Bibliography:
Michael, Rock, (2009) Fuck Content
Queneau, Raymond, (1998) Exercises in Style, John Calder
For my written response on methods of translating, I chose to represent the main ideas from the reading Michael, Rock, (2009) Fuck Content using the method of writing from the reading. Queneau, Raymond, (1998) Exercises in Style, John Calder. I tried to experiment with writing. In the first text I wrote the main ideas of Michael, Rock, (2009) Fuck Content in a formal summary. In the second text, I tried to use poetic writing to write the same text.
Formal style
In his previous work ‘Designer as Author’, Michael Rock discusses that designers are insecure about the value of their work. Designers might refer to themselves as “designer/authors”, hoping to gain the similar respect and cultural status that authors get when making their work. This comes from the idea that values the creation of content over the form of content. Which leads to designers generating content and becoming designers and authors, not designers as authors. The problem is content and the misconception of it. In ‘Fuck the content’, Rock explains that he didn’t mean that designers should create content like writers, but that designing itself is authorship. Rock refers to the quote from Paul Rand: “There is no such thing as bad content, only bad form.” Rock interprets the quote to mean that it is the designer’s responsibility to design, not to write. However, design itself is a very influential form. So, Design Culture is wrong to assume that good design depends on the content. The form itself is meaningful and not a vessel for content. Design is a matter of storytelling through visual elements such as typography, contrast, colour, scale, form and composition. Designers create meaning through editing and creating form. The way something is designed, rather than what it is about, determines its form. The history of graphic design is about form. These forms have evolved from each year to the next year. Designers must constantly review and reform the world in the way it is being represented. This creates a connection between the world, the designer and the user. It’s in the way we talk about it; it’s how we perceive it. So, our content is the design itself.
Poetic style:
A man named Michael Rock keeps lingering on the same thoughts. His mind wanders, and he asks himself, is there a superior form of creating? He felt this deep desire to unfold himself more in reflection after he wrote down his previous thoughts in ‘designer as author’, where he addressed the essence of why designers might refer to themselves as “designer/authors”, in deep hope of gaining some similar respect and cultural status to that which artists and writers get when making their work. In a world where designers wander around creating content and feel the deep need to become designers and authors instead of designers as authors. It raises the question: Is the problem the content or the misstep people have with it? Rock tries to explain the thought that he didn’t mean that designers should imitate the creation of writers but take power in designing itself as a way of creating. Hinting to Paul Rand, who once said, “There is no such thing as bad content, only bad form,” Rock seeks to unveil his point, the whisper of his mind, where it’s the designer’s faith to design and not write. The faith of using visual elements instead of words and finding meaning in form instead of being a vessel for content. To create meaning in editing and creating form. So, if we make that connection crystal clear in how we spread the words, we will make a stronger imprint where form is the only content a designer seeks.
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