Bierut on Design B.S.
From Design Observer’s Michael Bierut, a dead-on essay on the use of glib-unconcern-for-the-facts-based handwaving in selling design ideas to clients: On (design) bullshit.
Early in my life as a designer, I acquired a reputation as a good bullshitter. I remember a group assignment in design school where the roles were divided up. The team leader suggested that one student make the models, another take the photographs, and, finally, “Michael here will handle the bullshitting.” This meant that I would do talking at the final critique, which I did, and well. I think I mastered this facility early because I was always insecure about my intuitive skills, not to mention my then-questionable personal magnetism. Before I could commit to a design decision, I needed to have an intellectual rationale worked out in my mind. I discovered in short order that most clients seemed grateful for the rationale as well. It put aside arguments about taste; it helped them make the leap of faith that any design decision requires; it made the design understandable to wider audiences. If pressed, however, I’d still have to admit that even my most beautifully wrought, bulletproof rationales still fit Harry Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit.
I’m sticking this in the ‘business lies’ topic because I can’t think of anything better for it. But anyone who wants to suggest a suitable new topic to contain it is welcome to do so.
May 11th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
I’m of two minds on this stuff. On one hand I absolutely hate the aggrandizing, self-congratulating kind of bullshit that a lot of artists and designers engage in. But on the other hand, I think there’s a good use for the skill Bierut apparently has, if used responsibly.
I work with a guy who’s often criticised for his bullshitting tendencies, but is also very successful as an engineer interfacing with outside customers on complex projects. The form of bullshit he engages in is subtle. I’ve never seen him lie about numbers, make false promises, or the like. But he will sometimes invent justifications, make the accidental sound purposeful, or omit specific information. But the thing is, the people he’s talking to never are led into making bad choices and they never come back later feeling misled. They’ve developed a lot of trust in him in fact.
So how can bullshit, in effect, be truth? I think it comes down to the nature of communication. People talk to each other because they have concepts in their head that they want to put in someone else’s head. Usually we just do our best to translate our thoughts into words and the listener tries to translate back into thoughts, with some context taken from their opinion of your mental state, the situation, body language etc.
This is an imperfect system of course. When the concept is as simple as “the sky is blue”, you can be pretty confident the listener will get the same idea you have in mind. But when you’re talking about a complex concept, such as a design that you believe will appeal to many people or will be functionally elegant or is particularly robust, simply asserting that feeling isn’t enough. You’re faced with recreating this concept in someone else’s mind who may not even fully understand the problem you believe you have solved, or is skeptical of your solution.
This means getting inside the head of your listener. You have to see the problem as they see it, visualize the kind of solution they believe is correct, and anticipate the weaknesses (or strengths) they expect to see in yours. The successful bullshitter can use this insight to get the listener to have the same confidence in their idea and to see its strength in the listener’s own terms. They have successfully communicated and the listener will never feel he has been misled.
But of course the gift of bullshit can be used for good or evil. It’s just as easy to use the insight into another’s frame of mind to create confidence in something the bullshitter doesn’t believe at all. They play on the listener’s biases and fears to create the effect of a lie (the wrong idea in the listener’s head), maybe without even outright lying. I’ll leave finding examples of this kind of bullshitter to the reader. *cough*
So I can’t condemn the art of bullshit entirely, but I think it’s important to furiously condemn bullshit used for deceitful ends. That kind of bullshitter is worse than a liar, but I don’t think Michael Bierut is one of these.