Comments on: Neville Brody: Wanker or Genius?

By: julien

julien — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:06:43 +0000

Good post. I had a very similar response to the Shaugnessy/Peter Saville lecture (see http://brett-lesage.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html if you’re interested). I suspect that both these guys are wankers AND Geniuses…

By: Holster® | Hat-trick

Holster® | Hat-trick — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:41:44 +0000

[...] what was possibly the exact opposite of the recent Neville Brody D&AD lecture, they told us straight away that they intended to show us 30 projects in 60 [...]

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:46:56 +0000

Thanks Jonathan, I think you can get a pretty clear idea of the evening from the emerging tweets and blog posts, so no, you didn’t really need to be there.

Here are some other things he said which I wrote down:

On the nature of design and his discomfort with it:
“Design is fundamentally a compromise”

On being quick to embrace new media such as web design:
“A designer has a duty to learn every skill set”

He also said that a successful creative director only needs to choose the right people, and set them in the right direction, after that any insistence on involvement is about their ego.

I thought that was particularly funny.

Also, when talking about fame, when Adrian suggested the barometer of fame was whether a London cabbie had heard of you, and that he felt it was unlikely any taxi drivers had heard of Neville Brody – he simply replied “My cousin is a taxi driver”

Genius.

By: Jonathan Gold

Jonathan Gold — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:23:49 +0000

Great post Richard. I didn’t attend last night (due to how I feel about Brody) but from what I gather from friends and bloggers who did, I didn’t miss much.

Pigeon-holing designers into the Rational and Emotional camps, at least the issue the former have with Brody is his anti-design ethos rather than any creative liberties he takes.

I don’t care for his typography but I could overlook it or even appreciate it if he didn’t present his opinions in such an unsavoury way. Shame, because what he was saying about design education sounded interesting. As for what the CR blog suggested – should it matter whether or not I know him before forming an opinion?