less explanation ↔︎ More Explanation
What’s in the book? Nothing exciting.
This is a good coffee table book to flip when you are exhausted or feel like nothing is exciting. In fact, it’s so unexciting that I’ll show you all of the pages. To avoid prolonged feelings of exhaustion, please see the very critical Criticool™ services offered below.
62 pages, 20×25 cm, softcover.
A book with nothing exciting. Because nothing is exciting. Because everything exciting becomes exhausting. Everything exhausting becomes exhausted. Everything exhausted becomes a style. Every style becomes a cliché. Every cliché becomes exciting again, until there are no styles to recycle. Every recycled style is stitched together into one new meta-style, encompassing every style, everywhere, for everyone
What happens after that? Nothing exciting.
Critical Graphic Design—or whatever new name it has now, speculative, etc.—is just as obsessed with superficial aesthetics as commercial design, which is often looked down upon in this sphere. Francisco Laranjo defined the “criticool” visual style, which instantly makes a project look critical, as “cool, laid-back revivalism of anti-design with stretched typefaces, glitches, Photoshop brushes, and abstract, morphed geometric shapes that leave little to no room for negotiation with the audience.” This book is a collection of basic one-click default effects achievable in design software and tools that align with this “criticool” sty
Tired of boring project statements? Ashamed of the one you wrote? Sure, we could write it for you, but we offer something better, we will style your boring statement into a decorative and illegible poster to make your project look even more DEEP™ and Criticool™. Don’t fuck content, buy it.
*content of these statements were generated by ChatGPT after feeding it project statements from ual online showcase.
We are constantly asked to write statements for our designs. If we put in all the effort to create a piece of design but still rely on explanatory text to do the heavy lifting, that doesn’t make sense to us here at Certified Critical Vendor™. There is often a disconnect or a jump between what the project communicates and what the statement suggests. The statements are overshadowing the projects, and becoming the projects themselves. Theory and context are used as decoration in these explanatory texts, so we took it literally in this service. Your audience won’t be able to tell the difference between projects and statements after this.
Is your context too dry and complicated to explain? Don’t worry, we will turn it into a Criticool™ meme, like the ones that might appear on @ethicaldesign69, what can be more effective than a meme? It will also help you fill those (AC Enquiry & Knowledge) points.
*fourth row on the left column
Continuing with the theme of using Deep™ ideas as visual decoration. The contexts that differentiate projects stop to matter, when projects produced in critical educational environments begin to look predictable and formularized regardless of mediums and topics. Does the contextual background matter more than a font choice?
If you are worried about your project not interacting enough with the real world, we will provide creative interactive solutions that are refreshing and never overused.
In the past we have pioneered the use of pencils (that your audience can write with), tear-off posters, ar posters, audio, voting boards, stickers, drawing boards, survey forms, and even digital survey forms that can be scanned with a QR code🤯... your (AC Process) points will fly through the roof.
We are adding markers and post-its to the mix soon.
The creative research process is aestheticized and self-referential, interaction is mostly for show. What show? The show where designers show that we involved people, which people? The right people for our project? How many times was the headphone picked up? Was a QR code really necessary? Was ANY interaction necessary in the first place? Non of these matters, as long as something has been sticked to the wall, and there’s a photo of people (your friends) “interacting” with it. You are the final editor of the collected results，who would DARE question such an inclusive and rigorous conduction of research?
“Scanning is a decorative decision”
sweatmarks from choosing font
Are you too confident in your making process that not much meaningful process is left to capture? This service is a process generating powerhouse, and named after the legendary screen-scan case we offered to a client to manually create more process. We will make a scan out of thin air (literally) if needed.
Another case to help gain (AC Process) points for our client was a shirt with sweat stains from deciding between using stretched out Times New Roman or compressed Helvetica.
The client ended up choosing Comic Sans with glowing effect.
There’s always a way to justify the conceptual or the visual, but not much can be said about their link. That’s not something we need to worry about, just pile on the visual “process” instead of the unexplainable one that happened in our heads. A picture speaks louder than a thousand words
Pre-Post-Rationalisation’s breakthrough methdology can be seen as the equivalent of a time travelling machine. Your decision making process will be indisputable, held up to our patented, industry-leading standards: FullyRationalised®, EnquiryLed™ and DoubleReflect©.
