History has always organized art and design into periods, from Industrial to Modernist, Constructivism to Deconstructivism to Post- Modern. But where are we now? What is contemporary design?

The Designetwork posed this question to many designers at a recent conference held in Washington DC. We focused on four renowned designers, Pat Taylor, Burkey Belser, Ken Garland and Beth Singer, and discussed their views on contemporary design, history's role and where we might be headed in the future. TDN conducted individual interviews, however, they are presented here by topic area for a greater opportunity to compare responses.

Pat Taylor is owner of Pat Taylor Inc. and a professor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Information Designer, Burkey Belser is responsible for the nutrition labels on over 6 billion domestic products reviewed daily. Ken Garland is a designer and writer from Great Britain and Beth Singer owns Beth Singer Design in Arlington, VA.

The Designetwork: So, what is contemporary design? Where are we in the vast spectrum of -isms? As expected, answers amongst our four designers varied, however...inclusion of historical references, how they relate to the "now" and comparisons to past movements were prominent.

Pat Taylor: Contemporary design is the last thing that you did and something that you're going to be doing. Things that you're working on at the moment, things that you are working on tomorrow perhaps, the very last project you did. That to me is contemporary design.

Burkey Belser: Well, contemporary design is my discipline. So it's difficult to answer what it is beyond that. I think certainly one of the things that happened in the past ten years, which is not completely new, is a break down. You can no longer see a movement through time where one movement replaces another design movement. In fact we've seen that the mirror has shattered and fragments of design movements are now strong, moving in parallel streams. So, design has become very individualized as a result of the post modernist movement and the deconstructionist movement that followed it. That Deconstructionist movement opened up parallel, alternate routes for people to take. Which I think is really interesting, very, very personal styles. Graphic design that is used for personal expression is very new -- versus graphic design used in this traditional form for corporate expression.

Ken Garland: I've been in the business for about fifty years now, and it's changed enormously of course. But what I've come to realize over this period is that it's a short period in what in fact is a very long history. Later in life I've become interested in our ancestors who were doing graphic design before there was a written language. The highly sophisticated graphic art of the pre-historic caves is what now excites me. And in it, I recognize us.

I recognize that people were doing what we're doing now. They were looking for ways to entertain, inform and instruct. It's a much longer perspective than I've ever contemplated before. And that changes my view about where we are today.

Beth Singer: My preference is always to deal in the commodity of ideas. So if something is freshly presented, that's contemporary enough for me. I can't remember who I heard this from but I was sitting in a lecture hall and the speaker said, "When you successfully blend innovation and tradition it's a very powerful kind of design." People can relate to the traditional part and then they can take that traditional part and extrapolate into the innovative part that you've injected into it. Somehow they understand the message and it becomes that much more powerful because you haven't done the same old thing and you have also given them a point of reference to get the innovative part out of it. So for me, that's contemporary design.

TDN: In your opinion, what are some of the characteristics, trends or goals of current design? Where do you think the contemporary movement fits in the history of design? How is it unique?

PT: History; I think there's a great deal to learn from history. You can use the past in developing the future. It's a wonderful idea to invent something that has never been invented before. Discover something that has never been discovered. I think a lot of this is based on the past, what came before us. Every minute that passes -- this is contemporary coming up. To me, everything is always changing, everything, every minute! Again, know the past; know where you're going. I can't be any clearer than that.

BB: A multiplicity of styles. You get people who cling to the modernist movement, people who still cleave to the post-modernist movement, David Carson, and people who are creating their own individual styles. It seems to me that it's very difficult to create heroes in this environment. There are so many designers working today. I don't know what the numbers are, but surely there are two and a half times as many designers as there were twenty years ago. So a modernist movement would occur where you had giants like Paul Rand and you had Push Pin Studios which was a "push back" against the modernist movement, before the inclusion of more illustration. I don't think you're going to get monolithic movements anymore. At least, I don't see it happening in the short term. That fragmentation of design is going to continue. Although, design is getting more sensible.

KG: Four years ago, I built a series of lectures on the history of graphic information at a university course I teach in Mexico every year. I changed my mind about so many things when I was in the process of teaching these courses. The work of our predecessors' thirty thousand years ago is as contemporary as the work we do now. I came to this view, surprisingly. I hadn't held it before, and then I found myself looking at the art of ancient Egypt, Syria and Summeria, and at the art of the middle ages and saw more and more correspondences with what we do now. I think that after we've come out of the miasma in which we sink ourselves with our love of technologies will we realize technology is only a tool like the scribe's tool or like the mysterious tools used by the cave artists. They're only tools and we shouldn't be hooked on the magic. The magic is in us, not in the tools.

BS: If you want it in a more traditional, straightforward definition, [contemporary design] is probably design that's "affected" by technology. Maybe that's not my definition, but that's probably the definition you're going to get over and over again. If you're asking how it fits into our history, art history, I think it's a wonderful blending of social history and art history. We have these new and different tools and we've had them for the last, let's say ten years, in real practice. And we're using these machines and new technologies to create what we definitely couldn't have created before. At first we used the machines to duplicate and replicate what we had before, just in a faster, more efficient way. And now, we're actually taking it and using the technology to go way beyond what we could have done without the technology. So, it's a fascinating place in history. As designers we're going to look back at this time and know that this was the beginning of the technological movement in civilized nations and all of design is going to reflect that.

TDN: How do you see yourself falling within contemporary design? Are you impressed with any specific colleagues who are driving today's design into the future?

PT: I would like to see more of David Carson's stuff. He seems to be hiding from time to time. I don't think I've ever read anything that he did but I certainly have looked at everything. I'm from the school, where, if I can't read it, I'll move off of it, I'll leave it. But his work is still very exciting and there's a lot there to pick up in the future. I still admire, if you will, the old timers. The people who back in the fifties and sixties gave us a name. To me, they're still inventing the wheel. I should give you a name -- Milton Glaser is still hot, up to the minute. He's a real trendsetter. He doesn't probably believe that, but I do, very much so.