#galleryyuhself/design writing

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Halleryyuhself - I recently found some older writings on graphic design musings I have about Trinidad and Tobago and decided to post them here.

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Galleryyuhself - Always wonderful in every way...Designer on an Island.

DWELLING

A CHAT WITH ARTIST AND DESIGNER, CLAYTON RHULE

June 03, 2014

We are always searching for home and our concept of home is always changing. Home can be a country, a people, a lover, a place you grew up in, a place you create for yourself. Home is many things and it is never static. Objects are home too – a rocking chair, a bookshelf of treasured tomes, a grandmother’s knick-knacks. They form part of our consciousness, things that symbolize comfort, belonging and security. What happens when you distort or change these objects that symbolize home for us? How does it change the way we see home, the way we see ourselves? These are the ideas Clayton Rhule explores in Dwelling, his first exhibition in three years. We chatted with Clayton about his work and his creative process.

“I am a dreamer. All that I do somehow starts there. I call it the dream space.”

ENJOY THE READ

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Galleryyuhself - We always ask ourselves these questions and it always comes down to a matter of interpretation. or does it really?

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Galleryyuhself - Books by Judy Raymond available at Bocas Lit Fest tomorrow.

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H a p p y t w e n t y - f o u r

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Galleryyuhself - Design Social Change: Take Action, Work Toward Equity and Challenge the Status Quo. Artist Che Lovelace lends his work to the new book by Trinidad and Tobago Academic Dr. Leslie-Ann Noel.

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Galleryyuhself - If you DON'T read then you DON'T NO!

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          Trinidad and Tobago Writer Lisa Allen Agostini’s book cover

                         beautifully illustrated by Brianna McCarthy

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Graphic Design in a quarantined world

ADELE TODD·TUESDAY, 24 MARCH 2020·

The Corona Virus has changed mankind. We are all wondering when it will end and what collectively, we must do next. One thing is clear however, anyone, Politician, Industrialist, Media Personality trying to spin the virus for profit will fail. Now is definitely not the time to try selling anyone on anything. Our nerves are on edge. Self quarantine, tentatively venturing to your grocery and wondering whether the stimulus packages offered by your government or company will cover your family’s needs are challenging enough.

So, what is the best action in the Design industry right now? How should companies relate to the public anew? As products go, we know that this pandemic has left us all watching the world with our eyes agog. The helplessness we feel is one step behind the inertia of staying inside. 

What do we want to do? We want things to be better, and we have had some wonderful spontaneity from the people of Italy who have used their time to make music in all its forms. Looking at Design history during other serious times, a strong pattern emerges. Graphic Design has been a first social responder from antiquity. It has been the one tool to teach: to secure; to enlighten and to support us through uncertainty. The use of Illustration, Typography and Photography have filled our memories  for the better in images like the delightful French character drinking a bottle of wine from 1932,  a poster triptych for Dubonnet, illustrated by A.M.Cassandre. 

The strong Russian and Bauhaus styled Buy War Bonds posters from World Wars I and II, and also the iconic, Keep Calm and Carry On. The latter available on tee-shirts, mugs and key chains anywhere on and offline, and even now, Keep Calm and Wash your Hands.

The circumstances of this virus will frame the future design narrative. We already have the term, social distancing. Prior to Covid-19  the consumer was already bombarded with being environmentally correct, anti-phobic, socially conscious and as moderate as one can be. The human and not super-human side of things are to be emphasized now. We want to feel that our product tastes are reliable, sincere and worthwhile. We have had enough of the excesses, at least for now. Unlike 9/11 the refrain to go out and shop as usual does not have the appeal. Consumers presently feel, what can you do for me to bring some comfort or support? I don’t want hidden fees. I want facts. I don’t want any more anxiety, and I don’t want to regret this experience. Throw away culture is dead. A closer narrative to real peoples’ lives is what fits the literal bill going forward. Companies and products shall succeed by answering those desires immediately.

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~Galleryyuhself~ With a Minister resigning from the Ministry of Public Utilities, and the Hurricane season beginning, Forres Park gets a point across by adding the armor that we definitely feel we need right now. 

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A serious message about the constant perceptions of the Arts

Aditee Biswas on Facebook reacted to the following image -:

“I wonder how people would have survived the lockdown without films, web series, TV shows, online workshops, listening to music, seeing performance showcases and reading books 🤔 yes of course... Artists are the most non-essential entities “jobs” in any society! Brilliant!!! Thanks Padma Damodaran for sharing this!

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This led to a very strong response from the prolific Holly Bynoe, Co-founder and  Director of Tilting Axis, 

See it here as follows:

”This kind of microaggression always manages to grind my gears and makes me want to burn shit down. Thanks, Sonia for the early morning blood flow.

You create as a child, to enter into adolescence only to be shown by the education system that you matter less, that they aren't really serious about you...you either get discouraged and walk away or you try to get into a Community College or College to pursue your dreams.

You take out that loan and you are gung ho to change your world and challenge your path. You are passionate, driven, you connect with your intentions and meaning only to be told by your families and societies that what you are doing is a hobby or worse yet, you won't amount to anything because of this passion and because there is no value attached to creating.

You manage to pass with flying colours and honours (cause that is what we do), but you return home, or you were always home, to begin with, in these failed states that let you know that "you cant pursue this dream". Yet you persist and find all kinds of ways to train and to elevate. You form collaboratives, you are a part of reading and study groups and critiques.

You start to align yourself deeper with this purpose, but you are continuously bombarded with this ROI - return on investment - talk and industry talk and fledging talk about how they want to take you to market...like you haven't been on the block for a long, long, long time.

