“ While designers’ cultural ambitions seem to be always on the rise, what we often get is yet another form of a-critical graphic design.” A few uppercase words, centred or ranged at the top-left corner of a page, set in the regular weight of any grotesque font. More often than not, it’s black type on white, or the reverse, but colours may appear. Be it an international design exhibition, a show for the Venice Biennale, a new artist-run space or the output of a design school, in recent years our western “art-design” bubble is flooded with similar solutions.
“ Design education not only teaches its technical and historical canon, or how to design, but more importantly teaches students how to be designers in society and in relation to capital,” writes designer Jacob Lindgren. “A school becomes a factory producing designers, one that, in keeping with the principles of ‘good design,’ turns them into efficient and interchangeable parts ready to hit the market.” In a new essay, Lindgren proposes models that may help us undo this factory setting of graphic design.
What does it mean to design “normal” things for “normal” people? Western society defines certain individuals and communities as average and ordinary, while everyone else is something other. People living inside the norm bubble often don’t recognize their own special status, because norms aren’t supposed to be special. Synonyms for the word normal include standard, average, typical, and ordinary.
This Binding project, Decoding Modern Graphic Design, is inspired by three insightful articles: “This is AutoTune Typography” (Medium), “There is No Such Thing as Neutral Graphic Design” (AIGA Eye on Design), and “Graphic Design’s Factory Settings” (Walker Art Center). Nowadays modern graphic design often relies on standardized methods that can limit creativity. This trend, known as “Auto-Tune Typography,” is similar to how Auto-Tune in music makes voices sound the same, removing their unique qualities.
Meanwhile, “Graphic Design's Factory Settings,” points out that design education and industry practices are producing designers who follow established norms without critical thinking. Additionally, the article “No Such Thing As Neutral Graphic Design”, highlights how design choices often reflect cultural and societal biases, and aiming for neutrality can unintentionally support dominant norms while overlooking other perspectives.
Collectively, these critiques call for a reevaluation of current design practices, urging designers to move beyond default settings and embrace more thoughtful, inclusive, and innovative approaches.