Garry Emery: 10 January 2004

Various notes

A defining moment for design was the introduction of

digital media, which has significantly influenced the way
we receive, impart and process information.
Technology has presented new opportunities, not only as a
design tool but also as a means for exploring
informational, spatial and experiential possibilities.

Today our practice is interdisciplinary and infiltrates

the traditional distinctions between disciplines. Our
work varies in scale, scope and type and occupies two-,
three- and
four-dimensional space and time environments. We have
significant projects in Australia, Asia and Europe,
fulfilling my ambition to be an internationally respected
design practice. We are leaders in environmental graphic
design.

Typography is central to my thinking as a designer.

Language is the heartbeat of typography. Nearly
everything we do as designers engages with language and
text information. Language and typography are continually
modified by popular culture, regional influences and
globalisation.
Typography expresses contemporary values, using the
emotive as well as the functional meanings of text to
engage with viewers. To remain relevant, typography
should challenge and disrupt conventions and values.
Experimenting, taking risks, results in a host of
interesting new ideas as well as an abundance of trivia.

How can we usefully evaluate the over-information and

conflicting ideas on offer?
All designers need to be able to place their work in
design history and in contemporary culture in order to
develop an informed position that enables them to
interpret new ideas. Otherwise its all just churn.

In architecture and art, key influencers in education and

professional practice are acutely aware of social,
cultural and political obligations, whereas the same
level of awareness is not present in graphic design, a
discipline obsessed with appearances. Perhaps we are
enlightened only when cultural relevance is made
glaringly obvious through the art of typographic
expression.

Design education appears focused on preparing graduates

for employment, and cultural and typographical knowledge
seems of less interest than, say, technology. Educational
and industry expectations for graduate skills in

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typography are declining. This represents change and is

neither positive or negative.

Australian designers reflect and project different

dreamings to that of Europeans, and so we encounter in
their works a distinctive art tradition that we have not
experienced. Perhaps the most obvious reason for this
difference is that Australias social and cultural
history has been much less confronting and turbulent, and
in our design, architecture, art and literature we have
not developed the powerful social and political
traditions that infuse European art.

Most of us live in a state of information overload and

chaos, with little over-arching knowledge, just fragments
and our own assumptions, provisional ideas and reactions.
Many of us have philosophical ideas but virtually no one
any more lives strictly by any of the grand doctrinal
systems such as Modernism.

My work is informed by Modernism, as well as by

Constructivism, Abstraction, Abstract expressionism,
Postmodernism, Pop art, Dada, Minimalism, Classicism,
Cubism,
De-constructivism, Surrealism and many other isms. I
take what I want from Modernist theory, as I do from Dada
or Postmodern theory which simply means our work is
eclectic.

I regard Modernism as an idea, not a style. It is an idea

about rational design stripped of decoration, and about
functionality, clarity, legibility, truth to materials,
and elegance. With Modernism, what people today might see
as a style is the visual expression of rational
thinking. The early Modernists had to stop traditional
history in its tracks and make the world anew. To do
this, they used the exciting technology of the machine as
a new design paradigm for architecture. But the machine
metaphor came to stand for Modernism, and so it was
inevitable that the movement would be ultimately
misunderstood by later generations as just a style rather
than a progressive and evolving design spirit. In fact,
the Modernist project is not exhausted.

I am aware of how culturally embedded we are as

individual designers, and how our own culture shapes us.
To develop a personal design signature, it is necessary
to realise this consciously. Designers have to understand
how history operates on culture before they can
effectively transgress the rules; and design is all about
transgressing rules. Some young designers are culturally
aware, whereas others have little interest in extending
their knowledge, and consequently they dont understand
the difference between transgression and repeating the
newest design idiom.

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Like many designers, my own design thinking lies

somewhere between the rational and the intuitive, between
logic and dreaming, between the discipline of the message
and the poetry of imagination. It is eclectic, grey-area
thinking, not strictly Modernist. I use disruption to
heighten perception. I use abstraction to strip things to
their essence in order to recognise, evaluate and
reinterpret them. I use minimalism or reductivism to make
an idea sharp and legible.

Modernism is slippery ground for the contemporary

observer, and it would be easy to misinterpret my
intentions. I believe the world is not logical but
unpredictable, dynamic, changing and even senseless.
Often its advantageous to meet this on terms that are
not rational alone: by being experimental, tentative,
lateral, visceral, intuitive, and embracing chance as a
tactic against logic. What matters is that the design
outcome should be beyond the rational and in some way
raise the human spirit.

The jump in scale from the page to the city demands

holistic design thinking that incorporates two, three and
four dimensions, and engages with the public domain.
Environmental design operates within the interstices
between other design disciplines such as architecture and
urban design as well as marketing, art and identity.
All this interests me.

A dream project for me is a cultural research project

that integrates different design disciplines, involves
time and motion, micro and macro scales, interior and
exterior environments. To commence with a complex,
seemingly insolvable task and to make the solution appear
effortless.

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