The Rise of the Michigan Design Community
By chad reichertFebruary 26th, 2008
I’m a transplant. I was born and raised on the southside of Chicago. Until I moved to Michigan 3 years ago, I didn’t know a tremendous amount about the state. Sure, I spent time at the beaches on the “west coast,” I knew that a place like Frankenmuth scared me and Detroit was a place that I thought I would never want to visit. I now work in Detroit and call SE Michigan my home. I commute downtown every day and live in the shadow of a city struggling to rediscover itself. To outsiders, Detroit is defined by high crime, misery (see Forbes) and a sinking automotive industry. To those same outsiders, Michigan is characterized by foreclosures and the mass exodus of unemployed individuals. Unfortunately, I have learned that most of these are accurate assessments. What I have also learned is that many of these characterizations can be applied to other states throughout the country. The difference is Michigan has done a better job of mismanaging their economy and a poor job of diversification.
Is there a silver lining in this otherwise cloudy state? Yes. What often gets overlooked is design and the role it has played in defining who we are as a state. Michigan has a robust history woven into the fabric of it’s existence. We are a state defined by design and innovation: Henry Ford and the assembly line, Cranbrook and the roots of graphic design post-modernism, Hermen Miller and furniture design, just to name a few. Although Hermen Miller continues to be a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy, Michigan is in a rut. Does innovation exist anymore? Many prominent firms are downsizing due to a reliance on the antiquated automotive industry. Agencies are outsourcing work to the east and west coast because they are want “cutting edge” solutions. Yet, we have extremely talented students graduating from some great local programs and entering a market that is not quite sure how to handle them. We also have a strong core of studios bleeding talent and expertise. What is it that’s keeps us from reaching new levels of innovation? Are we dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants unable to cast a new vision for ourselves? Why can’t we look beyond what we currently have and capitalize on our potential. Having just finished a book entitled “Good to Great,” the author Jim Collins states “Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice.” I realized after reading this passage that although he was talking about companies this philosophy could easily apply to a town, city or state. It definitely can apply to Michigan in general and Detroit in particular.
So my premise for this article is this: what can we do as students, educators and professional designers to contribute to the rise of the Michigan design economy and make design a powerful tool for economic transformation? How do we get people to stop and notice that Michigan design is still relevant and powerful? No, it’s not naive to think that our design community can instigate change, but I do believe that it will take the effort of many and the vision of a few for us to make our collective design voice heard.
The next question needing to be addressed is how do we get there? It would be an impossible task for me to tackle such a large topic in one small article. If I have one piece of advice to give, it would be to create opportunities. Let me explain. Like death and taxes, paying off student loans is inevitable. As higher education costs continue to escalate, students have to maintain one, two and sometimes three jobs to avoid a devastating amount of debt. Unlike other countries who recognize the value and the strategic future of design, the United States has not historically embraced it. Having traveled to the Netherlands the past couple of summers, it’s both inspiring and frustrating to hear that government grants are readily available for recent grads to pursue their work and develop their skills without the pressure of having to get a “regular” job. The benefit is two-fold: students are able to pursue jobs that wouldn’t normally pay the bills but challenges them as designers and allows them to develop a critical voice. In most cases they are also able to build a base of clients that sustain them after their government funding has dried up. Second, the government has invested in the students future. In return, the students stay and the government benefits from their expertise and money that is injected back into the economy. We don’t have the same options here, so we have to make opportunities. I encourage designers to seek out collaborations with like-minded designers and artists. Strength is in numbers. Looking to classmates who share similar ideologies and seeking out relationships with artists and designers that share a geographic proximity will not only be a practical networking tool but will motivate us to greater things. It’s not always easy to work a full day and then come home to begin working on other projects. But with motivation and a group of colleagues pushing you towards a similar goal, side projects sometimes considered cumbersome can quickly turn into inspiring initiatives that fund themselves and present new career options.
Another strategy is to start projects that benefit other individuals and/or organizations. Whether it’s donating your design fees to a local non-for-profit or creating your own projects with proceeds benefiting a worthy cause; design can become an ambassador for goodwill. It can also educate a general public that generally lacks a sophisticated design palette. It is not my intent to bash the non-design population, but it is a fact that design can be seen as an elitist activity that the public generally does not understand. This is our problem to fix. The more exposure we can generate the greater level of public design literacy we can achieve.
And finally and most importantly, we need to promote our design community. Even though it’s not a design organization, GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) is a great model for us to follow. It was founded by two twenty-something Great Lakes residents, as a multi-media documentary, networking, and creative research effort to encapsulate day-to-day experiences in “declining” post-industrial cities and answer the question: what’s right and what’s wrong about my post-industrial city? What would happen if we applied this model to our design community. We need to tell our stories but lack the effective mechanisms to do so. We need less pessimism, more optimism and people to step forward and make change. When expectations are low, impact can be high. Whether large or small, if we collectively work together we can begin to shift the design paradigm.
so we need to march for something.
“What is it that’s keeps us from reaching new levels of innovation?”
The believed dependancy on the automotive industry to drive the Michigan economy and the false presumption that the addition of Casinos in the city of Detroit will solve everything.
I think working collectively is key here. Maybe if we can take what we are doing beyond Detroit and find other associations with similar ideologies to create partnerships with we can help to foster a larger movement and awareness nationally. Also, with the developments downtown as the city as a whole is trying to redefine itself maybe local designers could make an active stand to play a more important role in the revitalization of the city and the way it is seen.
Interest.
But its an old record.
