“I think, a lot of times, we have to just stand next to the mystery. Not try to squeeze it into some category.” - Lili Taylor

I recently read that an ancient Chinese encyclopedia categorized animals by the following criteria:

1) Those that belong to the Emperor
2) Those that are trained
3) Suckling Pigs
4) Mermaids
5) Fabulous ones
6) Stray Dogs
7) Those that are included in this classification
8) Those that tremble as if they were mad
9) Innumerable ones
10) Those drawn with a very fine camel’s hair brush
11) Others
12) Those that have broken a flower vase
13) Those that resemble flies from a distance


If this is true, than, apparently, the ancients found room for humour in the their taxonomy of wildlife. You don’t see that too often in our science books since the objective is accuracy versus getting a few laughs. I suppose being factual does has its advantages. But it has disadvantages, too. I read once that our taxonomy is so paralyzed by details that there still is some discrepancy as to what really constitutes a fish. Some are even saying that there is no such thing as a fish! Now that‘s funny, even if it’s unintentional. So, essentially, if we don’t have a label for it, then it doesn‘t exist.

Graphic Design has its own taxonomy. I could try making a list but it wouldn't be nearly as funny as the one above. But for the most part when designers do a "creative brief" they're usually trying to figure out which category the client will fall in: cool & hip, corporate, corporate casual maybe. It's rare that either a client or a designer has the balls to put a client in a category that they have no business being in. The late Tibor Kalman was a master at this. From what I've read, he couldn't design his own shit. But he apparently was good at getting other designers and clients to step outside their comfort zones -- and their inherent category.

The legendary writer Niel French had the right idea when he said that his ad strategy was to make his clients “jump out” by designing for the wrong category. So a bank ad ended up looking more like a car ad and vice versa. Taking the DNA from another business "species" and mixing and matching their genes is a lot more interesting than cloning – and design is usually a practise of cosmetics and cloning.

Of course, all of this shit is easier said than done. It’s not often that you come across a client who truly wants to shake things up and see what happens. Designing outside the practical category is not something that I’ll expect to see that often. But when I do, the results are memorable.

In my hometown of Buffalo, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery pissed off a lot of people by auctioning off some classic art collections, and using the money raised to bring in contemporary art. Following the controversey, came a RE:MIX exhibit that placed past and present art next to each other. This was no random remix either, there was a definite relationship between old and new. In my eyes, this RE:MIX was a perfect example of stepping out of an old category and into a new one.

So there is hope. And of all professions, the law is what confirms that hope. There is probably no other system on earth that leaves as much room for the absurd and unexpected as our justice system. I’ll close this one with my favorite law that derives from Texas, where criminals are required by law to give their future victims twenty-four hours advance notice (in writing or oral) explaining in full detail the crime that they are intending to commit.