Compare and contrast practitioners.

Sky Broadcasting v Double G studios.

I have chosen to compare these design institutions for very specific reasons. They both produce work in the same field and this happens to be the type of work I have produced work for in my major project. It is a title sequence for a documentary documenting an Antarctic expedition. Also I have a personal dilemma that I am trying to resolve as a graduating student do I aim to go freelance or in-house?

Having met the creative director of sky and receiving a lecture from Grant Gilbert both heads of seemingly similar design companies, have notable differences. The most notable being the fact that Double G Studios consisted of one person who would hire extra hands when necessary.

The work they produce is for the same market, the television audience. The companies have to fight for the viewing majority in a saturated market with ever more important channel identities. This world of idents and advertising is increasingly slicker and polished especially with advent of HD, I always wondered what I was getting myself into. Sometimes deigns are so machine lead that they become sterile and face less. This is a problem I had with corporate design but after analysing the full spectrum of the designs that sky prepare for its hundreds of channels, it seemed to be that there was a need for a more human approach with room for simpler designs that steered away from the banality of the generic 3D logo spinning around. Some of the animation I was generating in the studio was very hand made and labour intensive I wondered in a world with such short deadlines would there be any room for such simple practises?

Before going down to sky I assumed they would have to look after themselves, thinking that everything they are concerned with has to be considered for the good of the share holder, there would be many rules and constrictions, a code of conduct that if it wasn’t followed their would be dire consequences, This is true to a degree but because of the variety of their production, with all those different channels, you can do something that you have specialised in or have better natural ability doing. This would mean that there is hope in enjoying the things that you like within such a big company.

I was pleased to see Gilberts designs for MORE4, they had a reserved corporate feel to them but their simplicity added to their charm, jut simple explorations on a theme that gave the channel a strong identity, without alienating the channel that spanned it. His ideas were not bound by software or production constraints, anything he envisaged could be created to a degree by any means necessary. He is a designer with universal roles and would see the design over at every stage of production. It is these qualities I suppose he learned from Channle4. Something that is apparent on Gilberts part is that he wouldn’t be getting such high profile jobs if he had not had the experience of working for channel4, bigger companies are probably more accepting to some of his more maverick ideas to design problems because of his affiliations with such a respected company like channel four, giving him greater creative freedom. Being a ware of this leads you to think that at Sky you may have less creative control; is that a sacrifice I would be prepared to pay for a secure job?. This is all hypothetical, but it does create a real dilemma about what to do after I have graduated.

GG studios pitched ideas to potential clients and nothing seemed certain, he said he would be paid more for a job but the jobs would be few and far between. Most pitches seem to get turned down. One would need a great deal of confidence in their abilities to approach such big clients without the support around you.

Gilbert, under his alias, Double G studios, has a similar role to what was described to me by Paul Butler of Sky. Butler said that the people working under his supervision become directors of sorts and have to come up with a whole array of things to contribute to how their vision will come to life. Anything that you are uncertain with like typography for example, could get assigned to someone else but its creation would still be influenced by what you have outlined in storyboards etc.

Gilbert said that he chooses and hires the people he needs through contacts that he has built from working within the industry, a benefit of this would be being able to pick people who you know are reliable and have maybe produced good work for you before. This process would be more streamlined because you could be very specific with the people you hire for each job. Working at Sky, with all of these hordes of specialists at your disposal I imagine the expected work turnover is very high. Compared to Gilbert Months of preparation for a single pitch. Sky would have more of an open discussion, more of a team mentality not just one persons vision, even though sometimes it could be; many other hands and eyes would oversee its production.

Gilbert firs job was in-house with a large company like sky, Channel 4 Television. Although nothing has been totally resolved this has given me something’s to think about. If I was to work freelance I would require a lot of discipline and self-motivation to get started and to get a name for myself self amongst the droves of graduates. But like Gilbert I could perhaps work in a place like sky, this would instil a better work ethic and sense of professionalism in me that I gravely need. Plus one would gain benefits of security and a steady income these would all ensure a better start if I chose to become freelance at a later stage. Obviously I would always keep an open mind about this kind of thing, yet all Jobs probably have compromising rigors and confines, and it seems to be obvious that you might have to do something that you had never envisaged to get yourself off the ground.

Issues and Practises

Aesthetic Style or Content?

