Bill Cahan Roundup
Preliminary note: The videos have been picked up on Adrants, Airbag, Coudal, and Unbeige.
I have no pretensions that we're anything but Vanilla Land, and Bill Cahan is a unbelievably talented and respected designer. His lectures and essays have been enormously beneficial to me personally.
But when this hit on his website, well "people" felt compelled to respond.
My problems with Bill Cahan's video is that it is neither novel or creative, either in presentation or content. Yet at the same time preaches those exact virtues, and the "uniqueness" and "so different" nature of Cahan & Associates creative work (and it is). Lines like "never been seen before" or "never been done before" and "Why would you ever want to do the same thing?"
Right, with a shaky-camera short, posted on YouTube. Uh-Huh.
And the content of the short, i.e. the "tension" in the design world that he drives at, is that designers and creatives often feel like their work suffers because the client changes things, doesn't trust their judgment, or simply doesn't want to take what they perceive to be a "risk". I completely empathize with this sentiment: there's hardly a project that doesn't go out there door where there isn't some small aspect we wish we could have done differently.
But that's hardly a new insight into the design industry. It's been argued about, conferenced about (if conference can be a verb), and written about for decades.
I suppose the novel thing about Bill Cahan's video is that he had enough emotion and pretense to make a 3 minute rant about an exhausted issue the singular statement about his company on its website, with absolutely no irony.
That is novel. That is, I suppose, creative.
Design | By Josiah Roe | 03:51 PM
Comments
My first take on the video was to liken it to a published portfolio that was no more than a flip book of a middle finger rising up from a fist.
Posted by: stelmodad at January 5, 2007 04:55 PM
The video does nothing more or less than reveal Cahan for the pretentious poser that he is. What a load of absolute crap! And Bill, I'm sure it's news to you that you can't modify the adjective, "unique" as it means "singular" or "one of its kind" because to you, all of your work is so very unique, not to mention you, yourself, and you. And, oh, btw, we're also very impressed by the fact that you're cunt-struck by 22 yr olds, yet another "so unique" aspect of your character. Your success is only another confirmation that loud, self-important buffoons continue to be more obnoxious and visible than their betters. Get offa my cloud.
Posted by: lee at February 12, 2008 11:26 AM
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