“Art has the lovely habit of ruining all artistic theories.” Marcel Duchamp ANTI-DESIGN is on the rise! The art form that breaks all the rules. Whether its dodgy colour palettes, completely ignoring alignment, typefaces that disorientate, anti-design is becoming more and more popular and can be seen more regularly in the design scene. But why is it happening? Let's look back at history. Anti-design has always been around, but there have been times where the art phenomenon has stood out. Almost every great cultural movement in history began with an intuition to purposefully go where you’re not supposed to go in the art world . I’ve picked out 2 key examples. Developed in response to the horrors of WW1, Dadaism, was a reaction to the slaughter of the trenches in the war. The movement essentially declared war against war, countering the absurdity of the establishment with its own kind of nonsense. Dadaism rejected reason, rationality, and order of the emerging capitalist society, instead favouring chaos and nonsense. Creating art that was rebellious and striking imagery that gripped people in the 1920s. Also, for different reasons, in the years between 1966-1980 Italian designers created a new anti-design movement. The movement emphasized striking colours, scale distortion and used irony. It was a reaction against what many avant-garde designers at the time saw as the perfectionist aesthetics of Modernism. At these moments designers were either bored of design or wanted to rebel against what was happening around them. Rules are made to be broken and the artistic spirit will always wriggle away from safe spaces. This is happening now! The pandemic has created designers that are detached and angry at the world. Young designers especially have had their communication torn apart, hiding behind screens, seeing no faces, voices muffled by poor internet connection. Finding it hard to express themselves. These young designers are being rebellious with bold designs, creating strong messages. Now with ever evolving technology, design software is more accessible and has become easier to learn, it's no surprise that more and more designers are breaking the boundaries within a simple click. The work can be so striking that it stands out from the rest, with a hard hitting presence. Social media platforms allow anyone to show off their design so it can be so easily shared, creating an instant trend. As a UX design student I was always told to stick with the rules, listen to the audience and keep it simple. Simplicity in design is always pushed, but simplicity doesn't always work. Even when some designers say, if it's not simple you're not doing it right. If it's too complex, go back and do it again. If you make people think too much, you need to come up with something simple. Simplicity has become an assumption that this is what every user wants and needs and something that always needs to be followed. Yes, it’s good to follow the rules but design can become repetitive and stale and I do understand that this art form can be very difficult to sell, breaking the norm is sometimes seen as a bad decision for companies, but users need to be challenged, to explore and I’m sure they don't want to be hand held through every experience. Design is an art form, and creativity is defined by curiosity, exploration, and experimentation. Both users and designers want this. Anti-design is all about that! I’ve found a great example of when it works. The conference site for Bloomberg Businessweek Design had truly outrageous anti-design and can be perceived as edgy and provocative. These designs were criticised by peers but the publicity led to a successful campaign. Any publicity is good publicity. So, does it help me, the answer is yes. In my previous work at university I love to try and break the boundaries of UX design and the briefs that are put in front of me. Now that anti-design is now on trend, my designs can be more experimental while still being accepted. NICE!
References https://www.siteinspire.com/websites/6041-bloomberg-businessweek-design-2016 https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/anti-design-italian-movement https://www.dadart.com/dadaism/dada/020-history-dada-movement.html https://uxplanet.org/top-3-visual-design-anti-trends-9e73fb9e2da9 https://www.creativereview.co.uk/anti-digital-graphic-design/
3 Comments
sarah temple
1/7/2022 03:28:19 am
Great to hear the anger and determination not to patronise users! You have not added your name as a credit? Michael? Excellent emphasis on the mockery and satire inherent in anti-design, slow to emerge en masse even in 2022. This should be key in all your FMP. How to articulate a genuine despair at the deceit implicit in design and the excesses (and damage to the environment) that it has wrought in consumers?
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sarah temple
1/7/2022 03:30:16 am
Forgot to mention Sophie Tauber and the importance of 'Found' in the future of design and resourceful making - make sure you see Waste Age at Design Museum.
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Robert Urquhart
1/7/2022 12:35:07 pm
Theories are made to be broken! Thanks for sharing this, great that you have found use of anti-design in UX, interesting angle, thanks for sharing!
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