I am working on my 3rd feature length screenplay. After several months of working on random songs here and there, I have also been toying with the idea of putting together a 5 song EP. Both of these ventures have lead me to thinking about emotion, and, when you get right down to it, how emotion on some level has to be present to create a great album, movie, or novel.
I am more or less an interactive designer by trade, though I will admit that I do so many different things this title is a little misleading. I spent the first 5 years of my career doing primarily graphic design and graphic art direction, even though I was trained in interactive design. This is all to say that I have some perspective.
My initial thinking about emotion was as it relates to graphic design, and static art (paintings, sculptures and such). Can static art provoke emotions? Sure. How about graphic design? This one is a little bit more difficult, and my ultimate answer is yes…and no. Let me explain.
I feel, and have always felt, that there is a distinction between graphic design and graphic art. My thinking is certainly not as strict as the typesetter vs. graphic design split that is championed by many of the Cranbrook folks. James Victore’s work is graphic art. A great deal of the work that comes out of Pentagram is graphic art. Same goes for JNL Design. Aside from the good ones, most standard ad agency work is graphic design, or typesetting. It is boring, not thoughtful, and in general was design by rules rather than passion. Having worked in the field, and having created only a few things that I feel qualify as graphic art, I know just how hard of a task it is to create graphic art, especially given particular confines (namely, a client).
