Text: Collation & Curation

Written by Richard Baird

This is the first in a series of original articles that build on the (nearly!) eight years of writing reviews. Where other publishers do well to bring us the zeitgeist and explore the pragmatics of graphic design BP&O will seek the abstract and meta. This first article experiments with two interwoven narratives; the delineation between the practice of collation and curation in design publishing and how the new metrics of the net impose themselves on today’s design work.

The language of graphic design can quickly become a demarcated space of constrained thought. Is it brand identity, visual identity or graphic identity? Each of these contains nuances that positively shape or subvert understanding and can impose themselves on an outcome.

The word curation, for instance, becomes loaded as it moves from art to design to popularist term. We are now encouraged to curate our lives, our Pinterest feeds and the brands we engage with. The association, within the context of a pragmatic and goal-orientated notion of graphic design practice, an expression of purpose, becomes one of pretence, often denigrated and dismissed.

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