Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
But what happens to the artist in the world of commerce? Are the fruits of a purely
artistic inspiration marketable? Must they be altered? Is any change a compromise with
truth? Or can art adapt to the marketplace without losing its heart and soul? Within this last
question lies another: What happens when artistic inspiration becomes the origin of a com-
mercial endeavor? All of these questions play a pivotal role as consumer needs and desires
meet the artist's creative urge.
In my conversation with Andre Mohr, we talked about this conflict. Mohr's work puts
him at the forefront of digital design. He is Associate Creative Director at Frog Design, a
global design firm specializing in connected experiences that span multiple technologies,
platforms and media. Speaking with the experience of a career spent at the vortex of art,
design and commerce, Mohr said: “With the intersection of design and technology, [design-
ers] have an obligation to make technology approachable and useable because it touches
everybody's life... but as an artist I use my own tools and solve my own problems, and ar-
ticulate them my way… I don't have the constraints I would have in a commercial space.”
So on one hand, Mohr contends, the digital designer must act in the interest of the pub-
lic, or of the client who sells consumer items to the public. If consumers are going to buy a
digital product or service, they have to be able to use it. The designer needs to create meth-
ods to make this reasonably easy, even if the methods don't perfectly fit his or her original
artistic vision. On the other hand, the designer is also an artist. When freed from commer-
cial limitations, the artist's duty is to artistic identity—to one's own individual truth. This
is a truth based firmly in the artist's unique perceptions of reality.
Mohr witnessed this conflict even in his childhood. He was raised in a household with
a photographer and a photography stylist—practitioners of established arts where commer-
cial and artistic motivations often converge, and sometimes conflict. “While the creative
was there, the commercial world was never far away,” he recalls. “I dabbled in the creat-
ive space of everything growing up: drawing, graffiti, music.” Mohr's artistic ideas carried
him into the visual arts, primarily photography. His earliest professional work was with im-
ages. Visual arts have always had a strong technical side. A writer might get by with pen
and paper, while an actor has a costume and make-up, but the rest comes from within. A
visual artist creates a physical product that does physical things. Paintings, sculptures and
photographs capture color, light and shadow. The visual artist shapes, shades, and arranges
these to attract, repel and otherwise guide our eyes, just as a digital designer might arrange
icons, toolbars and dashboards on a screen. Mohr was creating his own visuals, and when
he entered the workplace, he brought the skills he'd developed in his art.
