As a designer it’s our job to communicate. I find that so much of communication falls into an old version of modernism: informed by machines, very exact, and ultimately cold. Although that kind of communication worked very well in the 20s and 30s when it was new—we’ve had it now 80 years, at least 40 of which it was the status quo—modernism now leaves a vast percentage of the audience pretty cold. So to bring in a personal point of view or even subjectivity seems to me like a pretty obvious strategy. I am not arguing that every piece of communication should be designed from a personal point of view, but even the type of communication that seems the least conducive to personal communication would work much better were it not done in the standard modernism mode.

For example, I collect emergency exit cards from airplanes—I have hundreds of them. With one single exception, Virgin, they are designed in the same style: some sort of modernist icons with arrows that show you how to find the exit. I am on planes a lot, yet I have never seen a passenger looking at these cards, despite the stewardesses always reminding passengers to do so. Virgin, as far as I know, is the only airline anywhere that designed these cards with a much more personal, more cartoonish, and subjective point of view. Whenever I fly Virgin, I see people looking at the emergency cards. The same is true of the instructional videos. People actually watch the emergency movie because it’s done quite beautifully. They are done with some love and care not only with regard to the content but also to the form. I think that sort of strategy could be even truer when your content is more personable, such as for a charity or a cultural event.

An excerpt from Amidextrous Magazine.