What is good?

Everything is design. The work of Paul Rand defined modern design.

A short retrospective film created more than 20 years ago for American design icon Paul Rand's induction to The One Club Hall of Fame, by LA-based design studio Imaginary Forces, encapsulates a few of Rand’s greatest insights. The audio for the piece came from a 1997 interview, "Conversations with Paul Rand". As a designer, I was very aware of Rand's work (not to be confused with American politician Rand Paul), but wasn't as familiar with his writing or teaching. Born Peretz Rosenbaum in 1914, in Brooklyn, Rand (who later changed his name either due to misspellings or to avoid bias) took a $25 certificate course at the Pratt Institute to study art. Today, a semester at Pratt can cost $30 K. After extending his studies at the Parsons School of Design (another revered school) he began his career in 1932. This is really the very early days of design as a profession, from graphic design, industrial design, to interior design, when design specialties began appearing. This generation of designers created the practice and principles that define those professions today. Apart from being an influential designer, Rand was also a remarkable teacher. His belief that design should be visually pleasing as well as functionally effective drove his work for magazines, advertising and most memorably, logo design. His many mantras, such as “Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations,” demonstrate that he also had a knack for capturing heady ideas in a simple, concise fashion.

These ideas don't just describe Rand's approach to art and design, but what "quality" means for many different approaches to creative work. To paraphrase from that 1997 interview is like a lesson in art history. Here are some of the more memorable quotes that stand out.

On a definition of design:
"The synthesis of Form and Content. Without form, there’s no Content. With Content, there’s no Form. A work of art is realized when form and content are indistinguishable."

"When Form dominates, meaning is blunted, but when Content dominates, interest lags."

"The vocabulary or language of art or aesthetics: (parentheses are mine)"
Order (keep it tidy)
Variety (but not so tidy it's boring)
Contrast (one way to not make it boring)
Symmetry (but hey, still a bit tidy)
Tension (tidy vs messy…)
Balance (tidy vs messy in equal parts?)
Scale (another way to play with order vs variety)
Texture (another way to add interest)
Space (blank space is important too)
Shape (another tool in the toolbox)
Light (these next three are pretty interrelated)
Shade
Colour
"This is the language of form."

Some more pearls of wisdom include: "Don’t try to be original, just try to be good."

"Art is an idea that has found its perfect form. No matter how good you do something, it can still be improved."

Damn! I mean some of these snippets would make awesome posters or t-shirts, not to commoditize a wise man's words or anything, but these lines are gold!

When I attended the Doug Wright Awards last year, I was happy to hear how they selected nominees for the year's best comic books. Also, it was held in Toronto's Arts & Letters Club, which, if I'm being honest, is the only club I would ever want to belong to. They choose work which they find have high levels of art, story and production. Hearing that made me realize that's exactly what I look for in a comic book. Though I would add "good typography" as well, because nothing can ruin an experience more than crappy type. Somewhere in the world is a Venn diagram where the overlapping circles of bicycles, coffee/beer and typography have "designer" at its centre. For me, I have to like the artwork, the story, the production quality of the book and the typography to really love a comic. This is not to say I won’t read a book if I don’t like the look of it, but it probably won’t become a beloved book unless it has a balance of all of those qualities.

Back to Paul Rand for a moment, his assessment was that a balance of the qualities of art (order, variety, contrast, etc.) with the content was when the real magic happened. What I love about this is that it means that a carpenter can design and build a beautiful chair without being a designer. A wonderfully engineered structure can be aesthetically pleasing if the work is done with love. You need not be a designer or artist if you really do something with concern for its overall quality. That really means anyone doing any work with that goal of quality can create art, even if they didn't set out to.

Many have shared similar ideas before, even ones such as the simple, "Measure twice, cut once." Superficially, it may appear like a concern to work smarter or faster by being the slightest bit more careful, but that care is what quality is all about. While Romans were known for masterful engineering, their philosophy may have been summarized best by Vitruvius in the first century as "firmitas, utilitas et venustas," often translated as firmness, commodity and delight. Again, what is important is the balance of a place being structurally sound, that is useful and valuable to those who use it, and that it be beautiful and give delight. Having only a sound structure that works might be a gas station, but all three would make it a destination that you want to go to rather than have to go to. Many highway stops with toilets in Norway have been designed to be not just utilitarian but beautiful destinations. Why? Who doesn't want to drop a deuce surrounded by beauty?

None of this is really about graphic design, comic books or highway toilets, it's about asking what we mean by "good" or "quality"? Why is that important? Don't we want to move through a world where the things we make last, age well, and show that someone cared enough about their work and your experience of it, that it worked well, was useful to you and left you slightly delighted. I do.