“The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence. Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows.” —Milton Glaser
It’s thanks to every major mentor and influence I’ve been exposed to in art and design that I’ve arrived at what I feel is my own solid design philosophy. Much of it stems from the Dessau Bauhaus of the early twentieth century: that form and function are not divorced goals, but in fact intertwined, mutually-achievable requirements for any work, from furniture to typography to painting and so on.
But another aspect of it comes from Renaissance drive, the passion to try and master any number of disciplines, to come to appreciate that even if I don’t end up being one of the best in a particular field, I can go on with a healthy respect and understanding of it and can take those sensibilities back to my best work.
I love both the fluidity of the Art Nouveau period by such artists as Alphonse Mucha, as well as the hard-line integrity of the various schools of Deco design. In my spirit I find an appreciation for the draughtsmanship of Paul Rand and Milton Glaser, but also appreciate the cool, Euro-popularized engineering ideals of Dieter Rams.
To me, no tool is out of line to use: camera obscura, Photoshop, acrylic paints, photographs…whatever will bring together the final vision of the designer to fulfill the needs of the project. In this, I take a lot of cues from Marcel Duchamp‘s innovative thought that the artist need not necessarily be the final executor of the physical work, so long as they are the imagination behind its creation.
Ultimately I think how I feel about design and the pursuit of its excellence can be summed up most prosaically by Walter Pater:
“To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”