This morning I came upon two websites make disturbing and direct references to 9/11 in their designs.
Australian INfront's splash page features a design piece using American and German corporation logos that have been arranged in the shape of a jet plane. Helping to form the body of the airplane is a short commentary which starts, "I pilot a weapon" — to the left of these words is a silhouette of the World Trade Center. This artwork suggests that the commercial designer is a terrorist just as deadly as the ones who attacked on 9/11 and that they will carry out attacks just as blatant as those who plunged real planes into real buildings and killed a lot of people.
Perhaps even more extreme is D414 which features the burning Twin Towers in the background while a trendy techno track beats away. Their 'rescue' theme continues with (what I assume to be) a NYC Fireman standing in front of Ground Zero, a woman clutched in his arms. This image is used again in a downloadable desktop image (stationary/screens/screen2), only this time the woman is seen to say, "Oh, thank you D414" to the fireman.
In both cases the designs are very offensive — maybe even too offensive. Australian INfront's casual use of these comments and visuals are too cold to be used as design commentary and serve no other purpose than to take a cheap shot in effort to somehow look and sound brilliant.
Meanwhile, D414's use of the burning World Trade Center and a NYC Firefighter as design elements for their public image is callous and distasteful to say the least. To use this imagery in hip-hop fashion so recklessly is a frank display of ignorance and self absorption.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
I'm sure these designers think they're being 'provocative' and 'edgy' or transgressive in some important way, but they should realize one can be distasteful and callous in a way that isn't transcendent in any manner, but is simply distastful and callous. I'm sure the Australian Front designer wishes he could be "as deadly" or powerful as a terrorist, and I read the work as frustration at his own professional impotence. The D414 stuff is just vile and stupid, the work of an unthinking mind.
"...a frank display of ignorance and self absorption."
I agree with you, when I look at it from an American Point of view, but then I turn around and look at it from a less american-centric perspective and see an interesting (though potentially tasteless) use of powerful imagery, along the lines of, say, the clever use of a zeppelin to define visual identity. Though mostly passed on now, I am sure many British citizens who lost family and friends in the German Zeppelin bombings of the first world war might see it a different way.
It is important that we, as artists, designers, and humans, step beyond the knee-jerk reaction to powerful visual stimulation and look into the meaning beneath.
Do I think either of the cited works are good? Not really, but that's just my opinion. Others may see things differently.
The certainly are powerful though.
Adrian, I hear what you're saying, but I don't think the Zeppelin comparison is apt. The Airbag has passed into popular culture over the last hundred years and is now more associated with nice photography of sporting events than anything else. This time buffer is of course central to the shockingness (or not) of topical imagery—in 500 years pictures of Hitler and Auschwitz may be no more shocking than etchings from the crusades. The appropriation of sacred or untouchable imagery for repurposing is a simple technique (used by many an art student) to make a work seem important or weighty. In fact, the 'powerfulness' is all in the appropriated subject matter, and not in work itself. These pieces are empty, callow, and deserving of reproach. If you're going to summon powerful contexts to a work of art, the artist's obligation is to deal with it adequately, not just make a parasitic work that feeds of the power of the reference.
I suspect that, to a large degree, both of these designers will find that their image does nothing to attract new customers (perhaps even drawing the ire of many), and will eventually redesign. Although I'm sure there are some who would praise them for their "edginess."
I don't find the Australian in Front's splash page as offensive as merely trite. I don't think it disrespects 9/11's scale of tragedy so much as it attempts to relate it to the perceived scale of damage done by the graphic designer's role in perpetuating consumer culture. How clever.
"The certainly are powerful though."
that's more of a knee jerk reaction, i think, than what Greg's port forth here. there are a lot of 'powerful' things that when studied more closely, turn out to be little more than confrontational and offensive. and confrontational and offensive really only serve their puporse correctly when put forth under a construct of attempting to make people understand something that perhaps is less concrete when not applied forcefully.
there is a trend right now concerning this 'war on terror' and the terrorist acts that seem to have begun it. the trend is to not support the war, to look at the situation from the standpoint of how the east sees America. i'm fine with this. doesn't bother me in the least to at least try and see things from someone else's perspective. i don't even mind doing this when something as vile as 9/11 happens. i'm not a pacifist, but i do believe that the only road to peace has to be approached from objective analysis of tough circumstances.
but i can't abide jumping on the bandwagon. even after sitting there and analyzing both pieces, it seems both really are attempting to do little more than just this. perhaps this was never the intent. perhaps both pieces were originally meant to communicate true emotions about this situation.
but abscence of forethought does not excuse what the pieces truly communicate. artists are, despite the ever-popular opinion, responsible for the message they convey. no one wants censorship. which is precisely why artists must guard themselves.
"Powerful"?
Exploitive is the word that comes to my mind.
They have gotten what they wanted: attention. Keep in mind that these days, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Just ask Bill Clinton or Paris Hilton.
I agree with what Tom Donlan says. Even from a European point of view, it's still distasteful. It's weak and low to (ab)use this subject to attract attention. It's just not the way, I rather have no attention at all. And it would never cross my mind, even when I would be very very desperate. There are much more other ways to show your talents as a designer, but this surely ain't one of them. Besides, I don't like their designs. I also wonder what the (big) companies would thing about having their logo misused like that.
Am I the only one that thinks the buildings in the D414 site do not look like the twin towers. It looks like a single building on fire to me. Are you sure he is trying to be offensive? I think he is just going for a we'll save you from your lame design thing.
This is a great post and thread and the more general quesions about how and when and who are worth pondering.
Tom: I doubt Jews will ever forget the holocaust. The memory of it changes over time but there are some things that don't lose their fidelity as fast even with word of mouth telephoning. That doesn't mean Mel Brooks can't make The Producers but it's certainly edgy stuff and was even edgier when the movie first came out than when the play opened.
How the "decay" of recent memory affects whether it will ever be in acceptable taste to decontextualize or recontextualize pictures of horrific acts for other purposes is a great question.
Go too soon and you're a jerk (Greg's examples) but after a while it's okay (The Producers). How fast is the decay toward decency and are there rules?
Had The Producers been made by someone other than Mel Brooks (a Jew) would it have been in bad taste? Interesting.
And, as Adrian said above we have to be careful about Americentrism in evaluating any of this stuff. Most of the rest of the world has had terrorism in their backyards for a long while now. Doesn't make it right to exploit 9/11 but are their examples of American ad agencies exploiting edgy things that have happened in other countries (I don't know but I'll bet many of you do)?
The other piece of this is that we probably ought not spin 9/11 into a PC cocoon and make it untouchable because it's useful to talk about it, mess with it, do a bit of exploiting just to get through it. Again, Mel Brooks did this with The Producers and I'd say to good effect.
Thanks Greg, good one.
Are you sure D414 actually means to show the World Trade Center? It just looks like a generic burning building to me.
I understand the outrage, but please, please do not go down the road of picking out pieces of the web like that and writing about them. There's a lot of stuff out there we all hate, we all disagree with, but what you're doing accomplishes nothing and does not make you any more of an artist or an American.
Personally, I find your analysis trite and dull and your ivory tower attitude loathsome. Just as revolting as you find those pages, perhaps.
i have to agree with greg and ramanan in questioning whether d414 is actually representing 9.11. it's a lot to infer from the single structural remains of a building that it's meant to portray the wtc towers. and the fireman is just a fireman, there's nothing identifiying him as an nyc fireman. the whole theme seems to be "rescue from bad design".
this just goes to show how we as designers need to do some extra evaluation when we design. not for fear of shocking people, because that is sometimes the point, but more so that we don't accidentally represent things we aren't meaning to represent.
people can be hyper-aware of things that offend them, so much so that the symbol of a fireman becomes "omg, how crass, that's a new york city fireman and a symbol of all the brave emergency personnel who lost their lives during 9.11!"
Ryan Irelan,
Your response completely lacks any realistic or logical foundation.
Your comment, "please do not go down the road of picking out pieces of the web like that and writing about them" makes absolutely no sense. From a generic standpoint, how are we to learn better design, development, layout, technique, etc. without doing just that? What do you think Scrivs is doing right now over at his site? Specifically, don't you do the same thing on your site? You reference an article on Bush and terror alerts and then make a trite, judgemental, one sentence comment. That's no problem at your site, so why is it a problem here? At least this article was backed by an explanation and a mode of thinking.
Disagreement and accompanying explanation with what he has to say is something I can handle. Illogical nay-saying (about having an opinion), I cannot.
Minimally, don't be a hypocrite. If you think that making public those things that "we all hate" or "disagree with" "accomplishes nothing and does not make you any more of an artist or an American", feel free to prove your point on your own site.
Back to the topic at hand - isn't what Australian's Front doing illegal copyright infringement?
I'll have to disagree with Veerle and agree with Erica on this one, as from a (my) europian point of view, the fireman doesn't seen at all a NYC fireman (are they really that different from, say, the rest of the US, or even the world?).
Also, if I'd found my way to D414 myself, I doubt I would have made the connection to the 11th of Sept. attacks at all. As someone else said: The theme is to rescue clients from bad design. And what is more archetypical than a fireman rescuing (a wo)man from an accident?
The Ausi Front plane on the other hand does seem a bit offensive, but then again pointless too, as I can't quite grasp the meaning of it. What exactly are they trying to get across?
Nathan,
Thanks for the reply. Very well written.
I'm not sure what those pages in question have to do with learning how to be a better designer. Can you clarify? What's the lesson here? Good design is that which doesn't challenge your insecurities? Layout? Technique? Those were never referenced in Greg's post. A fan of apples and oranges, eh?
