Daniel Weil
May 12, 2007Gerald No Comments »
I had the pleasure of listening to Daniel Weil, Pentagram partner, talking about his work at an evening organised by the Design Business Association.
During the Q&A, Daniel expressed concern that young designers tend too much to move from college straight to setting up their own business, without having any iconic experienced designers to follow. He talked of how his own career was profoundly affected by the time he spent working in the shadow of the legendary Italian designer Ettore Sottsass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ettore_Sottsass). Later, I put it to him that for graphic designers to break the rules, they must first know the rules. Trouble is, we agreed, too few of them do not learn the classical rules of typography, for example, by working with hot metal. The reason that Neville Brody was able to use computers to send magazine design into bold new directions was precisely because he knew which rules to break. And he understood that people bought the magazines, in general, to read the contents.
Weil’s opening slide typified the simple, lateral thinking style that is the hallmark of those within the Pentagram cosmos. In black Helvetica on white were the letters:
DWDBAABC
No heading, no introductory logo. But it said everything: Daniel Weil Design Business Association ABC – and he proceeded to offer a client or a comment through every letter of the alphabet. He gave the impression that he had thrown the slides together just before catching the train to Bristol. In effect, he had created a complete retrospective on his life and work. Impressive.
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