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Javier Cancino Díaz

Delving with Javier

We are pleased to publish a second part of the interview to the designer and professor Javier Cancino. The current interest is that there are different views on the future survival of books and printing products such as flat printings, rotating and traditional distribution channels such as bookstores.  It is still more critical to justify the educational offering from a social and economic perspective for the thousands of designing students who are entering and practically graduating outdated because there are already hundreds or thousands of schools in emergent and developed countries.  Hence, our interest in seeking the lights of those with years of experience and Javier is one of them.
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Living the Design: The idea of this section is to gather the diversity and life opinions, perspectives, options and the development of design at the professional and educational level worldwide.
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Max: Javier, facing the rapid change we are living in technology; how do you see its effects in the designing market, design itself and clients? Do you see the change of our traditional substrata layers: call it paper, from 10 years ago up to today what is the challenge for those within this market, for the printing businesses and the newspaper mass media? Do they need to adapt or specialize? Do you see the future of those who graduated from their schools three years ago? On the other hand, do you think it will go slower to accommodate production? It is extensive and I ask you to answer whatever you would like in that context.

Javier: In January I made a long trip to India and coming back I was in Zurich, Switzerland.  And I was impressed with the amount of books that are published. The perception left is that while more technological devices appear more books are designed. We spent almost all our lives in front of a screen — the computer, the TV, and today the cellular phones also.  In this context the printed books are a relief. At least until today, our relationship with the books begins when we are children with the ritual of reading in bed, besides the fact that generates a wonderful bond between parents and children. The book introduces us to a fantastic world; it opens the children’s imagination and incorporates new ideas and ways of thinking. Roger Fawcett-Tang tells us that designers like Bruno Munari and Paul Rand created their own children books.  “Even though, the computer games and play stations or the DVD seems to be the favorite children’s entertainment today, the Harry Potter’s phenomenon has demonstrated that the children continue reading and are capable of falling in love with the books as ever.”

“Even though, the computer games and play stations or the DVD seems to be the favorite children’s entertainment today, the Harry Potter’s phenomenon has demonstrated that the children continue reading and are capable of falling in love with the books as ever.”

Diving into a book is one of the major pleasures in life, the books are a vital part in our lives; our whole existence is formed, illustrated and inspired by books.  The tactile experience is a pleasure that could not be underestimated.  I always tell my students that once a book is designed, it does not longer have its own dimensions and takes on a multidimensional character. It is a beautiful object that makes us believe that a future without books is unthinkable and unlikely.

When the television appeared it was said that the radio will cease to exist and to date we would not know what to do if we wouldn’t be able to listen to a good radio station during the tacos hour on top of our cars.  Now in my country, Chile, although there are excellent good printing shops, it is unfortunate that they are very expensive (high cost) and this factor slows down some projects.  But your question has a second part regarding the future of the designers who graduated three years ago.  In my workshop introduction class which I give at the three universities where I teach – Universidad Católica, Finis Terrae and Andrés Bello – one of the points I mention is that in Chile there are thousand of designers coming out of school and therefore we should strive to be the best, strive for excellence, go to the limit.  It is a brutal competition, today you will lift a stone and there is a designer, but the good thing is that of the thousand of graduates, most of them were educated on the “job skills” concept otherwise they will be left behind very quickly.  They become producers, and my students get prepared to become people with great ideas, those that will finally be remembered and make a difference in the future.

Detail of a work by Javier

Diving into a book is one of the major pleasures in life, the books are a vital part in our lives; our whole existence is formed, illustrated and inspired by books.  The tactile experience is a pleasure that could not be underestimated.  I always tell my students that once a book is designed, it does not longer have its own dimensions and takes on a multidimensional character.

Max: I want to go back to the previous point.  Do you think that the designer graduates from the different universities and institutes will come out with a different market offer or is there a “cultural gen” which reflects the Chilean designer?

