After months, I'm back with a review of an essay. For the first time, I want to talk about a book written by a designer on visual design. It’s a critique in the sense of questioning the role of visual communication in history.
Riccardo Falcinelli is one of the most respected visual designers in the Italian graphic scene, who has contributed to innovation by designing books and series for various publishers. He teaches Perception Psychology at the ISIA Design Faculty in Rome.
This read truly impressed me, made me reflect, answered many questions I had about communication, and, like every good book, it presented many thought-provoking ideas.
“The premise of this book is that visual design is not a discipline, but a series of discourses that cover different areas of production and knowledge. The field is therefore vast: it encompasses objects, information, stories, events, companies, and people.”
You might think this sounds like a demanding read, but in reality, it’s an essay suited not only for designers or industry professionals but also for anyone interested in delving into the evolution of communication mechanisms, from the invention of printing to the present day. It makes you reflect on how, in today’s world where we are surrounded by visual design, it’s crucial to understand how certain mechanisms work and where the codes and conventions that shape our daily lives come from.
Here are some excerpts from the book in which Falcinelli enlightens the reader with examples of visual design drawn from our everyday lives, which might, at first glance, seem unrelated to this discipline:
"The layouts of supermarkets are indeed designed according to a precise plot: the candy section must tell a different story than the meat section. Vegetables are always at the entrance, chocolate eggs always by the checkout, following a strict script: first the duty (vegetables), then the pleasure (chocolate)."
"Packaging, however, is not just about canned products. More generally, it's the way things present themselves to our eyes: the basic level of packaging is the small sticker on bananas and grapefruits; while the highest and most abstract level is when packaging seems absent, as in the case of meat. In the supermarket, if you pay attention to the lighting in the beef section, you’ll notice that, unlike the rest of the store, the lights are green. These are lights that emit all radiation except for green, making the meat appear redder. It’s packaging done with lighting design."
The epilogue is certainly very interesting, where the author specifies that the entire book is, in many ways, a deconstruction of the myth of the naturalness of forms: design is made up of cultural conventions. There is no objectively neutral color, and the famous motto "less is more" is not merely a legacy of 20th-century Modernism, not an objective, verified fact. Simply put, from this era onward, the concept of "simple" is conventionally linked to that of "good."
Another important reflection is the one related to art:
"One of the main characteristics of design, which distinguishes it from art and commonly understood craftsmanship, is this: a design artifact does not exist in an original, but in its copies. And this is not just a production necessity, but an aesthetic, functional, and meaningful horizon. In the contemporary world, design is everywhere: it can be used, inhabited, consumed, handled, enjoyed, exploited, wasted, destroyed, recycled; but most of all, design can be seen."
The author examines in detail the differences between art and design: I myself am often referred to as an "artist" by those who are not involved in design, a label that feels limiting because what I do often has little to do with the concept that the average person has of an artist: a genius who expresses themselves selflessly. Instead, I find myself mediating between my personal taste, what I need to communicate, and to whom. I usually have many constraints and limited freedom of expression (which, in fact, challenges me to constantly find new communicative solutions).
But, as Falcinelli points out, we call something art when we sense an artistic intention in it. And art does not necessarily have to be disinterested expression, detached from profit (in fact, many contemporary artists run thriving businesses with their work).
Similarly, design, historically associated with persuasion and sales, is not necessarily just an expression of ideals tied to consumerism.
Both serve a function and are expressions of values, dreams, and emotions.
"Is visual design art? Sometimes. Why not?"
It’s a controversial question that certainly doesn’t have a definitive answer, and the author doesn’t claim to provide one. He simply wants, once again, to make us reflect on how the boundaries are fluid and shaped by social conventions.
“Linguistic systems, precisely because they are conventional, involve good or bad choices, not lawful or unlawful ones; a critique of visual design must, by necessity, also be a self-critique that acknowledges the inconsistencies and conflicts in which we are immersed every day, as producers and consumers of communication. No one can, in good faith, claim purity and opt out. That would be too easy. And that’s why I can pose questions and not offer solutions, because myths and polemical objects are not vices to which we remain strangers or that we can simply condemn with detached superiority. The term ‘critique’ should not be understood as judgment, but as a questioning.”
So, all of us, as consumers of communication (because many things are innocent yet are actually visual design), are called to question these codes, which we have partly helped create and keep alive. Not just communication professionals like me, because today, with social media and the web in general, design tools are accessible to more and more people... and as Spider-Man says, with great power comes great responsibility.
Visual design is a social fact, so it would do us all good to be more aware of what we are communicating and to whom.
In my own small way, I try to pass these concepts along to my clients and improve myself every day, avoiding feeling superior or playing the role of the tortured artist, but studying each day not only to enhance my technical skills but also my critical thinking ability.
Very soon, I’ll dive into Cromorama, another essay by the author, dedicated to the influence that color has on the way we look at and see the world around us.
In the meantime, I’m curious to know if this review has been helpful and comprehensive, if it perhaps sparked in you a desire to dive deeper into the subject and pick up this magnificent essay.
N.G.