You write:
"Disagreement and accompanying explanation with what he has to say is something I can handle. Illogical nay-saying (about having an opinion), I cannot."
Illogical? I disagree.
You rant:
"Minimally, don't be a hypocrite. If you think that making public those things that "we all hate" or "disagree with" "accomplishes nothing and does not make you any more of an artist or an American", feel free to prove your point on your own site."
How does commenting about this in Greg's comments and not on my site make me a hypocrite? I doesn't. Now that's illogical.
Before you get so pissed off, Nathan, take a moment to actually think about what I was saying.
If these comments came from someone I didn't respect (and wasn't friends with), then I wouldn't even bothered commenting. Instead, I think the approach that Greg took in this post is a slippery slope. When does the outright condemnation of other's art become too much? Is 9/11 the indicator here? Anything 9/11 is out-of-line, even if it provokes and/or inspires intelligent discourse?
Greg didn't handle any of that. Instead, he went straight for the easy criticism, without even giving the motives behind the work any real thought.
Did he ask the authors of those pages their thoughts? Maybe what their inspiration was? No, he didn't.
So, Nathan, rather than slam my argument (not to mention my weblog!), without even full thinking through it, try asking some questions about what he wrote.
The sites are tasteless, surely, but I'd be able to muster more indignation if ABC News didn't use a graphical device to make the "11" in 9/11 look like the twin towers, or if George Bush didn't exploit the tragedy for campaign adverts.
the australian front seems more like misguided youthful exhuberance than anything else.
the d414 on the otherhand I think you've overreacted. nothing in that image says it has to be nyc. futhermore the company is from zagreb in croatia a country that has seen more than its share of war and destruction in the past ten years, that the u.s. has seen in a century. we (americans) don't have a copyright on images of tragedy and destruction. these are supposedly universal things that because of our geography we are quite accustomed to avoiding. there are parts of the world, like croatia, where tragic events on the scale of 9/11 have happened, and that's why so much of the world was able to empathize with us that day.
I'm not sure what those pages in question have to do with learning how to be a better designer.
As a novice designer, I think I can speak to this.
I am by trade, a writer. As with most artistic endeavors -- writing, graphic design, photography -- the practitioner chooses the materials used in their work; unless the creator is merely flinging paint on a campus like a chimp, their intention is to make a point, construct an argument, create a mood, etc. (I will leave for another time the argument of whether art created without intention is really art.)
Greg’s post not only questions whether the chosen elements are appropriate and ethical/moral, but – more germane to the point of what there is to be learned -- whether they achieve these companies’ goals. If their intention is to merely get attention or to shock, they have succeeded; if they are seeking “edgy” customers and don’t mind alienating more “mainstream” types, they in good shape; if they did not intend to offend or were unaware that they have done so, they are careless.
Maybe I’m just a dumb neophyte, but I think this discussion is valuable.
I was thinking of posing similar questions at the end of my post but I am not Donahue and Airbag is not daytime television. I assumed that some sort of discussion would follow — disagreements even. I look forward to more of it.
As to the similarities between D414's burning building vs. Ground Zero, this photo comes to mind.
Just to make sure you understand how I read your post, Greg, let me summarize what I think you're saying:
1) You read images these from the sites mentioned above as relying primarily on strong allusions to the events of September 11, 2001.
2) You believe that images from or allusions to the events of 9/11 are sacred.
Before I respond to what I think you're arguing about these works, let me summarize my position on at least the AF piece, which to me is more interesting:
1) I read the AF piece less as a statement primarily about 9/11 and more as a commentary on commodity culture (and culture as commodity). In other words, it's very possible to read the collage as one which merely imbricates a reference to 9/11 among many other corporatized/commodified images and insignias. In this sense, it's possible to argue that the designer is rather self-aware (perhaps more than most, maybe especially in this crowd) of his implication in a hyper-capitalistic culture gone awry. It is, after all, difficult to ignore his self-deprecating language and imagery (hopeless, illusions/empty, canned poetry, graphic prostitute). I'm not passing this piece off as necessarily poignant, really; I do think, however, that it's not empty or merely contriving edginess, as some of the comments above suggest. In fact, I think only willful ignorance distances the minds of most designers from the culture they help create, and this piece comments smartly on that.
2) If anything, pieces like this suggest (prove?) that in this day and age, no images or allusions are sacred. In fact, I say they dismantle the concept of "sacred" altogether. I can understand how one might lament this dismantling, but I'd have to say that the most important cogs in the capitalist machine (design, marketing, advertising, media, etc.) have had more to gain from the effacing of the sacred than any other. Tom Dolan seems to be saying that the Airbag has passed into popular culture in a way which makes it public domain, and that imagery from 9/11 has not yet crossed that threshold. I respectfully disagree, and argue that the very technologies which enable the design work we do also make events public domain (at least in a cultural sense) in real-time. This isn't to say that certain images don't or shouldn't offend, but rather that they will inevitably offend.
Ultimately, I think it's important to recognize that your sense that the sacred has been transgressed or misappropriated here relies entirely on your reading of this work, and not, perhaps, something intrinisic to this work (again, speaking primarily of the AF site), and that perhaps what Ryan is saying is that using a rhetorical style which couches your opinion on a matter as a universal truth can very easily be interpreted as a dogmatic rant or an attempt to preach and convert.
Ryan,
Thanks for a much more detailed, reasoned response to this post. I was able to see in this post the point you were trying to make.
Although I am a fan of apples and oranges, my response to yours was not intended to be fruity. ;) I was replying to your (very general) comment, "please do not go down the road of picking out pieces of the web like that and writing about them". I was saying that if that is your MO, design critique, learning from others' mistakes, and generally having an opinion would be severely inhibited.
To answer your question, "How does commenting about this in Greg's comments and not on my site make me a hypocrite?", you're right, it doesn't. What I found hypocritical was the comments I referenced (twice now) that seemed to say 'leave other people and their designs and their perspectives alone and just do your own thing.' At least that was my interpretation. The hypocrisy arose when I found you doing on your own site exactly what I thought you were denouncing.
To the extent that I misinterpreted your original comment, please forgive me. To the extent that you were unclear, I fortive you. =)
Was I pissed off? Nope, not at all. Just disagreed.
And just to clear things up a little, I was slamming what I thought was the message of your comment. I was not at all slamming your weblog (in fact, I said that what you did was "no problem"). Frankly, your blog looks much better than the design I have cooking up for mine. Keep up the good work.
Meanwhile, in discourse such as this, I always say to err on the side of clarity. Then again, maybe I need to err on the side of granting the benefit of the doubt.
No hard feelings here. Thanks for clarifying. You make a good point.
"This artwork suggests that the commercial designer is a terrorist just as deadly as the ones who attacked on 9/11 and that they will carry out attacks just as blatant as those who plunged real planes into real buildings and killed a lot of people."
What? How?
I found the Australian site tasteless. It is inept and, as Tom Dolan posted above, "frustration at his own professional impotence." 'Nuff said there.
D414 is another thing altogether. I really didn't like the background image for the firefighter. It is *obviously* the towers, and I think it is a bit over the top. Please try a different building. Other than that, the design is well-executed, and not bad graphically.
My thing about the site is that it is poorly executed: did anyone notice that the image in the right box changes with the site section, but that the scrolling text below the image does not change? It initially shows a firefighter's hat, with the text, "This is a firefighter's helmet. It is designed to save lives. Don't be scared to use it." Change sections, and you get a fire hydrant; same text, though. OOOOOPS!
This is not to mention further the numerous typos and bad grammar: this site was not edited by anyone that knows the English language, to be sure. With so many lawsuits as a result of bad advertising and poor choices in wordage, why would you hire a design firm with such callous disregard to proper English? As a potential member of the target audience, I would be really cautious in approaching this firm.
This is another example of fairly decent, if not questionable, artwork combined with an attitude that if the artwork is right, then the whole thing is right, regardless of typos, bad grammar and potentially misleading copy. I used to see this frequently as a copy editor: I had to rein in my designers when we were working against a deadline (like herding cats), as they had a tendency to rush the work off to the printer well before I had a chance to correct the work and make sure that we weren't mortgaging the farm (again).
It's better to publish a day or two late, for a few dollars more, than to publish on time, saving the money (possibly getting sued later), and looking like an asshat.
Appalling. The worst shock design trash from the 80's using the latest tragedies of the new millennium
This is what happens when people take pop-psychology too seriosly. These people thought they're smart by "enigneering" such "powerful messages"... in all respects, though, their metaphors are trasparent, their work is unimaginative and so on...
The name rang a bell, and then I remembered I'd seen D414 listed on Netdiver. Here's what they had to say:
"Fantastic! Just found a pearl. Discover d414 which concept revolves around a familiar metaphor - the fireman! Oh yes, aren't often 'fire extinguishers' for clients! Not only their projects are outstanding but they have cool merch and destops!"
I think it was meant to praise the heroics of Firemen rather than to use 9-11 as a marketing ploy. I may be mistaken, but I believe most buildings have frames similar to the background used. They should have had the foresight to see that the use would stir up some people, and maybe they did.
I'm amazed Greg had to give a link to the image of the building...Alzheimer maybe.
It's simple enough though:
Big smoke + fireman + "structural remains" does remind me 9/11.
Plane + Terrorist + American flag does remind me 9/11.
And nothing else. It reminds me horror, pain and the on going war it started.
This lack of respect and humility is pretty much like to the "do a Lynndie" stuff, very very very sad.
Even Benetton wouldn't do an ad using 9/11. Well, I guess...
