Art Philosophy: Decoration vs. Design

What is design?

I define design as function + aesthetics, meaning a well designed work should be both beautiful and functional. If a work is only functional, then it is utilitarian, not well designed. If it is only beautiful, then it is decoration, not design.

For example, a brochure needs to catch the eye as well as communicate information and possibly sell a client on a product or service. If it's only pretty, it's useless for anything but hanging on a wall to add color. If it isn't pretty, it's little more than a specifications listing. A website needs to look cool as well as be easy to navigate and find information. No one is going to spend much time or return to a website they can't find anything on.

This idea first began to jell in my head at art school when an architecture instructor talked about Frank Lloyd Wright's philosophy and how he didn't believe in decorating his buildings, but wanted everything to serve a purpose. For him, at least according to this instructor, he believed in enhancing his buildings using the structure to increase the aesthetics, not merely decorating it to make it pretty. That struck me.

So why am I bringing this up? Recently I've been working on a brochure for a high end client who has very clear ideas about what they want. That part is good, because it makes the job go much quicker and the client usually ends up more satisfied. The bad part is they make requests that actually hurt the effectiveness and/or quality of the work. This client wanted boxes that contained the most important information in the brochure and therefore should be the most prominent to be more transparent so they blend into the background and make the text less legible. The transparency may add to the overall beauty, but it makes the text difficult to read and therefore less valuable. The boxes with a small transparency looked nice. But this request pushed the design into decoration territory. They're paying for it, so I'll give them what they want, but it is a lost opportunity.

When I first started working professionally, things like that really bothered me. I used to argue and fight with clients trying to bend them to my way of thinking. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. But I've been in this business long enough that I think very little of it. I've reached a point where a tell a client honestly, "Version A is more effective because of Reason 1, 2, and 3. Version B is less effective because of Faults 1, 2, and 3, but you are paying for the Work so I'll do what you want." It's worked well. I've done my job by informing and educating the client on what would give him or her the best results, but I don't fall into the typical graphic designer trap of "I'm so great and wonderful you should do whatever I say and not speak little dumb, uneducated public." That gets annoying and makes additional gigs hard to get.

The menu above is a design prototype to show a client what i thought would make a nice design for his Hostel. It looks quite inviting, but it's also practical in that it clearly lists items you can order, cost, a description of each, and they are divided by when you can order them. Beauty and functionality.

Genre - What is it, and do we need it?

I'm currently reading (actually listening to the Audible version) a new book by Neil Gaiman called The View from the Cheap Seats. It's a collection of introductions, speeches, and other nonfiction essays that were either published or delivered previously. At first that sounds like a really weird idea for a book and a pretty cheap way to get paid twice for the same work. But it's actually a pretty clever idea.

First, let me say that I am not a Neil Gaiman fan when it comes to fiction. I've read very little of his work, but everything I have read has left me unimpressed and uninterested. That just isn't my kind of fiction.

But I AM a Neil Gaiman fan when it comes to nonfiction. Whenever I see an interview online or an interview or an essay or some other glimpse into his mind, I always make it a point to watch/listen/read it, and most of the time I am thoroughly enthralled. Is that weird that I like one kind of his writing but not another kind? And it's not just his. There are other writers who I feel the same way about. And then there are writers whose fiction and nonfiction I really enjoy. I can't explain it.

But back to the book. Most of the events the speeches were delivered at, the books the introductions were written for, and the websites the interviews were published at I would probably never read/visit/hear, so having all of these collected into one book is a real treasure, because I get dessert without having to eat the nasty main course first. (I don't do this will actual food--usually.)

In one of his essays, he discusses genre and gives a really good answer. He says genre is something that helps a reader find something he wants by telling him what something isn't and pointing him away from things he probably isn't interested in. He uses the shelves of a bookstore with books located in sections. There are a lot of books in a bookstore, and one can get lost and not find what one is looking for without help. A reader who is looking for a space adventure doesn't need to waste time looking in the cookbook section, because he won't find any space adventures amongst all the recipes. (Of course, Neil explains it much better than I am.)

I've always thought of genre as a snobby term for category or type, and it is used that way a lot. I've also felt genre was too limiting telling an author what a story can and can't be, which sometimes is helpful to keep the story cohesive and coherent, but other times is too limiting. I've read a lot of science fiction that was equally a mystery or thriller or romance or some other "unrelated" genre. Growing up, my favorite shows were those that ignored the boundaries of genre and offered you a serving of everything on each plate (episode) such as SuperFriends, Jonny Quest, G.I. Joe, He-Man, and M.A.S.K., just to name a few. I found shows that are locked strictly into their genre to be a little boring and predictable.

But not everyone shares my opinion. A lot of people want their stories to be very constrained and get upset when an element from another genre creeps in. A novel I published a few years ago received a review on YouTube criticizing the book for being all over the place. The reviewer wasn't sure what kind of book it was nor who it was written for. The answer is obvious: I wrote it for me. That's the kind of fiction I like. That's the kind of fiction I buy.

So what does this have to do with the illustration above? I'm glad you asked!

