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Jeff Werner

I'm a designer in Vancouver, Canada. I work at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, am a director of the 221A Artist Run Centre, and a member of Fieldwork design collective. I'm an Emily Carr and University of Victoria graduate and have worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and the Netherlands. I'm a cycling advocate and race on the Garneau Evolution team.

design university School, October 15, 2008 11:08 PM 6 comments

Clément Quotes


"Everything we see is an iceberg."

Clément Vincent, Assistant Professor in Communication Design at the Emily Carr University. Myself and a handful of senior students attend his weekly Design Futures class. We give presentations and discuss readings on the design process, how we define design, and the paths we take around / through / beyond it. Below, some quotes and paraphrases (in his French accent) from the past month:

Materials are one of the primary forces driving innovation.

Art is accessible but you must engage art on an intellectual level.

Be a true amateur.*

It [a recent student art sale campaign slogan] should not be 'Buy More Art' but rather Love More Art. You'll get so much more back then you give.

Find an example where you fought repugnance--where you gave the benefit of the doubt--and weren't rewarded.

We need standards to protect ourselves.

Everything we see is an iceberg.

I wish you to be in collaborative situations. Without collaboration nothing would get done. This is the height of wellbeing. Very satisfying.

Design need not always solve problems.

If people didn't need you, you would not exist [as a designer].

Designers have very little power. It is controlled by the market. We are in between the people who invent new things and the people who sell them. We help things fit in their time. We are embedded with industry. We help people to get more power.

Brazilians digested modernism; North Americans parodied it.

You have a serious problem when you believe what you think and write.

Inspiration is following a thing. It is duration, progression, investigation. Learning more.

If you have a large amount of knowledge and you don't use it you are in a cell, a cage.

I don't think there's a difference between a painter and a designer.


*Ed. note: the Latin root of the word 'amateur' is amare: to love.

6 comments on Clément Quotes

1. Andreas | October 20, 2008 9:54 AM

The more I think about the iceberg quote, the more sense it makes. Experiments in the psychology of perception I think supports this - people tend to see only what they know.

2. David Ronnie | October 22, 2008 8:47 AM

I've heard some great stuff about Clement (and these quotes only prove them right). I'm really stoked to get into his Core Studio III next semester.

3. Brian McBay | October 22, 2008 10:54 PM

A PEE?

4. Abi Huynh | October 23, 2008 3:40 PM

We had a list of these somewhere ... one I recall was: "I want you to be fireballs!"

5. Ginger | December 14, 2008 7:33 PM

Haha my favourite I think is when he said (almost violently) that design was not McDonalds, in that it wasn't fast food or something you get quickly and later gives you indigestion, but a process that takes time.

6. Kamilla F | January 8, 2009 11:06 PM

An excellent instructor.
I've taken four of his classes.
Never a disappointment.

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