End of the Artifact
Author of this post: Brockett Horne | About Blog Authors »By Brockett Horne
Design Goes All Conceptual
Beau Bergeron’s video (link via swissmiss)
I used to describe the objects I make as a graphic designer as “artifacts.” I really enjoyed the sound of it: verified and notarized with the word “fact” wedged right in there. And of course, it had connotations of being museum-worthy, since all museums are full of artifacts. In fact, I imagine the graphic design canon (of paper objects, mostly) displayed in well-lit gallery vitrines with labels underneath, for all to behold. But I believe the reason I most identified with the word “artifact” was because design both responds to and changes culture. And I still believe that. Firmly.
But lately, it seems as if designers are creating more than objects. Recent graduate Beau Bergeron presented his graphic design capabilities not through a portfolio of objects, but in a conceptual film project on his t-shirt. Designers create systems, events, social networks, user-controlled narratives, and services. Designers create belief in something. Everywhere we turn, there are examples of design with not an artifact or object as the end result, but the user’s acceptance of a new idea.
Perhaps artifact is no longer a great way to describe the changing face of design’s end result. Or, in time, maybe the concepts we develop today will become dusty relics, too, headed for the museum. And I will certainly behold them.
