Note: Last month, Media Inc. magazine asked us to write 1,700 words about the design industry in Portland for their annual Graphic Design issue. They printed an abbreviated version of the article, weaving it in with a view of Seattle's scene, as written by AIGA Seattle chapter president Wendy Quesinberry. The full version of the Portland piece follows. –Ed.
“Design naturally reflects the culture in which it lives," wrote Ralph Caplan in By Design, the author's written illustration of why things are. Within his chapter exploring the relationship between design and society, Caplan contends that design, as with architecture, is often measured by its exterior, rather than by the quality of its space (or the content) inside. He concedes that there really wouldn’t be a need for any exterior if there is something of great importance that we are driven to accomplish within.
I was reminded one rainy April afternoon that Caplan's central organizing thought was that every thing (and every place) is designed; be it for good or ill, whether seemingly considered or hurried and regardless of price. It was Tim Leigh, the Portland fixture (a writer, designer, crafter of handmade pens, and long-time partner in the agency Bronson Leigh Weeks) who was doing the reminding in this case, as it often is. Leigh is impossibly fit, in mind and in body, and his 60-plus years defies any logic suggesting that we as humans are designed to steadily recede in our later days. As had become our habit, the Driftwood Room at the old Mallory Hotel was our inside and was the place where we had often discussed Portland’s design legacy. On this day, however (and largely because the Mallory has ceded to her swank replacement), we held court elsewhere while discussing Portland’s current crown as a hotbed of creative energy; a preferred destination for designers, artists, musicians, chefs, authors, actors, pimps and potters. As I rushed to establish my line of thinking on this supposed new movement, he reminded me, yet again, that to a degree, it has always been this way.
The genesis of this place, which had in its early years been branded “the clearing" and later “Stumptown" was sprung from chaos by some sort of undocumented design. As in much of the West, settlers migrated from the East with ideas of their own, or, at the very least, came packed with thoughts and plans for what they envisioned their homes and their families to be. It was the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers that first provided the arrow pointing to here as the place for those early settlers to stop and drop. In 2008, Portland remains a confluence of chaos and order that has forged a city manifest recognized for its attention to planning and design; its carefully-considered urban growth boundary, a singularly visionary, yet uber-managed network of city parks, and a reputation for incubating the theories and practice of sustainability unmatched anywhere in the States. Yet in spite of that over-governed enthusiasm, we still lay claim to the greatest number of strip clubs, per capita (including Las Vegas!). Go figure. The unofficial city slogan, “Keep Portland Weird" and our well-funded, focus-group-approved plea to tourists, "It's different here" do well to illustrate the wonderful contradictory spirit which is Portland, a culture defined by coloring outside the very lines that are at once revered. It is the confluence of exceedingly straight and freakishly peculiar.
If you ask someone from Portland what they do, they'll likely reply, "I'm a gardener." Or "I make things." Or “I like to write little books." Rarely will the Portlander initially reveal, unless firmly pressed, what they do for a living; that they're an accountant, a pediatrician, an insurance advisor, or, as we’ve come to learn—a stripper. This lack of admission is hardly an issue of shame, or concealment, or sloth but rather a confession of personal architecture; in effect how people here are made: how they have designed and constructed their lives. A Portlander’s statement of purpose is simply different. What they do as it is defined in other places (in essence, what defines them as humans) is not about work, but about life. They come (and they usually stay) to make a better life, not make a better work. And yet in making the better life, the better work has shaped our culture and is again, being respected — even celebrated — beyond our borders.
To Leigh’s point, Portland has always been that way. The labels of accountant, pediatrician, and, say, graphic designer are just that; brands that are applied for the three-second elevator speech. (The buildings are still bit shorter here.) Our area is defined by what we’re doing and in many cases, it's about what occurs in and around this environment; those things that happen on the inside as well as the outside; observation, reflection, self examination, exploration. In fact, much of our most inspired graphic design work is not being developed by people who would consider themselves designers, but rather, refer to themselves as ponderers. Or makers. These are the chefs and the musicians, the hobbyists and gardeners, the students (of history, English, mathematics), the filmmakers, the beekeepers and the programmers. The accountants and the brewers.
