As anyone sensitive to the subtleties of graphic communication will tell you, the conduct of Architects when it comes to visual communication is an interesting one to observe. Whilst I, as a communication designer, would never presume to think I could design or build a house, sensitive to the multiple complexities and considerations involved in such a task, the converse is not necessarily true, and the sheer ubiquity of personal computing positions visual communication as an accessible ‘entry level’ craft compared to ‘higher’ levels of design. There are of course upsides to this and the perceived accessibility of ‘communication design’ is not always a bad thing, the sheer vibrancy and conflict that drives popular culture, and the graphics part thereof, being a case in point. That’s why I think this is a really interesting exhibition, organised by Zak Kyle “especially for architects who lost track of the medium sometime around Max Bill, Otl Aicher or the invention of Helvetica … a post-critical, post-disciplinary deconstruction of the all-too-serious solidity of architecture culture itself”.
Hopefully a wake up call for Architects to drop the reliance on helvetica, thinking that ariel and helvetica are the same, use of the vernacular graphpaper/grid etc as a graphic-motif, the terrible line spacing, the widows and orphans, lack of consideration for legibility, random stylistic ticks such as filled counters and stretched letterforms, and to start thinking of some actual graphic communication ideas rather than constantly recycling stylistic mannerisms. It’s also a wake up call to me/us to stop doing these things when we work for architects, thinking that that is the only thing they understand. Crass generalisations I know, but cliches usually exist for some reason. There are always however, exceptions to the rule.