This very short text is from Recollected Work, a retrospective of projects by the Dutch designers Mevis and van Deursen. The text is a sort of transcription produced by Paul Elliman (the editor of the book) after talking with the designers.
Read the text and consider the following:
Mevis and van Deursen describe their design practice as a game playing activity. How does this game work? What do you think of the entanglement of freedom and constraint which their description implies? How can a “living voice” be engendered in this sort of practice?
Think about your own experience as a designer. Consider a specific project you’ve worked on or imagine a hypothetical one — in what sense do the restrictions structure the work? How might you imagine future work in which conscientiously identify constraint variables which you set in order to play the game of your work?
Write and print a 100 word response on a single letter-sized sheet of paper. Use one typeface that begins with the letter “T”.
