Installation view, MFA Thesis Show, Yale School of Art Graphic Design Program, 2006. Photo: Dylan Fracareta
8 1/2 x 11 inches. I've been avoiding this format all my life. At my first job in New York, we used European-sized stationery. It caused no end of complications, but my (European-born) boss was dedicated to it. "Don't you see?" he asked. "It's so much more elegant." And logical, too: the ISO system is modular, all based on consistent ratios, the square root of two, the Golden Section. Our 8 1/2 x 11 size is based on...well, what, exactly?
I came to see A4 stationery — 210 x 297 millimeters, or very roughly 8 1/4 x 11 1/2 — as sleek, refined, designed. 8 1/2 x 11, on the other hand, started to look lumpy, banal and bureaucratic. It was like the difference between a Lamborghini and a Ford Pinto. And how many times did I get briefs from clients that included that horrible specification? Sales brochures, art catalogues, magazines, newsletters. We're planning to make this 8 1/2 x 11, okay? Sigh. I would do anything to sidestep the inevitable: a little taller, a little shorter, a little skinnier, a little wider.
Now I see I was wrong all along. The student designers of the 2006 MFA Thesis Show of the Yale School of Art Graphic Design Program have covered the three floors of their exhibition space at 1156 Chapel Street in New Haven with images of their work tiled on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Over 10,000 pieces of it, all lovingly taped together on the floors, the walls, and up to the ceilings. Yale faculty advisor Dan Michaelson describes the 8 1/2 x 11 format as "a metaphor for the comp, the rough draft, the transmitted document, the electronic screen and the time-based process of the installation."
You may accept 10,000 pieces of tiled 8 1/2 x 11 sheets as metaphor. Or, perhaps, mania. Either way, between now and May 24, an unpreposessing bit player in our every day graphic lives is experiencing its apotheosis, and — in my eyes at least — its unexpected redemption. I love 8 1/2 x 11!
Comments [43]
I'm too tired to get out my measuring tape and do algorithms right now. Surely, someone in the audience knows this answer off the top of their head. (And I'm willing to wait.)
Respectfully,
The Lazy American...
05.19.06
08:30
It still feels about as elegant as a one-size-fits-all sharkskin suit though.
05.19.06
08:36
05.19.06
09:13
If there is a similar story behind the derivation of 8 1/2 x 11, I've never heard it.
05.19.06
09:15
Since last september (when i moved to U.S.) I have been using Letter format and I have been enjoying it. But it is a fact that "the cat always wants to be on the other side of the door." so now that I don't get to use A4 i kind of miss it too.
I am not favoring any of them, I enjoy both for seperate reasons, yet i think the metric system is less complicated.
So instead of calling it 8 1/2 x 11, i might prefer 215.9 x 279.4 millimeters.
I know it looks more complicated but we used to pay 850.000 Turkish Lira for a can of coke in Turkey 2 years ago (now it changed), so I think I have my reasons.
05.20.06
04:18
As a Canadian, this is a constant thorn in my side, as we are officially metric but continually have to use the old Imperial units as we are so closely linked with our southern neighbours.
And that includes paper sizes.
05.20.06
01:53
05.20.06
02:47
05.20.06
03:03
05.20.06
04:15
05.20.06
08:50
05.21.06
01:28
The values go like this:
210mm:297mm = 1:1.41421 = 1:sqrt(2)
8.5":11" = 1:1.29411
golden ratio = 1:1.61803 = 1:phi
So the closest to the golden ratio is the ISO/DIN ratio, but it is far from being equal.
(I hope my maths are good.)
Hugo,
05.21.06
04:57
05.21.06
07:13
So I guess this begs the question -- If we could all pick our ideal paper size based on personal esthetics and/or the "golden rule" what would you pick?
I personally have always liked the half-size of 8 & 1/2 x 11, or 5 & 1/2 x 8 & 1/2, vertically. Which opens up to 8 & 1/2 x 11. I have also dabbled with 6 x 9 vertical, which opens to 12 x 9. Seems very easy to handle and intimate.
So ... What say you observers? What is your "fantasy" size for paper? Or what sizes have you used that seemed most successful or fun?
05.21.06
11:07
To me, it would seem like a real feat of design would have been to have them create designs that were restrained to just a 8 1/2 x 11 size.
It's easy to grab people's attention with giant murals and crazy sizes, but how creative can you get when you are constrained to the typical page size?
Perhaps I'm looking at this the wrong way. Once they get out of school and join the paying workforce they will be probably be forced to do PLENTY of typical page-sized design.
05.21.06
11:23
Then it depends on how you manage that typical page size. I'm in England and I prefer A4, but a short while ago I found a narrow envelope in the post, it was a letter on 11/8.5 folded down the centre. Turned out to be a very coservative solicitors letter. An odd idea, but somehow they pulled it off.
05.22.06
12:06
There's a (very) brief history of the paper size in the US at the link. It apparently goes back to the Dutch in the 1600's.