About D141 : this guy is from Zagrheb, Croatia. He probably knows more than most of us about war and deads. He must be candid, should see the movie "The Guys", and then redesign.
I'll preface my comments by stating that I am an Australian. (I have no association with Australian Front and generally consider their site to be an immense waste of bandwidth)
September 11, 2001 had a massive effect on Western culture, and probably other cultures too. However, I don't feel it had anywhere near the impact or significance for the rest of us that it did for Americans. At the time, I was a serving member of the Australian Army and it changed my life immensely - everything was put on hold, our sole priority and responsibility was security. But the event didn't leave scars. The Bali Bombing didn't either. I've moved on
When I looked at those sites, I had to struggle to find what Greg was concerned with. If I had seen d414 in isolation, I would never have associated it with 9/11. Especially since, as Kevin Sharon stated, the company is based in Croatia. As for Australian Front, I only picked the two rectangles as being the towers of the WTC because Greg had indicated they were there. My personal interpretation of the AF piece is near identical to Narayan's
I find nothing offensive in either set of imagery, but then, 9/11 is hardly a prevalent concern here in small-town Western Victoria
Aren't we fighting this "War on Terror" (TM) for western freedoms?
If your design firm was trying to think of something edgy, and someone thought of drawing Hitler with his hand over a Jew- would you say- YES! Thats it! The fact that the pain was ever applicable to you or your country is irrelevant. In most of of our cases the Holocaust does not even apply to our generation. It is just common courtesy to not exploit suffering for commercial purposes whether you agree with the campaign or not.
For the D-whatever site, the burning building first reminded of the Dresden firesotrm from World War II. Looks pretty generic---I don't remember any rescue helicopters in ny newscasts from the events in NYC.
Reading the replies so far I find it interesting that no ones mentioned other elements of the Australian Front site.
The "Start Wars" logotype seems a comment on the 'Shrub' administration's revival of the 'Raygun' administration's Star Wars program---as well as a jab at the 'War on Error'.
The CNN Terrorist makes you stop an think a bit.
The big dig that was also not mentioned looks like a comment about USAn capitalistic imperialism. Inside the Stars and Strips of the tail section of the plane is, I believe, the Qantas kangaroo.
Sure somewhere around 3 to 4 thousand people died at the World Trade Center on that day. How many innocents died in the eye-for-eye attempts to get 'Osama bin Hiding' or 'Madman Hussein'?
The Dresden allusion mentioned earlier is apt here. More people died in the firestorms of Dresden than were killed by the first atomic bomb. Hiroshima and Nagasaki get remembered because of the way in which those people died.
I wish the AF opening page had pointed out that before 2001-09-11 the media and others openly ridiculed Shrub's gaffs but since then they have been sycophantic.
And yes. I agree that content of the AF site is quite a waste of time and space. Small pixel fonts are a bane to the universe.
Quoth Ryan:
"Greg didn't handle any of that. Instead, he went straight for the easy criticism, without even giving the motives behind the work any real thought.
Did he ask the authors of those pages their thoughts? Maybe what their inspiration was? No, he didn't."
Should he have to? Art has no meaning, but the one you give to it. Sure the artists of these various sites may have had the best intentions of the world, but they need to understand that others may not see it their way. Opinions are what give art any meaning to the masses, and without any context just about anything can be derived from those sites.
I'd like to point out that there's a difference between art and marketing/advertising. Art is for its own sake. Marketing and advertising exist to help someone sell something, in this case D-414 and Australian Front's design services. If these pieces were art that we saw in an online gallery or magazine, then the artists' ideas and motivations would deserve discussion on their own merits. I would still think they were crass, but art exists for better reasons than to meet my approval.
But these asshats are selling something. They think invoking 9/11 will help them get more business. This makes it doubly offensive. They use 9/11 not just to call attention to themselves, but to try to make money.
Brianna nails it, above: "It is just common courtesy to not exploit suffering for commercial purposes whether you agree with the campaign or not."
Sorry, haven't time to read all the responses. This is just in regards to the Australian In Front design, I'm pretty sure it is making reference to the current debate in Australia over the signing of a Free Trade agreement with the US.
The Qantas logo combined with the American flag certainly suggests that anyway (although the BP logo seems out of place).
I do think that use of the WTC towers is somewhat distasteful, but its not quite as simple as that. As someone mentioned earlier, this is made from an Australian and Left-wing perspective as well, and is probably made as a reaction to the perceived weakness of the Australian PM to give into anything George Bush wants from us.
I personally don't find it offensive, but neither do I see it as an particularly powerful part of the artwork.
The whole thing depends of your point of view.
If I had seen the d414 site without reading Greg's comments about it, I probably would not have associated the images there with 9/11.
Australian INFront's design however, is obviously, referencing 9/11, but I think everyone isn't looking deep enough. Greg saw the 9/11 reference and he stopped there (as did most of you). There is more to the collage of logos and images than on the surface.
I think the image is a commentary on American motivations. The logos all included in the shape of a plane suggest to me the the big corps ultimately "attack" and take advantage of the common person, with no reguard for their well being, just like the terrorists did on 9/11. The logos of Exxon and BP allude the allogations that the war going on right now is for oil. I think he's saying that big corps are no better than terrorists.
The "I pilot a weapon" line doesn't reference the fact that the terrorist used planes in their attacks. The weapon isn't the plane, it's his job as a commercial artist and how companies exploit his images to sell their products and make money.
This image generally gives me the feeling that Americans are trying to ram their culture down other peoples throat (The Coca Cola and McDonald's logo in the front of the plane does that for me). It started when the first McDonald's open in Russia. How much does Coca Cola and McDonald's have to gain when they finally get to operate in the "free Iraq?"
The fact that the jpg is named "hopeless.jpg" just adds to my comments above.
Of course, this was my interpretation of the image. Someone else may see entirely differnet things based on their experience. Just because, however, a subject is somewhat of a taboo, doesn't mean that it can't have deeper meaning behind it.
Most of you only saw a refernce to 9/11 and virtually ignored the rest of the image. I saw an interesting social and political statement.
In this age of perpetuated atrocities (need i say it, by your very own government), you find someone's "youthful exuberance" offensive?
Funny thing about that Free Speech stuff, it can be offensive sometimes.
It's been a slow day in the globosphere, eh?
This is way off topic here but It's people like Max that make me wonder why comments should be here at all. I mean really Max (and people like him), you asshat, if you're going to take the time to comment how about reading the discussion that has followed so far. Both Ryan and Narayan made some good points you completely missed those. Even Kent's one liner packed a punch, but of course you missed that one too.
If we were all standing around chatting would you naturally walk in the middle, offer your opinion and then walk away? I'm going to give you the benifit of the doubt and say no. So why would you do it here?
i hate to be a pedant, and i have to admit that i haven't read every single word of every single post on here, but i wanted to point out that the 'Australian Front' you've all been referring to is actually 'Australian INfront'
if anyone had bothered to click on the aeroplane/logos image (whether it's offensive or simply cheap & nasty or whatever...), they might discover that the site is just a (slightly pretentious) bunch of australian designers showing off their work. nothing too subversive in that now is there?
I'm not sure how the d414 site could not remind one of the Twin Towers. If the design was not intended to do that, it was clumsy, ham-handed work. You would have to be somewhat obtuse not to see it.
As for making a political statement, yes, for cryin' out loud, Free Speech is great and often offends people's sensibilities; and naturally, folks are free to say what they want. But is d414 a business or a political site? It may be appropriate to use the Twin Towers to make a political statement, but to use it to attract business -- in what essentially amounts to a commercial -- is, well, crass. I can only imagine the reaction of some of these naysayers if the same imagery were used by say, IBM or Nike.
Rascal, nice catch — damn lack of proof reading. As for the 'INfront' I am well aware that they are a bunch of Austrailian designers and have admired their work for some time.
Greg—it's an issue with most commented blogs and I think Airbag actually handles it quite well. Blogs like Atrios regularly have threads with comments running into the hundreds, which make it completely unmanageable IMHO. How many comments are too many? How many too few? It's an interesting issue, but I'd wager that many of your regular readers enjoy the level of discussion (even argument) that goes on in your comment threads. You capture an unusual cross-section of different perspectives and demographics at Airbag, and your community is part of what makes the site special.
Greg,
You get a little totalitarian about what's proper for commenting on your blog. It's pretty annoying and makes me not want to come here sometimes. I know that's the type of comment you'd probably just react to with "Then don't come, asshat!" but I figure maybe you can extract something else form it...
You got all upset at Max for instance simply because he said, "didn't read all the posts"(that would seem to be your reason), but in doing so ignored that fact that none of his comments require that he have read those. They were a reaction to his experience with living in Australia and the designs themselves. He doesn't need to read the overreactions and hot-air of a lot of other people for that to be valid. If he starts address their comments, then it's a different story, but he was addressing the designs.
If you worry about comments getting out of control, maybe just be like this more, and some people will probably just stop coming all together.
I find it amusing (and perhaps hypocritical) that the Australian INfront organization decided to use the art which seems to "criticize" American business/culture/politics (so hard to divide them it seems), then also thanked Microsoft (which is on the nose of the plane image) in their "about" page":
From the site:
Thanks to the people at Microsoft, and the .NET Developer Community, for providing the ASP.NET Forums software used on this site.
"nothing too subversive in that now is there?"
Probably not, but the image is a statement about something. The company deliberately chose the image. Their site should be a little clearer on what that statement is. Then again, I'm an ignorant fool who knows very little about art.
I like how people critique "culture brands" for destroying the world when we let the companies like General Dynamics, Halliburton, Exxon and the like off.
