CtrlShift

See-ming Lee 李思明 SML has added a photo to the pool: One of the interesting genres in complex designs is layering. By creating layers of different interpretations of a unified idea, designers re able to emphasize its importance the same way a musician would compose repetitions and variations on the same theme. In particular, April Greiman fuses photography, Xerox, video and computing technology together to create a collaging process which she terms as "hybrid imagery." Such addictive approach has given all of her work a dense and complex feel that takes time to comprehend. However, she has no means to simplify her message. As she pointed out to Hugh Aldersey-Williams in the New American Design: Products and Graphics for a Post-industrial Age, reducing and simplifying the amount of information do not necessarily create a more meaningful message. Rather, the layering of information invites the viewer into the design itself, and thus enhances the effects it impacts on teh viewer. As for Scott Makela , layering is the answer to extending the two-dimensional printing surface into a multimedia environment. His multimedia approach in print, however, concerns even his colleagues, as it is debatable that the static nature of the printed page cannot really represent that in a multimedia environment. By implementing such approach, Makela is just self-defeating. Without having an established history, the structure of such desgns is usually free. Although most designers still sketch out their ideas before they work on the production of their layout, they usually welcome the operations of chance. such as many a time the result of their unfamiliaity of he technology or the imperfection oft heir computer software. These unexpected errors very often influence enw ideas and help the designers to step into an unknown territory of design that has never been realized. With Greiman admitting that form itself is the content of her work, it is not surprising that the design community fears that such stylistically driven approach may one day hinder our original reason to design-to-represent the contents. Her being trained in athe traditional school, Greiman can usually spare away from design critics’ comments as her designs are still based ont he fundaments of traditional graphic design. David Carson , on the other hand, does not share the same novelty Greiman does. Carson, started as a surfer and ultimately debuting his graphic design career as art director of Ray Gun, has no prior professional training at all. His style is totally self-driven. Because of his lack of typography background, his work usually conforms to no rules and so he received a lot of unfair treatment from the critics. It is however true that because of his lack of proper typography training, he is able to create very personal work that differs greatly from the world of designers who are mostly learned about the typographic tradition. Such approach has created many visual garbage but among these there are still much valuable few that contributes greatly tho the way we see typography today. Experimental Typography, a visual essay by See-ming Lee, 1997 Accordian fold 01: Cover 02: Spread 2 03: Spread 3 04: Spread 4 05: Spread 5 06: Spread 6 07: Spread 7