Cholden: Now you are bringing up a couple more subjects.
Inspiration at work: I think most designers are limited by what inspiration makes it into their work. We are limited by ourselves, trying to find the aesthetic trends that are most effective for our markets and will reinforce the brand image of our clients. We’re also limited by our clients, who have feelings about the market and their brand that may not coincide with what we feel. Therefore, most of what pops out our factories is conservative and watered down.
This is why I mentioned the arts. Although movies, comic books, novels, music, our environment are all going to inspire us. These domains don’t have the same constraints as our clients, so they can often go further and explore new territory. Sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes they are ugly. That’s part of exploring, you don’t know what you’ll find.
What I’ve been thinking about lately is where can we go from here. So much of our art today is the re-use or commentary on previous art. (see the lamp made with cups, or back packs with seat belts) At least to me, it seems as though there aren’t many people exploring the frontier. My question is, have we, as we have done with the planet, just run out of any new places to go or are we not pushing hard enough?
This isn’t an entirely new thought for me.
Part of the reason I’m rather obsessed by the iAesthetic, is it seems like a final destination. Designers have finally convinced the public that modernism is cool. Now what? We’ve succeeded where Gropius, Breuer and van de Rohe failed.
I kind of feel the same about this victory as I do about the Cold War. Where is the peace dividend? The purpose of modernism was to improve the lives of people, preserve the environment and make our world beautiful. Now that it is accepted though, it doesn’t feel like it is doing any of those things. So…now where do we go?