Please read Adam Greenfield's post about these pretentious No Logo folks... I agree with almost all his points.
Interesting read, Jim. Thanks.
Jim, while I can understand where your gripe comes from, I think it's expecting too much.
People that are opposed to brands like Nike and McDonalds, the culture brands as you put it, are not necessarily okay with Exxon or Monsanto destroying our environment and mutating our food supplies. I would think it has more to do with them choosing a more specific subset, as that allows one to be more effective.
There are plenty who don't pay heed to "culture brands" while pining for reforms of or abolition of groups like Exxon and the like that you consider more serious.
Both are serious problems. The greater problem is the business and corporate structure in general. This is a massive, overwhelming entity to take-in and address on the whole.
I just finished No Logo. Guess I'm a pretentious guy, huh? Or maybe just concerned and paying attention, but that's another story... It's a great book focused on one particular atrocity of coporations: the co-opting and destruction of our culture across the board. I'm currently reading The Ecology of Commerce which is much more concerned with the companies dumping waste and chemicals into the planet.
It wouldn't make sense to address it all at once.
I read No Logo too and I thought there were good points, but you do have to admit that it is hip to be anti-corporate and listening to Radiohead and the like - especially in the snobbish circles of Adbusters (which I have a subscription too becuase they do make some good points). I hate the corporate structure as well... for instance I do not shop at WalMart owned stores and have personal convictions about other brands.
Regardless, the brands and those that create them for the likes of Starbucks aren't equal to terrorists. There are corporations out there that one could say that has blood on their hands. For instance the one company formerly ran by the Vice President starting with a "H" and ending in "alliburton." However, I don't believe the people creating their branding are terrorists either.
I think this topic is just too big to be dealt with in a blog. Let's not forget that the only reason why these corporations are the way they are is because we made them like that.
A person is smart, it's people that are dumb. Because of this, it will take a long time before things get better. It's art and statements like on the splash page on InFront that make "people" think a little harder about the things affecting us.
I think most of it's been said, but I wanted to reiterate a couple of things. Firstly, I'm from New Zealand. As such, while 9/11 is still a remembered date, I'm pretty much over it… plenty of bad stuff has happened since then: Iraq, earthquakes in eastern Europe, severe flooding killing thousands in Bangladesh and India. America does not have a monopoly on international tragedy.
As mentioned by others, neither of the two sites mentioned are American. Could it be that they did not even notice any 9/11 parallells? I had to look hard to see anything on the D414 site; a burning building and a firefighter seem pretty generic to me. If it had not been pointed out, I would not even have thought of 9/11.
And even the Australian INFront site, to me, fails to have that much explicit reference to 9/11. 9/11 wasn't the first time terrorists used airliners, and there was a hijacking in Russia this week for crying out loud! I guess "my tool is a weapon" is probably pretty clear, but otherwise, I found it an interesting message, not an offensive one.
I do enjoy this blog, and on the whole I'm quite impressed with it, but there seems to be a fair bit of "the world is America" happening. Let me say it again: worse things have happened since. 9/11 is not the only tragedy, and maybe it's time to move on.
This thread has certainly taken an interesting turn, not sure how we went from 9/11-esque design to this No Logo discussion, but I guess it's interesting. While some of the points made in the article Jim pointed out are interesting, I find the primary basis of the author rooted in a conservative view point that I don't readily agree with.
Granted there is much bigger fish to fry than mega Starbucks, McD's, Nike, etc... but these corporations have penetrated our landscape, diet, and local community everywhere. It's not like you see a Monsanto logo on every street corner, or an General Dynamics facility in your local neighborhood do you?
I don't buy Starbucks, eat McDonalds or any of that other pretentious mumbo jumbo. It's hard to rationalize giving my money and personal support to a huge corporation when I could easily find myself a locally owned coffee shop, or buy some decent food from a business who actually cares about my community. Action has to start somewhere, and it certainly is more likely to start in an individuals own community before one can take on the real "evil ones" (to quote a village idiot).
And screw Ikea too, I'm sure their crappy furniture is being made right now by the youth of Central America and Malaysia for pennies, cheap as it may be, they are making insane amounts of money thanks to the community-friendly Free Trade Agreement.
Jim,
It *is* hip to be anti-corporate, but what isn't hip to somebody? That's another side-effect of the obsessive, linear nature of branding. Nothing is unbrandable space. Everything can be commoditized.
Besides, like Phoat said: inidividuals are smart, people are dumb. You can't take the people that are anti-corporations because it's hip and use them as representative of a movement. Those people aren't in it because they don't like what corporations are doing to our society, they're in it because they're sheep that need to hear the bleating of others, regardless of the context.
Like that article you linked to... that guy completely missed the point of Fight Club if he thinks one of its main or even secondary points is "IKEA sucks." I mean honestly...
And Matt Wilson: THANK YOU. A very good point that needs to be made. I was "over" 9/11 a long time ago, and I live in the US. People need to take a closer look at how much they reference it and why, whether their perceived intent is to provoke, to remember, or whatever.
I agree and don't agree to what Matt says.
Sure for those of us on the other side of the planet, it's over. As a former NYer, I can surely say however, that for those people that lost loved ones, that drove by, worked in, lived near, and took the train from the WTC everyday of the their lives, that big hole in the ground will always remind them of the event that affected their lives... and not just their lives, everyone's lives.
Even now, here in Greece, we seem to be over it... but when the government spent 1.5 billion dollars on security for the Olympics... are we really over it?
Like I said, this topic is just TOO big. 9/11 affected the whole world, we may not realize it, but it did.
Someone mentioned that it's inappriopriate to put the collage on a site that is used for business. But how is that any differnet that displaying an AIDS Awareness ribbon on a business site? I've seen it before, but no one has said anything about it. Isn't just as bad to display that ribbon on your company site and use AIDS, a disease that has killed way more people than 9/11, to make your company seem aware and supportive? Just as an individual, a company can take a stand on global issues and make statements about them. All companies do this.. it's called public relations.
It's easy to create a taboo around the subject so that anything that "uses" 9/11 will be considered crass and tasteless. And we can be politically correct too and condemn and be offended by people that say anything negative about it. Doing that, however, wont help anyone come to terms with the loss.
By listening to the messages (I'm referring to InFront, D414 doesn't seem to have a message) we may understand things a little better.
This topic got way to serious....
Quick Greg, call someone an asshat!!!
Seth Thomas - he's not "that guy" he's actually a very wellknown designc ritic. I don't think he missed the point at all.
On the other hand I thot No Logo was great, well worth the read, so there you go. It takes all types I guess.
Kev,
That's a great point, except I was flaming his critique of the movie, not any design. Yeknow, since that's what we were talking about...
Seth, Matt,
How can you say you're over 9/11 ? The consequences of this event have impacts on our everyday lives, especially when you live in the US. Well, I'm supposing here, as I'm in NZ like Matt, but from what I read and hear on the news, there is a before and an after 9/11 over there. Security wise for example... there's a threat going on, remember ? And it all started this day.
I wouldn't compare it to a natural disaster or rate it for the number of people who died this day - which is pretty bad taste. Yes, floods and earthquakes are painful for the victims and relatives, and can have huge impact on a country. But 9/11 has a very strong symbolic meaning (more related to blind violence, liberties threat, east vs west and others not really positive) that has affected not only the WTC workers, but pretty much everybody who lhas a TV set on the planet.
It would be no problem to use a tornado icon in a WC cleaning liquid logo, even if lots of people die because of tornados, and wrong to use two towers and a plane in a Target advert. 9/11 still means too much, and we didn't understand it completly yet. I don't think you have to be an American to feel what Greg feels about these images (I'm french, imagine that).
Matt, you're right when you say that America is not the world (although we could question it), but don't forget Airbag is written in California by an American who gives us *his* point of view.
Seth: If everything can be commoditized, perhaps it would be okay for D414 Studios to change it up a bit? How about an image of chained up African slaves? Or better yet, what about a really "hip" front page with a picture of a mass grave at a Nazi death camp? That would be Uber-Hip!
Matt: Earthquakes? Severe flooding? I'm sorry, the last time I checked, mother nature was not on the list of most wanted terrorists... To compare the two is ignorance with a capital "You."
Yikes, people, yikes...
Thibaut:
When I say that I am "over" 9/11, I meant to communicate that I do not react like many people still do at the mere invocation of that title for what happened that day. But more important is something you touched on:
"The consequences of this event have impacts on our everyday lives, especially when you live in the US. Well, I'm supposing here, as I'm in NZ like Matt, but from what I read and hear on the news, there is a before and an after 9/11 over there. Security wise for example... there's a threat going on, remember ? And it all started this day."
That. The emphasis is on a very important point and part of the reason I've tried consciously not to overreact to 9/11: IT DIDN'T START THAT DAY.
We got attacked in a major way on our soil that day, but it had started years and years before. Our embassies, ships, etc. were targets years before 9/11. It's not even just us, of course. Terrorism was a worldwide problem YEARS BEFORE 9/11!!!
I am over 9/11 as this symbolic, world-changing event because it is that emphasis and status that has been exploited by many, from random bloggers trying to prove their opinion, to cowboy presidents trying to justify and/or distract from their criminality and incompetence.
It would have been symbolic event if we hadn't gone out and squandered the sympathy and support of an entire planet after it happened. Instead, it was a horrendous event, with our enemies upping the ante, and what did we go out and do? Did we ask why? Did we analyze what this meant in a grand scheme? No, we did business as usual: we were arrogant, we were selfish and self-righteous. We were hypocritical, turning our backs on institutions like the UN only to run back asking for their help when we screwed up the invasion and occupation of Iraq. (Not related? Please. Let's not even go there. The man (Bush) said repeatedly that Iraq was partly about the war on terror. Again, he ab/used 9/11 as an added push to get people behind his resource war.)
