I believe the great divide between artists and designers is this…
Artist we create because we FEEL the need to express.
Designers we create because we have DEFINED the need to express.
can the two coexist…
ask any good designer
life lessons.
the linguistic quality of art translates effectively into design, but the designer distorts it while the material quality of design transcends through art and the artist refines it.
Originality is often rewarded or suppressed in art and design when projected into the environment, (think about the early impressionists being rejected by the academy.) It’s a bit of a reach to imply that clipart or stock photography are sacreligious to design (and by your implication art). Is it any worse to use a stock image in a “brochure” than it is to buy a pre-mixed oil color for a “painting”? Why re-invent the wheel with every project, every project builds on the last or the achievement of others. While it’s true there are plenty of those who don’t add anything to the process, but if the norm according to you is all the same, then it should be easier to be different, and maybe be rewarded for that unique solution.
Time is often a constraint in design projects. If you need to complete a poster for a grand opening in one week, don’t bother flying to an exotic location to get an original shot. You will loose time and fail at your project. Your client will fail at their promotional efforts and no one will give a crap about your level of purity or commitment to your art.
This is all true. I understand that you need to use those tools sometimes, but people are straight making a living on other peoples images. And if this is what you’re taught in today’s design schools, then the design world will be full of the same old boring things. It is the artistic designers that revolutionize and innovate the design world. And everybody else just copies and mimics the new hip look to make money, not for the sake of design. There is a difference between Art & Design, but some of you are really trying to totally seperate the two. The seperation can’t be that grand if the true foundation of design is art. My whole point is that there are too many designers that don’t have that foundation. AT ALL! And I agree that Artistry isn’t ALL you need to be a good designer, but you do NEED to be artistic. Professors please stop teaching students to be sheep. Employers, stop hiring them.
Is it any worse to use a stock image in a “brochure” than it is to buy a pre-mixed oil color for a “painting”? <<<THAT STATEMENT SUGGESTS YOU HAVE TO USE A STOCK IMAGE IN A BROCHURE. ABSURD. WHEREAS YOU ACTUALLY DO HAVE TO USE OIL PAINT TO CREATE A PAINTING. C’MON DON’T REPLY BACK WITH SAYING YOU HAVE TO MIX YOUR OWN OIL PAINTS!
Honestly, I think the stealth is quite aesthetically amazing.
Ok…we have worked this to death. Lets see some of this “art” you guys/gals do. Anybody have a site for fine art?
F-you
…i think of both art and design as the expression of personal point of view…be it a one of a kind painting, sculpture, book, movie, comedy routine or mass produced appliance, automobile or sofa…crafted to resonate at some level with others…to me, where art and design tend to diverge, is accessibility and/or value over time…art is exclusive and usually appreciates in value…design is inclusive and its worth is linked mostly to its usefullness…
VERY GOOD POINT
There is a great little show of Isamu Noguchi’s work currently at the Seattle Art Museum that touches on this topic. He saw little distinction between fine and applied arts (as it was called in the day) I actually had no idea how many mass produced chairs, tables, and lights he designed, as wel as stage sets for plays, landscape architecture, one off furniture pieces, tableware… in addition to the sculpture that he is known for.
Also, a friend of mine who walks the line: his site focuses on his art, but he has designed some awesome shoes, apparel, and bags.
It is simple.
There is a use spectrum. Place pure aesthetics at the right end and pure function at the left. Function in itself is transient, because arguably engineers are capable of creating devices loaded with capabilities but totally unusable by a layman, thus rendering their function almost nil if the creator is the only one who can use them. Those concerned with pouring energy into the right end of the spectrum are focused creating an item (regardless of medium) that is loaded with significance. They were spawned out of a deeper search for meaning. However you can’t perform surgery with a painting or track your to-do list on a sculpture. The left end is purely functional. A crowbar, a club, a rock. These items are deviod of larger significance and are may be one-task items. They were spawned out of need. A bottle opener is great to have when in a bar, but I wouldn’t want to be stranded on a deserted island with a crate of them. Nor would I, granting case-specific exceptions, propose they be hanged in a gallery. However, there is a degree of overlap. In that overlap lies design.
