By Gabrielle Kennedy /asdf 24-05-2012

“Design is going through the same trials and tribulations every other profession is experiencing,” says Susan Szenasy who was in Holland this spring to judge the Rotterdam Design Prize and take in some of the latest Dutch design developments.  “This is when things get interesting. Lots of new ideas, approaches; lots of silly stuff, then there are some gems; I'm always happy when I find a gem.”

What critics are looking for is fresh, smart and sensitive design that connects to our basic humanity.  “But it must beautiful,” Szenasy adds.  “If it's not beautiful, it's not great design.”

Szenasy has been editing Metropolis since 1986, but talking to her reveals not an ounce of cynicism or fatigue with the industry.  “That is because deep down inside, I am a huge fan of designers,” she says. “Design thinking, creativity, and smart people. These things make me enthusiastic about possibilities and design is always about possibilities.”

She has seen it all – the fads, the eras, the developments.  She has critiqued the post-modern frills, the functionalist astringency, green and social design.  What bores her the most are designers who are too self-involved to see beyond their own work. “I find this attitude tedious,” she says.  “Also, I do not like seeing the same old solutions over and over again.”

The era of the Star designer, which Holland played a fairly significant role in, was another industry development she decried.  Metropolis, for the most part, chose to ignore it.  “We instead wanted to concentrate on culturally, socially, and environmentally informed design,” Szenasy explains.  “As time went by, we decided to pipe in on the stars' work because they seemed so relevant to design culture. If we didn't critique their work, at least, we would have been irrelevant to the design dialogue of the 90s, so we had to say something and show some of their work. But we were always less concerned with purely formal expressions, and more involved with the design's relevance to human beings.”

Looking back, Szenasy says it is the contemporary era she finds most interesting.  And she seems to mean it.  The more recent focus on how things are designed rather then the actual work refocuses discussion on how to make sure the industry as a whole is not harming people or the planet.  Also, prioritizing how to broaden a designers’ reach into those communities that really need it.  A bit of a tech-geek, she talks passionately about how technologies are reshaping every facet of the industry.

“But for a very long time the emergence and mission of Modernism was my main passion,” she says.  “It went wrong when it became a commodity, a canon, a religion. But at its roots, I saw it as humanistic, progressive, intelligent -- like all great design movements are.”

And when it comes to her own magazine, Szenasy remains equally giddy.  She talks about seeing a new issue with the buzz of a small kid at a birthday party.  “I never know what the layouts will be like when I read the story, how the visual narrative will work with text, how the relationships of images will complete one another, how the size and weight of type will provide the background buzz. It's a truly magical process and I love every moment of it.”

As to the stickier topic of design publishing and the future of Metropolis, Szenasy remains characteristically optimistic.  “It used to be enough just to publish the magazine,” she says, “Now we must feed the electronic beast: blog, website, social networks, films. We try to be part of every medium that's out there because we believe that today, in this multi-modal world, we have to be everywhere.”

The answer  - as with all print media covering everything from hard news to lifestyle – is to separate coverage depending on the medium. “The print magazine needs to be more of a critical and analytical project,” says Szenasy. “We get news from the web, so our magazine stories have to have the kind of reader appeal that only paper can provide.”

Pad technologies of course complicate that even further with the possibility of providing more layered information.  “I believe in paper, but I like to think about the possibilities of telling a great story, seeing some of its details in film and animation formats,” Szenasy says.  “Really that just leads to more design opportunities!”


Image: a 2008 cover of Metropolis magazine.

 

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