the computer cut off my hands

Ever since I began my own studies into Wolfgang Weingart, I have been fascinated with the art of letterpress. Coupled with a few ADAC tours to Full Circle Press and Arion Press, it has started me on my own personal journey back to the art of craft and design. It was through these experiences that I realized how great it was to work with my hands, the computer was already desensitizing me. I knew I had to work with my hands again.

In one exploration of the design of a movie poster this semester, my graphic design instructor Charlie Denison had been frustrated with the approach I was taking. Admittedly my concept was weak developed completely in Photoshop and the execution wasn’t coming out as I had hoped. I had worked an idea to death. He took my concept off the wall and shredded it up with an exacto knife to which he rearranged the pieces and asked me to take a more hands on approach to this design. I could experiment with greater speed and intuition with objects in physical space. In my effort to utilize my talent in Photoshop I had forgotten that. Through much experimentation and shredded paper, I came up with a design that really worked for my concept. It was the hand connection the sensation of seeing and touching something tangible that helped develop my ideas.

Next semester I begin my first class in letterpress. I could have chosen advanced interactive media, but I wanted to get my hands dirty for the experience I hope will eave me a better typographer and designer. This was true for Adobe Photoshop. Prior to taking photography I felt I was rather good at Photoshop. However, in studying the traditional art of black and white photography I attained a new appreciation for what it does, how and why it does it, and what it doesn’t do. Through experience there is a certain personal reward to the art of hand crafting something that was rather laborious. Taking in all the details and being patient about it, and making a lot of mistakes in the process to come up with a final and very satisfying result. This allows for a better understanding of the hows and whys that are lost in the one click modification process of the digital world. Paula Scher in her Hillman Curtis documentary short explained, “The computer made me feel like my hands were cut off…you don’t type a design. That seems dumb… [The computer] doesn’t smell right. It should smell like an art supply. It smells like a car.” It’s true. Think about the machine you’re sitting in front of right now. How many senses are you utilizing when you create something on it? How much of those senses are confined and diminished in some way? David Dabner, at the London College of Communication says the computer inhibits students’ ability to develop, and leads to “sloppy thinking and sloppy approach”. While the methods of creating typography have changed over the past fifty years, the fundamental aspects have not. Leading, Kerning, Picas, Size, Faces: all taken from traditional printing methods. As a young designer I see the need for a better understanding of the most basic aspects of what we are doing in graphic design. I see a lot of bad design and bad typography that could be easily remedied by taking a hands on approach to type.

Paula Scher, in her views of the computer also mentions that it felt to her that the computer should be designed with more of a human intuition in mind. That it should be done with your hands and be able to move objects on the screen intuitively, and with much more freedom than is currently available. The machine should be organic, but it’s not. Designers today are looking more towards the organic. This is the direction design is currently going. There is a certain humanistic blood in the veins of many young designers today that shy away from the rather rigid world of computers. Si Scott for example is a young designer whose flourishes break boundaries of rigid typefaces and are created all by hand. Yet, computers and the Internet are not going away, and slowly, the traditional crafts are going to die in place of new, faster, and cheaper methods. However, the organic nature of humans will continue. There is a backlash now, but technology will continue to progress to the point of creating means that are more conducive to the way artists and designers work and think, the gap between human and machine will lessen. Even Ellen Lupton, who has always been a proponent of working with ones hands in design, has work on YouTube. It’s funny where the boundaries between technology and craft meet sometimes. Perhaps the art of hand crafting will never die, just as it was proposed that technology would remove the need for the pen. There is a certain inherent romantic idea towards the process of creating something without the aid of machines. Something more human, and that is what makes design sometimes like an art form. It strives to be more human even with the barrage of geometric perfection that is always looming.

So, for those of you who are students who are still latching onto the computer as a means of design: Remember, creation comes from your mind and its limitations are only those which you set on it. The possibilities are endless if only you can see beyond the box. Taking a hands on approach can lead to new ideas and inspirations. Taking time to do things the hard way can only improve you. Ideas come from knowledge as well as experience. For those of you who are already designers, maybe you know this already, maybe you don’t. But for those of you have the potential to influence the next generation, show young designers the importance of the hands on approach. Get them away from computers, and show them what it means to create something outside of the limitations presented by the computer. The computer is a tool, but it is not the only tool, and if you’ve never worked on a letterpress before, it really is a must at least once in your life.