I recently discovered a musician named Lindsey Stirling. She mixes classical music with techno, much like I do. Mmmm, a musician after my own heart. In one of the videos (shown below) she features dancing pirates. This reminded me of a WW Denslow illustration from Father Goose with pirates and dancing sailors. I decided to do my own take on this idea. As I worked on it, it slowly morphed into a Steampunk illustration. I'm not a big fan of steampunk, but while looking for inspiration and reference material, I stumbled across the fact that Steampunk, a genre, has been broken into over a dozen subgenres like Teslapunk. Who knew? It's amazing that something that seems so narrow and niche can be further subdivided, and yet, like Neil Gaiman said, it's wonderful because it helps me quickly eliminate those works I'm not interested in. And it presents me with many I might be interested in that I might otherwise overlook due to the sheer number of options.

Anyway, enjoy the illustration above, and enjoy the video of Lindsey and her dancing pirates below.

12,000 Views

I created this for DeviantArt to celebrate 12,000 hits. It's colored in the style from The Phantom Coach, but with hand drawn lines and The Auction style texturing. Maybe my next comic will look like this.

The Beauty of Black & White

No one can deny the power of color. No other element can draw the eye quicker or more powerfully. 

But color isn't perfect. It speaks to the visual part of our brain which is more ambiguous than the auditory part. Like words, black and white images communicate ideas much more clearly and more precisely. I've heard several theories on why this is, but I'm not sure anyone actually knows.

Above and below are two images from the Wandering Koala Adult Coloring Book. The book collects the Wandering Koala 80-page Giant #1, but strips out the color so the reader can add them himself. Or he can choose to enjoy the story in it's more raw form. Read it both ways and see which one draws you in quicker and tighter.

Music and the Written Word

There are very few things as magical as putting the right images with the right music. I'm not saying that I did that, but I am pretty happy with the result. The music is a tune I composed several years ago using Apple Loops. The video was generated in Apple Photos using pages from my first Adult Coloring Book. Enjoy!

Storytelling: How long should a story be?

Recently I let a friend of mine read my latest story before I published it. He came back with feedback that I hear a lot about not just my comics, but comics in general. "It's too short. It needs more character development. It needs more backstory." 

Almost every negative comment I get has to do with length and the fact that characters aren't "completely developed". I blame TV and movies. TV shows with "fully developed" characters tend to run in the hour range (with 15 minutes for commercials). Movies typically run 90-120 minutes. That's roughly 6-8 typically comic book issues. My friend has written a screenplay (like so many others) and while he did it, he obtained a lot of guidance from someone who has sold screenplays. He basically learned the formula (you must have certain elements, they must be introduced by a certain point in the movie, etc.) Commercially successful movies tend to follow the same formula, and I think people have come to expect that in everything and have actually subconsciously set that as the criteria against what all other media is judged. A lot of novels have gone to the "screenplay" format to both attract readers and movie studios for this reason. So when you try to do something different (like tell a short story or focus on something other than the main character's backstories) people assume that it is "bad" because it isn't what they've come to expect. 

Not everyone does this. Some people realize there are different types of stories, such as the concept story, and developed characters actually detract from that. I personally get a little bored with the traditionally formula that is used so often. It makes it so much easier to predict the twist endings, and while that's fun, it gets old after a while.

That's one reason I decided to go with 80-pages for a story instead of the traditional 18-22. It allows a much more developed story in one sitting that you don't have to wait until the next issue to continue. That break can be jarring.

Read the entire story here >>

The Auction, page 4

Another page from the latest Wandering Koala adventure.

Read the entire story >>

Adult Coloring Books

A few years ago I was reminiscing about how much I loved coloring books as a youngster. I couldn't get enough of them. I wondered why they weren't made for adults and thought about all the cool things you could do with that format. But I never did more than that, because I figured it wouldn't catch on.

I should have known better and trusted my instincts. They're almost always right.

Just a couple of years after I had that thought, the Adult Coloring Book market exploded! I see them for sale all over the place. But most of those are just coloring books with a series of images to color. They didn't go beyond that.

But I did.

I created an entire graphic novel that one can color with a gallery at back with several pin up images. That way not only do you get a log of great art to color, but you get an entire story to read as well. It's like a two for one!

This is just the first in a series. I've already started writing the story for the second one.

See the Wandering Koala Adult Coloring Book >>

The Auction, page 3

Read the entire story >>

If at first you don't succeed...

So I had originally created a different cover for my latest graphic novel, and while it was good, it just didn't speak to me or feel like the story. But I didn't know what else to do, so I published it.

Then while working on the Adult Coloring Book version of the story (yes, there will be a Wandering Koala Adult Coloring Book for you to color all by your lonesome very soon), I decided to do something else for the cover so it looked like its own animal. I ended up liking this cover so much, that I decided to change the color eBook version as well. I'm much happier with how it turned out.

What do you think?

This was inked with a Prismacolor brush-tipped pen and colored in Adobe Photoshop.

The latest adventure of the Wandering Koala is now available as an Amazon exclusive.