But you focus, on what you are doing because you know that it gives you breath and it gives you a way to see the condition of your space. You become entranced by our culture and our history. You go digging for secrets, for new ways for our chained minds to find freedom. You develop bodies of work that explore language, that unchain it from whatever yoke and stranglehold that it was tied to.

You gather the courage to tackle our colonial conditioning and the damage that it has done, and people get really uncomfortable. They get so uncomfortable that they start to demonise you, you are no longer looked at as a passive person conforming to the ideals, customs and codes put forward by the society.

You have become dangerous, and this is why we are continuously bombarded with messages that we don't matter and what we do has no value. That being an artist is inconsequential.

They want to distract us from the purpose, from the uprising from the truth-telling and they want us to play to their respectability politics, colonial yokes and above all to their comfort.

Well, I am happy that we are creating and thriving in 2020 and this part however hard, at least we know that we have communities of like minds who can hold us up and hold healing space for us when trash like this shows up.

Our governments have done such a piss poor/conniving/disempowered whack job with the creative industries and the Orange economies. They continue to caricature us, whittling us down to the baser denominators of Junkanoo, carnival and all of that other festival shite (don't get me wrong it is powerful but the investment, marketing and commercialisation are deeply problematic) without understanding the nuances of how creativity manifests and how this division of labour in our minds and our hearts can truly advance our communities.

And in all of this, I am still in the studio or at the desk writing. I'm not even speaking about all of the social arts education we need to heal our SICK SICK SICK minds...all of the art therapy that we need as a region to unlock these traumas that have been stuck in our throats and hearts for generations.

It is a shame that we are still behind the eightball, still playing it safe even with all of our technologies, innovations and advancement.

I wonder what our ancestors would say if they were here to see how the brutalism has spread. That we are doing it to ourselves.

I wonder, above all that what kind of new technologies some of us are creating to mash-up this sickness and these enslaved mentalities that would never allow us our freedom to be.“ -Holly Bynoe

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A key theme of protesters' posters is the ability to "be water," a phrase inspired by martial arts icon Bruce Lee that encourages fluidity and adaptability to any situation.

Written by Rebecca Wright, CNN

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Design NOW

Today, I look at the landscape of local products, manufacturers and services against the appetite of the world at large. I often take into account the way our local businesses sell  customers to us through Facebook, Instagram, Newspapers, Radio and more. Just observing can leave me more concerned than encouraged when I ask, how does the young designer working in Trinidad and Tobago today make a contribution to our desire to sell products while also being socially and environmentally responsible?When I taught Graphic Design at John S Donaldson Technical Institute (now University of Trinidad and Tobago UTT) one of the things that challenged me was the realization of being one of the Lecturers tasked with making great Designers for the world of work. 

Tasked with disseminating knowledge, colleagues Valmiki Ramcharan, Elizabeth French, Reginald Cox and I were always bringing into the curriculum the question of designing with a conscience. Way before the diagnosis on climate change, we would make our students aware that there was no such thing as designing in a vacuum. To design anything for anyone, one must ask pivotal questions. Who is it for? What advantages and disadvantages are known to assist in better design? Why design and for what function? 

It is easy to feel as though leaving school with your papers in hand and getting a job does not give you power to decide what can be done to make designing processes better. You are asked to know Design Software packages; Photography; some Printmaking; some Art History; write a Thesis and to create a  Portfolio. Yet, armed with that information, can a young designer impact the industry?  Particularly when not much is known about the needs, wants and bottom line of said industries?

Some may argue that the designer does not have to know any of that? This is what the agency executives are to know. The Designer is reduced to the active worker bee churning out a quarter page advertisement for BOGO shoes or Spaghetti for Eve products. Very quickly it becomes clear that creative design thinking is not required. The young designer feels as though they were never in the loop, only in the execution of the product needed to keep the industrial complex going. 

However, I would like to posit a possibility to that  young designer today.  So often when I speak with students, they tell me that family and friends  always ask them quite seriously, what do they do? Why study Graphic Design? They all know how to answer. Everything you see has been designed. Yet, how much of what you see is designed in Trinidad and Tobago? What of the things that you see that are done here, are user friendly? Let us take a look.

Trinidad and Tobago’s business community is made up of a few manufacturers and mostly distributors of foreign goods. We import a great deal of our needs and wants. Very quickly it is clear that our societal demands are all about comfort and sophistication, from cars to fast foods. The young designer today is creating content to keep these wants in a context. Local products take on a feel of their own and foreign products keep in line with their international appeal. What is the designer to do? Know the market, the basics of selling to the customer, the taste range of products and  the user. In some ways, take an algorithmic temperature of the push and the pull of consumption on the islands. Observe the ways people purchase things and why. To be a designer today is to be on top of social media, the language of viral videos, fake news and the emoji. However the biggest learning curve comes from knowing  the end point to consumption. What is the shelf life of products you design? 

How are they collected when they come to their obvious decline? What recycling facilities do we have to dispense with our treasures that are now trash? Does the company you did that label for  use a one use plastic product? These are the conversations that young designers have to be part of right now. 

All products end up in a landfill at some point. We can no longer pretend that clogged waterways are not a product of our collective use of consumed items. We are all part of the answer to a very devastating world problem and we are fortunate that we can do many things right now to make things better, one design at a time. Have the conversation and make the change NOW.

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   Graphic Design Projects with real creativity do not come along every day.                                           Congratulations to The Team.

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~Galleryyuhself~ Dr Lesley Ann Noel’s look at design and diversity.