
Above: Portrait with I AM A MAN (Memphis) poster.
Photograph by Yoko Inoue.
I was really honored and excited when the editors of Idea Magazine asked me to be a part of their new issue, How does graphic design change? In the description that frames the issue, the editors write, “It is apparent that the line between the private and public domains of activity is blurring. The movement to acquire autonomy in client-oriented, heteronomous activities as well as the movement to gain a larger public audience for the products of self-initiated, autonomous activities are already underway. […] In a modern society, what mode of production will designers attempt to utilize and, on a daily basis, how will they attempt to construct the world in which they live?”
The editors divide their attention into three areas: Everyday Life, Media, and the Commons. The contributors’ projects are a wonderful and inspiring array, including work by my friends at Thumb, Dexter Sinister, and Winterhouse, as well as wonderful projects by Zak Kyes, Metahaven, Will Holder, James Goggin, Mike Meiré, and more.
In a break from the usual magazine portfolio presentation, the editors asked each contributor to take time to write a reflection on the projects they were being asked to show. I found this to be a thoroughly helpful exercise. Many of the ideas in the passage below will be familiar to regular readers of this website, but I include it here as an introduction to some, a compact and easygoing synthesis for others, and, as usual, an archive for myself. —RG

Above: The “Give-and-Take” Business Card Holder by Design Within Reach. With one side for incoming cards and the other side for outgoing cards, a pattern of exchange is designed into the object itself.
In the spring of 2006, I had been thinking a lot about gifts. In a meeting with a cautious client one day, I pointed out that I couldn’t really sell him a finished business card—it would only become his business card when he handed it to someone else, or gave it away. Somehow, even though the design process was finished, the client’s business card could not be fully realized as an object until it was distributed by him.
This offhand comment stayed on my mind for weeks, and the more I thought about it, the more interested in it I became. It seemed the card worked in a giftlike way. No one asked for it, and no one paid for it, it was simply given. In giving it, some kind of emotion was expected, or some kind of action was undertaken in response. Perhaps the receiver would be excited to have this new person’s contact information. Or perhaps he would pass the card along to someone with his recommendation. Whatever the case, distribution was an integral part in the design process, but it was one that designers seldom discussed openly. How does design enter the world once it’s been made? It seems like that question can be just as important as what the design itself looks like. Certainly that was the case with business cards.
Around this time I read an article in The New Yorker about the Shakers, which also mentioned gifts, and, in looking for a good book to read about the Shakers one day, I stumbled across a book called The Gift by Lewis Hyde and decided I had to read it. The Gift is not a book about design, but it fundamentally changed the way I think about design. I began reading it in the summer of 2006 and brought it with me everywhere I went.
In the meantime, I found myself thinking a lot about the work and writing of Milton Glaser, and particularly his thinking about the ethics of design and the role design plays in our culture. It seemed that—like all gifts—giftlike design could help to bring people together and feel a sense of shared identity, regardless of what it looked like. This idea transcended aesthetics and seemed critically quite important. Glaser, who I later discovered is also a fan of The Gift, put it quite well in a film by Hilllman Curtis: “[The] passing on of gifts is a device to prevent people from killing one another, because they all become part of a single experience. And [Hyde’s] leap of imagination occurs when he says this is what artists do. Artists provide that gift to the culture, so that people have something in common. And I think that all of us who identify with the role of artists in history want our work to serve that purpose.”
When you look at design through the lens of gift exchanges, its objective shifts from making the world more beautiful to making the world more shareable, and its basis shifts from the production of forms by its practitioners to the production of actions by its recipients. The way things look is still important, but the creation of compelling things now serves to maximize appeal and shared experiences. New designs are not always necessary to do create these shared experiences, and in fact often the recycling of forms is more effective in spreading and sharing a message.
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