«Graphic means» — Interview with Briar Levit
In Spring 2014 Briar Levit launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for the production of Graphic Means, a documentary exploring graphic design production of the 1950s through the 1990s — from linecaster to photocomposition, and from paste-up to pdf.
by Jonathan Pierini
This article (qui in italiano) has been featured on Progetto Grafico, an international graphic design magazine published by Aiap, the italian association for visual communication design. The issue #31, “Around the body”, has been edited by Claude Marzotto, Jonathan Pierini and Silvia Sfligiotti. You can subscribe to the magazine here and buy the current issue here.
JP What motivated you to make Graphic Means? Why do you think it is important for today’s graphic designers and students to know about how their work was done in the past?
BL This project started with a collection of obsolete production manuals that I amassed from my regular trips to the thrift store. I found myself looking at the various processes laid out with step-by-step photos and illustrations, and just marvelling at the sheer hand skills and time that would go into a simple brochure from thumbnail to paste-up mechanical. I was aware of these processes, but had missed learning them in school by 5–10 years. As a teacher, I wanted to share this with my students to give them context and appreciation for the work they do today — to help them see their place in the continuum of our discipline.
The more I thought about it, however, the more I felt I wanted to share the story with a larger audience. The effect that Doug Wilson’s film, Linotype: In search of the Eighth Wonder of the World had on me made me consider film as an option. His film helped not only to clarify the mystery of Linotype as machine vs. type foundry, but it also showed me the machine in live action. The story is told in the film by people who worked with and loved the machine. I wanted to do for the Cold Type era what Doug had done for the Linotype machine.
JP The film is a story of tools, processes, and people, as you say. I am wondering if it is throwing some light on how the human brain and body have been affected by these changes. I am thinking of designers’ way of producing and assembling their pieces and of routine gestures.
BL This is discussed a bit by designer Lucille Tenazas who laments the fact that she no longer works with a massive space and large sheets of acetate, boards, and tools. She liked knowing that it was her hands that created the final piece. There was a sense of pride and Zen about creating the work itself.
JP Due to technological changes, while the role of designers has evolved and expanded, many production roles have disappeared. Do you think some skills, expertise and a certain attitude got lost in this transition and if so what have the consequences been?
BL Well, I don’t think that production roles went away per se, they were just absorbed by the designers themselves. So now we do our own typesetting, and our own pre-press much of the time. There was certainly a learning-curve as designers made the transition to digital and were suddenly charged with setting their own type and making typographical decisions. Many designers I’ve spoken to mention that there was a period of some pretty poor typesetting. We’ve caught up, however, and I think designers are often incredible typesetters.
As for what was lost — I think that there is a different workflow now that favours speed over the measured thinking and planning that should happen before jumping into a design.
I also know for a fact that my typographical eye isn’t nearly as precise as designers who worked pasting up type. They can spot errors like extra spaces, incorrect glyphs etc., so much more naturally than those of us who learned on a computer. I know my eye isn’t as sharp, and I’m fairly certain the eyes of my students are even less sharp.
Ultimately, the gains are so much greater than the losses in terms of the kinds of things we can do with less equipment, and without sending various elements out to so many different people. This democratization of tools has allowed designers to become authors and business people themselves.
JP For too long designers forgot to notice how their bodies were affected by the way they worked. Today, off-screen design processes are becoming more and more relevant. In an opposite trend from that of the 1990s, digital technologies are now materializing (see, for instance, the so-called internet of things). What do you think is going to happen in the near future?
BL There is absolutely a resurgence of interest in non-digital techniques, or a way of working that starts out by doing things by hand, and then is translated onto the computer for final artwork. Just as history has shown us that artists and designers often react against technology (think of the Arts & Crafts movement reacting against the Industrial Revolution), the same thing is happening now with the resurgence of letterpress and even things like screen printing and Risography (which can technically be done without using a computer).
Does this lead to new aesthetics? Perhaps. I think the mixture of technologies is what’s very exciting and fulfilling for many designers working today. Most don’t feel a need to be purists in terms of analogue methods, but do like getting their hands dirty.
The newest technologies always affect the work that designers make. That’s been historically so, and will continue to be so as far as I can tell. For instance, just little time ago, a consortium of leaders in the type industry announced the debut of their own plan for fonts that have infinitely adjustable weights. When I first heard it, my initial feeling was nervousness at the idea of folks using all these weights without sound typographic training. But then, aren’t these the same concerns designers had when the desktop computer debuted, and desktop publishing opened its doors to non-designers? Sure, there was a proliferation of less-than-excellent design. But there was also a boom in experimentation with these new tools that led to aesthetics we’d never have imagined before.
JP While making your documentary, did you meet anyone questioning what were, at the time, new technologies, anyone proposing alternatives to them?
BL I didn’t meet anyone who was proposing alternatives to new technologies in graphic design, but designer Art Chantry finds himself digging his feet in and continuing to use analogue methods regardless of what new technology arrives on the scene. He said when I interviewed him: “Let me put it this way, every time technology takes a big step forward, I take a big step backward. It’s like I’m almost down to potato stamps now. The technology’s gotten so good, why would anyone hire me when you can do it yourself?”.
