IFC Films should be congratulated for embracing a visual treatment for the film that is true to its content. The poster for the film, which was not approved for use on Apple’s iTunes store, is displayed prominently on the IFC website.

IFC Films Website

Poster designed by Yann Legendre

My friend, Joseph Michael Essex, and others in design are known to proclaim that “design is a verb.” This infers that design is not a product, artifact, or solution, but a process for getting to the ultimate solution or product. They are perfectly correct. Design is a verb. My contention is that if design is a verb, then “art” is the subject, the noun, that completes any sentence that describes the value design brings to the “applied arts.” To be and remain inspired, designers need to not only hold onto their ability to create art (the thing that their parents identified in them as youngsters putting crayon to construction paper), but to celebrate and revere the work of the fine artists of the world. The ones who use their talents to communicate with their fellow human beings, many times with no other purpose than to bring joy. Work to “apply” the thinking of a fine artist, and “your work will always be authentic,” I said. Not innovative, not different, not trendy… authentic. A joy to behold and experience.

My first example of celebrating the ideas of the fine artist was a short film about the making of a recent Lexus television commercial.

In the ad (a prime example of an applied art discipline), a Lexus IS drives along a prescribed path and touches a series of actuators that play drums and cymbals. The resulting drum “track” is presented as proof of the car’s amazing precision. “The basic idea is, the car’s playing the drums,” the director says. Another on the set states that “the math… was the biggest struggle.” The math was so important to the ad, in fact, that the film team included a PhD in mathematics. But while the ad makers may believe that figuring out the math necessary to play a total of five seconds worth of simple drum beats was the biggest struggle in their creation, my contention is that the initial inspiration—the idea itself—was the biggest (and most important) struggle. And here it is:

If I were to have made a judgment regarding the ethics of repurposing Michel Lauzière’s idea in a Lexus ad, I wouldn’t have been serving the students at the conference or my intent in advocating “art, applied.” Besides, I could have pulled out 100 examples of this type of  “sourcing.” Remember the AT&T ad that directly rips off the work of Christo and Jean-Claude in making their ad that talks about “coverage,” using orange fabric draped over structures and landscapes?

Left: still frame from AT&T ad. Right: Sketch for Christo and Jean-Claude’s “Gates” installation in Central Park, New York.

In this case, the televised ad ultimately displayed a text disclaimer at the end proclaiming “the artists Christo and Jean-Claude [had nothing to do with the ad].” That immediately meant two things to me: AT&T admitted where the idea came from and the artists were not compensated for the idea. OK. That’s the way the world works these days. Light-speed information flow gives us all the ability to find inspiration from any time and any place and apply it in almost any way.

There’s a whole lot of gray area when it comes to originality. Some believe everything has been done. Everything in art is a progression of steps, one idea building upon another. While “everything” is a serious word, this may very well be true. Even so, there’s one very important thing we can and should do to respect artists whose inspiration we interpret and use (apply). We should be authentic. By this, I mean use their inspiration as a spring board. Add your own experiences, opinions, knowledge, skills, etc. in a way that makes a modified idea relevant and meaningful—and inspiring in its own way. Make it authentic.

I provided the students at Seek with a few examples of my own work, citing the inspiration and describing my attempt to make the art relevant for my own application.

kinetic sculpture by Harry Bertoia

In 2006, I was in an art gallery on the campus of MSU in East Lansing, and I saw a kinetic sculpture very similar to the work of Harry Bertoia. It was a series of metal rods arranged on a gridded base which, when bundled together and then released, flexed and swayed and interacted with each other, creating an undulating musical sound. It was mesmerizing. Weeks later, while working on a website project for CUH2A, an architecture and engineering firm in Princeton, I found a way to apply this inspiration in a relevant way. In order to express the connective nature of web content, of landscape and architecture, man and designed spaces, I decided to create a “kinetic” web interface. As the user passes over nodes of content, connections are made to related content while the interface plays musical chords comprised of the tones associated with each content item. While not completely original, my creation was authentic, the design process used was sound, and ultimately, the website was a success.

section of kinetic interface interaction, CUH2A website, 2007, designed by Lance Rutter

While working on a craft project with my 5 and 7 year-old boys (feathered Mardi Gras masks for a school performance), one of them mentioned how funny it would be seeing a cat wearing a bird mask. He was right. This would be funny… and scary, I thought, especially for the bird who was fooled by this “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This idea came immediately to mind again when the opportunity arose to make a poster about a stage performance of Dangerous Liaisons. I visualized Glenn Close, the leading actress in the film version, as a huge pink cat, luring unsuspecting, fragile, and innocent birds into her trap.

Glenn Close as Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil in “Dangerous Liaisons”

The result was a silkscreened poster, using pink, white, and gold inks on red paper to create the image. Since the printing of the poster, other applications of this art have been made, including a rug for CB2 stores. The art is an authentic translation of an idea that came from a 5 year-old. I respect and celebrate the creative source, and continue to search out this kind of inspiration daily.

poster for “Les Liaisons Dangereuses”

Poster rug made by CB2, available in 2011

As graphic designers, we think of design as a verb. But before using our design methodology to apply solutions, we mustn’t forget the noun that inspires and makes solutions authentic. We can’t forget the art.

You can pre-order online at our store.

The merging of human and animal forms was a special talent of Picasso, and the loose brush renderings remind me of what I love about Matisse.

© 2009, Legendre+Rutter

© 2009, Legendre+Rutter