The products of graphic design are to be found everywhere, in the form of logos, publications, websites, and targeted social media advertisements -- yet despite the ubiquity of design, the forces that shape the visual landscape remain a mystery to the general public. Oftentimes designers are trained and not born out of pure skill or talent. Their creative rituals have, more likely than not, been passed down from generations of teachers and mentors before them. This inherited design process has perpetuated a cycle of predictable uniformity in both form and process. New forms cannot be discovered with outdated or trained processes. Metamorthesis explores the notion that a new kind of graphic design might be possible if we broaden the discourse beyond the preoccupations of "high design."
The book contains a collection of 11 interviews from a group of diverse individuals outside of the design community. The structure entailed asking participants to think like a designer. Each interviewee was asked to pick one or two of the following subjects: representation, memory, identity, environment, communication, and information. Then the following questions were asked: Why are you passionate about your subject(s)? Is there a problem you observe within your subject(s)? How would you begin to solve that problem? What advice might you give? This series of questions closely mimics a conventional process, but without any designer interference. Instead of the default starting point of research and collection, the design can start and end with visual execution.