From my monthly column in form magazine.

You are what you wear.

Recently in Frankfurt, a public debate on the occasion of the German Design Council’s 50th anniversary: the place is festive and people are dressed accordingly. It is easy to distinguish between those active in the design profession and those who commission design, comment on it or run the business part of it. The real or the intended proximity to the profession seems obvious, simply judged by the absence of decoration around men’s necks. Real designers don’t wear ties. What does that tell us? On the one hand, that it is both easier and more difficult for women. They need to do more than just leave their neckties at home in order to signify a creative background. On the other hand, it means that Paul Klee was spot on in saying “Only appearances are not false”. You are what you are seen to be. This makes it easy for clients to write us off as artistic weirdos, when more often than not we are just too lazy to shave every day. Isn’t it amazing that such an unspectacular act of refusal is enough to qualify a whole profession? But maybe there has been some progress. Graphic designers don’t have to wear one black and one white shoe to stand out from the crowd anymore, and certain product designers can give up wearing a heavy white sweater in all weathers, just to be instantly recognized as a designer.

On the other hand, voluntary uniforms can turn out to be very practical indeed, on both sides. If your client wears a striped tie with a navy blazer, you can take this as an obvious hint for the choice of typeface: precise serifs and well-behaved centred setting. Architects in tight turtle necks à la Ulm will most certainly only let Rotis touch their papers. Oxford shirts with button-down collars spell Anglo-american preferences, for David Ogilvy perhaps. A period after every word helps here. Like. So. Bulbous diving watches and fat fountain pens are standard kit for alumni from Californian design schools. The image of the delicate, reality-shy creative is often signified by a little goatee which threatens to be blown away by the slightest breeze. Only, however, if our pale colleague exposed himself to the outside, whence his cool, air-filled sneakers would speed him up enough to arrive early for his next appointment. And that would be disastrous. Being caught in observance of an old-fashioned virtue like punctuality could almost be detrimental to a designer’s reputation.