What the graphic designers wore
I HATED GRAPHIC DESIGN
![](https://images.prismic.io/dis-art/ec9cf962-ecca-4395-8921-0a946552ae06_whatdesignerswore_thumb.jpg?auto=compress,format&rect=0,0,1600,1140&w=1600&h=1140)
![](https://images.prismic.io/dis-art/ec9cf962-ecca-4395-8921-0a946552ae06_whatdesignerswore_thumb.jpg?auto=compress,format&rect=230,0,1140,1140&w=1280&h=1280)
Gilbert
Graphic design pedagogy has adapted to the refigured landscape by breeding a new kind of professional graphic designer who might somehow operate independently from capital. These exotic pedigrees are identified by their prefixes: they are the critical graphic designer, the social graphic designer, the speculative graphic designer. Trained for attrition, they are able to survive in bedroom studio micro-climates, sustained only by servicing friendly, interdisciplinary collaborations with artists and cultural institutions. Once a year they are entitled to attend an artistic residency, during which they produce a ‘self-initiated project’, an ephemeral currency that affords them a certain amount of attention from grant-writing cultural workers. This, in turn, may translate into the opportunity to perpetuate their practice for another year.
Bullshit, says Gilbert. We excavate the remains of the canonical Euro-male graphic designers. We confront their corpses. We check the cut of their cloth. We take it from here.