Hillman Curtis and Pentagram
While in college, I used a lot of books as inspiration for all the work I was doing. You know the books, the ones with maybe a paragraph of text every page but a ton of decent looking work, I call them picture books now. A ton of images, no descriptions or anything. They’re nice to flip through while walking around a bookstore but really doesn’t do anything in the long run.
I don’t remember when it exactly was, late 2006 – early 2007, I stumbled across a video by Hillman Curtis. It was a short documentary on Pentagram, the grossly famous design agency with branches all over the world. I’m not sure exactly what it was about the video, something one of the partners said, but it really affected me. It made me understand that design isn’t just coming up with visuals, it’s not just spitting out a poster or a logo for someone. Design is about solving problems.
Since then, I don’t think I’ve bought a single picture book for myself, although I’ll still look through them if I’m walking around at Barnes and Nobles. I’ve also really followed the work of Pentagram. It’s not the most stylistically edgy work out there, that’s what FFFFound is for, but it’s, to me, the most thoughtful and intelligent work I’ve found.