Rosan,
Rand grew up as an Orthodox Jew in early 20C New York. There are many
parallels between Jewish-Americans of the early 20C and Asian-Americans
of late 20C. While one might be able to claim that the culture where
Rand worked was individualistic, materialistic, or favored fortune over
hard work, none of those describes the dominant mode of thought in the
culture where he grew up.
I had some real differences with Rand and may not be the best source
for characterization of the way he would react to a given conversation
but I can say with a good deal of certainty that he would be mystified
that anyone assumed his comment that talent is a fundamental skill, a
rare commodity, and can't be taught would imply that hard work wasn't
essential. He would claim that all the hard work in the world would
never make up for a lack of talent any more than all the talent in the
world would make a lazy person excel.
If we assume at least for argument's sake that Rand was right, an
interesting question is when and how one can determine talent. I know
many people who teach at schools where admission of freshmen is by
portfolio. They tell me you can see talent in the work of seventeen
year olds. While I'm certain that you can see lack of any strong
interest and aptitude, thus being able to eliminate the least suited
potential students, I'd need to see more to believe.
My experience is that it is hard to tell early on which graphic design
undergraduates will be truly good. Students who do very well in early
classes are often the ones who come from a level of cultural privilege
as implied by Prashant's earlier post. Students who are not spectacular
in early classes often bloom later, passing the ones who start with
advantages. I think it's usually clear in less than four years but not
early enough to declare who should chose other majors before it's too
late, if one were inclined to such weeding out.
That's not bad by comparison to some other talents. I suspect it's four
or five times that long before you can tell whether a cellist is
talented. There is also room in the world for more difference between
the talents of excellent graphic designers than between cellists and
there are more reasonable and interesting paths for non-concert-quality
graphic designers.
Given a choice in students I would choose a student who is smart over
one who is talented (assuming I knew for certain what that meant) and
one who is hard working over one who is smart. I can only assume that
Rand would point out that making such a choice would be like being
asked which leg you want lopped off of the stool you are about to sit
on.
Despite my having a not-insignificant measure of success as a designer
and critic, I suspect that Rand would not have thought of me as
particularly talented so I may be missing a point. Just because we
previously pointed out that some talent standards are somewhat
tautological with those judged talented best suited to judge talent,
that doesn't mean that such standards are not valid. This brings up an
interesting problem for design researchers: It is the impression of
many designers (myself included) that many design researchers don't
"get it," largely because they are blind to distinction we would find
obvious.
Gunnar
On Dec 30, 2004, at 1:20 PM, Rosan Chow wrote:
> the american/canadian parents answered 'my kid is smart'.
> the chinese/japanese parents answered 'my kid works hard'.
[snip]
> if paul rand had grown up in a culture where individualism was not the
> dominant mode of thought, maybe he would have been quoted by saying
> 'design is hard work'.
>
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