Dissertation

CHAPTER 4
STYLE & DISPOSABILITY
However there needs to be eye-catching
impact for the passer by or the online
‘scroller’. Karen Jacobs (1994, 187) describes
in her essay, Disposability, graphic design, style
and waste that ‘...packaging on a shelf to be like
that of a “fashionable New York City club on a
Saturday night.” She is discussing the impact
of products on a crowded supermarket shelf
however this can be likened to a cluttered CD
rack, shelf of vinyl’s in a music shop or a digital
steaming service. The designer designs mostly
for how it will appear in a crowd, like that of
the people outside Jacobs busy night club.
The music industry is a competitive and fast
paced industry to work within. Jacobs (1994,
187) argues ‘...It’s impossible to look cool under
such circumstances.... as it becomes a cavalcade
of desperate new looks, new shapes and new
material... All of it is about catching your eye.
All of it us about catching your interest.’
Fiell and Fiell (2003, 410) agree with Jacobs,
‘...[graphic design] has become so much part
of the fabric of every-day modern life – from
breakfast cereal packaging and advertising
billboards to logos on clothes and television
identities – that often we register their codes
only on a subconscious level.’ An individual
or musician needs a graphic designer to form
a distinctive visual language from their target
audience to identify.
Karen Jacobs (1994, 186) states, ‘Style is the
most disposable thing there is. Graphic design
is largely used as a way of giving things style. It’s
about cloaking magazines, products... whatever
in newness... the main difference between those
old packages and the ones we have today is style.
Even the difference in the materials is related
as much to style as technology. Technology is
a style.’ We know Jacobs statement, ‘Technology
is style’ to be true as technology does directly
relate to the designers practice.
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