Kay Brown catches up with this month’s banner designer Oli Bentley and questions him about design (and art).
You’re now based at Quarry Hill, what influenced your decision to be based in this part of the city?
Sheer luck mostly!
I happened to spot there were offices available in the Yorkshire Dance building. The space is fantastic and the location is very central. I used to go to the music college there, so knew the area and I knew I wanted to be somewhere that was around other creative businesses.
Within months of moving in Leeds Gallery and Cafe 164 had opened, all the guys moved in to Duke Studios and Munro House has big plans. Suddenly we find ourselves in this hub of creatives in Leeds that’s sprung up. It’s a pretty exciting time to be working here and we’ve met some lovely people since who are all up for helping each other out and collaborating on projects.
We just did a self-initiated project to display all the cultural businesses on Quarry Hill called the Quarry Hill Family Tree and it was quite a task – there’s nearly 70 other creative individuals and businesses in this little corner of the city!
How would you define design?
I guess in its broadest terms graphic design is simply meeting a brief or solving a problem in a creative way. Objectively, anything that is graphic-based (ie not 3D or product design) and is “designed” – created with intention to meet a certain need, solve a problem or communicate something – is graphic design.
So everything from a artistic piece of CD packaging to a poster created by school children for a school play to Wall Mart’s packaging is graphic design just like typography includes everything from Helvetia to Microsoft Word Art.
There’s a lot of snobbery around that tries to define graphic design as one thing or another, but really graphic design is something everyone does on a daily basis – from laying out a letter and selecting a font to choosing a twitter avatar. Much of what we do is about making choices and I think this is a really key part of design.
In terms of what is “good” design, and then it becomes a little more subjective. For me, graphic design is something that has to be both creative and effective and whether design is good or not can only be measured against what it set out to achieve. Design has to serve the purpose it was created for, and so as a creative you sometimes have to ask some searching questions – quite often meeting the needs of the client is at odds with trying to push creative boundaries or push a certain aesthetic – there’s so many beautiful designs out there that fail hopelessly to communicate the message or are inappropriate for the audience they’re aimed at. (At the same time there’s no end a lot of design that a clear message but is about as engaging as a turd!).
So for me it’s this big balancing act between the two parts – the effectiveness and the creativity – and I love the challenge of creating work that does both in equal measure, in a way that also meets the many different (and sometimes conflicting) needs of the brief.
In your opinion, what is the greatest design to come out of the North of England?
That’s an easy one – The Yorkshire Rose. I especially like the use of colour… I mean, God forbid it were red!
When does design become art?
It’s a close run thing – Art (and illustration especially) often run into design and vice versa. I’m currently helping curate an exhibition entitled “Yorkshire Graphic Design” to be held at Cafe 164 and it’s something we’ve had to think a lot about. As an exhibition space that primarily displays “art” we’re having to decide what aspects of design we should include and I think much of the work that will go into the exhibition could be classed as both design and art.
Personally I’m really keen not to put a value judgement on the label “art” as opposed to “design”. I’m also not a fan of the perception that “computer generated” work isn’t art – as if it sits there and does all the bloody work for you! Past that though I’m still not clear on it myself, though partly this is because I’m not sure it matters what box you put it in.
Interestingly the very first submission we got for the exhibition was a promotional piece for a club night and the designers had taken off all the text and logos and just submitted the illustration work – presumably because they thought it more “exhibition worthy”. But I’m not really keen on this – the piece was fantastic in its own right and I think if done with real creative integrity, design (text, logos and all) has a lot of value in its own right. If this makes it art or not I’m not sure.
As part of the run up to the exhibition we’re hoping to start the debate on The Culture Vulture and get people to give us their opinions too so hopefully your readers will be able to help answer this one for us…
Which aspects of The Culture Vulture have you tried to incorporate into the banner?
I wanted to focus on the idea of conversation, debate and comment but also the great variety and vibrancy of different culture you guys pack into your site each week. Hope it fits the bill!
You design your own products which are available for sale, what inspired you to do this?
I wanted to make sure I always had an outlet to express myself creatively as a designer to help make sure I keep things fresh and exciting. It helps me focus on why I design – which is for the love of coming up with a good idea and executing it – and gives me a good excuse to work on projects we might not otherwise get to work on if we just did client-led work.
Currently we have a few T shirt Designs in the collection as well as a poster print, badge design and a set of customisable business cards for musicians we call ‘Virtual Demo Tapes’. Future releases include a clock called ‘If Not Now When’ and a poster print called ‘The Devil Is In The Detail’ made up of thousands of illustrations of evil things.
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Links in this article:
Yorkshire Graphic Design is open for submissions until 10th April. You can see the exhibition in Cafe 164 from May. http://www.cafe164.com/exhibitions/
The Split design Collection can be found at split.co.uk/shop