The computer can be a terribly destructive design instrument

Chip Kidd is the book designer you should all see speak this Thursday in Atlanta. Milton Glaser is a design icon. He did the famous i-love-NY logo. See a video about him and his work called 'Art is Work'. Check out his company's site as well: miltonglaser.com

Chip Kidd interviews Milton Glaser
CK: Do you personally use a computer to design things?

MG: I've been using it increasingly, but I never touch it.

CK: You never touch it.

MG: No, but I've been working with assistants who do. And I think it's a terribly destructive instrument for people at the beginning of their professional life. But I think for people over forty, it's a great instrument.

CK: Really.

MG: Yes. Because your sense of form is not determined by the computer. I mean, by the time you have a sense of what form is, what structure is, what line is, all the rest of that stuff, then you can use a computer. If you use it too early, it begins to dominate your aesthetic. And you become very susceptible to its capabilities, which is a totally different thing than taking advantage of its capability.

CK: So you must just despair about the state of design education in this country.

MG: Well, I think it's unfortunate. Although, what I'm not despairing about is that increasingly, my students and other young people are beginning to realize they can't use the computer for everything, and they can't start with the computer. They have to start by making things, by drawing things, by conceptualizing things. I have the long rap on the computer, but the problem with the computer finally is there's no chance to develop ideas. Things become clear too soon. The interaction between a sketch and the brain is such that you try something, the brain corrects it, you revise it, the brain corrects it. That dialectic is totally missing from the computer, because as soon as you have an idea, it becomes clear. There's not enough fuzziness in a computer solution, so you figure it out too early, and what you get is a very well executed ordinary idea. Because there's no development in this system. That's not entirely true, but it is characteristic. It's hard to do things that are, it seems to me, fully developed in a thoughtful way on the computer. You can certainly achieve astonishing effects on it, but you have to separate those effects from the content.

If you wish to read the rest of the interview,
http://www.believermag.com