I remember my first semester in college, all of our projects in "Design" being magazine collages, over and over again, me delighting in my luck. I brought in my scrapbook in an attempt to impress my teacher (I know) and he shook his head up and down and said nothing but criticisms and told me how it could be even better. I was neither satisfied or unsatisfied with his response.
It's funny how in a Graphic Design program they make you do so many collages. Ever since I have been trying to figure out, is collage design? I know one thing for certain, when I am collaging, it's not about design, it's about feeling. Design has some part in it though, which you can't help even if you're not a designer. Attention to contrast, white space, lines and placement, all of these are design related. They are rules, design rules available to follow. But what makes collage different from design is that you don't have to follow them.
In this way, I think collage is more art than anything. Art is based more on feeling, "I am gluing this here because it feels right, or it looks right." Based on instinct, not on measurements, not on principle. There is my design, print work and web work, and there is my art, collage.
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