Blah. That's how I'm "over" it.
Jared:
"If everything can be commoditized, perhaps it would be okay for D414 Studios to change it up a bit? How about an image of chained up African slaves? Or better yet, what about a really "hip" front page with a picture of a mass grave at a Nazi death camp? That would be Uber-Hip!"
Uh... wtf? Did you even read anything I wrote? Was I defending D414 or approving of their design? No, in fact, for the record, it's weak, regardless of the imagery. I don't know what my comments on commodity have to do with the imagery used. Unless you somehow think that I am saying these designs are not at all controversial if they're using the imagery as a commodity? Honestly, I don't know what the hell you're talking about or where you got that from...
Greg,
Sorry mate, I didn't mean to offend you. I don't think it's fair that you jumped on my comment as totally invaluable, but I do see where you're coming from. It certainly would've been better if I had the time to read and carefully consider all the previous comments.
Just so you know, I did skim over the comments that had been made, and I noticed that none of them had made reference to the Free Trade agreement (again, just in terms of the InFront design). I only left a comment because I felt that it was a specific important contextual consideration that perhaps you and most of your readers were not aware of.
Just a quick point to reiterate what some have said of the D414 design. To me it had *nothing* to do with 9/11. It shows a burning building and a firefighter. I would never have linked taht site to 9/11 had Greg not done it for me.
Which points to the fact that people can see anything in anything. Are we supposed to be *that* sensitive as designers as to be aware of anything people might see in our designs. As was mentioned above, art is in the eye of the beholder.
On a similar note, are images of burning buildings and firemen now off-limits everywhere because of what happened on 9/11? Could we not make "The Towering Inferno" in today's climate. Maybe not, but "Die Hard", or any other movie that shows a burning building?
Sure, that day "changed everything", but at some point we have to stop using it as a crutch and grow stronger in spite of it. (And I believe it can be argued as to whether we are doing that now. If we have to use "9/11" as an excuse for everything (and that is being done), then we haven't grown past it.)
Anyway, I don't find the D414 site offensive just because it shows a generic burning building, not matter how much people read into it. Maybe the designer did have the Towers in mind, but just as likely he didn't. I find it much more offensive that people (politicians mostly) exploit 9/11 by constantly bringing it up as an excuse, or explanation (it changed everything, therefore!), or having conventions on site, etc...
I'm sure these designers think they're being 'provocative' and 'edgy' or transgressive in some important way, but they should realize one can be distasteful and callous in a way that isn't transcendent in any manner, but is simply distastful and callous. I'm sure the Australian Front designer wishes he could be "as deadly" or powerful as a terrorist, and I read the work as frustration at his own professional impotence. The D414 stuff is just vile and stupid, the work of an unthinking mind.
Ditto.
Max,
I was not aware of the context, and found it relevant and appreciated.
joshua,
Well said, and now I am left wondering if I would have seen the same thing had Greg not mentioned anything? Well, I most likely would never have seen the site, in reality...
Ethno-centric corporation loving americans urk me more then you guys know and despite this fact I think the Australian Front's design was out of line. Comparing people dieing in the world trade center to comerical artists who work for corporations is rediculous. Even if you can make the connection of western opression through corporate greed in relation to death or terrorism, it is a difficult and complex comparison that has to be made and I highly doubt the person who made this ultra-trendy photo trulyunderstands the connection. I say this because it is a probably an art or graphic design student who has little background in history, world religions, macro-economics, world politics, and other complex subjects which are needed to understand this matter. And if he did truly understand he would realize that using art as a means of hate towards a group of people is socially irresponsible, thus in turn making him the "terrorist."
All that is in vain though, because I agree completely with Mike's post above. Just some ignorant kid, perhaps he will get it someday.
Honestly, upon giving it more consideration, I believe my reaction to the D414 design was very influenced by Greg's suggestion, but also to be very fair: Their use of that sort of metal grid as the remains of the building was huge in connecting the dots, as I suspect it might have been for Greg. It was hard to avoid those images for a while, assuming you even wanted to. I did for the same reasons I don't appreciate the zeal over the supposed historical and global importance of 9/11: I didn't need to be told how real the problem was. The fact that 9/11 happened is the new message, and to me it read, "Wake up. Check yourself. You are not untouchable, and you know that these aren't the only people with _reason_ to resent you in a major way. P.S. I am a religious fundamentalist psycho and a murderer."
Dave,
That FriendsterPimp stuff is pretty funny. Your thoughts about the requisites to understand how corporate greed might and does have adverse effects upon varying sectors of life are questionable though.
This is getting off on yet another tangent, I realize this...
But the point is that greed, deprevation, exploitation, suffering, retaliation... these are not complex subjects, and by living life we all figure out the relationships between such things fairly quickly. Surely enough though, we learn different ways of viewing and even denying these relationships, and therein the complexity is created.
Not trying to spam, so if I'm not appreciated, let me know but...
I just thought it interesting to note that what I just talked about applies to Max's point about what we see in that imagery.
I think most of us could agree on something like the following: tragedy, fire, destruction, firefighter, rescue, etc. Basic concepts.
Due to certain exposure and suggestion though, suddenly the combination of the right versions of those concepts equated 9/11 to somebody. Or at least enough to cast light on the very real, lasting emotional response it has indeed created, for better or worse.
Thank you for detailing Seth, I'm with you now. When I wrote "it all started that day", I was more talking about the ongoing changes of how americans are dealing with their public security, not about the consequences of the white house ripping off some countries. My dad wasn't born when this started. But I'm sure you agree with me that everybody's been a lot more paranoid since 9/11. The "people", the average Joe, was not as aware of these threats on the US before. The public opinion on terrorism really shifted on that day, everybody knew about Ossama that day. We've been through several bombings from extremists algerian organisation FIS in Paris, so yes, we knew about all these guys from a long time. 9/11 is a change of scale and methods.
You can be over it yourself (and good on you for this), but its representation remains meaningfull in our western countries cultural context, wether by words, images or soon to be architecture. I've seen a movie the other day and there was this traveling on Manhattan, and the 2 towers were still there. Well, I hate as much as you the excess of drama made on this event, but I can't avoid a shiver on my spine when I see that, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
Joshua, I think it's our designer's responsability to produce work that won't "hurt" sensibilities. We have to be aware of our client's clients culture and respect it in what we produce. Cultural errors can cost a lot. I wouldn't use a svastika as a logo of an idian food restaurant, even if it's an old symbol in Indian culture.
What hurts in D414 is also the background image behind the fire man. Did you see it ? If yes, did you see pictures of ground zero (Greg posted a link up there). If you can't make a relation between them, please explain why. To me it's like the nose in the face.
I had never seen that photo before. Nor anything resembling it, but then, I still didn't see the resemblance even when Greg pointed it out as the kind of thing he saw represented in the d414 imagery. As I stated earlier, I was a little busy after 9/11, so maybe I missed out on the immense overdose of emotion-laden imagery that some of you appear to have endured
I'm not trailing flame-bait here, I just want to let some of y'all know that your experience of 9/11 is not wholly inclusive. There are many other possible experiences that were drawn from those events, and that is not necessarily a bad thing
I don't think either is directly attributing itself to that event. Those don't look like buildings in the INfront plane, and the firefighter thing is far too generic to be considered as such. I think, as someone has stated before, that these events have caused some people to be overly sensitive to such things. It's sort of like when you get a new car. Before you got it, unless it's a Ferrari or something, you never see anyone with that car but when you drive around in it suddenly everyone has that car. For some people these events are more real than for others. I have no connections with NY except an ex-girlfriend that I'm not in touch with, so those events are completely foreign to me. I'm outraged that it happened, don't get me wrong, and I regret never seeing the WTC before it was senselessly destroyed, but it doesn't affect me as much as a person who has family in NY, or who lives in NY. So maybe this is why I don't get that feeling from either of the designs.
That said, the Australian design group should've known better. Though I don't think the "buildings" look like buildings, I do think it's just a little uncouth to include the word terrorist, or the phrase "I am a weapon" in such a design. I have but one question. If those corporate identities are there to display all of the evil in America, why is there an Apple log and the Olympic Rings? Those are two things I would keep far away from evil, not to mention that Apple isn't that big as far as Silicon Valley corporations go.
Joe,
The Olympics have become very commercialized recently, to the point where it seems that they put the money they get from sponsors before the actual athletes. In effect, you could say that it turned evil and corporate and that's why it's included there.
Shouldn't we try to get the artists who made the sites comment on their influences and the messages they were trying to convey? It's only fair that they be able to defend themselves (I don't feel that they should, but I'd be interested in what they have to say about all this commentary).
Honestly, I really do not see this as being a huge, important issue. It may be distasteful to a large degree, but I think we can all pretty much agree that distasteful imagery, speaking, and all-around attitudes towards people and ideas about 9/11 have been occurring since the day it happened. I was slightly offended by the INfront's use of "art", but honestly, we can drone on and on about it. I don't think they meant disrespect by it, but that's just one man's opinion. There are bigger, more distasteful fish to fry. I'm not saying these designs are right or wrong in terms of respecting those who died or had their lives torn apart by 9/11. Maybe directly after 9/11 it would have impacted me more, but through the years I've grown a little callous to the entire situation; mainly because I was an outsider to the situation, even though I was an American.
Just my 2 cents. Well-written responses by most everyone, may I add.
I like a lot of the points made against my points. Maybe I'm rationalizing my views because I have to work with these companies to create branding and advertising for them. I will have to think harder about some of your points.
