We came to realize that in many of our projects, we act as the person structuring others’ knowledge. We find a good visual representation of this structure that can function as an anchor. So, with that in mind, am I still a graphic designer? Am I an information architect? I don’t know. But these are the things that I’m more excited about doing, and that’s what I provide to my clients.

When you talk about design as the structure of thought, I feel like that’s a perfect way of articulating what design is.

I, too, see a problem with Premium Generic defaultness — not as an aesthetic, but the idea that a set of signifiers could contain inherent denotative meaning and virtue.

This magical aura of authenticity keeps alive the belief in capital-G-D-Graphic-Design (I’m going to keep using the capital G and D here to emphasize that I’m talking about graphic design as an institution-named industry) as something essential, something that exists independently of the marketplace.

And that’s because to treat graphic design like it’s a service, where it makes sense to optimize time and labor for maximum efficiency, undermines the aura of indispensability, superiority, and yes, authenticity that institutions such as design schools and “professional associations” rely on in order to justify the massive dollar signs they place on themselves via tuition, and member fees.

The Premium Generic is just a style at the end of the day, an assortment of visual language resulting from decades of designers adapting to tightening industry constraints.

But could we instead embrace post-authentic normcore as a design methodology, in service to causes of our own determination? Can we figure out how to be radically adaptable, design using default systems, but in a strategic way — to conserve our energy in exploitative situations so we can go full-throttle in others?

This approach to designing with defaults is plain old Generic — it’s not sexy like the Premium Generic, just plainly literal. The less frivolous language and design, the more transparent. It’s not presenting its content in a crystal goblet, but in a single-use clear plastic cup.

This new normcore commercial design methodology visualizes the post-authentic image of nature: the romanticized raw material of modern industry and global supply chains, instead of the raw material of the premodern, hyperlocal, or pastoral outdoors. It means opting for raw plastic instead of raw wood — embracing the beauty of the factory default or the mass-producible template, the path of least resistance.

it is remarkably hard to consistently arrange shapes on a page without a basic system to guide the decisions.

The anthropocentric world view is about dominion and having extra-human life and the rest of the planet reduced to mere resources, to be exploited by man at will.