User:Ssstephen/Reading/Caps Lock

A bill for the rental of a boat, the sale of an oxen, a receipt for beer. The oldest messages ever found are not diaries or love poems but financial records.

Can we change this through sabotage and resistance at the point of content? eg i refuse to make this ad apolitical, i demand to express my love instead of writing your crappy tagline again. maybe it needs to be more subtle and subversive to get away with it.

Economy is a system where value is exchanged based on trust, and for thousands of years scribes were responsible for creating trustworthy documents that guaranteed authenticity and authority in large societies.

Creating or generating trust through labour. This job can mostly now be done by machines in a lot of situations, is it an essentially wrong thing to do though. The people with the most time available to commit to trust should have it, or those who can buy the most time of others and machines.

Seth Siegelaub. Communication and class struggle, 1979 Johanna Drucker, Graphesis, 2014 Lisa Gitelman, Paper Knowledge, 2014

What happens if you commission OSP to design banknotes or passports?

Destroying [financial] records is a revolutionary act

but also forging, faking and editing them. 1867 ticker tape is invented and used for stock quotes.

the first newspapers were the correspondence between investors sharing shipping and trade information.

If so many of these media were invented for commerce, property management, military uses, is it good to repurpose them for our own needs? what would a medium created for other purposes look like? media for love, community or respect fpr example.

gapminder.org/dollar-street

with the advent of virtual money taking over physical money, the role of the scribe is outsourced to automated technology. transactions are digitally stored and inscribed, only indirectly visible through online or offline balance sheets

is this a place we could communicate other more important things? can i tell you i love you in a bank transaction? do i want to?

Designer as Engineer

differences in land measurements stood in the way of a new national tax code. States depended on food supply, which required data on how much farm land there was. anthropologist James c Scott emphasises in "seeing like a state" (1997) that local measurement practices were culturally rich and social, but not 'legible' for the state, and therefore need to be standardized. 

the idea of legibility at different structural scales and from different viewpoints is interesting, as well as this legibility being forced on others. are professional terms legible to amateurs, do they help divide and exclude? is there a way these professional terms can be translated or opened to break this separation? do discipline specific practices prevent connection, can these be adapted or maybe fused to connect better? are there convertors that can go between people just like we have for cables? what happens when you glue a drumstick to a paintbrush? or a wacom pen to a dance shoe? an aerial hoop to a synthesiser? silks woven through guitar strings? bells in your hair? a pantograph that connects the pianists fingers to the dancers feet.

DIN paper stand at a fair in Leipzig, Germany 1932. the signs read 'Normformate helfen verkaufen' (Norm formats help selling) and 'Normung bringt Ordnung' (norms bring order).

(figure caption, p.81). is it possible to have order with variation? does variety and change have to mean chaos? what is with the fear of the unknown and the other and difference? it's going to be ok. your eyes are open, look where you are going, its not as dangerous as they say. we're on an adventure. I'm not sure you'll enjoy it as much of you keep worrying like this.

the DIN (deutsches institut für normung) system was initiatied in 1917 by the manufacturers for artillery to streamline the war industry during World War One. out of the many DIN industry standards still in use today, the best-known are the paper formats which were adopted as a world standard in 1975. today the a-formats are the most used paper size system in the world.

Also the DIN 1451 typefaces.

cathy o neil weapons of math destruction

graphesis, johanna drucker

perhaps the boringness of administrative design is the entire point, the consequence of a visual strategy. an invisibility that hides the violence behind every bureaucracy.

this "perhaps" sounds a bit like a conspiracy theory. is there any evidence that this is a visual strategy? i do recall seeing some strategy documents in a design studio in Ireland when water fees were being introduced. certainly they were intended to manipulate how people viewed their own rights (something along the lines of we need to teach people to value water, then we can teach them to pay for it). these documents are usually difficult to access and lost in the political/commercial bureaucracy. are there design whistleblowers? are designers aware that they have a whistle worth blowing? even more importantly than government strategies, designers are often offered a seat at the table deep inside corporate decision making boardrooms. the designer as spy, the designer as saboteur. we have all of these artists with deep desires to fuck all this, sleeper cells waiting for a signal. so yes there is evidence i have seen it and i suspect you have too.

the lack of intelligence we associate with bureaucracy serves its underlying violence.

duh. but mindlessness is a symptom that affects real humans, and is the reason the source of the problems is hard to find. were all just doing our job.

bureaucracy is the result of a scaling of societies. when communities become too large for verbal communication and social bonds such as trust and kinship to work, graphic symbols, typography and official documents replace the vernacular order by a bureaucratic order.

this sounds more like a report of what has happened rather than a law of nature. are symbols and documents the only way to hold a bigger society together. for example the role of charismatic leaders, through history but especially in the era of television. a different kind of symbolism and structure.

the question is how large scale relations of trust can be socially sensitive, without reverting to bureaucratic systems of oppression.

education, voice, responsibility, respect. these are obviously not purely technological concerns but technology (how it is created by people, how it is used by people) should certainly do what it can to help.

