By Mariana Fernandes GMD To Design is a choice, a passion, a gift. But not to Design or even to be Anti-Design is impossible. How can one be against it when Design keeps you alive every day? Design points you in the right direction. For instance, thanks to road signs and their universal Design, you know when to not make a wrong turn (in every part of the world). Design also tells you to go on Green and stop on Red, and I think we can all agree that it's the minimalism that gets the job done here. Yes, minimalism can save your life. So why are Anti-Designers so against minimalism? Design influences even the minor choices you make on a daily basis. From choosing a shirt to a phone to a car to a house, etc. That is the personal side of Design, the Design that will not save your life but will not kill you either. That's where the whole duality of Design vs. Anti-Design comes into action. To Anti-Design means to refute the simple, the clean and the symmetrical. It aims to bring back the loud and messy approach from the early 2000s. "Anti-design" might be a much too radical term for it. One is not really against designing, it's how you get the job done that differs. How you use negative space, typeface, grid, size, colour, etc. There's a difference between not liking Design and not liking minimalism. In this case, it all comes down to preferences, in which I believe there shouldn't be a debate on what is better. To be an "Anti-designer" you need to understand what design is in the first place. Like my teacher used to say, "you first need to learn the rules in order to break them" a great example of that is Picasso and Basquiat, two artists that actually know how to draw (realistic) and who started by doing so and then proceeded to bend the rules and build their own style (cubism and neo expressionism). Even David Cason, the father of 'Grunge Design' and the biggest Anti-designer I can think of, usually advises young artists to "break the rules but still know how to respect them". What I take from here is that even if you want to be Anti-design, you still need to learn and understand the rules of Design. Ironic, right? Grunge Layout inspired by David Carson's Anti-DesignBy definition, Design is something with a purpose, it answers a need (mostly the client's needs). Anti-Design is more of an experiment as a way to express yourself, just like Art is. They are two different matters with two different goals, and just like we're not discussing if realism is better than cubism, I don't think we should be discussing why or if Anti-design is better either.
In my experience, a minimal look with a bold Sans Serif typeface on a clear grid has always done the job right, but that doesn't mean that I don't try different approaches too. There was a time when I would use Helvetica for everything, until I took each character and started deforming it, stretching it, puzzling it, and having fun with the "Mona Lisa" of all typefaces. I ended up creating my own type out of it which was praised on the very first second of the interview for my internship at Nomad studio a couple of months ago. I think the answer to this dilemma is just taking the best of both worlds and having fun with it, taking advantage of whatever is out there and using it in your own way, a way that fits your purpose and that shows your personality. Why choose one when you can have both?
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