I don’t know if graphic design is art, but I do know that it can be simply one more form of industrial waste. And, like any reasonable person, I’m against further pollution of our environment.
With all the lip service that is paid to originality and “doing one’s own thing,” it is hard to explain the periodic avalanches of manneristic and “trendy” material that may initially have had some charm but which is soon lost in indistinguishable and pervasive sameness.
The worst pollutants are the mindless displays of material that do not even approach this “me, too” level. They bring visual discomfort to our everyday lives and one endures them like the noise and foul air. One has only to try to fill a shopping list in a supermarket or attempt to get from one part of a major U.S. city to another to experience the chaos that is contemporary packaging, promotional material, and signage.
My own personal philosophy is that I should like to make every day as good as it can be, because each opportunity passed by is lost forever. Accordingly, I try to make each design assignment something more than just another job. I get deeply involved in the problem and I utilize all the time that I can to arrive at the best possible solution because I know I will ultimately reject much of what I do.
I believe in working intuitively. This requires many thumbnail sketches and rough layouts but the extra work has a great reward: the problem takes on another dimension, has a life of its own, so to speak, and good things happen that never would have without the effort to bring them forth out of the subconscious.
From an essay in IDEA magazine #120 (Tokyo) for September 1973