Johanna Drucker suggests that the the invention of optical instruments such as the microscope by the end of the sixteenth century helped to further the conception that science could be visual, from the scientific method of observation.

how will the electron microscope affect sciences views? already the theories have changed to accept that observation has an effect on the world. hopefully more honest, less detached, intimate science and caring science.

René Descartes invented the x,y,z coordinate system and the rational grid in the seventeenth century.

René as dreamer, René as mystic. Grids and magic squares and circles have been used for a long time before science, capitalism and other modern hegemonic structures have utilised them. Designer as shaman, potter, or sacred smith. Someone who embues objects with power.

William Playfair, Charles Joseph Minard, JH Lambert.

Roman land surveyors even created a special grid called centuriation which 'turned all Europe into one vast sheet of graph paper'

inner quote from Samuel Edgerton quoted via David Turnbull, 'maps are territories: science is an atlas: a portfolio of exhibits' p.26. is referencing a type of cadastral mapping for intellectual property? Rubes felt the need to mention Sam in the text, but Dave only gets mentioned in the endnotes. the referencing system (harvard in this case, i think?) gives a structure to the chains of ownership, and as with geographical property allows for 'taxation and to solve disputes'. well maybe not direct taxation but certainly there are financial motivations involved. is refusing to reference a valid act of protest, like tearing down fences around the commons? printing books illegally?

centuriation is super interesting. in latin centuriatio or, more usually, limitatio. it was used to privatise the ager publicus of the po valley, some of the earliest roman colonies. it was used both to create towns and military camps.

the ager centuriatus system.

The surveyor first identified a central viewpoint, the umbilicus agri or umbilicus soli. He then took up his position there and, looking towards the west, defined the territory with the following names:

ultra, the land he saw in front of him;
citra, the land behind him;
dextera, the land to his right;
sinistra, the land to his left.
He then traced the grid using an instrument known as a groma, tracing two road axes perpendicular to each other:

the first, generally oriented east–west, was called decumanus maximus, which was traced taking as reference the place where the sun rose in order to know exactly where east was;[7]
the second, with a north–south orientation, was called cardo maximus.

van wigipedia. the groma is the surveying tool with four plumb lines. this is also the name given to the intersection of the decumanus and the cardo, so really the tool and surveying are at the centre of the civilising/colonising/militarising process. mapping and naming and conquering. other tools included the chorobates and dioptra. the surverors were called gromatici: the practitioners are defined by their tools. similar to how modern professions can be called 'programmer', 'trumpet player', 'cashier', 'fork lift driver', 'binman'. see also in the united states Public Land Survey System (PLSS).

NOITU LOVER T. LOVER

Immanuel kant categorised different races according to assumed moral and physical standards, which scientifically anchored slavery as a morally just act.

kant even

Iconoclasistas, 'to whom belongs the land?' nativeland.ca. collective mapping processes. "conflicting and overlapping areas occur regularly and show mapping is also an act of collective world-making"

by creating categories, standards, and documents, the designer as engineer serves as an extension of the bureaucracy by which the nation state and market economies are governed... problems occur when the messy reality of human society is forced to confirm to categories and standards that only serve the needs of a few. the point is that scientific thinking and rational ordering in society are necessary, as long as they don't forcefully dominate and suppress other perspectives.

the text also mentions soviet and chinese socialism as examples of science and rationalism bad.

a socially aware graphic design should be able to look beyond industrial presets, and towards created shared social spaces of creativity and knowledge, accessible to everyone.

assuming creating and knowing are good goals, this sentence is a bit too vague. its easy to say industry is bad when its compared to something so undefined. "accessible to everyone" similarly, at what cost is this worth achieving?

digital technology has given designers more control over the production process.

this was a good chapter but the conclusions are not so great. is the above even true?

by starting small, in your own social circle and region, economies of reciprocity can create sociale sensitive practices like the common lands did before capitalism

abuse of the idea of the commons maybe, but generally sounds good im up for it. also what is a social circle. and where are its boundaries and why should we stay within them. is staying within leaving others without.