For the record, I always take the underdog approach and purchased the Mac, shop for groceries at our co-op, but I see SOOOOO many people doing it for fashion.
I do wish more people were a bit more civil though. I'm not attacking anyone for their beliefs. I believe if someone finds something offensive and has a valid point like Greg then it is a bit weird that someone has to make an argument that basically says, "get used to it because it happens all over the world." It sure doesn't make 9/11 any less painful.
And I think Adam Greenfield's main point and mine is that no one is forcing you to get on the corporate pig and dance. There are alternatives. We Americans had no choice in the hands of terrorists. I wouldn't have minded if the terrorists would have changed plans and worked for Starbucks. I'm allergic to coffee anyway!
Seth, I think alot of these matters are very complex. People like to simplify things to greedy is bad and selflessness is good but then they must realize they are judging on the Judia-Christian value system. And using a utilitarian view point the concept is flawed because is assumes that denying people money or resources correlates denying them happiness. From my travels in China and other less comerical countries, I find that it is the media of our "advanced" societies which help us make this connection, and I have seen many deathly poor people in China who are happier then rich americans, who have to take medication daily to remain happy. Or perhaps we could look at it from Sade's or Nietzsche's point of view and really complex matters.
Basically the concept of "corporate greed" negatively affecting the rest of the world is relative but using an incident where human lives were loss to help raise your personal hipness is, well, ....
Part of the motivation for design-for-design-sake (which is the currency Australian INFront trades in) is to provoke and stimulate discussion.
Good design doesn't have to be pleasing, nor does it have to placate its audience. It can as easily invoke bitter feelings of disgust as it can feelings of joy. The point behind good design is that it invokes some feeling and stimulates some discussion.
And given the discussion and feeling on this site alone, Australian INFront did a damned good job of it.
PHEW! I just read everything people have posted up to this point. People seem to be intellectualizing this quite a bit, which in my opinion is a bit of a mistake in discussing why they either like, dislike, or are neutral to this piece.
I was a highschool senior when I for some reason flipped on the TV at 8AM (I almost never watch TV, let alone before I begin my day). I was shocked. I had obviously never seen anything like this before (someone mentioned earthquakes, floods, etc... as a comparison, which while those events are tragic, they don't involve the sheer HATE that is necessary to perform an act like this). WHAT I'M SAYING IS I HAD NEVER BEFORE SEEN THIS LEVEL OF HATRED AND THIS EVENT IS NOT INGRAINED IN MY BRAIN AS AN INTELLECTUAL THING, IT'S ENTIRELY EMOTIONAL.
I then look at an image that says "I PILOT a weapon, I am a hopeless commercial artist." Pilot, you don't Pilot a mouse or a brush. You pilot planes.
I don't believe that reason dictates why we do or don't like things, I generally believe people find reasons to explain their emotions.
So the reason I dislike this piece is because it puts me in the pilot seat of the plane that killed 3000 people. To me it says, "You're responsible for the most horrible, hateful, (insert adjective), event you've ever witnessed."
After reading these posts, I am not as pissed as I was, but I will NEVER LIKE this piece.
To those commenters who say that these two sites are unrelated to 9/11: you are wrong. The building behind the fireman is quite obviously the bit of the Twin Towers that was still standing for a while. And on the Australian site, the two rectangles, one of them sliced, are the iconic Twin Towers just as everything in that plane is a familiar icon.
That said, I don't find either of these hugely offensive in comparison to what has become mainstream debate within the US about 9/11. I know Americans who hold down jobs and have mortgages who consider it feasible that the US Government attacked New York and Washington to, I don't know, justify invading Iraq for the House of Bush's oil interests and/or Cheney's Halliburton and because a cabal of evil Jews manipulated them into it and whatnot.
I'd go one step further than that. Yes, the Australian designer is unfriendly. He's buying into the whole anti-capitalist anti-globalization schtick by denigrating logos, and he is mixing up the Twin Towers with these other logos as if to say that 9/11 is just another banal American brand designed to turn you into a robot consumer of things American.
But the D414 is obviously flattering, a tribute, to American culture, and yes, American culture now includes 9/11. To me this is not too dissimilar to Marvel Comics having a Captain America during WWII, when many real soldiers really died. It seems to me that the spirit in which something is done bears somewhat on how to judge it. Marvel clearly was not trying to denigrate WWII with Captain America; probably the opposite, and the only way it knew how. The D414 seems to fall within this category.
More than that, it seems to me this graphic helps keep alive the memory of that bit of building that was left standing. We don't get to see it that often; I can't remember last time I saw an image of it.
Anyway, for some rather more sustained thoughts: Daniel Doneson wrote Snow White, The Ambassador, and The Aesthetics of Death in Azure Magazine about the episode of the Israeli Ambassador to Sweden trashing an art installation of a Palestinian suicide bomber's picture on the sail of a toy boat in a pool of red-dyed water.
"Seth, I think alot of these matters are very complex. People like to simplify things to greedy is bad and selflessness is good but then they must realize they are judging on the Judia-Christian value system. And using a utilitarian view point the concept is flawed because is assumes that denying people money or resources correlates denying them happiness. From my travels in China and other less comerical countries, I find that it is the media of our "advanced" societies which help us make this connection, and I have seen many deathly poor people in China who are happier then rich americans, who have to take medication daily to remain happy. Or perhaps we could look at it from Sade's or Nietzsche's point of view and really complex matters.
Basically the concept of "corporate greed" negatively affecting the rest of the world is relative but using an incident where human lives were loss to help raise your personal hipness is, well, ...."
I really wish people would stop drawing connections between things I said that aren't there, and I wish they would also stop assuming incorrect things about my views, especially considering their statements are contradicting statements of mine right here in this entry.
...
Cripes... did I say corporate greed is THE bad thing in the world? Did I say money = happiness? And once again, did I defend these half-assed designs?
No! Go read for yourself! (Assuming it can be done...)
Honestly...
That was a tad overreactive for my tastes. Sorry to add that little bit more to the noise.
I'm watching the video for "Imagine" by John Lennon right now, and... :)
Well I wouldn't have associated those vertical bars in the Australian InFront page with the world trade center I it hadn't been pointed out to me. I do interpret the image as a comment on the USA's habit of waging unrestricted economic warfare on its allies and the economic hardship and economic devastation it has caused.
Maybe it isn't in the scale of 9/11 but it *is* government sponsored terrorism.
The point behind good design is that it invokes some feeling and stimulates some discussion.
Respectfully, that is not the "point" of good design. Good design is about communicating, clearly. It's all too easy to be provocative and stimulating. It's easy to shock, just choose the thing that is most shocking for today's menu. Delivering a presentation of ideas or concepts which adequately express the weight of appropriated content would be good design. Less than that is simply sensational, which in the end, isn't very interesting at all, but all too typical and crass. Easy, ultimately uncritical of anything, single note, empty. When something so poorly executed also manages to deeply offend then there's really not much value there, transgressive or banal — in the end, it's just depressing.
Max, I shouldn't have jumped on you like that and I apologize. Some of my friends have me riled up about comments and how they work or don't work.
This comment thread has to be the most heated in Airbag's history and I think a tad overreactive (present company included) than most comments I've seen on any other website. In a way that makes me feel good because it means, at least I hope it does, that most of you are thinking for yourselves.
And maybe the average Airbag reader is a free thinker but I appreciate that so many of you have dropped your lurking habit to chime in and add your two cents.
Greg: That's all it takes to get us to stop lurking and start talking... say something controversial. Good times, eh?
Thibaut: Yes, as a designer part of my responsibility is to not hurt sensibilities. I agree wholeheartedly. But of course it's a wavy line. No I wouldn't use a swastika in a design, or would I? I live in Japan, and they're all over the place. It's the symbol for a temple. Always has been. Hitler co-opted it. And that's another reason to hate him: now this once peaceful symbol is to some people a sign of hatred.
But how do we get over that hatred? Maybe one way is to reclaim the symbol. As is done here (but I don't think it's necessarily a conscious decision here). As is done when black Americans took back the n word.
As will, and should, be done with 9/11 and the towers. Now reclaiming imagery doesn't mean putting it in advertising, or using it to further your opinionated point of view. Which, IF D414 had done, I would be against. Just like it makes me sick the new ads out now by the Progress for America Voter Fund 527 that blatantly use 9/11 images to claim that Bush is more patriotic than Kerry. Disgusting. Anyway, I'm veering...
Darren: Actually, the point behind good *art* is that it invokes some feeling and stimulates some discussion, not design. Design conveys a specific point of view. Art should inspire. And that's the thing here. People are reading their point of view into these designs.
Not to be too repetitive, but it's just a burning building. Do I see a resemblance? Sure. Would I have had Greg not pointed it out? Maybe. Could the designer have used a wooden house with flames, instead of steel building girders with smoke? Of course. But there's only so many ways to show a building on fire, or destroyed, and I'm sure people would read into 90% of those ways.
The final thing to consider is audience. I'm not sure who the audience for D414 is, but probably not American. Sure 9/11 was global, but maybe that image invokes something else to its intended audience. Just like the swastikas over here in Japan, imagery can have multiple meanings.
Damn the internet for destroying all boundaries. :)
Yes Joshua, design is very context related. Just like manners or every form of communication. I was amazed by the reactions of the ladies over here (NZ) when I kissed them (twice !) on the cheeks to say hello, as a french gentelman does. It was pretty funny actually, but I stopped as I found that most of the time it was making them uncomfortable. Damned.
