The Unbearable Lightness of Graphic Design

“There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison”
– Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve hesitated to make a design decision in order to pause and weigh the relative merits of, say, setting a headline in bold versus setting a headline at 10 points larger than its subhead. Usually, I’ll do both and then stare at the screen, eyes darting from one to the other, waiting for the right answer to manifest itself. More often than not, that right answer never comes, at least not in the sense of absolute certainty.

I’ve gone through the same side-by-side, wait for an answer process with logos, websites mockups, business cards, anything visual with an element of subjective taste. And I’ve experienced the same result every time; just make a damn judgment call and move on.

Given the nature of design as comprised of both objective and subjective decisions, we can never be absolutely certain that we’re making the right choices. Graphic design is the lightest among the design fields, especially compared to a discipline like architecture. Images communicate and elicit emotional responses so quickly, yet those emotions pass just as soon as they’ve come. This makes our work inherently ephemeral and, like many graphic designers, I’ve often wondered whether what I create matters. And if it doesn’t matter, why am I compelled to tediously weigh every decision, to smooth out every curve, or to meticulously fine tune a color palette?

What I’m inclined to conclude is that, in order to stay motivated and continue to produce better work, the designer must toe the line between lightness and weight. Too light and the work loses value as motivation fades, too heavy and the work remains unfinished and unable to reach its intended audience.

How does one achieve this balance? I’m still figuring this out. In an effort to apply this idea of lightness and weight to design, I’ve been exploring some manifestations of each as they apply to staying motivated and pursuing and upward trajectory.

Shipping Mentality

Shipping mentality is light. Minimum viable products are light. Emphasis placed upon iterative process makes it easier to publish something that isn’t perfect. It’s terribly easy to get bogged down in the minutiae, which should be avoided in version zero-point-one of a project.

The obvious downside to shipping mentality is the backlash received by products that are so imperfect upon launch that the audience finds the product’s faults hard to overlook. Though these criticisms have a certain bite and a tendency to discourage, in the big picture even the harshest reactions are fleeting.

By way of example, the original iPhone launched in 2007 was met with serious criticism from tech experts. These critics, basing their assertions on mounds of experience, had good reason to believe that they were right. After all, they are experts. They’ve seen products rise and fall, great ideas that turned out to be flashes in the pan, and they’ve learned from those observations. Given the great success and undeniable traction of the iPhone, these same experts have been thoroughly proven wrong.

But I digress; the point here is that keeping a shipping mentality makes launching lighter. Even at the level of tactical execution for one-off campaigns, maintaining a schedule that dictates the definition of “done” promises to reduce unreasonable stress and insure progress. A lightness of attitude and willingness to “kill your darlings” is invaluable in this pursuit.

Bullshit and Craft

Every designer has, at some point or another, done business with the client from hell. Ambiguous feedback, fickle opinions, and unsubstantiated personal taste get in the way of finishing projects and doing good work. Mike Monteiro has some excellent advice on dealing with this type of feedback. Michael Bierut has expressed a similar sentiment in his essay “On (Design) Bullshit”.

The point is that, regardless of anything under the control of the designer or the team, there will always be certain subjective differences between individual humans. We can’t avoid these differences, but we can make them lighter by addressing matters of opinion productively and proactively.

I’d like to add that, from a personal perspective, I’ve found that leaning on craft has always helped me maintain my sanity. I can’t control my client’s opinion, but I can absolutely control my level of dedication and the amount of effort I put towards improving my craft.

Bullshitting can be exhausting. The nasty side effect comes around when the designer sometimes realizes that, although they’ve sated their client, they themselves can see right through their justifications. It is in the interest of avoiding this type of burnout that I find it invaluable to focus, at least in part, on constant improvement of craft. Being able at the end of the day to look at what I’ve made and know that it’s better than whatever I’ve made yesterday has saved me from throwing in the towel helped me through innumerable existential crises.

