“Design Diversity” and the Con

I think it’s high time we talked turkey about auto polish, don’t you? I know you do! For a long time I’ve encountered these crazy auto polish canisters all dated from the ’50s and early ’60s. I’ve picked them up and accidentally grown a rather nice little collection of these crazy things. Have you ever seen more ridiculous packaging? I assume all the actual auto polish in these cans is identical. The only difference is the packaging. I have visions of a mad laboratory in New Jersey where huge vats of bubbling, stinky, viscous fluid is being funneled by sleazy-looking crooks into all these different colorful happy-looking little cans.

This “design diversity” is a great example of a pyramid scheme in action. All of these wacky cans are different because different hustlers sold the auto polish off. AMWAY comes to mind. A distributor would convince various groups (Boy Scouts, churches, high school pep bands) to buy from them, then sell the stuff door-to-door or in front of supermarkets. When sales reached a certain level, the vendors would vanish with the profits, only to pop up again with the same auto polish in different packaging somewhere else.

Cans and even full crates of the stuff languished in garages and basements for decades. People would buy it out of “civic duty” but never got around to using it. I find cans in yard sales or garbage dumpsters. They’re easy to spot—their neon crazy fake modernist madcap appearance shines out like a flashing casino advert.

Check out those names! “Plastone”! with “Hi-Fi Colorguard” and, oh man, “Liquid Class”! What red-blooded American male could resist those cars? I bet they couldn’t wait to rub this slime on their hot rods, eh? One of them even has a naked lady posing over it! Hubba hubba!

If you look at the Liquid Class can, you’ll see it’s completely covered with five-point type—front, sides, top and bottom. This is the sales pitch. It’s full of bold type, underlines and caps. This stuff will not only shine and protect your car forever, it will increase your virility, grow hair on your bald spot, increase your longevity and make you irresistible to women. Oh, and it will make you rich, too! Just follow the easy steps listed here. That’s why the stuff cost $2.50 and not the conventional $1 like the other cans o’ polish. This is LIQUID CLASS!

Who would ever think that the auto polish industry would be established as a cheezy hustle? I mean, we’re all salesmen in America; that’s what’s made us great, right? But auto polish? Can you think of another product more banal? The designs on these cans were irresistible little explosions of sheer excitement. They hooked you to the fisherman’s harpoon and dragged you in, grabbed that cash from your sweaty palms and then showed you the door—one happy, satisfied customer.

This is what graphic design does. It ain’t art. It’s barely creative. It ain’t anything special except for the fact that it controls your every thought. It is propaganda of the basest sort. Always has been, always will be. Graphic design exists to trick you into doing something a client wants you to do. It could be “buy this product,” or “go to this event,” “vote for this candidate” or even “believe in this religion.” Graphic designers are the linguists who use the shared language to service the client’s desired goals. And we do it for pay. What does that make us?

Every time I listen to some high-minded arrogant designer rubbing our noses in his latest sales pitch (like they’re some smarter creature of higher taste and breeding), I simply remember the wonders of auto polish. I remember what we really do for a living.

I’m in the business of fucking with people’s ideas and fantasies. It’s my job to use this language of graphic design to do so. I’ll use color and shape and line and form to make the viewer change their mind about something. For example, the color yellow “means” something in our minds. A circle means something very different than a square. A rough line can say something utterly contradictory to a smooth line.

Some graphic designers aren’t even graphic designers. They are SALESMEN who hire designers to create what they sell. Their name is on the door so they get the credit. They are sometimes world-famous designers. But they don’t design anything. They simply hire designers and art-direct them (if they have the time). So many graphic designers present such a wonderful front, like they live a glamorous life of fame and luxury. Ever meet anybody like that in reality? It’s a con, to create confidence in the client and the public. The better the public image, the better the con, the more money they make. If you wonder how a famous graphic designer can retire, get fired (ahem, Paul Frank) or even die and still produce award-winning work under their name, that’s what’s called a Studio, or “stable.” The individual’s name became a business entity and will continue the con into perpetuity. Could I interest you in some auto polish?