So, yeah, back to design and context. To my point of view, time will make the context evolve, and the interaction between the two in the same time. I trully hope that we'll be able to look at 9/11 like we can look at the Berlin wall as soon as possible. With respect, humility and the feeling that the pressure's gone.
"But how do we get over that hatred? Maybe one way is to reclaim the symbol. As is done here (but I don't think it's necessarily a conscious decision here). As is done when black Americans took back the n word."
I guess that the chosen project to be build on ground zero aims in that direction. I was more for leaving the place blank of any building, but now I think it will be better to have a suggestion of the two towers. It's more positive, that will help. That being said, I'm pretty sure that on the 9/11 of 2064, we'll still feel a bit strange.
Looking at Australian INfront's splash page wasn't all that bad to me at first, because I though it might be an artish site, a la Adbusters. When I realised that he was just another web designer trying to get work, the "sell me sell me sell me" line suddenly became his actual desire for me, in which case the creator simply has fallen inside his own ideas about irony. It's not ironic if you're doing the very thing against which you appear to be railing; it's just ugly.
D414 is just plain retarded, an exercise in stupidity and vulgarity.
-Seth
"Your thoughts about the requisites to understand how corporate greed might and does have adverse effects upon varying sectors of life are questionable though."
I took this as you saying that their are no requisites needed because this connection is so obvious. Thus the lenghty explanation, I was not attempting to put you down, just explain my point.
I don't think even Americans, in their supreme arrogance, can think that they have a monopoly on tragedies and the imagery of burning buildings.
I think pointing out someone's intentions with a particular design without having first spoken with them regarding the issue shows a serious lack of due diligence on the part of the author. I have always been a fan of Airbag and a fairly regular reader, but the statements made in this post are largely based on a one dimensional view of the issue. Perhaps the designer of D414 site is unaware or the colorations that are being made here and are simply trying to present "emergency rescue" as the sites brand. Personally, I do not see the twin towers burning in the background. I see a building, which could be any building, which has had a "disaster" and the firefighter (in no way marked as NYFD) as the "hero" there to save the day. Perhaps you might have contacted the designer in question before you criticized their ethics and organization in such a public forum and manner. This accusation is a stretch by any definition.
The other day I went out to lunch with two good friends and volunteered to drive. Walking towards the parked cars they both stopped in front of a Volkswagen Jetta which confused me because I drive a Passat. When I asked what they were doing they both replied that they thought it was my car. I pointed out that the car I drive clearly looks different from the one they were standing in front of. It's bigger, has more and larger windows, better rims, it's even styled differently. It wasn't like I just bought this car or like they hadn't been inside several times a month for the last year. Still they insisted there was nothing different about the two vehicles.
I suggested that either they had to be joking or they each suffered from some brain disorder that rendered them inept to seeing design. After a laugh they both agreed that it was likely the later and naturally I concurred.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that this aesthetic mental incapacity is not unique to my two friends in Orange County. If you can't see the similarities I can't make you, nor will due diligence, heroin, or a McGriddle help you but that doesn't mean the similarities are not there.
You see something that, by your own admission, may or may not "be there"--you see it, I don't. I suppose you can lump me into the "aesthetic mental incapacity" group because I don't see the strong direct correlation you see ( so I must be in the wrong right off) , but that doesn't satisfy the question. However, I suppose the owner of the site might have been able to do this for both of us--had the owner been given that choice. All I am saying is that this is a pretty strong accusation to present to your readership without being sure you are right.
Greg: Most people here didn't say there weren't similarities. Many (myself included) said that they may not have seen them had you not pointed them out, but not that they didn't exist. Even more so, many said they doubted the similarities were intentional, as you seemed to suggest in your original post.
Yes there are similarities, just as the image could make someone think of any tragedy involving a building and disaster: OK City bombing, Chicago/Peshtigo Fire, SF earthquake...
http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/04/18/italy.chronology/
Just because 9/11 was the most recent, and arguably biggest, of these tragedies, doesn't mean the designer intended, or expected, you to connect his design with such. Maybe he should have thought of this, but as has been stated many times, he comes from Eastern Europe, and quite likely had a different series of thoughts when creating this work.
Again, who knows what his intentions were. I'd have to agree, the best course of action would be to ask him. Maybe I'll do that...
A lot of you people should read up on the war in (ex-)Yugoslavia (Croatia was once a part of that state, as was Bosnia, Slovenia, etc). It lasted a couple of years, lot's of people were masacred (as part of ethnic cleansing). By contrast 11-9 was contained to a day and +/- 3000 people, it almosts pales in comparison.
(not to say they both aren't dreadfull of course)
The thing that I noticed in this discussion: most Americans just aren't 'over' 11-9.
Also, linking to the D141 site from this posting is highly suggestive. What would you have seen in the Fireman and burning structure after, say, Tchernobyl?
The picture on the D141 site is a photoshopped still from Irwin Allen's 'The Towering Inferno'. The pixel at 518,232 is actually, and obviously, Fred Astaire---"If you can't see the similarities I can't make you, nor will due diligence, heroin, or a McGriddle help you but that doesn't mean the similarities are not there."
Hi,
Just to put at least some closure on the issue, I contacted the site owner to get his view. I suppose posting here seemed a bit intimidating given the nature of the comments made; however, in an email to me the owner did say:
"The idea of this website is to promote design in another (different) way. A concept such as Firemen Station. So D414 is created as design station. We used everything what is part of Firefighters life. We used fire exits Sign (exit from site); fire extinguisher (as main tool for rescues), hydrant (as great help in extinguishing the fire) ...
As background screen we used extinguished building wreck, a lots off smoke, Helicopter ... Firefighter holding victim of recent fire. The idea wasn't To associate at WTC, but any building."
I'm one of 6 members of Australian Infront, and first off let me say - wow. It would be appreciated if this site owner had contacted us first about our splash page, rather than simply writing this beat up, without getting both sides of the story.
Secondly, to address the 'hypocrite' comment - Australian INfront is made up of 6 people as I mentioned, I am a .NET developer so obviously I would use it for INfront. How is that hypocrisy? I would use another term: Freedom of choice.
I am the pilot of this expression. My name is Dom Bartolo, I am 29 years of age, and I work professionally as a designer director.
Many of you have expressed your opinions of the splash page I created just 13 days ago on the Australian INfront site. I have found all of your points of view intriguing and ultimately valuable. I hold the notion of forum, discussion and debate in high esteem and I am great full for the opportunity to share my own thoughts with you.
Before I talk about the work I created, let me first clear up a few things about The Australian INfront. We are not a business as some people have alluded to. We are a non-profit community website which aims to promote Australian art and design to the world through the documentation of visual projects. INfront is a part time project, and it's roots were earnestly founded by magical 'youthful exuberance' in 1999. We run a series of visual projects which are open for all to take part in (view visual response projects and visual dialogue projects) which we hope explore and further visual communication. At present we are developing a national project with World Vision, to raise community awareness. We have a healthy forum and actively post community news, personal and professional sites. There is a shop on the site, where we sell t-shirts to raise funds for community drink nights, competition prizes and give aways. For me, INfront has always represented a place, a home, where I could exercise my artistic ideas.
Offensive. Disgusting. Hateful. Fearful. Contemptuous. Ugly. Trashy. Tasteless. Hypocritical. Trite. Callous. Frustrated. Exploitive. Inept. Misguided. Banal. Depressing. Questionable.
These are some of words taken from your posts which were chosen to describe the work I created. I sincerely can't agree with you more. These are among many of the feelings and thoughts which coursed through my mind when I made this piece. This work is a direct expression of my mood and it comes as no surprise that it communicates these things.
I am entirely frustrated by my professional impotence. What I do for a living saves no lives. It doesn't make the world a better place. I just fuel consumption. I am depressed by the realization that my life's work aids nothing but corporate communication and sales. I AM socially impotent. As a commercial designer, I do little to forward society. I add very little to the fabric of our culture. If anything, I clutter it with more mixed emotions of desire and want. The splash page I created is meant to be questionable. It is a question. It is my frantic exclamation. I feel contemptuous, exploitive, banal. You can buy me, and my ideas. I am a whore for your corporate dollar. I feel ugly. I am desperate. It disgusts me. I am offended. I feel reckless, like I should know better, and yet I continue to assimilate and do nothing about it. I am a pilot of my own destiny. I am the one in control. And yet I pilot myself on a course which is ultimately self destructive. I am guilty. I've worked on big brands. I felt like trash. I feel exploitive and exploited all at once. I am misguided. I am a hypocrite. I love my mac, my Radiohead cd's, my Adbuster on my desk, my mind on my money and my money on me. I am such a walking contradiction. I tastelessly live a life of luxury and ignore all that which suffers around me. I am callous, inept and trite.
I witness atrocity and sip my caffe latte. It's horrible and I am moved, yet I am stationary. Action-less. The social panorama of our daily lives is a sales line. Just do it. Just buy it. It's a television show. An exclusive! It's LIVE. It's 9/11. It's the war on terror! It's all so clever, it's all so public. It's unbearable. My consciousness is flooded by a vista of corporate clean lined emotionally bankrupt symbols. Heck I craft them. I polish them. I labour and toil about them to the point of obsessiveness. I covert that which I detest. I am delusional and hopeless.
These are the emotions which stir inside me. It's not the first piece of work I have made which addresses these thoughts. And I'm sure it won't be the last. Again, thank you for the opportunity to discuss my thoughts and indeed for the opportunity to hear your opinions.
sincerly
Dom
We ALL can make a difference and ANY form of catalyst which instigates discusson on these matters is in my books - a good thing.
