Form over Content – my story about becoming a graphic designer

By Cybele Elaine Werts
CybeleW@aol.com  
www.supertechnogirl.com 


When I was in college circa 1984, I started my own business which was a pet sitting service. At the time this was a cutting edge thing, and I named it "Loving Care Pet Sitters." I designed my own flyer by cutting and pasting different elements on a page and Xeroxing it. One day, I was meeting with an agent from the Yellow Pages and she asked me if she could do something with my flyer. She cut it up and rearranged the elements on the page. I looked at it and for the first time I realized that there was an art in arranging things so that they were more appealing to the eye. This was, in fact, the birth of my interest in graphic design.

As you probably know, the Apple Macintosh came out that very year and would be a founding influence on computer graphics, becoming the platform of choice for graphic designers which would continue for twenty years. About ten years after the birth of the Mac, I produced my first newsletter on my own Macintosh, one with a tiny 9" black and white screen. It was for the Champlain Echoes, a local barbershop chorus which I sang with. Yet even so, my work was considered exotic because I had purchased some black and white Victorian clip art and sprinkled it throughout the newsletter.

After 1993 or so I decided to teach myself computer-based graphic design, and so I did. I was on the cusp of things just as graphic design as a profession was moving from one that was manually based to one that was computer based. For many of the early years just being able to utilize unusual fonts and clip art was something really special, and you can see this in some of my early examples of graphic design. My work is what is called "production" graphic design. That is, it's the stuff of daily work – stationary, business cards, brochures, and so on. I always thought of myself as a competent but not brilliant graphic designer. In contrast, you can see high-end design work in the graphic design awards section of my website which includes truly breathtaking products.

The interesting thing about graphic design is that it's something that's meant to be transparent. In other words, people aren't supposed to look at your brochure and say "wow, what a cool brochure!" They're supposed to say: "wow, I can't wait to sign up for that walk-a-thon!" That's the downside of graphic design because no one really notices your work, and because of this design in general is often under-appreciated for its impact. I believe that we are all affected by good design on a subconscious level, but sadly this is a difficult thing to measure. Even worse, with the proliferation of computers, many people think they can do graphic design just because they have access to Quark Xpress or PageMaker. Of course they forget that most graphic designers attend years of school just like any other profession – it's not just about putting text into three equal columns to make a brochure.

I did graphic design for about ten years, then I decided to move on to some new areas. Part of the reason for this is that in all truth, I'm a far better writer than I am a designer. I've found that I do this with most major areas of interest in my life – becoming skilled, then moving onto a new horizon. In this case, the next major area would be writing. Interestingly, as I've segued into writing I've changed my former designer's mantra of "Form over Content" to "Content over Form." Of course, I'm mostly kidding around, but what I have found is that after many years of working in an art form that is transparent to the audience and so mostly ignored, writing is quite the opposite. Most readers understand how challenging it is to write and they very much appreciate good writing. I never once got a letter complimenting me on my design of anything, but I have gotten many letters thanking me for my writing on everything from spirituality to the history of toy cash registers. Writing in some deeper way speaks to readers on a very personal and intimate level.

That said, when I reviewed my portfolio to figure out what to put on my website, I was actually surprised at how many quality things were in there. I'd quite forgotten how much I had done over the years, and what a variety of products I'd produced. My style – despite my very awareness of the nature of its transparency – is a bold and lively one. Considering that most of the work was done under the limitations of simple black ink printing, I'm extra proud that much of the work holds up when compared to the much more sophisticated color printing and more available to any designer today. Now, if I could only find a copy of that original Loving Care Pet Sitters flyer, I think I'd really be set.

Copyright 2005


Reprinting Information
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