“The essential function of our profession [design] in our society is to enhance and cultivate communications toward an easier understanding of ideas and complex problems, in the shortest possible time for higher visual and auditory retention of data.”
“For design is about the making of things: things that are memorable and have presence in the world of the mind. It makes demands upon our ability both to consolidate information as knowledge and to deploy it imaginatively to creative purpose in the pursuit of fresh information.”
“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry.”
“To design is to plan and to organize, to order, to relate and to control. In short it embraces all means of opposing disorder and accident. Therefore it signifies a human need and qualifies man’s thinking and doing.”
Chicago, IL: Morningstar
Visit: We met with Philip Burton, who is on our Advisory Board. Another old colleague, and friend of Armin and Dorothea Hofmann.
He took us on a tour of the wonderful new Morningstar building. It is an amazing array of well-designed furnishings, lighting, signage, architecture. Phil is the Art Director for Morningstar (as well as design professor at the University of Illinois Chicago), and has a staff of 60 designers.
He has been working with Dorothea Hofmann on a history of the school at Brisaggo, Switzerland. He told us about the Brisaggo reunion – there were 65 former students in attendance. The event was documented. (Contact Jean Craig to to get this information)
All in all a great visit, wonderful meal, inspiring design.
Discoveries: Phil told us that UIC has a collection called “27 Chicago Designers” – to learn more contact Anne Weller.