A quick and rather polemical piece for Medium about the flaws inherent in the practice of design journalism, and where to go from here
OK, this slightly presupposes you get most of your design updates from magazines and newspapers not from academic journals. There are interesting discussions to be had around those too, but in any case their circulation, and impact, is limited. Beyond the ivory tower, however, design is pretty much everywhere. The modern concept of industrial design only came to maturity in the 1930s, and to popular consciousness a couple of decades later, yet it’s evolved into the most powerful, and lucrative, player in the entire creative field. Britain’s design sector alone claims to be almost the size of the entire global art market, harvesting rich rewards in soft power and international students.
The modern concept of industrial design only came to maturity in the 1930s, and to popular consciousness a couple of decades later, yet it’s evolved into the most powerful, and lucrative, player in the entire creative field.
This relentless march has seen design overrun all branches of the mainstream media and sprout endless niche publications, from tattoo design to typography. But if you’re looking for magazines dedicated to the broader subject, there are two options. One is the glossy monthly, sitting on the newsstand near fashion, travel and property. Its business is aspiration. It overflows with images of the latest product design (expensive); stylish interiors (how the other half live); a bit of tech (for athletes and executives); and newly completed buildings (by prestigious architects).
All these will be accompanied by breathless write-ups with little hint of critique — to be fair, why include something in an aspirational magazine if you don’t like it? There will probably be an interview with a famous designer (accompanied by a sophisticated portrait) or an emerging talent (it helps if they’re attractive). There may be a visit to a “design district” in an up-and-coming tourist destination, or reviews of few high-profile exhibitions. And, on every other page, there will be elegant ads from high-class — or would-be high class — brands.
And the other sort of magazine? It’s usually sold in a specialist store — perhaps a quirky bookshop or trendy stationery store. Perhaps a museum shop or design emporium. The covers are unusual and understated — ‘anti-covers’ in effect. Text only, perhaps, or a series of wan youths, or a barren landscape. If you’re lucky, and there’s still some cash left in that month’s art budget, an ironic illustration in primary colours. The magazine’s paper is likely to be tactile and matt; its words and articles lengthy; its price about double its glossy equivalent; its size about half.
But, if you look carefully, behind those rather different claddings, the contents in the two genres of magazine are pretty much identical. The hipster mag won’t be able to afford its own photography, so will lack the glossy’s glamorous compilations of all the latest rose-gold products. But many of those same products will be found scattered across its pages. As well as features on those same furniture designers; those same design exhibitions; those same travel destinations; those same interviewees; those same buildings.
Why? Because everything in both magazines is paid for. Those are the companies, locations and individuals with something to sell at that precise moment, and they’ve employed a PR company to ensure they are thrust rapidly into the media spotlight. How does the PR company do this? They provide carefully crafted information — a cheap way to guarantee a positive spin, and a godsend for harassed, time-poor journalists. And plentiful photography — an expensive undertaking, yet one that gives the PR control over the project’s representation. Given the paucity of magazines’ art budgets and the eye-watering cost of photography — far more expensive than the written word — almost the entirety of each issue can be made up of images supplied by interested parties, each one carefully pre-selected, each one carefully pre-Photoshopped.
To accept such a business trip, with its generous hospitality and privileged access to politicians, architects and curators, is to strike an implicit bargain as to the nature of the resulting article.
And, just as importantly, they provide travel. Perhaps to see a new museum, with flights and hotels paid for by a municipality hoping to transform itself into a new Bilbao. Or by an architectural practice desirous of extensive and favourable coverage to burnish its reputation and encourage future commissions. Sometimes even a government wishing to distract from a dubious human rights record. To accept such a trip, with its generous hospitality and privileged access to politicians, architects and curators, risks an implicit bargain as to the nature of the resulting article.
Similarly, when journalists travel to design biennials and fairs, the costs will almost always be covered by a particular brand — with the same quid pro quo — or by the events themselves. The latter always need a good showing of journalists to impress corporate sponsors and exhibitors, ensuring they sign up to the next edition, hopefully in even greater numbers. Or, again, by a country’s cultural relations quango, hoping for a piece casting its creative sector in a positive light.
To be clear, I am not talking about advertorials here — finished pieces provided by a brand and slotted into the magazine. These will have “paid feature” or “advertorial” placed somewhere around the text, thus are reasonably above board. I am talking about the editorial content in a magazine. Money does not exchange hands (except very occasionally in the form of generous stipends while on a foreign trip), but this pact with the PR industry subsidises and safeguards every single aspect of the design media, and the hand that feeds is not bitten.
The spoon-feeding of content from PR companies frees editors from any real incentive to come up with original ideas, or to ponder what really matters in contemporary design
There are additional benefits for magazines in this relationship — the hope that the brand in question, its ego sufficiently massaged, will take advertising at a later date; or pay the fees to enter one of the magazine’s lucrative awards schemes; or even employ the magazine’s design consultancy services. Equally importantly, and perhaps more depressingly, the spoon-feeding of content from PR companies frees editors from any real incentive to come up with original ideas, or to ponder what really matters in contemporary design.
The acute reader might point out that hipster magazines will sneak in the occasional “conceptual” piece about future thinking, 1970s video games or the zen of Japanese design. These are certainly to be welcomed, though if one digs a little, some turn out to be a little less disinterested — it may suit, say, the Japan Foundation to bankroll such broad-brush articles. And, on a side note, the only people able to write such pieces for the minimal sums offered tend to be young career academics desperate to beef their CV, or those with alternative incomes, private or professional.
More importantly, such pieces do not question the place of design in the world, nor the fact that the term is now almost meaningless, applied indiscriminately across a huge range of activities, from craft to industry, from software to process, from art to ‘design thinking’, each category eager to harness the elusive power of this compelling term. It is in the interest of all parties, including the mass-market manufacturers subsidising the magazines, that the glamour and credibility of design remain intact, and that its quasi-mystical qualities are seen as meaningful and all-encompassing, even when applied to crockery or kitchen cabinets. Design, in this scenario, is endlessly fascinating, usefully intangible and an undeniable force for good.
These are questionable assumptions, but have permeated our museums in the last decade, such that curators are increasingly advocates for the importance of contemporary design rather than specialists in its history. This sea change relates in part to the increasing recruitment of curators directly from these same design magazines, with their very different intellectual priorities and their intimate relationships with commerce. Careers paths so entwined with private patronage would be the subject of raised eyebrows in other branches of the civil service; it is the norm in design-related institutions. But this, again, is probably a subject for another day.
So what’s the problem? A cavalier response to this article would be, “Everyone knows this about all this, what’s your beef?” Fine, there is a huge amount to enjoy in these magazines. But, in the interests of transparency, it would be good if those subsidizing these articles — whether through travel, photography, research or more — could be credited after each piece.
But, more importantly, is it so wrong to hope for an alternative media presence — one that is more than a compilation of advertisements? Design journalism desperately needs a disruptor to come onto the scene, an independent voice, someone who genuinely respects their public and aspires to its respect in turn. Who knows, that approach might even gain the respect of industry, if it proves brave enough to abandon traditional mindsets and recognise that open conversations could make design stronger.
And, in the interests of transparency, I should add that I am guilty of every one of the practices described above.