At our roots, we Portlanders are a natural bag of non-joiners, eager to slash the binds of the oft-required post work cocktail party cleverly designed to discuss: wait for it… more work. As with the parties, our varied interests suggest that the labels seem somewhat limiting, and to a degree, even false. As designers, we’re also all of those other things, whether those other things have been fully decided or not. In one way or another, we’re all designing our next move.
The most celebrated precursor to our city’s current graphic design association, AIGA Portland, was The Designer’s Roundtable, a patchwork assembly of multidisciplinaries who first brought attention to what was happening in these parts within the loose context of design and advertising. Leigh was involved, of course. In fact, he was a catalyst of sorts. He and his old(er) guard refer to these idea-making gatherings with tremendous affection and lament their passing. All the while, we younger folks (if we even had heard they existed) can only imagine the debauchery and delight in hosting the world’s design luminaries at Sitka, near Oregon’s coast. Caplan was among the visitors from New York. Seattle’s Tim Girvin was another, as were countless others. Among the local regulars; Byron Ferris (arguably, the dean of Portland design), along with Dick Wiley, Peter Teel, Charles Politz, Arvid Orbeck, Ann Marra, Irwin McFadden, Homer Groening, Will Vinton, Robin and Heidi Rickabaugh, Joe Erceg, Frank Roehr, Abbey Anstey, Warren Eakins, Michael Duffield, Doug Lynch, Mark Norrander, Thom Smith, and the list goes on. And on. The society was testament to an anti-establishment framework for which a singular collection boasts so many makers of place. These trailblazers simply cannot be forgotten in the annals of Portland design and creative culture.
And today, we celebrate an industrial evolution which has put Portland squarely in the consumer’s mind thanks to our city’s cluster of industrial designers at Nike, Keen, Nau, adidas and Ziba, as well as the countless smaller lifestyle products manufacturers who are rethinking snowboards, skateboards, surfboards, sailboards, fleece and Gore-Tex. In the same breath, it is only responsible to herald the craft cheesemakers, comic book artists, small-cask spirits producers, publishers, shopkeepers and restaurateurs. They are all designers, and like the city’s original residents, they are literally making the content for which Portland is again being recognized.
For those of us displaying the self-applied label of graphic designer, we are continually revising the manner in which we conduct our businesses. We tend to refer to design, and more specifically, the blurred boundaries of graphic design, in larger terms. There are obstacles, of course. In Portland, the client base appears to be maturing with regard to the value of the services we provide. And at the same time, the corporate concern — for years, our bread-and-butter clientele — are fewer and farther between. Many of the Boards of Directors for Portland’s bygone corporate headquarters have been supplanted by the boards to which I referred earlier; the snowboards, sailboards and such. In their earlier days of course, those headquarters were the thinkers, the makers, and the innovators. But they have largely been consumed by those fatter entities that think more in terms of quarterly returns to increase shareholder value, than in sharing with those who hold ideas and place as their most important values.
Portland’s designer today faces the same basic issues as the designer of the past. Our very nature is about what’s inside as well as what is out. Collaboration, be it with supporting factions in our industry such as the writers, illustrators and photographers with whom we work daily, or directly with clients, cooks and engineers is going to be the confluence for the next generation of design for business. Social networking and new technology is forcing certain processes, while providing valuable throughways. But the work — and foremost, the quality of our living — remains rooted in idea-making and is consistently shaped by place. Our place.
At the national level, AIGA (formerly referred to as the American Institute of Graphic Arts) is addressing these issues and has gone as far as to "rebrand" itself. Now described (in ever-approachable lowercase) as the professional association for design, it describes itself as “the place design professionals turn to first to exchange ideas and information, participate in critical analysis and research and advance education and ethical practice."
It seems that AIGA has taken a page from our small corner of the room to understand what our profession, and what design, is really about. And it is in this place — this unique culture — for which we live and work to design. Naturally.