How you interpret the design is up to you, but in all honesty how can you condemn an image that prompts people to think about the wider picture and how thier actions could affect the current world climate.
I am regular poster at the AustralianINFRONT website.
Felix Balfour
I'm the founder of the Australian INfront and after reading all of these posts here I have to admit I was looking forward to reading Dom's post (I knew he would).
After reading Dom's post I have to say that I am just so happy to have met this guy and that he is a part of my life. He is hands down one of the most talented and passionate people I have met in this world and has always been there to help me to be inspired, to promote creativity, to ask questions, to have something to say, to have an opinion and to get involved.
As "full on" as some of your work is Dom... I love your work!
I think for most of you this has hit a raw nerve and is something you see and understand but cant change, or express. More than anything you are personalising the peice which is on Australian INfront, and it kills because you cant hide from the truth, and you cant hide the truth when you have no control.
The latter is something that the majority of us around the world are missing... CONTROL.
We have no control over our lives in so many ways because of politics and corporations and we are forced to live as hypocrits so often, and then someone attempts to face up to all of this and express their fustrations and they are slammed down by narrow minded individuals...
come on... this is one persons response to a colection of very scary issues and you are trying to remove ones right of freedom... the very thing that the corporations and politicians are doing... in fact they have zombiefied half of our population already into doing it for them which is very visable here...!
'Exploitive' is the way in which the US Government and these multi-national corporations are using 9/11 for their own purposes.
I think the Australian in Front image sends that message, I'm not so sure about the other image.
Mark - how would you say that Australian in Front is using the image for their own purposes?
I have been a regular infront viewer for 4 years and to me Doms image simply questions the morals of the designer. There was no confusion for me. It was a simple case of the infront site continuing to educating its audience (mainly designers) and teaching us to look at the bigger picture!
D414 is a different kettle of fish altogether. Its audience is on a corporate level, which makes the companies style and ethics questionable.
I must say, as a designer/artist myself I too feel all the sentiments Dom has raised in his reply. I have been an active contributor to Australian InFront for 4 years too, but I am not answering in defence of Dom simply because I feel in some way affiliated with Australian InFront (although I do). Rather, I answer because I feel that these issues of helplessness and hopeleeeness raised are much more widespread than many would like to admit.
Any thinking person with a conscience SHOULD feel that way from time to time, because we as a society keep the wheels of consumerism rolling. We, as the first world, are blinkered to the second and third world's problems, and are only shown a portion of the picture, as filtered through the seives of corporations who deliver us the information (see CNN etc etc). It is of their best interest to filter the information, because if they lose their audiences, they lose money. Can't show you everything that's happening because it may scare you inTO actually DOING something about.
I'm not trying to start a fight here, just saying that I empathise with the ideal expressed by Dom Bartolo's imge.
Regarding the Australian Infront page....
Curious, it could be posed that if America isn't paranoid enough, now their analysing design from other countries. Possibly too harsh on that first point, however it's all subjective. Seeing it weeks previously as a piece alone (without bias connotations from the original writer), I loved it. Most probably at the concern of the designer I printed a copy to which many people now remark on its clever thought provoking design. Being a design student I see as it as a well done piece of design work, it challenges my belief system and how I work, and makes me feel human for regecting consumerisim yet embracing it for livelihood.
America is not in a vacuum, people are hurting around the world, I empathise but not to the point where I would willingly gag our creative freedom. My question is: Is time and history the only factor when determining when art shoud be provocative? Degas, Mike Parr, too many to count.
Thankyou all for an engaging argument, if it wasn't so explosive I wouldn't have commented.
Relax.
Have been an Infront viewer for 5 years.
I love everything Dominic stands for!
Keep up the thought provoking design Dom.
I didnt make any connection between D414 and the 9/11 attacks. Firemen and women have been around for a long time!... So have burning buildings!.... oh and the helicopter... errr? I think you have read far to much into this.
I think that the fact i had to scroll this page for quite some time to get to the bottom realy says it all. It has engaged people enough to have an opinion whatever the stand point. It's goal - for people to use the brains and not just do as as there told. We are not sheeple.
One thing though design is a visual solution to a particular asthetical problem. When design has no function it becomes an expression - visual expressions, whatever the medium, is Art not Design.
I think that the fact i had to scroll this page for quite some time to get to the bottom realy says it all. It has engaged people ...
I think this is a crock. Offending people and engaging people is not the same thing. As I said in the first comment, it's all too easy to just make something that offends or shocks—it's a tried and true practice of art students since Manet. The creation of a work that offends does not guarantee any engagement or thinking, especially when the work itself is so single note and so lacking in depth in comparison to appropriated subject matter. It's all too simple and easy to offend and provoke heated discussion. Just say something controversial about Jews, Muslims, gay rights, abortion, the death penalty, etc. Loaded subjects provoke response—that's all—don't take this as a measure of the resonance within the work. Personally, I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that working with loaded subject matter requires an extra level of thinking and sensitivity. Addressing complexity with simple sloganeering seems to be just the type of thing that Dom is disgusted by.
All that said, I found his reply heartfelt and much more interesting than the work itself. All of us who are not starving and homeless reach an equilibrium where we can live our daily lives while others (not far away) suffer. Artists and designers (and most of society) are faced with the reality that they are not doctors or firefighters or life-savers on a daily schedule, but I think 'what makes the world a better place' is highly subjective. Personally, I'd be dead or in despair without art, music, design. It saves my life and brings me joy, even as I recognize I am one of the lucky few who can afford to enjoy these luxuries in today's world. If you're a designer, I think you're responsibility is make design better. Make communication more clear. Make the environment more joyful. Help the people who might be doing the work that you feel is significant, whether it be environmental responsibility or political action. Designers do carry tremendous power to deliver a message. If you feel impotent and frustrated then you're not working hard enough to deliver messages that hold meaning or to do work that breaks ground. Unfortunately I still see the logo-plane design as symptomatic of this shallowness, not a counterpoint to it.
"If you feel impotent and frustrated then you're not working hard enough to deliver messages that hold meaning or to do work that breaks ground."
Or maybe you are simply tired of working for the corporate monster that drives our society?
With all due respect, you have every right not to feel the way the designer does about his vocation, that is one of the freedoms that we do have. However, to dismiss as "shallowness" what appears to be a very heartfelt expression of an individual's very real frustration - and one that I for one can say is shared by more than just this designer - seems to say more about your acceptance - or lack thereof - of freedom of expression.
To say that it is "distasteful and callous" is really only showing your lack of thought and understanding of what was trying to be expressed. You chose to link the image with September 11. I chose to see the connection between western consumerism and the idea of the graphic design profession being the "plane" that delivers it to the masses. You chose to focus on the very small, abstract representation of the twin towers, I saw a montage of iconic images that very effectively conveyed the idea of "consumerism".
One thing I had hoped would have been learnt from September 11 is to try to have an understanding of other people's points of view. Even if you don't agree, to not condemn them simply for being "different", or having a different point of view. However, as some of the responses here have shown on a micro-scale, we're a long way from having progressed at all in that way.
Respect,
Dave
Dave, respectfully no. The audience gets to say "what's expressed" not the artist. The artist can say what he's *trying* to express, but my contention is that he's failed. Badly. I'm not calling him shallow (if fact his comment testifies that he's obviously articulate and deep thinking), I simply contend this work is shallow. While all things are subjective, I feel confident in the assertion that the artist made the link to September 11, not I. The "I pilot a weapon" phrase makes this point pretty unambigously.
I only critique (not 'condemn'—your word) this work as a poor work of art, which is needlessly offensive and which gets the only traction it can muster from its association with a sensational event. I'm not criticizing anyone's point of view, their right to have one, or their right to express it—I'm just saying I think this work is unfeeling and insensitive and callous and ultimately empty. It's provocative in the most shallow manner, despite the artist's intentions. And again, it's the audience that gets to determine what the message really is, not the creator ... as any designer should appreciate.
Ah, and yet again the p.c. zeitgeist raises it’s bloated and pulsating head above the sludge to rant and rave - to what end?
It confirms that humanity has and always will have it’s head stuck well and truly up it’s proverbial!
And so it would seem that in perpetuity, we wallow...
Tom, have you every considered that the merit of his work might be judged on an individual basis. I don’t agree with you, I didn’t find it offensive and I think his intention is clear. As it’s an artistic statement your opinion that it is wrong has no more justification that Dom saying his is right.
And if your talking about shallow communication then I would say that this article that YOU wrote is shallow because it provokes a response by attacking an artist. You made some strong statements about this individuals work and you didn’t ever bother to TALK to him first, ask for his side for he story. And in my OPINION that makes you a POOR WRITER.
And what’s the point of all this argument anyway? What do you want him to do? Pull it down? Destroy it? Hide his opinions? Or apologise for expressing his thoughts? Perhaps you would like him to change it so it fits in better with you ideology?
Lachlan, you must be new to the concept of a blog. The whole point of this place, this entry is opinion. It starts with mine and escalates to include others, including your little rant.
If you are seeking journalism, for that is what you accuse Tom of not providing, then I suggest you go visit a newspaper or magazine as you will not find it here.
No, what I was actually talking about was self expression (written and visual) it is no less wrong (or right) of me to criticise Tom to for his written expression than it is for him to criticize infront for their visual expression.
You say “The whole point of this place, this entry is opinion” have you considered that Infont is a place for Dom (and others) to enter his? So why is anything you write on this blog give automatic immunity to criticism but anything he produces is open attack?
And you wrong, what I said was not a rant, well no more so than Tom’s original post. And what exactly did you not like about my post to reduce it to a “little rant” I pointed out that Tom says that Dam’s