05.22.06
04:51
I can see how A4 is more practical in some respects (particularly when scaling or shrinking documents) and there is a logic behind it's size as this interesting article explains:
A4 vs US Letter
05.22.06
06:56
I just believe in the power of standardization and that's where the US has always annoyed me (more even than their foreign policies) with their way of forcing their own standards on the rest of the world (be it unintentionally).
05.22.06
08:10
What were your impressions of the graduate work?
I saw the show (very hurriedly) on Saturday and have to say, I'm pretty puzzled as to the intention of the Yale program. My best guess would be that it is geared toward getting students "to think," which seems awfully vague as a cirriculum. Why does so much of the work look the same? They design a lot of typefaces, but I don't think I saw a single logo or basic package design. (Too prosaic, perhaps.) Is this some new kind of graphic design I'm just not aware of (entirely possible)?
I went there shamelessly looking to steal some ideas and with luck rub up against some inspiring new thinking. I left disappointed all in all. Next year's grads will be better, I am sure.
05.22.06
02:32
05.22.06
06:08
Like a lot of spectacularly overdesigned settings, the MFA installation worked better as a thing unto itself than as an environment for displaying the work of individual students.
The Yale program is highly individualistic, and many of the students in this year's class did work that I thought was inventive, intelligent and enviable. You will not find, however, many (or any) examples of packaging or logo design, except those intended as ironic meta-commentary on consumer culture or global branding.
Still, that's one heck of an installation.
Jessica discusses the current state of graduate design education here.
05.22.06
06:57
wonderful, popular, but too expensive.
A4 might be better, but you have to conform, no matter how horrible it is.
05.22.06
08:35
Great site. Another example of the real golden rule, i.e. the human form dictating a useful mechanicical form --- even in 1600. Form follows function. Eh? Oy? or What's all this, then?
Heh, heh!
05.22.06
09:48
This makes me aware of a funny dialectic going on in design... we accept a limitation (i.e. needing to use a standard paper size) as a challenge, so it stimulates us, in a way. However, once that limitation shapes our habits (i.e. thinking everything should fit on a standard size), THEN it becomes an obstacle to creativity.
05.24.06
12:01
05.25.06
01:08
05.25.06
05:05
05.28.06
12:13
The term "discipline" encompasses all aspects of a way of thinking and working. In a strong learning environment, a discipline is constantly challenged to re-examine its content, expand its limits and include even more ways of thinking about the world. The benefit of an education at such introspective schools such as Yale, CalArts and Cranbrook (of which I am an alum), is that these schools challenge the discipline by asking questions of it: They ask, "What can graphic design be?"; "How is meaning produced?"
Yale students don't have any problem making the leap from their education into the profession. When they do enter the profession, they do so on their own terms of understanding--they are able to deftly re-invent the terms of the problems put before them. They act--and work--as leaders of the profession.
The discipline encompasses the profession (and much more, such as philosophy, literature, painting, et al.), but the profession does not encompass the discipline. So the statement "design as a practical, problem solving discipline" is actually a non sequitur. A more accurate reflection is to state that Ms. Neylan sees UW "design as a practical, problem solving service." It is a matter of how the students' mind is shaped by their exposure to the asking of questions. Asking questions of the discipline opens up possibilities.
The difficulty lies in the fact that it can unfortunately be a one way street: A student who has been taught to ask questions of the discipline will understand and engage a question from the profession. A student who has been taught that the profession defines the limits of graphic design, will find questions about what graphic design could be pointless. And isn't that a shame.
05.28.06
01:46
You probably won't design a logo or packaging system while at Yale, but you will start to develop a working method, approach, and attitude about the work you will be doing. Hopefully you will get to the point of questioning what is good, useful, and tasteful design as well, and bring that spirit of questioning and experimentation into the commercial world of practice.
A short roll call of the more well-known alums and teachers of Yale show individuals and groups producing lots of disciplined, problem-solving, and practical work that exist in the world as commissioned designs: Chermayeff and Geismar, Paul Rand, Armin Hoffman, Lorraine Wild, Jessica Helfand, Imaginary Forces, Chris Pullman and Doug Scott of WGBH, 2x4, Omnivore, o-r-g, Barbara Glauber, Allen Hori, Karel Martens, Irma Boom, Paul Elliman, and Armand Mevis and Linda van Deursen. There is also a number of graduates from recent years who are less well known but also making interesting work and questioning the practice and endeavor of graphic design. As the oldest graduate graphic design program in the USA, its also one of the least categorizable, as students are exposed to both a wide array of practitioners of graphic design, exist within a challenging art school environment, and must fulfill general university requirements to receive their degrees.
05.28.06
07:12
My judging whether or not this work would be accepted at the UW is based on spending two years there, talking with faculty, and hearing examples of what they consider thesis worthy. And seeing fellow students struggle to come up with acceptable thesis ideas. It's a matter of different design philosophies, that's all. However, if I'm mistaken in my assumptions, the UW faculty is well aware of this forum and I have no problems standing corrected.
