What's the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it?

What's the use of being legible, when nothing inspires you to take notice of it?

Like many in the past few decades, I was taught that the reductive, modernist and dominant Gestalt design principality was the correct way to design. I employed it in everything I did, and it’s fundamentally dictated how I thought about most projects I’ve done along the way. But then at the same time, I love graffiti. The freedom, the inventiveness, the expression — there are no rules, only invention. I came up through street culture with writing graffiti as my gateway into design, and I’ve constantly been torn between these paradoxical approaches to creative output.

Both have their place. Both are often required at the exact same time. There’s nothing more dull that pure utilitarianism, no matter how much it tickles my graphic designery buttons. And pure maximalist expressive freedom isn’t going to pass any triple A accessibility checks any time soon.

But if I had to pick… absolutely had to choose one or the other — I’d go for expression every time. Expression disrupts, expression excites, expression speaks to our emotional core.

More often than not, unfortunately, less is a bore.