Chasing the Perfect

As I picked up Natalia Ilyin's book "Chasing the Perfect", I couldn't help but think it was going to be one of these post-feminist insecure writer telling me how I should think and design. Maybe it was the cover, maybe it was the title, or the subtitle. I was wrong. Although, thinking about it now, maybe not entirely.

Let me start by saying I hate that book. I hate it because it makes me doubt. It leaves me pondering on a profession I've devoted time and effort to (although that might just be my mid-degree crisis). I hate it because it's telling me the truth when I just want to put on earmuffs and scream "LALALALALALALA". I hate it because it scares the shit out of me.

Anyway, back to the book, the first couple of pages are a bit ordinary. After a bit of explanation about how graphic designers are born, not made, and how the inability to draw is a prerequisite "skill" to become a graphic designer today, the author brings us to another direction. She brings us with her, through her insightful journey as a human being making discoveries about the true nature of graphic design. She points for us the corrupted dreams of modernist designers that wanted to create "universal" design, but which resulted in the individualization of society. Thought-provoking is an euphemism for describing this book

After reading Sagmeister's "Made You Look", and Kalman's "Perverse Optimist", I thought I'd never again be shocked by any book about design. But believe me, this book shakes you up in a subtle, but profound way.