Our service creates outcomes so deceptible that your project will stand the test of time, in fact, it will lie down across the test of time. It will/would/does look like it’s designed in the future, made in the past, criticized in the present, or in any order of your choice.
We are not perfect, sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes we have to pretend we made make mistakes. There are no perfect designers, but we can becomes perfect performers.
*since the hand-in only required digital documentation of physical objects, this board was never received by me, instead, I asked the laser cutting studio to send a picture of the finished outcome.
This service is here for you to make diagrams that didn’t need to be diagrams, and games that didn’t need to be games. Show off your (AC knowledge) and inflate your creative computing skills with gamified diagrams, combined with the MAJORaesthetics™ of P5.js projects. We will help you explain any relationship (or lack thereof).
Our Criticool™ diagrams have won the Necessary™ Communication Award, which means it will never be overly complicated, it will not look like failed social housing for long texts.
Experience here
Statement vs Project
Critical vs Performative
Critical vs Shallow
How does a complex, all-encompassing diagram function better than just plain text? How does a game that’s not fun to play with attract an audience and convey your very urgent and important message? How do any of our projects do what they claim they do?
Stop asking werid questions and chill out, do it so your portfolio looks better.
Are you running out of ideas? Block your creative block with Crapola™+++. Turn your idea into another sign, not enough? Turn them into stickers. Voila! you just made 2 more OUTCOMES!
These were made for a client that wanted to be reminded to report their criticality at all times.
Keep an eye out for pins, pens, plates, shirts, stamps, flags, mugs, lanyards, tote bags, phone cases and scarves! More is MORE©.
We are also launching our mockup service alongside this grand expansion, so you can make your crapola look extra real without ever having them!
Pick your player:
1. under-considered making.
2. over-considered reflecting.
3. thinking through
4. making for the sake of making.
5. criticality for the sake of being critical.
Say bye to lecturing your dumb audience.
These “Dear Audience” letters that disguise as projects and statements will let you communicate DIRECTlY with your audience.
Rest assured, this time they WILL get your message, or else they will be gently taken care of by our audience reach-out team, secrets to how you reached your (AC Communication) goals are safe with us.
Our projects circulate within a bubble no larger than two classrooms; they rarely reach our “audiences”, and our “audiences” are probably made-up anyways.
Why are we obcessing over making the message clear to the audience when we are lying to our selves?
How long can we stay performative without tormenting ourselves? It’s time to torment the audience instead.
Live, Laugh, Love.
Make, Believe, Make-believe.
We offer this service to anyone who needs an extra push into hypnotizing themselves for a bit longer until they finish their project. We will offer this as a performance, throwing a deck of affirmations into the air at a location of your choice.
See more affirmations here.
Certified Critical Vendor™ is an annual sponsor of the “all hype, no substance” affirmation and is highly committed to this truthful, ground-breaking, industry-leading, future-forcasting, trend-setting methodology. We have adopted it as one of our core values.
Do you need more than just the affirmations? We know you do! These certificates will give you the confidence knowing that you are backed-up by the world’s #2 leading Certified Critical Vendor. No need for that D&AD pencil, no need for TDCs, we are your ultimate proof of worthiness, here at the house of Criticool™, we guarantee a win, always.
Extra £120 applied to awards with ★
How much did you spend on award entry fees this year?
How much do you think they made from designers like you?
Do you ever think about just starting your own design award? We can help with that too, early bird fees starting from £1200.
Are the affirmations and certificates still not enough? We know they aren’t! That’s why we made these medals that can stay with you at all times to pump your Criticool™ energy. These medals come with two sides with messages that either contradict or compliment each other, because they are Complex™ and Criticool™, just like you.
Believe it or not, our medals have inspired the creation of app BeReal, but they don’t like being real about where they got their ideas from.
Our first series with ua£, what happens when the world’s #2 Critical Vendor meets another #2? These lanyards! They are much better than the ual: knockoffs you see everywhere, we have added a retractable device that connects to your cardholder so you never need to bend your necks and backs to tap your cards! You can now also show off your tuition fee status in our second release, from home to international, BA to MA.
