October 10th. Getting humor across to different cultures is tough for most graphic designers. Something that makes an American laugh, may not make any sense to a Japanese audience. These three designers talked about the common ground in humor, that is universal. They have managed throughout their careers to deliver messages that are universally funny.

Shigeo Fukuda gave concrete examples of humor that crosses frontiers. Many antique European and Asian art had the exact themes and forms, which comes to prove his point that humor can be universal and that basic emotions are shared by all of humanity.

Omar Vulpinari shares his Fabrica stories

Omar Vulpinari, head of the Fabrica Visual Communications department (Benetton research center for design) centered his presentation on a single Tarot card, The Fool. The Fool, he says, embodies the essentials of what designers should be. “The fool is the sublime duality of madman and enlightment. The fool explores and risks.”

He went on to show the work of the “fools” at Fabrica. The works of his students reflect all the qualities of a perfect fool. They reflect the DNA of Fabrica,he said, with ingredients like: Humor, disturbance, doubt, and subversiveness.

Omar Vulpinari shares his Fabrica stories

“No matter how much we try to make things come out right, something will be wrong. Nothing is as we plan it,” And so began the lecture of one of the most influential designers of our times. – Neville Brody (UK)

Brody’s work for Issey Miyake

“Some of the best ideas come from mistakes.” Brody said that acting against the rules breaking the rules, breaks thought patterns, making the audience see things in a different light. “Designers are middle-men between the raw information and the public… As designers we can shape the opinions of our audience.”

Neville Brody delivered a powerful speech, in which he criticized our world, and inspired us all to make a change, NOW!

“I live in a world in which I’m forgetting how to be intuitive, instinctive, artistic or natural… Today I calculate more than I create . I’ve forgotten to work with my hands, to make things like clay… We live in a world in which revolution is a GAP advertising campaign… We’ve created a society of a limited pallette. It’s as if we see the world through 256 colors, we’ve eliminated all the rest. We’ve moved from high-resolution to no-resolution. From Infinite possibilities to 72 dpi… We’ve forgotten that we can break the rules, I mean really break the rules.We just vary what we already have. We live in fear of failure. And if we don’t tear up the plans we’ll never find out.”

I came out of that lecture with a knot in my throat and watery eyes.

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