Stop, Think, Go, Do

Play adds dimension to design, enabling the viewer to

have more active participation in it.

PLAY

Here’s a fact everyone should know: design is play. Here’s a

command everyone should obey: designers must play!

Play is how we learn and teach others. “I use the term

play,” noted Paul Rand in Graphic Wit (1991), “but I mean

coping with the problems of form and content, weighing

relationships, establishing priorities.” He went on to assert,

“I don’t think that play is done unwittingly. At any rate

one doesn’t dwell over whether it’s play or something

more serious—one just does it.”

Rand’s last declaration, “One just does it,” is borne

throughout this entire chapter. Not a single designer repre-

sented herein was ordered to play. However, each was faced

with a problem that demanded solutions. Getting from

problem to solution requires a methodology—whether it

is tried and true or ad hoc, the common route begins with

trial and error, which is the first step in the play-principle.

Don’t confuse play with entertainment. Both are serious,

but play is, for the most part, for oneself—for the muse—

while entertainment is for others. Play comes first,

entertainment comes second. Still, to entertain is to play.

But to play is not always to entertain. Nonetheless, in this

section, all the playful examples are designed to be seen,

experienced, and appreciated by others. In this sense,

they are indeed entertaining. Yet they are placed in this

section because their primary function is revealing the

degrees, levels, and stages of play at work.

What else by playful fancy is the word home, constructed

in neon (page 80), or the word style (page 79) made

from venetian blinds—what purpose do they serve other

than a means of seeing how many different materials can

be played with that result in letters? These are not the

only experiments with form.

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Play is not, however, exclusive to surprising materials —

although surprise itself is endemic to play. For Guimarães

Jazz ’09 (page 91), the lettering announcing the acts follows

the contours of the stand-up bass giving the impression

the musician is both playing the lettering while conjuring

it from his instrument. The transformation of one

thing—lettering—into another—the essence of sound—is

a playful conceit that forces the viewer to experience the

otherwise two-dimensional design in many dimensions.

Play is also a transformation of one familiar thing or

object into another. Hembakat Är Bäst (page 87) involves

turning bread into the title of the cookbook. Similarly, an

entire alphabet was made from laundry (page 87), includ-

ing pants, shirts, and blouses. Going a playful few steps

further, Wearable Typography (page 86), are twenty-six

people wearing lime green shirts contorting their bodies

to look like individual letters of the alphabet (both upper

and lower case). Another example (page 86) that required

a platoon of double-jointed people, is an alphabet made

entirely from legs and feet—now that’s a feat.

The most recognizable example of playful graphic design

is not the contortionist’s tricks but the more intellectually

difficult parody of existing icons. DASH Courier Service

advertising campaign (page 99), sending up more famous

courier brands, is both playful and inspired. UPS

becomes OOPS, FedEx becomes FedExcess, and Priority

mail becomes Priority Fail (ouch!).

Twisting one thing into another is another essence

of play. Another cover for Metropoli (page 89) trans-

formatively parodies its own logo by making it from the

pages of faux books.

In each case, the play adds dimension to the work,

enabling the viewer to have more active participation

in the work. Without the playful aspects of design, well,

why bother?! “People who don’t have a sense of humor,”

admonished Paul Rand, “really have serious problems.”

stop, think, go, do

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Venetian

Client: ELLE Decoration Magazine (UK)

Designer, Typographer: Andrew Byrom

Venetian is a stencil typeface design

commissioned by ELLE Decoration magazine

(UK). It was inspired by the forms created

when opening and closing a venetian blind.

three : play

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