For example, take a chair. Approach average Joe and tell him to draw you a chair and you will get a four-legged furniture piece with a seat and perhaps a back for support. You may even have armrests. He will imagine that it is made of a material strong enough to sit on, likely wood. He has represented a functional item. Designers here will attest to the fact that there are any number of variances to this simple item, and any number of its features can be combined, substituted, altered, or omitted. A beanbag has none of these discrete features (or all of them as a fluid continuity) and arguably is a chair nonetheless, due to intent. Materials vary, colors vary, shapes are infinite. The goal, however, is clear. Sit on it. Or even more specifically, sit on it while doing A, B or C. On the other hand, Sculptor A takes a basic chair and removes the seat. Is it still a chair? Replacing the seat invalidates the sculptors work, but it retains all of the OTHER features of a chair. An item that one can sit on was not the goal. Conversely, there are sculptures that you can sit on, possibly even quite comfortably. Does that make them also chairs, particularly if the sculptor had not intended or specifically forbade they be sat upon? Alternately, a sculptor builds an ideal chair and intentionally places a “do not sit” sign on it. Intent invalidates its function, but it is definitely a chair by all rational observation. The item straddles the line between art and design.
It all comes down to intent, so I don’t believe that design is art or vice versa. That does not mean that one does not approach the other at certain points, however. The hard line of intent lies between them. Can artists design? Yes. Can designers create art? Yes. Are they the same thing? No way.
Some others who share my view, and regularly blurred lines:
Scott Burton:
Donald Judd:
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/judd/
Richard Tuttle:
http://www.sfmoma.org/tuttle/index.html
I don’t think those three sculptors fit into Design circle.
They are more of Minimalists or Post Minimalists.
The Minimalism movements surely influenced lots of things in our living until now, but their concept was never about “design” objects…
From Scott Burton’s 1990 Obituary “Scott Burton, Sculptor Whose Art Verged on Furniture, Is Dead at 50” , via the New York Times:
At the end of his life, Mr. Burton’s interests in dissolving the boundary between art and design took him into the curatorial realm. Last spring, at the invitation of Kirk Varnedoe, the director of the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, he organized an exhibition of Brancusi’s works at the museum. In it, some of Brancusi’s bases were exhibited on their own, as sculptures in their own right, a treatment that outraged some critics, while impressing others.
The very theme of much of these three gentlemen’s works was that of the “functional object”. Function is a key concept in design, they weren’t just trying to be ironic by being minimal. I am more inclined believe their stated intent over your opinion. Sorry.
The very theme of much of these three gentlemen’s works was that of the “functional object”. Function is a key concept in design, they weren’t just trying to be ironic by being minimal. I am more inclined believe their stated intent over your opinion. Sorry.
If Burton’s sculptures mimic chairs or seatable objects perhaps this you can call it functional, but what about other two sculptors’ works? Are there any design-functional elements there as well?
I know that Minimalism linked Design language and Fine Art movement, but I still don’t see why those artists can fit into “regularly blurred lines”…
Just curios…
Designers have a clearer vision of the desirable outcome and aim towards it through development , whereas (generalising) artist may go through a process with a basic idea or path to create something new, less precise and less restricted. maybe
If Burton’s sculptures mimic chairs or seatable objects perhaps this you can call it functional, but what about other two sculptors’ works? Are there any design-functional elements there as well?
I know that Minimalism linked Design language and Fine Art movement, but I still don’t see why those artists can fit into “regularly blurred lines”…
Just curios…
They spoke of their OWN work as doing so. Much of their work was intended for a person to complete the sculpture via interaction. It was not purely aesthetic. Not my words, theirs. Ask them.
I was asking about why they blurred the line inbetween Fine Art and Design. Not how Art pieces work with the viewer…
In my opinion, Burton can be inbetween the blurred line, but not other two artists. Maybe Judd could be because he considered industrial material itself to be important elements in his works.
If you feel Judd is the blurred line, what about Carl Andre, Robert Ryman and Brice Marden? If it continues, you will end up name all the Minimalist school.
However, if we must point out the design language and elements from those period, I would rather consider:
James Turrell
Bruce Nauman
Claes Oldenburg
Art is design, design is art. There is no real difference. Any thing can be art, if you believe it is. The definition of these 2 words is so vague, they only have a meaning when they’re put in a sentance. Design can be using art to create something, but that definition only works if the reader knows what kind of art is being referred to. After all 2 guys can look at something, and one will say its a work of art, the other will say its a piece of junk.
i think striving for originality or novelty will kill ya. coming from an art university education where many people were paralyzed by tackling design from this impossible perspective, it think it’s the wrong way to look at it. when you abandon the ego of ‘has this been done before’ then you start asking critical questions that will actually reflect real life, and then you’ll come a little closer to that Eureka! moment.
btw. it is beneficial to have a humanist perspective, and ya know what, we’re stuck with it whether we like it or not. emotion is rational.
I couldnt agree more, yet i whole-heartedly agree that art is essential to the creation of designs. If not to be an expert in aesthetics and formal composition, then to learn to express an idea through a form.