The Designer as Brander

the branding of slaves was part of a designed cultural system of oppression and violence... the Dutch West India Company was one of the first corporations in the world, and already had 'brand' guidelines... branding reveals the violent logic of capitalism's exploitation of people and planet, by turning everything into a commodity, even people.

is identity possible without branding? how to reveal who you are without ’making your mark', through culture, practice, methodology. can a designer (the word seems inappropriate here) help reveal identity in these ways rather than claim it through property. "we are us because we do this". it is about storytelling and myth making of course, and making space for these practices to exist. ritual that explore, affirm and celebrate.

the successful use of fiction to breathe life into products taught early advertising professionals that they could sell anything by appealing to the customers subconscious. branding started to revolve around the creation of pleasant associations.

the use of fiction in itself isn't an evil method though i think? it can hide motivations and purposes though, from the person the fiction is used on. is it immoral to appeal to the subconscious? Life without subconscious sounds pretty boring tbh.

No Logo, Naomi Klein

copywriter Helen Woodward started her advertising career in 1907 and said: 'if you are advertising any product, never see the factory in which it was made.... don't watch the people at work... because, you see, when you know the truth about anything, the real inner truth—it is very hard to write the surface fluff which sells it.'

inner truth, chung fu, wind over lake. i am sitting with the kralingse bos behind me, the lake in front of me, and the wind blowing through me. the cardo runs from dextera (a woman jogging with her dog) to sinestra (two windmills and the sound of a hedge strimmer). there is no road ahead only the lake. undefinable water. my eyes are open. i see a beach on the other side. it is sunny and the wind is gentle. it whips up the surface of the lake but it has a surface no less. a skin. a protective organ as membrane. a tension which can be broken, but also has strength. not unbreakable but certainly there. the wind does not blow through me that was a lie. it blows against and around my skin.

i spent (pun intended) at least a few months working in an industry that i do not support in order to fund being able to come here and study. real estate, venture pharma, advertising. i am not sure on the morality of this choice. if, as i had partly planned, i ended up in a more traditional design-as-commodity educational setting, the me that exists now would see both the preparation and the education as at least a wee bit abhorrent. obviously the me that exists now would not exist in that situation. but i hope now i am in a position to pay some indulgences for what I've done. in this preparation and at other points in my career. i see the industry i was involved in at points to be extractive, manipulative and dangerously blinkered. as well as causing less damage, i would like to reduce the damage of others in a similar position. am i trying to become an evangelist of some sort? maybe. so i think others are wrong? yes, or at least blind to the harm they are causing.

is a graphic designer just an artist who works for corporations and businesses?

world war ii had left Europe in ruins, but the us economy was still intact, and capitalism had come out victoriously.

no citation given. did capitalism tactically come out of wwii victoriously? how so? it is often depicted as a series of battles between states and groups of states.

while designers compared logotypes, activists put the spotlights on corporations, revealing financial malpractice, labour exploitation, tax evasion, and the extraction of resources.

ok ive got a new tagline for your company: "we dont exploit anyone and our profit is distributed according to the work put in by everyone involved. also we actively fight against discrimination and destruction of the planet, while ensuring our work practices do not further this behaviour." it doesnt have to be true yet just start by saying it, invite critisism, try to be better.

Super sad true love story, gary shteyngart

brand personalities were to fill the void of the absent craftsmen. now those working for the brands have to hide their personality, in favour of adopting the artificial personality of the corporation.

i think this is something that many people know to be true, but is it documented or recorded in any way? it is embarrassing for brands so difficult to research this. but could be done im sure, even through surveys and anonymous interviews.

Place branding was introduced by marketeer Philip Kotler in the early 1990s... cities in the global North had grown because of manufacturing jobs, but now that manufacturing was being moved to low-wage countries they faced high unemployment.

Branding cities went hand in hand with gentrification... the Bible of city branding is 'the rise of the creative class' by Richard Florida in which he proposes that cities should focus on attracting creatives... his work was the foundation for policies of gentrification and city branding since the 2000s.

this is a very tidy story. not that that makes it untrue but it feels like a single thread in a much larger second hand sweater.

the process of enclosure of the commons in society, where shared spaces available to everyone that aren't privately owned are seized and sold off, from healthcare, to hosting, to nature, often happens through branding.

get your filthy hands off my Häagen Dazs. brands as flags demarking territory. designer as surveyor: we will build a road here from east to west, and here another from north to south. a city, a military camp, invasive, colonial. road building as an action which territorialises, the earth is now a map, centuriated.

there is an urban legend that people who live in cities recognise more logos than bird species.

but just because we recognise them doesn't mean we have any desire for them. i click on the twitter "X" to try to escape, it brings me back to the lobby, back to the feedtrough. surely there must be a way out, a bigger window with a bigger x to press. maybe the only option is to switch off the power; yes it's a power issue. have you tried– back on, migrate south for winter, back up, coriolis, spinning not as a movement in itself but as a frame of reference, an acknowledgement or acceptance of the ground shifting beneath our feet. an awareness to prevent dizziness. and somewhere outside birdsong, dawn again.

