In the leaflet there were I think 25 questions, each a short task but one which required quite a degree of thought about questioning what role design plays in the everyday. I was drawn to a question asking me to evaluate the difference between sincerity and honesty in my work. I found the idea really interesting that there was a difference between the two as they appear so similar. I have had my work referred to as honest and sincere in the past so was keen to investigate a little deeper into my practice to define the two.
I spent quite a while just thinking about how you approach design and what would make it one or the other. I made tables and lists which categorized the implications of each word,helping me grasp more of a definition and applying those to myself. What seemed prevalent was that honesty refers to and is gauged more at the conception point of an idea. Sincerity seemed to lie more post conception, when the design in in motion how does one sincerely achieve the honest concept.
This can be flipped on it head though; if the concept is dishonest, this may or may not be apparent to the consumer/viewer in the final work, so when it comes to the execution of an idea the dishonest concept can be performed sincerely.
Equally, an honest concept may be designed insincerely, this will be more apparent to the audience than the last example because it is visible in the way it's designed/carried out.
A mouthful...
So, now I had the definitions fairly clear I had to come up with a design response which adequately answered the question at hand. It would have been really nice if I was able to create an object which, without words totally answered the question. For me that would have been the ideal.
I may still work on this piece because I think its a pretty interesting subject.
However, in the time I had a written piece was all that could really be managed. (As I write this with hindsight I am dying to design an object that answers the question!)
What I did was to take the original leaflet and replicate it exactly, removing from it everything which didn't apply to my question. So I kept the title, removed all the questions until mine, No. 19, then my answer to the question underneath in exactly the same way the original was laid out. Then kept a couple of paragraphs on the last page. The expanses of white space reinforce the idea because they look so starkly blank. They work particularly well next to each other. I set out to echo the idea of sincerity & honesty in the way I designed the book, function informing the form .
What I achieved in the end was I realize almost there. I think it's a good little piece and one I'm proud of. But what I've actually produced is an honest and sincere piece of graphics containing an answer to the question. What might of been interesting would be to do exactly the same, but think about how to make the design insincere; thus truly answering the question in the objects design as well as having a written explanation contained.
Maybe if I just wrote bullshit and dressed it up sincerely that would give a better answer..
