Last weekend I was invited to participate in a small symposium/dinner at the N/A space in Toronto on the subject of “Critical Graphic Design”. Organised by Chris Lee and Patricio Davila, the dinner brought together a diverse group of (mostly local) designers, educators, researchers and activists to chat informally about what critical graphic design might be, with the goal of moving towards a series of workshops in the summer.

I was honoured to be invited amongst the numerous guests, which included a couple of old friends, a couple of design heros, and generally all people I’d like to get to know better: JP from Paper Pusher, Anouk from Studio Feed, Sheila from The Public, Abake, Michelle Champagne, members of the Beehive Collective, and many more.

It was a pleasure to meet everyone around a delicious potluck, and I was really excited by the prospect of this re-engagement with design discourse. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stay very long, and I wish I had had a chance to speak with people more in depth. Nonetheless, quite a few interesting ideas emerged from that night, and I’ll sketch a few of them out here.

• Does criticality imply a politics? It should. The range of participants there also spanned a broad (if “liberal-progressive”) range of politics. This isn’t surprising, nor a criticism, but given the current economic and political climate, I expected a bit more radicalism against capitalism and a little less “softening the edges” as it were from “critical” graphic designers.

• I’m kinda old and we’re still dealing with the same questions. Not that this is a bad thing, as they’re generally good questions, but I again realised how special Declarations was, and how privileged I am to have been a part of that discourse 12 years ago. I was both pleased and a little disheartened about the amount of common reference points that kept coming up.

• One thing that did actually irk me, was the return to the question raised by First Things First (not that it was mentioned) that basically boils down to making a living without selling your soul. I’m sorry, but this isn’t a problem unique to designers, it’s a problem for anyone “waking up on the wrong side of capitalism”. It’s a question of privilege and I think we need to move beyond it and actually tackle the question of graphic design itself, and stop worrying about our bank accounts and our consciences.

• Which isn’t to say that (immaterial) labour shouldn’t be part of the discourse, it should be central. The currents that are running through artist run culture might be a good starting point. Close to home, Nicole‘s work is a great reference point. It also made me think of the research I did back in January about the International Typographical Union, more on that soon I hope.

• Studio Feed does some beautiful (if apolitical) work. Which ironically leads me to thinking about aesthetics and how central they are to politics. I’m really thinking a lot now about the current trends in design, their reference points to previous “movements” and what this all means. For the first time in a while, I’m seeing (and noticing that I’m using) a really consistent set of design tropes. Why? And how can it be subverted?

• Metahaven are design rock stars, possibly the only critical design rock stars. Which again isn’t a bad thing, but I certainly wish there were some more out there, tackling a broader range of problems.

• At one point, Chris mentioned the idea of speculative design as a form of prefigurative politics. Creative fictions, fictional creation, or perhaps the anarchist notion of “living as if”. I really really love this idea. How to flesh it out?

• By making graphic design do things it’s not supposed to do? I’m thinking of critical graphic design as something that destroys itself to remake it anew. A vague notion for sure, but I think there’s something there…

Many thanks to Chris and Patricio for initiating this! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but in this instance, I wish I lived in Toronto. Hopefully the conversations will continue nonetheless.