05.28.06
07:40
In looking through their site for last year's graduating MFAs, one of the thesis projects were posters created about the student's favorite object: a cassette tape. I'm sorry, but to me, that's just stupid. Lame even for a senior undergraduate project, let alone a master's thesis. Especially at an Ivy League school, where you would think that more would be expected of culminating work.
05.31.06
02:24
In looking through their site for last year's graduating MFAs, one of the thesis projects were posters created about the student's favorite object: a cassette tape. I'm sorry, but to me, that's just stupid. Lame even for a senior undergraduate project, let alone a master's thesis. Especially at an Ivy League school, where you would think that more would be expected of culminating work.
05.31.06
02:24
Yes, the A4 is a more elegant shape, lends itself to balanced visual compositions and is best suited for finished print & publications, however, while the A4 may be elegant, the letter size sheet of paper is ideal for the rough a tumble. Take a large sheet of paper and start trimming it until the ideal paper size has been achieved for general writing and drawing. The longer sheet of paper, though elegant would inevitably be trimmed down to the chunky letter size.
The letter sheet of paper is perfectly sized for general usage and physical properties of paper. Make it to long and is difficult to handle as it flops around, plus storage becomes more of a challenge. Make it shorter and it no longer has the flexibility of different orientations. Call me pragmatic but I am glad the letter is the standard and the A4 is reserved for designed publications/prints.
05.31.06
03:06
One statement of yours that I disagree with is the idea that a masters program should be "serious." Sure, serious in the sense that students must be seriously committed to their ideas and to advancing the practice of graphic design. But if part of graphic design's job isn't to make the world a little more fun.. then count me out.
05.31.06
10:54
06.03.06
05:49
I did see alot of political platitudes and what appeared to be a concerted effort by the class as a whole to obscure the work they had done in favor of tiled images of people talking about the work they had done. I got the sense that the students were in fact sending a desperate message to the outside word - please, please, please help us, help us, help us. We have just been told that content does not matter, that form does not matter, that ideas matter but only if they do not have form or content. Please outsiders tell us we're ok cause we ain't sure.
While Callie at UW probably should not be too disparaging of the Yale program and her comparison to her own program is a bit young, her instinct that something is wrong ay Yale is probably right. Not all good schools are good all the time and this exhibit and its sublimation of the individual in favor of some inarticulate group speak does not bode well for for this generation's ability, much less interest in joining our esteemed graphic design profession. On the other hand maybe these recent graduates will be very interested in unpaid design assignments from Bruce Nussbaum.
06.05.06
02:31
06.05.06
02:21
"[in the 1980s]...Reagan finally proclaimed that the 8.5" x 11" was the official standard sized paper."
It's the Republican's fault.
06.05.06
03:08
But I still hold the opinion that a master's thesis, regardless of the discipline, should be an intellectually challenging endeavour, one that adds to the body of knowledge of a given field. And of course I shouldn't base my opinion on just one Yale thesis project, but if you look through their archives, there are many more like it. And I still question how some of the work they do really differs from fine art. For is not design inherently about solving a specific problem, rather than sole visual exploration?
I'm not promoting logos and packaging design at the graduate level, either. I think graduate work should be something that delves much deeper and more critically than that. Something exploratory and intellectually critical, ideally requiring original research. This could include work with identity systems, but I digress....
This point on what constitutes an effective design thesis, of course, could be argued until the cows come home.... I would also say that because of my obvious practical-mindedness, I'm leaning more toward industrial design these days, anyway. A field where I feel it's easier to make a direct connection between form and function.
06.07.06
01:11
One statement of yours that I disagree with is the idea that a masters program should be "serious." Sure, serious in the sense that students must be seriously committed to their ideas and to advancing the practice of graphic design. But if part of graphic design's job isn't to make the world a little more fun.. then count me out.
In my opinion, until we do adopt a more serious, intellectual tone, especially in academia, design will never achieve the respect and professional status of architecture, which seems to be what the collective design community aspires to.
But, graphic design is a young field. These heated discussions here are undoubtedly all part of the process toward that end.
06.07.06
01:36
I am wise enough to recognize that I would not presume to judge the pedagogical intents and outcomes of another educational program based on what is posted on the web or what is presented in an exhibition. Judging Yale work based on UW experience makes no sense. Rather, a more productive outcome is to evaluate the work based on the intents proposed by each individual project's goals.
As an architectural graduate, I would say that architecture has achieved a state of disciplinary respect precisely because it is open to ALL forms of thought and practice. Some of the best Princeton MArch theses that I have seen were the most humourous: House for a Soap Opera Character, Golfing in Manhattan, and House for a Person Who Can't See the Colour Blue come immediately to mind.
Humour points directly at the taboo fringes of a discipline: it asks us to laugh even when we think we are not supposed to, and in so doing, it causes us to re-evaluate our conditioning and assumptions.
06.07.06
08:36
Anyways, I really thought what David Cabianca said in his 1:46 pm post in the last two paragraphs was really stong and is a reminder of why D.O. rocks.
06.11.06
02:00