Journal 11

Who is Debbie Millman?

Debbie Millman is a partner and president of the design division at Sterling Brands, one of the leading brand identity firms in the country. Millman is president of AIGA, and chair of the School of Visual Arts’ master’s program in Branding. She is a contributing editor to Print magazine and host of the podcast “Design Matters.” She is the author of How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer (Allworth Press, 2007), The Essential Principles of Graphic Design (Rotovision, 2008) and Look Both Ways: Illustrated Essays on the Intersection of Life and Design (How Books, 2009).

What is Design Matters?

Design Matters is a thought-provoking internet podcast hosted by Debbie Millman, which profiles industry-leading graphic designers, change agents, artists, writers and educators.

What did you find interesting about the interview?
Interviewee: Massimo Vignelli
"If you can design one thing, you can design everything."

Important points:
-The discipline of design is the same. You can design everything with discipline.
-Limits the use of typefaces. There is only a few typefaces that are great. Trashes the ugly ones. Ugly ones are those typefaces that are flashy and trendy.
-There are very few great type designers. One he thinks is one of the greats is Frutiger.
-Reduce vulgarity.
-There are more good designers around.
-There are more good clients.
-Need to be educated and cultured.
-Technology is changing print and he is a fan of the change. You can explore different ways of using the technology while you are reading a book. Instead of just seeing a pic of a building you can go inside and explore the building.
-Visual pollution is a crime. It's killing a culture. Just designing with no meaning is vulgarity/visual pollution.
-There is commercial everything. Commercial things are made to exploit people and have no value in quality.
-Design should be forceful: Design that is emotionally charge, it has intensity on what ever it does. It's not only harmony but it is provocative at the same time.
-Limpy design: weak kind of design. Pale colors, meaningless stripes, and meaningless things.
-We design by subtraction, others design by addition. They made add flowers to a plate instead of just making a beautiful plate.
-United Airlines and Continental Airlines mash up logo is uncreative.
Designer without history is nothing. If you don't have a theory you don't know where you stand.