The people in Detroit could care less about
design, to them this is fluffed up nonsense.
Go knock on a door of a residence in Detroit..
See what they are doing, what they care about.
The people I grew up around never seen the
worth in design.
I’ve seen grown men cry, telling their son that
they don’t know what to tell them in terms of
direction. The High School I went to was
violent and didn’t prepare me for anything
beyond McDonalds.
Where I grew up is tore down. Those people
are trying to survive. literally.
Detroit, like,.. the real city and its populace
IS NOT prepared for the current reality, let
alone prepared to embrace it. Speaking on the
flow of talent coming out of the school is great..
But are they Detroit kids? Honestly, how many
of these kids are implants? Are they going to
stay in a city which they are not apart of on a
grass root level..?
What I’m trying to get at is the fact that the
PEOPLE,.. the meat of Detroit aren’t moving
forward. It seems to me that overall, they are
trying to survive. When you are worried about
the shitty job you have to work a ton of hours at
just to make ends meet, its hard to care about
things such as design. I’m not trying to be a
downer, but rather point at, what I feel is
constantly being glossed over, the people.
Without the natives on a positive, productive,
and progessive path then where is the
city going?
I am not a transplant. I was born and raised near Flint, Michigan. Growing up, I visited Frankenmuth almost every sunday with my father’s “German-proud” side of the family. My family visited Detroit for Tiger’s baseball and nothing more. When my high school graduation rolled around, I was the lone party heading 60 miles south towards, what many would consider, a less than desirable city.
Though Detroit has become definable by its many economical, social, and political inadequacies, the city has seen a prolific emergence of many local and grassroots organizations, devoted to the area’s revitalization. The success of these programs, which range from urban agricultural activity to utilizing bicycles as a means of city transportation, have little to do with top-down city-governed structures, and more to do with local, community driven initiatives. Indeed, “the vision of few,” and the “effort of many,” has enabled some major changes to materialize in and around the city.
So, can we follow this same model in the design community, as a way in which to bring awareness to our profession, and simultaneously posit it as a powerful tool for economic transformation? I agree with Chad, that the collaboration among like-minded individuals is essential. I would add to his useful list that members of the Detroit design community, (and yes that includes all of you participating in this blog), must begin to support and defend our city. We must position Detroit, not as a city stuck in its industrial past, but as an urban space who’s inhabitants are actively seeking and incurring change. I’m always surprised to hear that many CCS students rarely, and sometimes never, venture away from campus and into the immediate midtown or downtown areas. To hear students denounce a city that they’ve never actually allowed themselves to discover is quite distressing. We, the people who live, work, and go to school in this city, must begin to focus our attention to the good things Detroit has to offer and move away from the naive assumptions that surface all to commonly.
In response to MPREWITT….Yes, I agree that the general population living in Detroit may not care much about Graphic Design, (title-case intended). But I would venture to guess that you’ll find many people outside of Detroit who also don’t care much about Design, with a capital “D”. As Chad mentioned, our profession is all to often considered an elitist activity, recognized only by those who are designers themselves. Design, however, need not be elevated to this level, and shouldn’t be if it is to effect positive change on a local level. Design thinking can be used for many things aside from corporate identities, Nike graphics, and Hummer ad campaigns. Making design accessible isn’t necessarily about bringing upper-class, “fluffed up nonsense” to a poverty stricken area. Rather, its about using design, using the talents that we’re all learning, to bring about positive change in an area that could definitely use it.
I love Detroit. Sadly, however, I think I’m one of the few these days. There’s so much rich culture and so much “robust history” like Chad said… it’s not fair that it is so often overlooked by our generation. And I think that we, as young designers, don’t take full advantage of the powerful position we put ourselves in. We are the ones that communicate to the world, so let’s paint a positive picture of our city for the world to see. Things are so shitty now, it can only go uphill from here right?
I think that many underestimate the power of what design can do. As previously stated, ‘the people of Detroit’ may not fully understand or appreciate design, but they do have taste, personal preference, and the ability to differentiate between something that is poorly put together, or well thought out. Whether they acknowledge it or not, design does play an important role in life – even here in Detroit.
Long story short, a friend of mine decided to run for Highland Park City Council. Through out her life she has watched her surroundings decay, as the birthplace of industry evolved into the center of blight. As an active member of her community, and a retired professor, she wanted to become a stronger force in the fight towards the betterment of the community of Highland Park.
In order to promote awareness, and an interest in City Council, she enlisted me as her graphic designer and photographer. Since her election I have continued to stay involved with City Council and Highland Park.
At last months council meeting, the growing issue of illegal dumping in Highland Park was addressed. The Illegal Dumping Task Force presented a need to spread awareness and promotion for change. What was the number one goal of their whole presentation? To get the attention of community members. They were discussing the idea of billboards, posters, and a completely redesigned form of public trash receptacles that will stimulate the community to be active participants in their initiative.
There is in fact a great need for design here in Detroit, and people are noticing. The problem is that very few people within Highland Park know how to access the right designer for their needs, and even fewer individuals outside of Highland Park will ever hear about their need for design. As designers, we can find an abundance of people in need of our services; sometimes it just takes a little digging. I’ve experienced first hand the positive affect that well thought out design can have in the smallest of situations. Not everyone is taught to see design as we do, but I’ve discovered that the more we invest design into the community, the more aware of it people become.
Interesting story Megan R. Maybe GD could start a class or group or something that promotes these ideas people are bringing up, do some creative problem solving, pool resources, and bring about some action in the community.