In an age of ubiquitous good taste, where Helvetica is lauded as the zenith of typography, the notion of embracing ugliness so its own sake has a beautifully twisted logic.
You, with your ’striking’ photography and ’stark’ lines, your Swiss typography and monochrome palette — who do you think you are? There is something rotten in the state of design and its this fake idea of beauty. If you want to have impact, embrace ugliness. Be gawky, be young and uncomfortable, be stupid.
Worse still are those tedious sheeple with their bloody Bembos and fancy ampersands, their detailed leading and kerning, all seeking elegant transparency. Some foolish designers believe that design is like a glass — a mere receptacle for the content. You have different receptacles for different content (beer, wine, whisky, tea, coffee). These are people who have never lived! Never even drank a pint of whisky!
Mix things up, shake things down, rock the party, smash the system. Human nature is just a flaccid excuse for a load of preconceptions. Reshape your desires as you see fit. See the world in a different way. Hear the sounds that no man has ever seen before. Recreate. Display. Play.
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