Designer:
The designer’s profession is often reduced to creating form rather than experimenting with content. Rock stated that the trend of the current design movement ‘values organisation of content over manipulation of content’.
Designer versus Author?
Considering this design perception, Rock explained the designers’ anxiety toward authors. With his article, he aimed to encourage designers to rethink their relationship to content and the idea of generating meaning. He further elaborated that ‘shaping itself is a profoundly affecting for’. As an example, he describes children’s books as the purest venue of the designer/author and declares that, in this case, the unlimited potential of form seems more crucial than content.
Content/Function:
Content is described as the carrier of meaning/functionality created by one or many people.
Design/Form:
Form is the way how a narrative is delivered. Rock noted that for some, it appears that ‘purley shaping doesn’t seem enough’. The author critiques that form is only perceived as a transparent vessel (wine glass) for content (wine). Instead, he argues that form is essentially ‘linguistic—a vibrant, evocative language’.
Content versus Form?
Rock critiqued the misconception that design gets reduced to a stylistic methodology without further meaning or in-depth content. He noted that people ‘seem to accept the fact that developing content is more essential than shaping it, that good content is the measure of good design’. He challenged this belief by showcasing examples of designers as traders of storytelling. In filmmaking, he argues that it is the way how a movie is made, not purely what it is about, that makes a movie a great movie. Therefore ‘the meaning of a filmmaker’s work is not the story but the storytelling’.
Final Argument:
‘The elements we must master are not the content narratives but the devices of the telling: typography, line, form, color, contrast, scale, weight. We speak through our assignment, literally between the lines.’
Throughout this exercise, I realised the complexity yet beauty of the relationship between content and form. The author’s strong opinions and emotional tone mirror his frustration with the misconception of design and feeling overlooked. His rhetorical questions and short, punchy paragraphs help to build awareness and empathy towards designers if you have not, as a reader, already experienced the described struggles yourself. Finally, in the last sentence, the reader realises that he has felt the struggles as an author AND designer himself.
Rock, M. (2009), Fuck Content. Available at: https://2×4.org/ideas/2009/fuck-content/ (Accessed: 12.02.2023)