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What do you find compelling about graphic design?
MP: I don’t see any inherent promise in graphic design itself. It’s just a description of certain tools and characteristics. But we designers do succeed at times in making beautiful, resonant things that compel thought. We succeed in spite of the limitations of our trade, not because of its inherent potential. An acute idea, alone and unmade, is where we find our promise.
Aside from your professional practice, you also design graphics and packaging for mix CDs that you make for friends and family. What inspires you to take the time and effort to do this?
MP: I can’t stand a plain CD. I need some sort of entry into the music, and the package serves as that. We want to improve our abilities. We want our lives to get better. We hope we’re taking steps that will translate into greater happiness. So, when the first mix tapes I made were just Maxell sleeves marked with a Sharpie, I wanted the handwriting to get more refined. When the handwriting wasn’t improving fast enough, I started printing the text and cutting up magazines. And so on.
What are the differences in designing graphics for a professional album and for a personal mix?
MP: One comes from the outside. It’s a considered reaction, and it arrives through a repeatable process. The other comes from the gut. It’s like a twitch. It’s been enabled by the design process developed for professional work, but only in the sense that past experience has built a better intuition, a more accomplished gut.
Commercially recorded music seems poised to shed its physical casing in exchange for a completely digital existence.
What are your thoughts about the future of music packaging?
MP: We are largely visual beasts. Packaging has an impact on our assessment of individual albums. If you remove that physical component, the music is left alone, naked and sweaty, and it has to speak for itself. Design might, in a way, do a disservice to music by affecting our idea of it from the outside. Personally, I’m inclined to think: design it. Of course, I have a vested interest.
What advice would you share with someone who is interested in designing packaging for mix CDs?
MP: I’ve never felt worthy of advising. But let’s try, and say that just like love and your forty-hour work week: Be careful who you give it to.
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