Javier: mmm …! I will retake the words of Tejeda, “the universities have an enormous interest in knowing exactly what conclusion to reach or what place to take after studying design.  It is as if the most important thing is to prove one’s productivity.”  And right now I am going to change your words a little bit.  I say that it is a horrendous order that destroys the creativity from the beginning.  It is an industrial and scientific system where the accounting is indispensable and the creation just a minor detail.  The schools are more concerned with something they call “job skills,” in which they definitely make believe the students that they are some sort of employment agencies and not a place for acquiring knowledge.  For me, the graphic design and probably architecture are vocational careers, at least in our country, but is becoming harder and harder to work in these disciplines and the space for development is scarce.  Thus, I don’t think the schools are offering any market difference; I think that the guys are finally making their own path, the echo of forming collectives or alternate works that are sometimes unsuspected.  I, personally, am extremely criticized among the most anachronic scholars due to my rupturing views.  I said many times that we should take the problem to the limit, even if we fail while trying and this is celebrated by the younger scholars or the ones who know me better and are entertained with that bet.

Max: To delve into your academic vision on the courses you teach and the way you relate to it, you mentioned Professor Tejeda on your first interview, the need to rehearse and the value of the concept, can you  elaborate on the importance of the concept in the design?

Javier: As I mentioned in the beginning, rehearsing is what counts.  From that process we can observe and generate a concept or an idea.  A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning, an abstract or mental idea which is defined sometimes as a “unit of knowledge.”

We understand the experiences emerging from our interaction with the environment through concepts which are constructions or mental images by incorporating them into classes or categories associated with our previous knowledge.

The formation of the concept is closely linked to the context; this means that all the elements, including language and culture, as well as the information perceived by the senses accessed at the moment in which a person constructs a concept of something or somebody also influence the conceptualization.  The knowledge of the experience is always concrete; it refers to a thing, a situation or something unique and unrepeatable; the experience is always subjective.

The word “concept” comes from the Latin verb conceptum and this from the verb concipere which means to conceive.  Concipere derives from capere, this is, to take or capture something.  To conceive is to unite two (o more) entities to form a third one distinct from the previous ones.

An idea (from the Greek Ìέα, from eidon, “I saw”) is an image that exists or is formed in the mind.  The human capacity to contemplate ideas is associated with the reasoning ability, self-reflection, creativity, and the ability to acquire and apply the intellect.  The ideas lead the way to the concepts and are the basis for any type of knowledge whether is scientific or philosophical.  The idea is comparable to a concept, and it has a meaning.

Another work that demonstrate the special concern of Javier combining typography and white space -Contraforma- essential elements of a page layout.

Max: As a designer, have you had a reference for your works:  schools, designers, styles you have utilized as references, encouragement, or guidance.

Javier: Of course, first the Architecture and Design School of the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.  I also enjoy the work of Stefan Sagmeister, Experimental Jetset, Wearebuild, Anthony Burrill, Banksy, Marian Bantjes, David Földvári, Vince Frost, Erik Spiekermann, Pentagram, the cultural movements such as the Dadaists, the Surrealists, the badly called cursed poets who were the Symbolists, the study of many and varied typographers and/or book authors who do not only talk about typographic design but its uses.  Another actual reference is the IdN Magazine which is updating us with all types of forms that takes graphic design in their different fields in which we can intervene, the Adbusters magazine.  To tell you the truth, I am constantly looking for books and reviewing new websites of young designers.  I also mentioned some musicians who somehow have also influenced they way I work, guys such as Peter Gabriel, Philip Glass, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Jack Johnson, and even get feedback from Fauna, the collective I am a member and from my own students who are the ones that mostly encourage me in this trade.

—– End of the interview—–

Communicatheo recommends:

Javier Cancino Diaz, Living the Design – Part 1

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Volunteer translation by Maria Tenorio

Maria Tenorio has a bachelor degree in Business Management and an MBA in Banking and Finance. She specializes in bi-directional English-Spanish translations. Particularly, the translation of commercial publications, legal work and the similar with utmost accuracy and fidelity and have translated voluminous documents (legal and financial) from Spanish into English. She also translates legal documents for Immigration purposes for friends and help other immigrants within the community with language barriers at schools, hospitals and the like. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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