NO BARRIER TO BREAK.

NO BOXES TO THINK OUT OF.

exploring design in a world defined by boundaries

Frank Chimero’s “The Web’s Grain”

The need to capture it all, commodification and eventually burnout. These are realities that can apply to anyone with a desire to create and as Chimero focuses on them in the realm of web design, he walks us through his own journey of recognizing them. To understand burnout and looming question of “how did we get here?,” we must state the obvious and keep going into why we recognize those deciisons as the obvious.

Our solutions of commodification and getting it all have culminated in finding the fastest and easiest ways to acheive responsive design. I truly believe that the standardized goal of most efficient/least amount of time in everything and now also web design has and will fail creatives in their pursuit of originality. Chimero’s warning that, “the less you have to do, the less say you have,” reminds me that in my public design whether it is to get a message across for someone else (communications for work/research) or it is to be an expression of my capabilities (portfolio) can also display how much of myself I represent. I note this as public design only because design that I often create with pure representation is often never seen by anyone, only for my eyes, and I’ve come to realize that I often choose to opt for the design choices that have been pre-selected to be most efficient/least amount of time due to their universal acceptance. In other words as a student and with the doom of post-graduate employment, I have allowed my work to be commodified. As much of the burnout that Chimero describes, even though I am not close to design burnout, I see it as an inevitable part of my future as I also strive along to get the whole picture in one confined box.

It’s a slap back to the reality I am painstakingly creating for myself. Without realizing, I have already put myself on the path of using technology to solve the problems it causes which Chimero cleverly describes “as futile as cleaning a grass stain by rubbing grass on it.” Constantly being told to think outside of the box and that to be creative (truly) is to be exceptional is often something I think about especially as someone who finds strength in collective power and action. Chimero’s description of the infinite canvas and edgelessness of digital design, to me, is affirming that interconnectedness does not have to dissapear or rather that it will never dissapear but only appear disconnected as an illusion.

Hockney’s declaration that “space is an illusion but the time is not an illusion”, referring to his photography work directly connects to the idea of the trojan horse. I think the convenience to a process as Chimero identifies as a solution that some platforms offer, is instead an illusion of space. The time is still spent but we simply do not account for it and thus dismiss as not real. However the lost time, time taken by these middlemen platforms, is a loss of representation of yourself in your design. While this seems as a conclusion that is obvious, I think the gravity of this lost representation is often accepted as an inevitability. Chimero’s “the web’s grain” to me serves as reminder to not dismiss this decision of lost representation and rather understand the true meaning of it so as to understand why designers reach a point of dissapointment to organize around.