looks. But, as a kid first, looks was most of what design meant for me, and even today, after graduating, it's still a very special part of anything.

True enough. True enough in that many designers need to toss off their pretensions and embrace the idea that they are problem solvers first and foremost. And design, whether for ads, product, or UI/UX, is not some dream career where you get to have have a steady paycheck while maintaining the creative freedom of a studio artist. If most people find your design difficult to use, or it causes them visual discomfort, then it is a failure and it needs to be re-thought. Design is somewhat subjective, but not that subjective.

(By all means, maintain an artistic practice. I do. Just don't make me, as your boss, pretend that you are Rothko when you're at work.)

"Design is not art" in a sense that while design tries to sell a product, art sells just itself. Fine.

However, it's a very broad generalization that can be easily proven wrong. A great design sells both the product and itself. Some Jaguar models come to mind, or the Eiffel Tower as another example. If you think the Eiffel Tower is not functional, I have another one for you: The Shard in London, one of my favorite buildings, is more of a work of art than just a skyscraper.

Design should be functional, but it doesn't mean it shouldn't be a work of art if it sells well.

Glaser says that you become clearer about the distinction between design and art as you get older. Fair enough, but this doesn't mean you are getting a clearer view of some fundamental ontological difference between the two. It's just a commonplace empirical observation that the activities/industries are different.

Can an object be both design and art? Definitely. Is art definitively identified by being purposeless? Not really.

The old name for graphic design was, after all, "commercial art."

> "In businesses, schools, offices, even newspapers, design is often associated with the art department. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the aim of design."

True.

> "When art and design are confused, the designers’ domain becomes limited to style and appearance."

But then constraining art to style and appearance is also a misunderstanding of the aim of art... Coming from a designer of his caliber, it is unlikely he meant to say that. All the same, words like "art" or "design" don't have fixed definitions.

Artists that work commercially design. You think Pixar isn't making designed products? Or Nintendo? Or every act on the Billboard charts?

Yes, art made off the cuff does happen, and it's a great way to engage yourself creatively, and sometimes you have some great happy accidents. But anything more structured involves oodles of design work.

Edit: And yeah, this is probably most aimed at (graphic) designers who want to excuse themselves from designing. But it points the finger in the wrong direction.

I am no Apple fan but Steve Jobs had it - design is how it works.

Art asks questions, design provides answers.

What a great article. /s

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