Dirk Laucke in conversation with Christian Campos.
An interview on the occasion of the publication ‘Graphic Design in Holland’.
What and who are your artistic influences?
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Well, the question about artistic influences actually for me is not relevant because it is my true belief that a Graphic designer should never confuse him or herself with an autonomous visual artist. The criteria with which to look at and judge visual art on the one hand and graphic design on the other are not quite the same. In that sense I am not so much inspired by art, at least not when it comes to my work as a graphic designer. Of course one looks at art because it is meaningful but for my work philosophy, literature, music, film and sports and other important aspects of daily life are evenly important. I appreciate very much the work of some of my colleague graphic designers. Nevertheless I try not to pick up any influences or inspiration but find my own original and true ‘solution’.
Do you think that Dutch Graphic design
is different from the graphic design done
in the rest of the world?
—
Dutch Graphic Design is very much appreciated on an international level. Designers as well as consumers and commissioning parties are very well educated and the quality therefore is high. I think that an important historic reason is the geographical situation of the Netherlands. Holland has been taken from the sea by an enormous collective effort. To keep the water from regaining the land a very complex, transparent and solid social structure is essential. Communication in general and graphic design as a visual application herein I guess plays an important role. Public institutions and economy are willing to invest a good amount of money and thus create a climate for a huge and prospering design scene. I suspect that for the same reason unfortunately for the fine arts in the Netherlands the climate is not so positive. Practical reason and complex compromise tend to ‘tolerate’ passion, youthful rebellion and individual concept but actually this leads to ignorance.
What are the main problems a
graphic designer has to deal with
nowadays in their work?
—
A big threat to good design – and that may sound strange – is the ever increasing interest of communication and design. Companies and institutions have entire marketing departments that are meant to accompany the process from commission to final realization. Decisions for the commissioning parties are becoming more and more complex. Often, design is more an answer to those complex structures and internal company politics than it is a relevant answer to the subject that is to be communicated. A guarantee for bad design is to ask many different people what they think about something.
Is it always true the sentence ‘more freedom
to do your work, less money you'll be
payed for it, and viceversa’?
—
Some of this is true. Exceptions probably confirm the rule. For commissions linked to huge financial interests and budgets most of the times are also subject to complex structures and concerned decision makers. Those are of course not situations in which a designer is expected to go wild and experiment.
How would the perfect client be?
—
A good client should be brave and intelligent. Graphic design will never be more challenging or intelligent than the client commissioning the work.
How has graphic design changed since you
started to work? Do you feel more or less
comfortable now with the evolution of graphic design?
—
Historically spoken, our profession originated from the craft of printing. Printers and typesetters had the tools to reproduce and were the ones to decide how something should look. The process in which Graphic design developed into an emancipated independent, grown up discipline was long finished before I became a designer. For a long time there was no doubt that a Designer should first of all be able to think. Responsibility for the production process came in second place. With the introduction of the computer this understanding has been undermined. Don’t take me wrong, I’m don’t mean to make a plea against the computer here. The computer is a very smooth and effective design tool. But I will for example keep refusing to deliver a certified PDF to a printer, thereby releasing him from the responsibility to get the colours right. Also I’m not interested in any commission whose only challenge is to produce a faultless InDesign Document. This DTP kind of work I gladly leave up to others, even if it meant that our financial continuity was endangered. It takes a lot of energy to explain to a potential future client that the reason for refusing such a commission is not vanity but my effort to keep the borderline between design and production as sharp as possible. That’s extremely important for the professional identity of our discipline.
Do you consider yourself a good designer?
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To think of myself as a bad designer would be rather stupid and arrogant. First of all it meant that I had asked lots of money from my clients for bad work. Besides it implicated that I knew what was good but out of pure stupidity had not produced something of that quality. So the answer is Yes, I consider myself a good designer because my work is honest, original, ambitious, never self-important but serving the content and sometimes even pretty.