New York, New Work
Infiltrate, a showcase of New York's emergent graphic designers, suggests a defiantly multicultural city. Adrian Shaughnessy investigates
The most striking thing about Alexander Gelman's book Infiltrate is how "British" much of the work looks. You don't expect this in a book subtitled The Front Lines of the New York Design Scene. But here it is: 23 studios and individuals producing design that is stylistically closer to the work of Fuel and Graphic Thought Facility than it is to the traditional swagger and über-confidence of American graphic design.
Not all of the work in this book is Brit-influenced. The spirit of Dutch design hovers over much of the content too. But it's remarkable to see how un-American most of it is. It's hard to say whether Gelman has discovered a new direction for American design, or whether he's merely unearthed a mutant, semi-underground strain. But there's an introspection here that's rarely found in American design which even in its more avant garde guises maintains a muscular directness and immediacy. Whatever you think of David Carson's work, for example, it's never retiring.
Perhaps this Euro-centricism can be explained by Gelman's curatorial role as Infiltrate's "author". Gelman is Russian and, although a prominent figure on the US design scene, he's also a cosmopolitan individual with many friends amongst UK, European and Asian designers is cosmopolitan and unpredictable. As you might expect his contributors are not all native New Yorkers. They come from Korea, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Hawaii and Belgium - there's even a solitary Brit. You also notice that there are only a few famous names amongst Gelman's list of contributors. Sagmeister, Design Machine (Gelman's own company) and karlssonwilker are perhaps the best known. But hands up if you're familiar with the the work of Christoph Niemann, Famous Mime, Juliette Cezzar, Lone or Suitman?
Yet perhaps the most significant factor in explaining the stylistic make-up of the design in this book is the lack of recognizable brand names to be found amongst clients responsible for commissioning the work. There are one or two household names - Nike, MTV and Rover (yes, Rover!) - but most of the work is done for small, unknown clients. There's also a welcome absence of the sort of showy assignments undertaken for big corporations looking for quick injections of cool, that so often characerise US design. Was the avoidance of big brand names a deliberate strategy on Gelman's part, I wondered? "Not intentional," he says. "The criterion was the quality of concept and image, regardless of who the clients were. I guess it demonstrates that bigger brands are still unable to embrace good design to its full advantage. I chose people with strong personal initiative and creative drive. I also looked for visually and conceptually stimulating work, and people with something to say (opinionated, honest, funny, etc.). I looked for diversity in age, background genre of graphic design. Not for the sake of fairness but to give the reader a better perspective on what the New York design experience is like."
I asked Gelman if he thought his book documented a new direction for US design? "Unfortunately. Most of the American design that reaches oversees is not so good," he notes. "From the inside the picture is different. Being involved in both the American design scene and the international one, I'm probably in the right position for dealing with subjects like this. New York designers are a mix of nationalities, backgrounds and experiences. So, by focusing so narrowly on such a small geographical area the book presents and reflects what's going on in the world as a whole. And that's a unique feature of New York City."
Did Gelman agree that some of the work featured in his book exhibited a recognizably British flavour? "New York loves Brits," he says. "Most of the creative directors at agencies and large branding consultancies are from the UK. Not sure I'm ready to speculate about concrete influences, though. But certainly there a themes, styles and tendencies that resonate across cultures; it probably goes both ways."
As well as showing plenty of work, Gelman conducts long rambling interviews wih his contributors. Designers are usually at their most eloquent when they let their work do the talking; there aren't many designers who can talk convincingly, and at length, about their work without the need of an editor's sharp pencil. But Gelman (and editors Helen Walters and Nic Musolino) get their subjects to talk entertainingly about themselves and their work. Most of the interviews are continued on the Infiltrate website, where visitors are invited to post comments.
Significantly, at the time of writing, no one has yet posted any remarks. I'm told by publishers that graphic design "showcase" books are old hat. No one's buying them anymore. It's not clear why design books stuffed with floor-to-ceiling visuals are no longer in demand. One theory is that magazines like Creative Review, and a few dozen others around the world, cover new work so comprehensively that all anyone needs to do is buy the magazines to keep up with current design trends. But Gelman's book shows that there's still a role for a well-curated showcase book, especially if it unearths a new development or highlights a new hot-spot of creative energy.
