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DesignIssues from the mit press
100th ISSUE
The first American academic journal to examine design history, theory,
and criticism, Design Issues provokes inquiry into the cultural and intellectual issues surrounding design.
mitpressjournals.org/di
no work,” she says. “I still get clients asking for things that are simple and elegant, which annoys me.
“People see decoration as a frivolous add-on, when in fact it’s
a language itself and a communication device when done well. ... For any highly legible typeface, you get the message in a second, and you turn away. I use ornament to disguise the message and draw people into it. The ornament is like a honey trap that draws them in—a surprise—so they have more engagement with it.”
In 2008, Bantjes created a poster for an Australian wine distributor with the names of all its wineries embedded in a kind of code. She drew colorful grapes, all “engraved” with letters that spelled out the wineries’ names. At first, the poster appears like a cascade of colorful dots. “And then you realize it’s grapes! And the grapes spell something, and each merchant would find their name. It has this unfolding of information.”
So what’s the way forward for Bantjes? “Pendulums swing, they go from one end to the other. In European design, it’s more interesting than America, in general. ... I’ve stuck with ornament and moved it into new directions that no one else is, I think. I’d like to think that would be discovered, but I really don’t know what direction it’s going.”
Waiting for the pendulum to swing
To keep evolving decoration into the future, Zeldman says we shouldn’t view responsive web design as a limitation, but as an invitation. “You can be extremely creative and think outside the box because there’s essentially no box. What happens when I turn a phone on its side? There’s more we can do. Be creative, design a system, an experience that can keep moving around—instead of just a page.” Zeldman understands this can be difficult in a fast-paced job and preaches the importance of side projects for experimentation.
Pınar&Viola says ornament can blossom hand-in-hand with technology. “There’s a big opportunity for refined, decorative expression in 3-D printing,” Renate says. “Your screen brings so many possibilities of interaction and customization, surprises and seduction.”
But Bantjes doubts that ornament will be embraced on the Internet, at least in its current form. “People are so impatient online, and ornament is about making you stop and look to feel wonder and awe. I can’t imagine the online world ever being
a contemplative space.”
Technologists predict that our digital environments might leap from the confines of a laptop or browser to ensconce us, like a room of interactive wallpaper. In this space, Bantjes says, “I think it would slow down our attention considerably because it would surround you. Right now, when the Internet becomes too much, you can close it and turn away. But if it were more like an environment we exist in, we would have to slow down. That could be more ornamental.” The world of decoration could come full circle, back to the original elaborate spaces. In the future, we might live inside cathedrals of interactivity, lost again in the wonder of ornament. ca
Communication Arts | commarts.com 27
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