Within Illustration and design in general there seems to be two trains of thought. On one hand there are designers who only think about their aesthetic style thinking a designers role is to just make things look good. This is indeed a big part of what it is to be an illustrator but i find these things can lack sophistication in that much of the time the content or the way it is delivered is overlooked. What’s lacking I feel is their own insight or interpretation of the text or a lack of play between the relationships of a cast for an illustration.

On the other hand there our Designers/Illustrators who do not concern themselves with the aesthetic at all, almost seeing it as a bi product of conceptualizing an idea. Designers such as Patrick Thompson, Who’s subject matter is at the core of his images and sometimes the only thing it has got going for it.

After reading an article in EYE magazine I realized some of the themes for this essay were discussed here by Paul Bowman. He refers to the notion of style, not just in an aesthetic way, but referring to style as the content within an illustration and the way it is delivered, He says “good creative work challenges the viewer to question things. The subject matter is served by the style not the other way round, and the first question asked should be – is the subject matter any good?”Boman has a point but he emphasizes content over aesthetics which is something I do not agree with.

Thinking of style in these two separate entities, the content and the form, they are both at opposite ends of the scale, but when fused with balance in mind they can combine to create more divers, thought provoking and visually pleasing work.

The strongest element of David Shrigley’s style is content, I think his little illustrations are exceptional. allot of the time the way it has been produced has very little to do with that, just the outstanding humour and observations make it excel. He has once said that art is like a joke without the humour, from this you can imagine he spends alot of time thinking about the concepts within his own work but also the bigger picture of art itself.

David Downon is a fashion illustrator, he would sit on the aesthetics without content side, but still anyone would find it hard not to like his illustrations because they are objectively really well produced and beautiful, like Shrigley he generates images but the differences between the two are worlds apart and its all to do with the context of where the image will be used/seen. Shrigley probably thinks of concepts and jokes with the same amount of intensity as David Downton puts into practasing his drawing skills and brush strokes. In a way it is not what you like but why you like it, and if you obssess over it and work really hard this integrity shines through wheither its form or content, and art should be given credit based upon this, not just content alone.

Gillian blease is a contemporary illustrator I feel sits comfortably in the middle of this debate. She has a strong visual style, her illustrations are well composed and the colours are beautiful and well considered, her ability to strip down elements to their most minimal form yet fall short of abstraction and remain in the real world is mesmerizing. She also has the sophisticated thought processes that go into deciphering a text and picking out the most relevant things. Although sometimes Blease’s work seems simpler visually, the designs are forever more complex because of the careful considerations and reservations required to pull them off. I feel the key to Blease’s success lies in her acute judgment for striping elements back without loosing their universal meaning and understanding. I would love to have this degree of balance within my own work, it is something i will certainly strive for.

Unfortunately I have made a graph to try and explain what I mean. One must remember this is subjective and I’m not saying what is objectively good/bad or right/wrong, just subjectively saying what I like and dislike, just a personal view of how I have become to perceive art and design. You can see a correlation between aesthetics and content. Some people have strong attachments to each end its just that I prefer balance but these people could say that I’m just average.

Your style is your personality and to say that one should be valued over another is just nonsence, in the end it would seem that an illustrator needs a style, It is what you are hired for after all. But I feel stressing about content is just unnecessary when sometimes all we need is a pretty picture; yes at times they can be frivolous or sentimental. But stressing over content can be elitist, this can be evidenced in elements of the modernist movement. Last time i was stressing about content Ian Murray told me to 'fuck integrity' nobody could have put it more eloquently.

A designers role today

Whenever I research design history for a brief I always take from it what I need and apply it to the relevant situation, sometimes the answer has already been written you just need to find it. For this I feel like a cheat. All the hard work has been done before me, I can open a book and just take from it what I need, so it seems designers are nothing more than shape shifting hunters preying on borrowed theories and aesthetics, and applying the kill to their own ideas. This seems to be the modern day role of a designer. Nothing seems innovative anymore.

Being forced to look back in this way makes one appreciate the power of hindsight. I am in a situation now, a designer in this postmodern world, where I can learn form all these historical references and theories. My outlook can sometimes seem pessimistic but I can just use this to my advantage. All people learn from what came before their existance, without this mechanism we as humans would have never been able to progress and evolve.