As part of our contextual research, we had to watch a presentation by a well-established graphic designer. I chose Michael Beirut, a graphic designer from Cleveland, Ohio, who designed the logo for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. His presentation from Offset 2012 was interesting as he focused on mistakes he had made through his career and then how he overcame them, which I feel is a good way to learn from somebody else’s experience. He organised it into seven lessons and showed that “anyone can do bad graphic designs”. His first lesson was, ‘There are no little problems’. The example he used for this was the infamous Butterfly Ballot which highlighted the problem of too much type, not enough space. This showed how much the design counts and that it’s not over complicated, shown by the amount of people who voted for the wrong candidate in the presidential election.
Beirut’s second lesson was to ‘work with what you got’ and this proves that you can do graphics with limited creativity. Again, he used an example to back this up, whenever he was asked by SAKS FIFTH AVENUE to create a new logo. However, he found that modernising the font and logo took away the company’s esteemed history. So, he decided to look at old logos, which had all been done in calligraphy. He started again and thinned out this font and placed it in a square. Then divided that further into 64 small squares that were shuffled and used on bags and packaging. I thought this lasts step was very clever in using what you’ve already got in creating a completely different composition which added a whole new area the design could cover.
His next lesson of ‘less is more, except when it isn’t’, confused me when he first said it but after hearing how he used it when hired by Yale School of Architecture it made sense. The long-standing, traditional school of architecture wanted a reboot to show how they offered courses to a wider range. To portray this, Beirut used a different type base every time they created a new poster whether it be through the font, border or even to the fine details of the Y in the logo being different every time. While this is very complex, it is effective in showing the new diverse audience of Yale.
The fourth lesson was ‘without problems, there would no solutions. He used his work for the New York Times as an example that the problem of having to create a huge poster to go on the side of a building covered in windows, without blocking the view of the people inside. It resulted in him coming up with a 893 jigsaw like structure that stuck onto the side of the building which you could see through looking straight on but from below it lined up to create the newspapers logo. I felt this was an important lesson as it implies that the problems that you encounter can result in your best work.
‘If you can’t make a good idea work, maybe it’s a bad idea’ was Beirut’s next lesson for the audience where he used his experience with the Museum of Art and Design. He was so set on one design he didn’t realise until he took a step back that he was looking in the wrong place which was why he couldn’t get the client to approve his designs of a continuous line logo.
The last two lessons of ‘the client is always right’ and ‘sometimes you just need to get out of the way’ showed that sometimes the designer needs to listen to those around them to help their idea grow. For example, while working with the New World Symphony, Beirut struggled to come up with a logo and didn’t until the composer gave him some sketches he came up with. Watching this presentation, gave me an insight into what it is like to work as a successful, established graphic designer and that not everything works first, second or even third time round.
