Re-present the core arguments and ideas of Fuck Content (2009, Michael Rock) using the structure, style, form, method of Exercises in Style (1998, Raymond Queneau).
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Notation
The misconception that developing content is more essential than shaping it has become the measure of good design. However, treatment is a kind of text itself that reflects a philosophy, an aesthetic position, an argument, and a critique that belongs to the singular designer. In conclusion, the meaning of the work is not the content narratives but the devices of the telling.
Double entry
The misconception and false dichotomy that without and not developing good and deep content, design and form reduced to a bag of dubious tricks and empty shell which has circulated for so long and many years that we have started and began to believe and accept it. However and nevertheless, treatment and shape themselves are complex and referential and profoundly affect form and text. The deep and intimate connection between designer and work makes the work and project layouts and reflects a philosophy, an aesthetic position, an argument, and a critique that belongs to the singular designer and bears their stamp. The meaning and central ideas of the work are not what it is about and the content narratives, but how it is about it and the devices of the telling.
Litotes
Some notions about design have been discussed. One of these concepts is not necessarily true, but it seems to be accepted. However, designers are storytellers.
Metaphorically
About Beatrice Warde’s famous Crystal Goblet — the transparent glass and the ornate glass took up a debate: the transparent glass argues the ornate or the bejeweled was a knuckle-dragging oaf.
However, neither camp questioned the wine. In fact, the way the designer manipulates the glass can reshape the wine, meanwhile, bears our stamp.
Retrograde
For the designer, how the work is about is more important than what the work is about. This is because the treatment of form can reshape the essential relationship. Whereas this notion was misunderstood to mean that developing content over shaping it as well as has become a measure of good design, after designers’ anxiety about the value of their work.
Surprises
How insecure we are about the value of our work! That our anxiety is so deep-seated! What have we triggered? We have triggered a movement that values the origination of content over manipulation of content!
How wrong this notion is! We have started to believe it! Guess what it was taken for? It has become the central tenet of design education and the benchmark for judging design!
Shouldn’t we go one step further? Treatment is a kind of text itself! It should be complex and referential! What do we designers do? Not to narrate content! It’s about how to narrate the content! Remember that!
Bibliography：
Queneau, R. (1998) Exercises in style. Wiltshire: John Calder, pp.17-26.
Rock, M. (2009) Fuck Content. [online] 2×4. Available at: https://2×4.org/ideas/2009/fuck-content/ [Accessed 18 November 2021].