Graphic Journey Blog

The benefits of limitation

Over the past two decades, the design world has mushroomed out of all proportion. Through digital technology, any designer can produce something looking half decent (I say ‘produce’ rather than ‘create’), and a very high percentage of our design industry does just that: produce half decent work.  It is often no more than decorative and visually seductive.

Much of what we do is about style – a set of givens to replicate the prevailing ‘look’. And the look comes from stealing from others or sampling from various design eras, remixed for the 21^st century. With the help of software like Photoshop, illustrators and designers can sample textures, hues and the feel of a bygone era and blend them into their work at the click of a mouse, giving an immediate sense of history. Others doggedly embrace stripped-back modernism with its grids, typographical restrictions and space-to-image rules in order to achieve a clinical look. But somewhere in the middle of this mire of styles, techniques and quantity, something has been lost. The title of this post, “The benefits of limitation”, coined by the actor Mark Rylance (thank you Mark) in a recent Desert Island Discs, fits perfectly.

Many designers, and a number of them very notable designers at that, have cast aspersions on the notion of ‘idea’-based design. They see it as old hat and a thing of the past, like being able to draw (another of their bête noires). I have often thought it is because they are embedded in a particular style that they lack the ability to produce an ‘idea’. But, actually, when you see limitation in action, it is pure magic. Stripping everything back to a simple essence opens up the mind to wonderful possibilities.

Here are some great exponents of the art of limitation…

Designed by Pierre Mendell 1969

 

Designed by Saul Steinberg 1954

Designed byDavid Gentleman 1969

Illustrated by Bob Gill 1966

Designed by Arnold Schwartzman 1963

Designed by David Pelham 1975

Illustrated by Peter Brookes 1970

Designed by Herb Lubalin 1966

Illustrated by R.O.Blechman 1968

Designed by Saul Bass 1959

 

Illustrated by Bob Gill 1962

Designed by Robert Brownjohn 1970

See what I mean? Pure thinking and simple execution equals brilliance. 

The emperor’s new lingerie

 

Hailed by The Guardian’s Jordan Hoffman (the very same man who gave five stars to my most loathed film of 2014, Exhibition) with no fewer than four stars, The Duke of Burgundy has also been described by another Guardian reviewer, Steve Rose, who said: “Fifty Shades of Grey looks positively beige compared to this.”

And, what’s more, all the reviews seem to be glowing…

 “Intellectually stimulating”

 “Immensely rewarding”

 “Discomfiting quality”

 “One of the most incisive, penetrating,

and empathetic films ever made” 

Having not seen or read Fifty Shades and giving The Guardian a second chance, I went along to the Curzon Soho to see The Duke of Burgundy.

Big mistake (and not just the £27 for two tickets). It is the dullest, most unerotic, repetitious, overhyped, woodenly acted, badly photographed (a kind of pastiche of a ’70s Swedish sex movie and Claude Lelouch’s  ’60s A Man and a Woman look, complete with overly large wobbly titles) and derivative film so far this year. It also features the most unappealingly dreadful underwear, sported by Sidse Babett Knudsen (who played the prime minister in the TV series Borgen). What was she thinking?

The basic story centres on two lesbians who live in an enormous house. When not reading, writing or lecturing on butterflies – the film’s title is taken from the name of a butterfly – they spend their time playing out sadomasochistic sexual fantasies in various changes of outfits. They re-enact these over and over and over and over. Then the film ends abruptly in true continental cinema fashion to give it a more ‘arty’ feel.

Jordan Hoffman also pointed out that “this is not just a filthy movie. It’s a considerable work of art, and one that touches on a rarely discussed side of human sexuality completely free of judgement.” It did none of this for me, and this comment says a lot more about Hoffman’s view.

The only saving grace was a couple of visually psychedelic moments accompanied by an ascending ambient sound track, which was rather mesmerising, or it could have been the effect of my losing the will to live. But the effects have been handled far better in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (which Strickland must clearly like) and Lars von Trier’s wonderful Melancholia.

Peter Strickland also made Berberian Sound Studio, which, although better, had its moments of tedium. I sometime wonder if the folks at the BFI and Channel 4 (the backers) produce this sort of film to annoy or torture the audience?  To top it all, I picked up The Telegraph and critic Robbie Collins had given the film five stars. I give up.

As a bit of light relief, the film is said not to feature a single male actor. But if you look closely, there is one scene set in a lecture theatre where, tucked in the back row, there is a man. If you keep looking, there are two seated manikins for no apparent reason. Or perhaps they were an ironic gesture to symbolise boredom. That really did work. 

If you are going to see this film for its erotic charge, you will be bitterly disappointed. Save your money, stay home and watch Wolf Hall.

 

Things I like...

Henry Wolf 1963

Milton Glazer 1965

Bob Gill 1962

Things I like...

I dropped by to Morley College over at Southwark, London last week having been told that I would find a set of 3 murals by Edward Bawden. But more importantly for me another one by Justin Todd. And sure enough there tucked away at the back of the college refectory (nice old fashioned cosy word that) was this delightful piece. 

Justin Todd's full mural that spans about 3 metres 

Detail from left hand centre of the mural.

Painted in 1961 it depicts scenes from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Unfortunately the lighting was pretty bad so this is the best that I could do, but it clearly shows Todd’s wonderful skill and style which, in my view, is far superior to that of the more lorded Bawden work which, in my view, was rather wooden and lacking the wit, heart  and charm of Todd’s.  

Detail from one of Edward Bawden's murals at Morley.

The murals replaced and earlier one painted by Eric Ravilious, completed in 1930 and unveiled by the then Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. Sadly it was destroyed in a bombing raid during the 1940 Blitz.

 For more about Justin Todd click here.