When you lift this book from the shelf, you immediately see its striking hot pink cover, devoid of title or authorship. The book gives no indication of what it is and instead offers fourteen impenetrable eyes staring back at you. It’s a bold move for a bold publication. Edited by Perrin Drumm, Eye on Design #05: Distraction is an arts and design magazine, offering a range of articles, interviews, profiles, and artwork with an emphasis on—what else?—design.
The magazine takes to heart Marshall McLuhan’s adage that “the medium is the message.” Given that the theme of the issue is ‘distraction,’ the editors of Eye on Design make a conscious decision for a maximalist approach. Following their prefatory manifesto, they make use of odd breaks and text size, fake ‘pop-up’ ads linking to other articles, vibrant page colours, different paper types, and so on. It’s visually abrasive by design and works perfectly for the ‘vibe’ of the issue.
When it comes to content, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, generally positive. The first piece in the collection is “All of the Lights: How Times Square became the glowing heartbeat of New York City” by Liz Stinson. The piece is (pardon the pun) illuminating, with footnotes giving specifications of how big ads must be, how bright, and so on: “Special Times Square signage requirement: There shall be a minimum of one #illuminated sign# with a #surface area# of not less than 1,000 square feet for each 50 linear feet, or part thereof, of #street# frontage of Seventh Avenue or Broadway” (15). It’s interesting to hear a bit of the history and the contradictions of the space, where ads are the attraction and where people stop to look, though theoretically targeted ads should be more arresting. The magazine format, perhaps, does not give sufficient space for a thesis to be developed from these observations, but I would like to have seen that premise developed further.
Madeleine Morley’s essay, “Hands on My Hard Data: Online pornography is designed for the ultimate money shot”, is compelling for several reasons. The essay is multifaceted. On one hand there’s a discussion of the economics of the pornography industry. On another, the essay explores pornography websites as tech innovators (e.g. subscription-based content models, online credit card payment encryption, etc.) Morley mines the subject matter for broader societal commentary, including a discussion of how “ Acts that used to be marginal—kink or subcultural—have grown instantly recognizable through online indexing” (30). The rest of that paragraph discusses the way the algorithm assures people that “no one is alone with her abhorrent desires, and no desires are abhorrent” (30). Then it highlights the contradiction of how so many types of people and preferences are not represented or exoticized in a harmful way.
But of course design is the primary purpose for the conversation. What appears to be horrible design of porn sites turns out to be extraordinarily effective: “the UX design of these sites keeps users clicking and abiding by the age-old rule of desire: The best way to keep someone interested is to keep them guessing” (27). Morley’s essay implies that the industry feeds an ever-fleeting sense of satisfaction, never being quite right or quite tailored to the user experience: impossible climax. Again I’m reminded of Jacques Ellul’s commentary on technology removing free choice for individuals. Morley writes, “In consumer culture, variety is the illusion of choice. It instills the belief that you’ll eventually find what you’re looking for. When you browse a store at IKEA, or the shelf of a supermarket, sheer overload implies that somewhere among it all you’ll find exactly what’s right for you. [...] Porn tubes function on this same seductive principle. By giving you so much—almost too much—to look at, you keep clicking and browsing, believing that eventually you’ll find your perfect clip” (27). Porn notwithstanding, this is a societal phenomenon. As one of my old high school teachers would say, “You have the choice between McDonald’s and Wendy’s—that is, no choice at all.”
Despite the terrible design, Morley’s thesis is essentially that the distracting layout, pop-ups, etc. promote a lack of satisfaction, meaning more time on site, meaning more time that they can mine your data. The most explicitly stated thesis of the essay is provided in its final lines: “If we define what is best by that which serves its specific purpose most efficiency, and if we agree that the purpose of a data giant is to create an interface that will distract users in order to mine them, then Pornhub’s ultimate goal is easily within its reach” (32).
Speaking of horrible design, another essay in the collection explores the “Acid Art” craze. Personally, “acid art” does little for me, but having a historical / sociological backdrop for the movement helps me to appreciate it. The art included reflects the conscious decision for clashing colours and unstomachable fonts. It’s subversive, which I always appreciate, but there’s a counter-movement that suggests maximalism will run its course like so many other trends. There are only so many possibilities. Emily Gosling quotes other artists strategically. Anja Kaiser “sidestep[s] the hallucinogenic connotations of the word ‘acid’” by saying she likes “the notion of visualizing in a biting and sour manner” (72), drawing on the subversive mode of 80s punk zines. Meanwhile, Hoppmann (Hugo Hoppmann?) “is skeptical about both the label ‘acid graphics’ and the dilution of the style as it has rocketed. ‘I don’t get really excited by it. For e, maximalism [can just be] lazy—just a lot of crazy graphics” (75-76). I really appreciate the way “Style Before Substances: A new, futuristic take on ‘acid graphics’ is well and truly here. But for how long?” gives an outline of some of these key questions in a balanced fashion.
In a slightly more strange balance, Perrin Drumm’s piece “Queen’s Quest: The world’s first graphic computer game designer is famous for all the wrong reasons” is a profile of Sierra co-founder Roberta Williams. It’s a nostalgic piece for me, having loved and adored Sierra point-and-click and text-based games growing up. I loved gaining insight into the rise and fall of Roberta Williams’ video game career. The weird part of the essay, though, is that after pages of aggrandizing Williams, Drumm then takes the final few pages to talk about how Williams is not the feminist icon people build her up to be. It feels strangely tacked on, inorganic to the rest of the essay. I understand Drumm’s point: rewriting history to be more positive than it was, like suggesting that the video game industry wasn’t profoundly sexist, can be harmful. I get it, but that was a separate essay to what was a compelling profile.
Claire Evans’ profile on Jaime Levy, “Picking Up the Cyber Slack”, was also compelling—though admittedly I have no familiarity with Levy’s work. Nonetheless it gives an excellent sense of her abrasive and subversive personality and the feeling of the 90s dotcom explosion. It offers a compelling case for Levy being a pioneer of the internet before the internet.
I won’t attempt to catalogue every piece in this collection. I’ll gesture towards a few of the short pieces that were nice but not quite incisive enough: there’s a conversation between three educators about the role of Instagram in arts classrooms, a piece about the emergence of selfies in art galleries, and a history of screensavers. Each are interesting concepts but needed, in my mind, a stronger angle or defence thereof.
Towards the end of the magazine, designers create art pieces reflective of their last 24 hours’ browsing history. There are some cool visualizations in profoundly different styles. One that most grabbed my attention was a wall of QR codes. Out of curiosity, I tried to scan a bunch of them—most went to Netflix and one went to a youtube link of “Bohemian Rhapsody”. I’d love to see that wall explode even further—a treasure trove or scavenger hunt: who knows what you’ll find?
The last piece in the magazine is a quiz in the style of 90s teen magazine vomit. I loved it. It fit the aesthetic perfectly and the humorous tone was well-delivered. It asks “What Kind of Procrastinator Are You” and offers sarcastic and humorous takes on our distraction-centered economy. It was a nice amuse-bouche (does it still count as an amuse-bouche after the meal?
To really get the full experience, Eye on Design #05: Distraction is a book that really must be seen and touched. The visual is at the forefront. The tactile, possibly influenced by Flair (there is a short essay praising Flair), sets the book as the material object it’s always supposed to have been. There are a lot of smart choices with this “distracting” text.
The compact 157 pages are a nice ride. There’s a fun diversity of content that can really expand some horizons and open up questions on design and its sociological ramifications. It’s pretty darn cool.
Happy reading!
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