Creative method; Gyorgy Kepes on design

The creative method the National Association of educational broadcasters presents Jory Kapish on design. Here first is Lyman Bryson. Some observers of the work of a designer have wondered how you can be creative if what you do is to spend your time solving the problems of other people in the first place the work of a designer solve the problems that arise external to himself of course but they may come from a very wide variety of fields and present an astonishing range of problems. And the work of a designer is not so limited as this. Jess in his conversation with Bill cavernous district kept indicates how much broader and wider the work of a designer may be. And I assume it would be very difficult to make a crisp clean definition. Bert Vernon may refer to one essential difference a bit to be in what we call fine arts and but because of design in fine arts the main motivation the main stimulation and a major decision to do or not to do ever is coming from

is the man himself who is doing his ever look at his own door he has a kind of you know attention and needs to express himself. He has to have an OT side task and he wraps his ideas he focuses he's knowledge taught given DOS coming from the outside. Can we become a little more specific on things that are included within the field of design. Some of your work has been architectural in nature has it not. Yes like most of the so-called design I was almost thought broadband of spectrum of design. Dark Sky. Actually that's the exciting part of it. My own a verdict includes exhibition designs graphic designs very akin with the architect making architecture murals designing films and so on.

You're listening to Jordy Kapish on design. The predicament. Of. The designer as Creator are one of 10 conversations with creative Americans about the nature of their work. The creative method prepared by WGBH FM in Boston under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Later we'll tell you how you may obtain excerpts from this and 21 other radio essays on the creative process in American arts sciences and professions. But now our Jorak uppish on design. And here is Bill cavernous. How does a designer get his ideas his conceptions. One of the things that stimulate you to creative thinking in the field of design.

Clay Sumit would be a little dangerous to generalize but I could do the best just story pull out of the hall or hall I could up sort of myself in the design process. The first thing that happens the one has a kind of hatching period you have a task and you don't have any clearly defined idea hard to proceed but you try to scan your own resources and there are two types of resources one off ones. All responses to the art side of the world in terms of equality often experience what appeals to me but doesn't appeal to me what color combinations shape combination and red nickel combination of line makes sense where I respond with a certain delight of a certain intensity and that some hard won territory but I have to go back in myself and try to pick up some relevant quality but I feel it may hurt

you was in this part of the group dance. There also is the knowledge. What one gets from the art side averred. Yes every design does to a very concrete dusk in terms of function and structure. I have to color again from my memory sources but of the relevant knowledge I have about these particular type of functional despite a good type of structure which could be utilized. And there are some who are generally speaking of the two major territories. What one has storm survey before want to get the idea but the idea is you. At least for the time being is a certain Mr. Hayward. Just always hope it faces but you never can really force it to come to speak to us it was a metaphysical thing that is not a metaphor it is a process more complex than one could really define in a clear analytical way. But then of course the idea could never arrive without this background of

experience and artistic stimulus. You've done a great deal of painting haven't you. Yes as a matter of fact I have done as much work in the field of painting as you have in design as I understand it so it kind of off and on process I begin as paint and for a different and psychological sort for the reason I gave up painting. This is not a dynamic and meaningful enough media to act effectively in Adventists and dynamical bird and I became very much interested in tools and mediums that I fed that one can use them in a more effective more direct debate. But in the last eight or ten years. I discover that. To act really. With all of their resources one has one has to nobody's really sources and been doing all the digging into oneself and discover oneself

and actually you're by God more and more passionately involved in painting and at least as far as I can judge myself. My verdict has it been that it has a very strong influence on that on my Vargas a designer. Not only in the color sense involved but the compositional sense as well. Maybe but all other than that it gives at least what I mean yes you know of security that I can feel toss more cottages three because I feel I am one and not just kind of giving one or that was out of mind that assignments may be able to put your nose out of here I'm more interested in the expressive aspect and not the technical. Kind of inventive aspect of it. Again if I could give an example some years ago as YOUR LIFE magazine AAs my valley of life and me to

design a room for our daughter published late and glued it literally every sink in their room furniture of light mural of this thing and maybe it's interesting just to see Henri call in my own thinking process in facing this. Yes but I already tried to do to believe in this theory I thought of the scale of the interest of our daughter who was in this time five years or would and really had to go out of her or maybe more intensely than parents usually ops because we want to give her the optimum chance to have a space of really good live. She could realize herself in her particular stage of development. You observe for instance that when we took her for a ball she had a particular Longfellow part of what she just loved to climb because it was just not too big in that the smaller the smaller was

disgraceful because personal challenge too big it was just too technical too too difficult. Who what we did we search for in Fonda and actually pretty beach some Han had the same characteristic of intricate quality. And exactly this skill is she could handle the chop it and it would do things that are warm and it was a climbing three in the room then the ops. She has like some was a children so they figured to take farewell from the day that when the terminology lived it was almost a traumatic experience and she didn't want to kind of. Get over you from was the excitement of the day. So we had to have tried to create a buffer state between D and I and V put on the ceiling kind of in cricket star system and painted this force for us and life which was activated is actualized in the new light the whole ceiling started to glow and the glow of us not the steady glow but gradually faded

out so it was not a sudden shock but it was that on station. Then the OP sort of harshly enjoys just to run out on bad for that particular event the grass and so on and we try to give every morning some chance to feel that our feet has also an experience of richness and the Maiden carpet which was something that one call a collage a combination of different Fergus is different softness or roughness and she just loved to run it around and to feel this kind of keyboard of sensibilities. But I mentioning that. My Emain interest in this line. Not that technical. Not what I sometimes call maybe and mean via technical factitious not explores a new technology called potentials but to see a hawk and we apply what we have to do to satisfy human needs so my main interest actually to read this human needs and try to apply whatever I know what to to give the optimum solution for it.