Failure Sucks

First off, I’m not a fan of the “Fail Harder” mentality. Why on earth would anyone pursue failure as a goal? Failure sucks.

That being said, failure is going to happen from time to time, and the only thing worse than failure is dwelling on failure. Avoiding the trap of self-pity is nonetheless easier said than done. All that I have to offer in this regard is the tactic of running as fast and as far as possible beyond a failure before it can become a heavy distraction. This isn’t to say that failures should be ignored, which is a slippery slope to their repetition, merely that they should be treated lightly.

The Lightness of Trends

Trends have a bizarre and polarizing reputation in the design world. On the one hand, we can leverage trends to connect with an audience, on the other hand, the individual designer runs the risk of defining themselves by a trend that’s bound to pass. It seems that most of us are in pursuit of “timeless design”, the antithesis of trendy design.

Outside of the designer bubble, there’s a much stronger demand for work that’s “on trend”, perhaps because it feels like a safe bet. If we give an audience something that the already like, we run less of a risk that they’ll reject it, and risk management is of undeniable importance to any commercial business. This is not to say that following trends is a good idea all the time. On the contrary, mastering a trend might be one of the most damaging pursuits on which a designer can embark. You could be the absolute best at replicating halftone moiré patterns, but no one’s going to give a shit once we’re all tired of seeing them.

Still, trends deserve our attention. These are important cultural shifts and again, they can help us connect with the right audiences. Nonetheless, it’s a good practice to keep in mind that trends are inherently light — we shouldn’t be afraid to throw them away once they’re past their expiration date.

Habit

Habits are heavy. Heavy in a good way. Habits are also incredibly important for creatives. Julie Zhuo offers a wonderful example of this in “The Idea Person”. This is golden advice.

Pairing habits with a light approach to failure, shipping, and bullshit is like cheating; it’s an unfair advantage. This combination is simple, yet difficult to pull off, and maybe near useless to talk about. Accountability to oneself is the best approach to habit building, or at least the approach I’ve found most useful myself.

There is a major difference between habit and goal. Habit is behavior, which can be observed, whereas a goal can only be imagined and spoken of. Goals can get in the way of habit, as in don’t share a goal with your best friend, or your mom, or anyone else. Because they’re most likely going to give you credit for “just trying” which short-circuits the whole process and turns your goal into a wish.

Generalist vs. Specialist

As a designer, should I find a specialty, or should I be more of a generalist? I’ve heard every imaginable response to this question. The truth? No one knows.

I bring this up, because the question itself exemplifies the unbearable lightness of graphic design. I cannot possibly know whether I would be served better a broad yet shallow set of skills, or a single in-depth specialty throughout my career.

If I spend ten hours a week learning how to write code, that’s ten hours a week that I’ll never get back. And if I don’t become an expert, or at least good at it, and having failed to develop expertise in a specific area, I might find myself in a bad situation in several years. It’s entirely possible that, as a designer who also writes code and copy, I’m pissing on too many fire hydrants and slowly putting myself out of a job.

On the other hand, specializing too much and betting on the wrong horse could be just as damaging. What if I spend 10,000 hours learning PHP, at the end of which some better language comes around and devalues my expertise?

Maybe the generalist vs. specialist question is the wrong question entirely. Or maybe the question doesn’t deserve the amount of time we spend debating it. Any attempt we make at calling it this early in the game runs the risk of looking as foolish tomorrow as those critics of the iPhone back in 2007 look today.

“Graphic design will save the world, just as soon as rock and roll does” — David Carson

The fact of the matter, as David Carson has put it, is that graphic design is light. I take comfort in this idea and it put things in perspective. Not because Carson is suggesting that graphic design is easy or unimportant, but rather, because it’s a reminder of just how little certainty we have as designers. Though we can never be 100% right, at least we can never be 100% wrong.

And that’s why I chose to set that headline in bold.

I am currently a student in BDW’s 50 week program. See my work here: tinyeahno.com

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