Designer as Salesperson

the salesperson becomes an expert in making people feel certain emotions, or associations with a product, purely by appealling to their inner desires.

Is the wrong part the misplaced appeal, that your desires have been tricked? Presented with an object that is designed to seem to satisfy the lack. But the lack isn't going away anyway, is it inherently worse that these objects are designed to fill this purpose? I think so but would struggle to explain why. It's predatory, it's taking advantage of human nature, it's betrayal.

Anne McClintock shows how advertisements played a role in spreading racist ideas to a wider audience through what she calls 'commodity racism'.

In her 1995 book Imperial Leather. Advertisement (and all communication) as a carrier for ideas, not only the intended message is the communicator but all sorts of other noise, signals, inferred meanings, esoteric layers.

if we continue to allow business to replace civil society, advertising will replace cultural functions normally ascribed to writers, musicians and artists.

Thomas Frank, historian

What is advertising as opposed to writing, musicking and arting? What is a historian, surely a sort of writer and advertiser, if not maybe artist or musician too? The categories can maybe me escaped by melting them down into a delicious fudge and using it to make a birthday cake for an elderly neighbour. Call over to their house and spend some time with them. Ask them about their life, tell them about yours. Laugh together, smile.

Finding 'cool' has become equivalent of knowing what young people like, so advertisers go out of their way to scout upcoming and existing subcultures and appropriate their novel styles and ideas to sell products. Culture, even if created collectively, can be enclosed by capitalism and used for profit.

Should youth culture be protected from appropriation? Is this necessary or possible? What is the damage caused by this kind of appropriation?

Creative destruction is the continuous capitalist process of destroying old structures, to make room for new, more profitable ones.

in graphic design or advertising... when a typeface, a colour, a style, or a concept has been worn out in the market, it has to be replaced with one that contradicts, responds, or mocks the previous one and thus creates value for products that appear different but offer no new use value.

Using established canonical design strategies, Helvetica, as an act of protest? Kinda lame protest though. Refusing to make anything new? Not great either.

no type of communication is so present as advertising, in all parts of society.

I strongly disagree based on no evidence, but rube gives no evidence either. Right now I cas see my own notes, the ux of my phone generally as well as my notes app and keyboard, the book, a falafel wrapper. Only one of these, the wrapper, i would consider to have advertising as the primary function. I spend so much of my day communicating with friends and family, discussing events, other people, our plans and experiences, emotions and thoughts. I see signposts. I listen to music. I see people's clothes. I read recipes. Call a doctor. Book a taxi. Some people watch movies for three hours straight, I can't imagine anyone paying that much attention to an advertisement.

so even though the shoe went through the hands of many people, the traces of the people who made them remain invisible. The list cognitive and creative potential of the worker is what [Marx] calls a 'fetishist' quality which is 'transferred' to products, when we start to believe that humanity's collective production power only consists of products.

What are you suggesting to produce apart from products? What other production power do you claim to have? Just at the level of words this isn't working for me. Although as an author RP I suppose should be allowed to set the working conditions of his words. Or should they be autonomous? Governed by their own laws. Nomos as an act of assigning, allotting, taking. Autonomy is dividing property yourself or yourselves. Tools are products that make more products. Whose tools? Who made them, how long did it take, was it difficult, what were their working conditions? Who uses them, and all the same questions?

I'm also not entirely sure about the fetishistic stuff. Yes we all get turned on by shoes (the paragraph also mentions laces, leather, rubber) so I suspect the example is a bit loaded. Transferral of desire to objects, yes of course this happens. What about coffee. Maybe I want coffee not as a substitute or means to achieve sexy-rich-famous life but just because I'm tired and I'm addicted and it smells great. Even crappy mass produced exploitative coffee. I am more likely to fetishize the artisan roastery coffee than roodmark snelfilter. The craftsmanship also transfers magic of some sort into the product, this is maybe just part of human creation rather than inherent to industrial production, although I appreciate it has a particular character.

the handmade shoe was valuable because the buyer was in direct contact with the producer and seller.

The shoe is valuable because it protects the foot, the shoe is valuable because it fits, it looks good, it's comfortable, it's long lasting.