The creative method to bring to bear in this kind of work does this with you differ in each case approach to each design task is dictated by the task. I assume there is maybe a constant chord of one soul one attitude which feats or solutions but naturally each concrete DOS has its unique and conditions and one has to read and explore this conditions. Look at meth What changes would you say that since the field of design has such a tremendously wide range of applications that it calls up requires our view greater creative activity than a more restricted R word than creating for example. Again I think it is extremely dangerous to make any commitment but if I would do it I would

see him painting go in this so-called fine arts one faces deeper layers of one create. If it is then what you mention is an apt lived order f ly design that part of the task vas actually possible ot for you before you had any thought about it. Maybe even puts in a this the. Design this if it has a little with what eyes you know horizontal sense but artistic expression in painting but in scope thought of what we call fine art has a deep that what Aizen busy in that it sees the morra in particular in a more extended relationships then one could ever have thought in an implied designed form. Would it be accurate to say that in paving you stand much more of a chance of becoming yourself emotionally involved

with the I just expression than in design. Yes very definitely I hope that one really achieve these oneness with one set of buds The aim is to get closer to to be authentic to what do you need to be oneself and in the design it's actually more a bridge between Yule and the art side of that of people or as a physical environment. Do you find that your own activities are stimulated by the receipt of a commission. Or do you find that the commission is a restricting thing. I think generally speaking it's an inspiring guess specter fit because the so-called client was a client of an architect or a client of a book design or a client for an exhibition design has a certain image a vague image of what he wants the person who won to have an architect to design

his horse has some big knowledge. What type of life you want to live in what type of environment he want to have these life but he has Nies as it too was of knowledge nor actual ability of visualisation and then it's an exciting task to read the mind of these and then try to be suspect if I think one's own standards to give the optimum solution for this clearly defined offsite dusk and basically in all of their design commission one has this vague notion and bought what they all say that a man expects from you and the great danger is then some of the clients for somebody and they also assume more knowledge and bought these particular dogs in the short. For instance be very rarely interfere we saw Dr. Deming's them hardly want to have our operation or something like there but it happens very frequently that the client who said Sit down ask what

also want to sort of get dusk and then there are complications and the creative joy is partly gone just in the process of completing a big mosaic of all the Sheraton Hotel in Dallas and it may give Siggins spotlight off the issues involved. Every design leaves also in a physical space. If you have a book covered of it you will check it which is never put in a shop window. Then it didn't have its chance. You could do the best job it didn't do a job. The scene of one could create demure or any type of architecture and if it hasn't it has no. Good chance to be seen and one is inhibited from the very beginning what a hand to get from their very beginning in this particular task. I had a wonderful chance because a very large or maybe certain defeat by certain feat and it

isn't the end of it under twenty feet. GOT IT daughter and there's no interruption. Just severity. CHANCE TO BE IN FOCUS was a verb and gives an extra joy to do it well. It has no major significance but it still puts some spotlight or put some light on the issues involved. I had one task a couple of years ago will see in the US it was a Jewish temple in the US working with the format of Dean Francis School of Architecture who was a designer out of some Texan architect of the temple in the US in charge of the total orchestration of the temple in terms of Carmelite and every dime of artistic or decorative Vertica I couldn't do what I didn't do or devote myself I commission myself some of them. Verdict or some friend saw design as I had a great confidence in it but it was one of the really exciting because they had a

space bar Squanto and so every call out every light effect every boss quarterly and it was really the cost of a conductor to create an atmosphere of religious atmosphere which really. Leaves or they expect their fascinating use of parallel terms. You say you were orchestrating the whole design of the temple. Did you work directly with the architect as well as with the other designers and you were in on this from the beginning of the over on it from the beginning or the building committee meetings. Well I had to churn up every little conflict or Joyce from the beginning to the bitter end and it was very helpful because I could see was it dos not just a natural but in its broadest context there are several other questions I'd like to. Dutch upon before our time runs out one of them is this you as

we have said are active as a painter as well as designer. Most design specialists also active in other fields. I wouldn't say Morse but quite a few authors than there are to design their life to paint but they don't consider themselves. Kind of a set design and this is a pain in my own at least the obvious hole that I'm stronger painters and I'm designing. Some of them that will take up activity in another hour or more as a hobby as a relaxation kind of refreshing they've adjusted and I scored the Baath and to be again fresh and happy. But then a good many of these people would end in their major effort to specialize to restrict themselves. Yes is that helpful in bringing forth the creative stimulus. To have these boundaries.