See 1st round’s sold-out website where a 5% price increase is applied for every 10 lanyards sold, to match ual’s annual 5% tuition increase.
Again, better than the ual: knockoffs, our original quality can‘t be defeated. These tote bags are at least 5 times thicker than the ual: fakes, and looks waaaaaaaay better.
35x40cm
Need more storage than tote bags? We got you covered with these carrier bags that are bigger, stronger and shinier.
58x40x20cm
@bafcsm approved
Collector’s Item (not for sale)
£100 for anyone who can retrieve the banner from ual:
Video available here
This was a response during 2023’s UK higher education staff strike. The banner was put up with help from Tracy, filmed by Benita and Grace. It has shown up on lecture slides in several courses across ual on the next day.
The banner had a chance of a second-life by turning into a dress for Grayson Perry, but was confiscated by ual 3 hours after being hung.
Costs for the banner were later covered from the first round of lanyard sales.
With professional protest experience, Certified Critical Vendor is proud to offer our bespoke protest service, just name the target and we will go full out. If you are worried that your project won’t make enough impact, this service is it!
If the affirmations, awards, and medals were to sooth your mind, this service is how your project manifest into the real world. Everything will be fixed after a protest, and that’s a Criticool™ promise.
At the time of the degree show, there happened to be a new round of strikes from ual’s cleaning staff.
What impact did the banner really have?
Buy our service and find out.
Did you pour your heart and soul into making a Deep™ and Nuanced™ project but got no attention? We will do the dirty work for you. Taking full advantage of your audiences’ attention span, we provide tailored solutions to create the most attention-grabbing adaptations of your project, customized for different occasions. We EXCEL when there’s limited time and space, whether it’s social media or degree show, your project will POP. You can worry about depth AFTER you grab their attention (and wallets).
The Ultimate designer David Dasha-duke agrees.
The hype generated on social media led to the majority of the audience believing that “I just made some tote bags and graduated.”
During the degree show, I was fully committed to turning the limited 1.2x2.4m wall space into a shop, a choice had to be made, and I chose bags over website, hype over substance, real money over fake shop.
If the customer happened to be interested to discover more, then I would lead them to this website, otherwise I was happy to be a simple shop. Let’s be honest, the website by itself would never reach the amount of people the merchandise has reached. There is less chance for substance without hype.
A real award titled “GCD as Institutional Critique” was presented to Knife Knife, our shop owner, from the Graphic Communication Design course at Central Saint Martins.
This also means we are now a Double Certified Critical Vendor. When placed next to the Criticool™ Awards made for this project it just makes everything even more meta.
In this service, We will help you pivot your project so you win an award just like this. (not guaranteed)*wink**wink
Award designed by Stephen Barrett
The award partially functions as support from within the institution (the course) to fend off potential resistance from ual (the higher-up institutional powers, branding, pr team, etc.) by proving that I didn’t just make some tote bags and graduate.
Now with 2 times sold-out success stories under our belt, we are confident to offer our e-commerce and retail consulting service. Sell-out® online course and Sell-out® summer camp coming soon.
Here in your new shop, critical and commercial graphic design finally ends their feud and unites into one, they reach a consensus that the only good design is design that makes money. Critical design can stop pretending to not care about money, and commercial design can stop pretending to care about anything other than money.
Check out 1st round’s sold-out website
Check out 2nd round’s sold-out website
The design sphere is inflating and imploding. Commercial design is running out of lies to sell, and critical design is running out of theories to champion.
Over 500 items were sold during the degree show. Our customers include students and alumni, tutors, stage leaders, and course leaders from a variety of institutions, not just csm and ual.
We now offer pages in our project submissions for ad space. High conversion rates guaranteed.
Multiple tutors have been converted into my clients. Since the online store link included in my hand-in document was not yet advertised on social media at the time of submission, my tutors became the first customers to place orders.
We will help you craft the ultimate PDF, the kind that will make Adobe Acrobat crash in tears, InDesign roll in graves, and all assessment criteria will forget their names.
Price
Practice
Get it now before price rises next year.