Dear "Dear Designer" Designer

What I'm trying to do here on Dear Designer

Dear Designer:

Welcome to Dear Designer! I’m delighted to be here in your inbox, wherever that may be.

One of the reasons I’ve started this newsletter is because I’m concerned about the state of design. Designers — graphic, web, product, print, brand, and type — are experiencing an upheaval the likes of which I have not seen before.

I’m worried about the state of our “industry”. The market for visual communications is changing rapidly due to the rise of template design, the commoditization of design expertise, the rapid ascent of AI, and the demand for faster but not better.

This newsletter is for some of my favourite people in the world — those who design, who care about designers, who think about design, who care about design, and who teach design. It’s for those who understand that graphic design is not just simply a profession but a field of endeavour, of inquiry, and of impact.

Design’s deep historical roots are in challenging conventions, feeling conversations, and building human connection.

I still believe that design is one of the few mechanisms we have to change the world for good.

I come at this from a very specific standpoint, of course. I am a designer and a creative director at a digital agency — and I don’t like a lot of what I’m seeing. But I have also “seen” a lot over the past twenty-five years, having run my own design studio and having been an active participant in the design community.

Why should you care?

I’m writing this newsletter to do three things:

1. To describe the state of design and to provide an ongoing personal analysis of what might be happening from numerous vantage points: social, technological, economic and political.

2. To provide ideas and inspiration as to where we might be heading as designers and as a design community — and to offer solutions to our current predicament.

3. To learn from you, the folks doing the work each day, about what in G-d’s name is happening with design, what is working for some designers and what is helping all of you stay strong and resilient and committed.

This newsletter will come to you each week. It will be published on Monday morning in the hope that it might help shape or set up your week.

(The truth is that this newsletter might amount to nothing, which was the Yiddish name for my previous newsletter called Gornisht.)

Lots of words. Any real details?

It will be free, at least for the time being, and it will be on this Substack thing.

It will 💯% change over time. But right now, it will consist of three parts:

1. A short essay. Topics will include the design profession, technology, typography, the design community, design consciousness, and web accessibility.

2. An historical image drawn from visual archives that may be of interest to you, dear designer.

3. A quote that is relevant, ridiculous or both.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. If you skimmed, that’s cool, too.

I’m truly appreciative of your time here. I hope you’ll stay on for the ride.

Yours,
Andrew

P.S. Today is a critically important day for my home country, the United States of America, and for many of us on this list. I am optimistic that Americans will make the right choice today, voting for the candidate that represents the very best attributes of the country: compassion, grace and commonality. If you are in the U.S. and have not yet voted, please do so for Kamala Harris.

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Image

László Moholy-Nagy, collage tipografico, 1922. Credit: Wikimedia.

The Hungarian designer, painter, and photographer László Moholy-Nagy was also one of the great experimentalists of this past century. His work was relentlessly probing, challenging both visual form and function and asking of his viewers “what is this that is in front of me?” He believed that photography and typography would continue to evolve and to change our collective trajectory. I love the equation he constructs in the image above. What are the variables in which B times Inverted-C really equal A minus Inverted-A? Does Inverted A with its filled red counter make it immovable? What does this collage mean for a teenager today?

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Quote

Design is the integration of technological, social, and economical requirements, biological necessities, and the psychological effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space.

~ László Moholy-Nagy

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If you’ve been forwarded this email, you can get your own sub right here. See you soon.