It’s often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. In an information saturated world, the quickest way to convey the message is perceived as the best, and the immediacy of photography is often preferable to a carefully written statement. What few forms of written communication there are left are being eroded, or maybe streamlined is a better term, the nineties had text speak, the noughties had twitter. By the end of this decade all that’s left of the english language will be a series of punctuation marks drawn in your choice of coloured crayon.
Maybe I’m being too negative. Maybe all this blogging shows there’s hope for the written word yet. One of my favourite twitterers, @asburyandasbury a well known copywriter, ran the fantastic Mr. Blog site, a wonderful, irreverent collection of all the shops in England (and abroad) with Mr. in the name. Although sadly discontinued, it’s still available for perusal in all it’s whimsical, pun-laden glory.
But while I can think of this, and a dozen other, charming, witty and distracting examples of excellent writing, there seems to be very little critical design thinking. Where, in this age of instant access to limitless information, is the debate, the discussion and the reasoning?
Rick Poynor, in a CR Things to Look Forward to from a couple of years back, professed a hope that Design Criticism would be on the rise, thanks to new courses in MA Design Writing. Well I’m still waiting for the next wave of verbose and eloquent and other poncy adjective-armed designers to emerge, but I don’t think it’s going to happen any time soon.
I want to make a last ditch stand for the art of language, for the power of words, one of mankind’s greatest achievements. Written words may lack the visual, immediate impact of a stunning photograph or the intrigue of a beautiful painting, but in my, nerdy opinion, they possess a quiet power. Letters on the page, on the screen, are unequivocal, they are ultimate tool for the delivering of information in the clearest form we have ever devised. Word’s speak straight to the brain, the medium pretty much doesn’t matter, and so they allow the mind to create it’s own images, it’s own interpretations, expressions and creativity. I am proud to say that I can express myself so vividly using words.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words, well, they say so much more than a picture can convey.