The Future of Design in Art

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Artistic composition has been an afterthought for most. “Line it up on a third and that’s good enough…we can fix the rest in post.” If we don’t change now we are going to leave a huge body of art for the future to look back on and wonder what went wrong. All self-expression and no structure. All Yin and no Yang. Or maybe I’m just biased to learning from the masters and how wonderfully crafted their compositions are; how they knew exactly where to place every element in their image. They communicated their message with precision and to this day people line up to see their work. It’s not just a fluke, they created something that is artistically powerful.

If you haven’t heard of Harold Speed, I would recommend reading his books on art. They are full of wisdom and insight. After reading a bit of his book, “Oil Painting Techniques”, I was inspired to write this…

~ It’s great and admirable to study the technical aspects of your art, but do not suppress the imagination by drowning in technicalities. Use them both to your advantage. Learning techniques shouldn’t replace the artistic impulse that develops from within, it should only help guide you to a higher level of artistic sophistication. ~

What I mean by that is learn the technical aspects of composition found in the canon of design, and add them to your arsenal. The “artistic impulse” is the passion and drive inside of you to create something that is remarkable. It’s what makes you sacrifice many things in order to accomplish your art filled dreams. The point is to practice design techniques so much that they become second nature. When the technical tasks can be performed subconsciously, the art can flourish without boundaries.

How Will You Stand Out from the Crowd?

For all of the photographers (or other artists) out there who want to stand out from the crowd…to dominate the competition with superior images. How will you do it?

Everyone is a photographer these days, and more photos are being taken now than ever before. These days, we see more quantity than quality. The remarkable is being buried by the mediocre.

“Often the quantity is the enemy of the quality.” ~David Bellemere

If you’re a wedding photographer, there is a person that just bought a camera that can do it cheaper. Maybe not the same quality, but that doesn’t matter because supply is greater than demand.

If you’re a 50-year-old photographer with 30 years under your belt that doesn’t matter. Now kids at the age of 14 are getting full frame cameras, with a f/1.2 lens, combined with Photoshop, and achieving a level of success you’ve been striving for your whole life. But I’ll tell you one thing that no one seems to put much thought into these days. Something that not everyone can learn or will want to learn. It’s design. What are you waiting for?

Put the gear and Photoshop aside and learn techniques that may take a minute to learn at first, but will then push you leaps and bounds further than the rest. Dedicate an hour to studying and learning a technique. Another hour to practice…once a week. Then when you get comfortable, introduce a new technique, and increase your rate of practice. In six months you’ll have a grasp on the basics. In a year they will start to become second nature. You’ll see it in your work. Your followers will see it. In two years you’ll be fluent in the language of design. You’ll be producing work that will be imaginative,  sophisticated, and remarkable!

For some of us, art is all we have…our golden ticket…our legacy. It’s time to reignite design and celebrate the life it can breathe back into your work!

If you are having doubts and are unsure about your capabilities, just listen to this song “SkyWorld” by Two Steps from Hell. Imagine you’re going down a path on your artistic journey and things try to stop you, but you won’t let them. You battle through everything and become a master of your art! 😀

“An interest in ‘earning a living’ tends to swamp all interest in the quality of what we do or make to earn it; with the natural result that there is an all-round deterioration in the quality of almost everything we make…” Harold Speed