“… the medium in which a work is rendered can become as important as its message or meaning”
That quote is from an essay by Paul Rand called The Language of Art, in which he discusses the various nuances between form and content.
As a designer, this conflict is something I must grapple with on daily basis. I am presented with content in a raw form, a form that exists primarily as a vehicle, not as an endpoint. My job is to then craft a form around that story, create a medium for which the content can be truly elevated and enjoyed.
In the process of telling stories, especially on the web, it is easy to forget content’s connection to the real world. In my work on an upcoming project, my inspiration was to take content back to something more raw, to give it a life in a place where it may well have been born. I looked back to real world items and objects and tried to imbue bits of content with a form far removed from their current clean, digital life. I imagined a world where this content could live as an artifact.
The essay by Mr. Rand helped to solidify things that I do that are not often discussed, things that cut to the core of design and art as a whole. Things, I found out, that I’ve been wrestling with for quite some time.