I have a great deal to say about this so I'll do my two paragraphs....then the real meat of this post will begin.
In regards to the use of older technology for modern applications, I agree whole-heartily with the idea of things never being obsolete. There is always a use for techniques and ideas, and time will never change that. However a lack of demand can place knowledge of skill in jeopardy; if there's noone around to reward/pay for these older artforms....what incentive is there to continue to learn them? I'm glad that different people have answered that question by using these old forms in new and radicallly different forms. The breaking of traditional guidelines has. ironically enough, helped preserve traditions. This comes across as a sort of compromise, or a demonstration of flexibility in changing times.
Trying to preserve an experience has become a large part of the rationale behind preserving wooden type at the Hamilton plant depicted in the film. The designers that visit the plant and work there become enamored with the tactile quality of the work. The feel of the wood blocks in your hands, the smell of the ink, the manual act of printing....all of these things create something remarkable that can't be replicated on the cold glow of the computer monitor. Its easier to produce computer imagery ("You just use your index finger" points out an instructor in the film) but it feel like much effort is put into it. Manual type is "affected" as the film puts it. Every error, nick, scratch, and strange part of the wood grain creates a unique feel to the final piece. It is an art-form that is very physical, even when paired with other mediums.
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Okay, that was me with my scholarly glasses on, conveying a very precise point. I'm taking those off now.... and sitting down in a comfy chair to have a pleasant (if rather one sided, there are comments though...) chat with you now.
This film was quite beautiful in what it conveyed regarding design, art, and experience. It did something that I rarely see anymore: It beautified the old...for BEING old, and worn. It didn't just make the point I stated above, about how it may be old, but is still useful. It showed the beauty of the outdated experience without really making a obnoxious point about being "nostalgic". This art isn't something that's "quaint". This is a beautiful art with a beautiful experience.
Experience...that's really the crux of the argument that they were trying to make
"Typeface" was of course a movie that appealed mainly to designers, but its points pretty relate able to different aspects of life. There's a great deal of emotional value to experience as a whole, and that is something that doesn't get "old" per say. Its means get difficult to reproduce, and SPECIFIC experiences after they occur get relegated to memory where like a vinyl record they can be replayed, but lose quality and sharpness over time.
The tactile sensation....that's a pretty big thing to me, and to memory. The idea of holding the wood type in your hands, carving, shaping, setting, and printing ....all of these very physical sensations... These types of things are what make a great deal of artistic experience.
At one time I was at a very low point emotionally with my art. I was in my 2-D Design course at Mineral Area College, and I was handed another assignment, which with my bad view of things at the time, I equated it with another bit of drudgery that I would sit down, obsess over, feel bad doing it, and present it, only to have it torn apart at critique and feel worse about it. It was becoming an ordeal. I started on it and set my paper down (it was a collage)...and had a moment of joy. I started to just place and glue and do blatantly silly things with the materials. I became slap happy and just sat down and did things just to see the result...and I had a sort of familiar feeling with my process. I stopped for a moment, and characteristically at the time, began to try to over think my "silly" process. I finally realized where I had felt this way before: finger-painting. I was finger painting with paper...and I loved it because I wasn't taking it so seriously anymore. I was FEELING my materials and drinking the experience, just as I was feeling the gooey paint on my fingers in preschool. I did my project with that thought process in mind and kept working after class...and eventually it had grown dark, and I hadn't even realized it.
Bear in mind, I didn't simply stop caring about the project, I had certain objectives to meet...I just didn't really care how I got there anymore. If I got to a full composition and it didn't work, I simply shrugged and pushed all the paper off the board I was using and did it again. I couldn't tell you how many times I did this. I did get done, and I loved the result. It worked and conveyed my soul inside of it. My teacher, Mr. Wilson, liked it because he did see both a success within parameters and that there was a "love" in it that was missing before in my work. I didn't overthink it...I did it until it was right.
The old printers in the Hamilton plant felt pride for their work of course, but they didn't really sit down and say "look at what I did". They talked about how they loved their time and process. They talked about how they'd use the same table to play cards as they did to work on type. Work was fun and work was play.
Memory though, is was a lot of what they did resides now and that brings me to my other point. My classmates would often comment that the movie ends on a rather sad note. The craftsmen they had interviewed were growing quite old and fewer in number, and with the closing of the actual Hamilton type plant, their experiences were staying mainly in the past, with little of it being passed on or shown. When they die, the little bit of skills they have taught to the young with be passed on of course, but the rest of their experience will simply cease to be. That in my experience is the true tragedy of mortality.
Those around find I mention my grandmother a great deal. While I cannot say that she was the equivalent of a parent...my parents are the equivalent to my parents. I did live with her though and she was the one who raised me. This gives me the impression that I had a greater relationship with my grandmother then a lot of people do with theirs...but this is a unique thing...I cannot possibly know this. My point is she was/is very important to me, and imparted a great deal of experience to me.
When she passed away, it wasn't that she herself was gone that upset me. I did not pity her... as sick as it may sound in words, when she went it was the most peaceful thing I had ever seen. I was happy for her that she was going to a better place and that, with a sigh, all of her problems dissolved away. No I did not mourn her passing in a pity sort of way. It was her experiences and her presence I mourned.
She had taught me a great deal about her time on Earth. She made a point of telling me stories of our family and teaching me skills she had learned since she was a little girl. Se taught me as many "country" skills as she could, and by the time I was 13 or 14 I could make apple sauce, jellies, jams, and can them perfectly. She taught me the basics of good home cooking, not that I can whip you together a turkey pot pie from memory, but if given a recipe I could make it better (that may not sound impressive, but taste a dish made perfectly from a recipe and then have the same dish by someone with tradition and sense of cooking behind it and you'll see how important this is). She tried to impart a "sense" of things that only she herself could see. While this can only be so successful, I feel as though she succeeded. I learned to appreciate the old and the worn view of things.
When she died, I would sit down and recount things to myself and others, even if I thought others already knew this and I was wasting their time. I still sort of do this, but it was really intense the months immediately after she passed. So I'd tell stories to my sister or whoever would listen. I had a jarring experience while doing this: I was telling a story that my grandmother had told me to my little sister (she had lived seperately from my grandmother and I, and a lot of what was "common knowledge" to me she had nary a clue), and my mother was in the room. She said she had never heard this story before. I knew something about her mother she didn't even know.
That truly frightened me: It made me realized that experience can be mortal. How much did NONE of us know?
Ever since then, I've made a point of making sure I have these stories firmly in place in my mind and that I can recall them. I ask my older relative questions regularly of new stories Someday, when I believe I might start forgetting things before long, I plan to write them down. I can't allow the experiences of my family to just "poof" disappear and have no meaning afterwords...
If you believe I may have rambled a bit too far off the beaten path when it comes to design, I do apologize a little...I did a little. But it still seems relevant to me. The old methods should most definitely be preserved, revered and used. They may be hard and/or messy, but that is what is good about them. Their character, and the way they make you and others feel when you use them. Experience in the process of making design or art is reflected in the final piece itself.
Sit down, enjoy the experience, and make something beautiful: It'll be good for you
