Design & Style

I feel like these words are often used indiscriminately in the visual narrative arts, especially with regards to animation and film. I commonly hear highly-stylized or VFX-heavy films described as well-designed, while I rarely hear films with little stylization or VFX described as well-designed. It’s as though design is used as a measure of the amount or quality of visual style rather than as a measure of how the visuals serve the story.?

Perhaps this is because overt stylization and visual design is easy to identify and appreciate, largely in part to the continuing advancement of CGI that spurns filmmakers and storytellers into an arms race for ever more complex and impressive visuals to entice jaded sensibilities. However, what this is doing for the understanding of 'design' is tying it to the output of these tools, so that in the popular view an epic science fiction film like The Phantom Menace is considered a much better designed film than a low-budget independent film like Sideways.?

By this assertion Hollywood should be cranking out ever better-designed films. Just look at the marked improvement of visuals between original and remakes, or every subsequent Transformers, Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel or DC sequel. But here is where the fallacy lies: design is not a volume dial for visual complexity, sophistication or stylization, and turning it to 11 does not make a design any better than 10, or 9, or even 1.?

To the contrary, I would argue that design is getting worse in the face of this ‘more is better mentality’. Furthermore, I would argue that The Phantom Menace, despite it’s more sophisticated visuals, is inferior in design to A New Hope, made 22 years prior. But design and style are certainly subjective affairs with many different approaches and interpretations, so I put forward these thoughts on their meaning and relationship not just to assert my own particular opinions, but to hopefully stir a little thought and conversation on the matter.?

Taking a step back, lets look at the definitions according to Google:

design - n. purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object.

v. decide upon the look and functioning of (a building, garment, or other object), typically by making a detailed drawing of it.

style - n. a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed.

This is actually pretty close to how I see it:? DESIGN in my mind is a process of understanding and visually representing creative intent, which in the case of cinematic narratives like film or animation usually comes from story. This process begins with asking questions: What is the overall story and overriding themes?; How do the constituent parts (characters, settings, plot, etc.), and narrative structural components (acts, scenes, shots, beats, etc.) all serve the greater whole? The execution process then follows with a mixture of research & reference, visual development, conceptual iteration followed by the final execution of informed visual choices. Ideally the design process follows the story process, but in cases where the two happen concurrently, design can actually help inform story.

STYLE, on the other hand, I see as an end-product usually informed by some combination of creative intent (story), and artistic voice (aesthetics, taste & judgement). More stylish filmmakers put tend to put a greater emphasis on their own aesthetics and artistic presence, often ending up with recognizable bodies of work informed by a common aesthetic—think Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Tim Burton, Wes Anderson, and so on.

Where design is successfully balanced between the interests of story and voice, we are left with memorably original, artistic and moving stories. Where there is an imbalance of voice over intent we can be left with stylistically overwrought films that may be interesting to the eye in the moment, but ultimately feel empty, over-whelming or meaningless. ?

Film-makers or storytellers who work story-first tend to place less emphasis on their own artistic presence to allow the unique style and voice of the particular story rise above their own. This is not to say they don’t still leave recognizable fingerprints on their work. Every film-maker or storyteller is guided by their own their personal aesthetics and taste, consciously or not. Look at the consistent taste and creative judgement that informs the diverse genres, tone and styles of the Cohen Brothers’ vast body of work, for instance. Similarly, the film libraries of Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar each feature stylistically diverse films, yet they usually tend to be bound by common ‘house’ aesthetics regardless of director or genre. Up, Brave and WALL-E may be completely different in terms of style, but they are guided by the same aesthetic values.?

This relationship between creative intent and artistic voice or style I would relate as form versus function, with creative intent representing the function of WHAT you want the audience to experience, with the visuals representing the form of HOW you choose to express that intent. When visuals are informed by just by aesthetics, unguided by artistic or narrative intent, the outcome is often design for the sake of design—because it looks cool, because it appeals to some artistic taste, astounds the eye, or pushes some artistic boundary. To me this adds no more design value than using every crayon in the box. It is uninformed design.?

Informed design, to my eye, is design that considers every crayon in the box to find just the right one for a given goal. Good design is not necessarily excessive, mindlessly aesthetic, technologically ground-breaking (although it certainly can be if that the intent requires it). Good design is about finding the right tool for the job, which in many cases requires subtly or even complete invisibility. When done right, design is the means to an end, not the ends.?

As any narrative art is at its heart an immersive experience, storytellers, writers, filmmakers, comic or picture book writers and illustrators all aspire to the same basic goal—to seize the imagination of their audience through the veracity of their storytelling. For visual narratives, visual design is the primary tool. But when the tool or the hand holding the tool upstages the narrative experience itself, the veracity of the illusion is challenged and the audience’s attention shifts from the storytelling to the storyteller in a clear violation of what author John Gardner refers to as “the vivid and continuous dream” (the Art of Fiction).?

Effective visual design immerses the audience into the narrative experience. Visual design overburdened by stylistic choices independent of narrative intent can distract or compete with story immersion.?

--Reposted from an old deleted blog post.--