I personally think it's not very healthy. Somehow in the general Google for a mass production civilization and almost inevitable. You talk of this kind of secular Pfizer's more as in gains. How would a person go about preparing yourself for a career in the field of design. Are there schools that teach the necessary skills. There are schools and I may stick my neck out. I think well of course you yourself are professional visual design and MIT a very large part of what we call design education really doesn't go to the issue because they try to do a vocational training. And as far as I understand the issues the most important is that it did develop sensibilities faculty imagination and so the need of training is to develop a different type of man who is able to see and enjoy what he's seeing and actually is very dangerous to him. Given

education value don't promise that you give the tools to make your living. But I think the longer run at least in the beginning of design education such type a very broad preparation of the humus will be much more important than just creating a very clearly defined vocational tools and then passing them out which may be used but it will be a very end of their own creative career because they cannot go from furloughs that only say just see if you have only the tools if they have only is it not the men who could really use flexible as a tool and it's not a very promising future. We cannot harvest before we have a human species to reach most and we have the seed and if we tried to do it just do it. It's just not what we expected to have and I think vocational training. We thought preparing this deeper humorous and really thought through things the earlier seed just never really

gives a harvest. Well vocational training only then you're really good grow. Wouldn't know it couldn't have the possibility of growing. Could we expand just a bit on the. Steps the process involved in a creative method of design. You've said that this is a combination of experience plus side knowledge. How do you go about applying these. Various aspects of the preparation that you need for actually getting a piece of design work. In terms of experience. Of the qualities of a vision. Joy I think the best view of doing it to get on this open eyes and look at Boris nature nature the formless nature of tech shows nature it aligns in-doors So they got to it had a cage but we have from diamonds in visual arts

and being good. Able to see or disavow us of visual qualities we need to develop our own personality our own preferences everybody to see one aspect as we cannot see everything the same time and I think the greatest possible range of experiences give us a chance to bring to get those espec the vision of what it is to be has definite advantages to your own needs. Well that leads us in to the other major step in the creative method of the designer then and that is the acquiring of the outside knowledge of the specific task that must come before you can execute the task. How do you go about learning the necessary outside things in an aspect of design that perhaps you haven't touched upon before. Again a very wide range of possibilities. 1.

And I would emphasize the very strongest aspect of it to be very open minded to the changing in knowledge about the world around us today in this extremely dynamic scientific explosive. We have literally daily new a new insight into nature structures in nature configuration in nature processes and a designer who still looks just to see past knowledge we are NOT have the ability. To image a new combination. We saw it actually mobilize in you will own that knowledge Yes well I think it's extremely important for every designer who expect from himself something to face this new reality is a new conceptual knowledge the new visual knowledge about the world not how he feels about it what he knows about it and I feel very strongly that these two aspects are necessary and complimentary. One has to have this very broad bent arm or the vastness of visual richness.

And from this gradually crystallize one's own physiognomy of preferences. The same then one has to have a very broad perspective. Or the most advance knowledge about the physical world again was the reason that he's able to feel that art and select relevant knowledge which could be pinpointed to some of these in his own creative task. I feel very strongly that to express a 20 sentry experience one has to be a 20 30 men and the pain of a sculptor who doesn't see he's a world doesn't mix. Cannot express the feeling said Bob. And you know me you know fairly recently to UCLA published a book the new landscape in art and science which had a basic central theme the conviction to live up

to a true creative task in 20s and that if we have to have our eyes open to all face this authentic center to life. Jory cattish on design. And here again is our host and commentator for the creative method Lyman Bryson. I think you might have been struck with the fact that Mr. Bush spoke of his work as a designer as the solution of problems they're not quite the terms that most artists use in talking about their work. And yet the designer has this very complicated task of. Trying to solve a problem which arises external to himself and at the same time to express himself in the design which he produces. And this of course gives his whole operation a kind of central problematic aspect. He has to express himself but he has to do what the other man needs to have done now where does one turn for this one's inspiration of course can always be counted on. It's an

illusory benefit at best. Well Mr. Guppy says one has one's own responses to one's own experience and he has been able to see how other men have solved similar problems and without copying what they have done. He can get hints as to how a basic principles can be put to work and above all. And this I think needs to be emphasized above all. Turn to nature. It's interesting that all of the people who talk about all the aspects of creativity that we have discussed in this series have said sooner or later something about turning to nature or turning to one's own experience turning directly to those things which one has found out for oneself and which are in the real world the physical world perhaps the political and social world to be somebody of your own time. And at the same time to be intensely and sincere to yourself seems to be a basic principle with all these artists which controls the operation of a designer

just as it controls those who work in the fairs or in architecture in music or in literature. And on one of the newest and most popular arts motion pictures next week we will hear from a famous producer Mr. dory Sherry. Thank you Dr. Bryson. You're a jury Kapish the designer I was create or one of 10 Conversations furthering our understanding of creativeness in American arts and professions. The creative method is recorded by WGBH FM in Boston under a grant from the National Educational Television and Radio Center. Producer Jack Dee Summerfield with Lalan thought your own bill cavernous production associates. This is the National Education already on network.