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Here at the STEP Field Guide Design Observation Center, we like to make things difficult for ourselves. Identifying 20 of the most visually intriguing and conceptually rigorous young designers each year just doesn’t seem to be enough of a challenge—besides, other magazines and institutions already do a good job of this. What we do—and what makes the Field Guide such a distinctive chronicle of the preoccupations of young designers in a given year—is to select those who, in addition to being talented designers, are doing something that seems to both expand and refine the traditional definition of graphic design.

In 2005, for example, we focused on designers who move fluidly between the realms of art, motion, type, illustration, fashion and products. Through these case studies we sought to illuminate some of the particular qualities of and imperatives for what people were referring to as multidisciplinary design. This year we sought out those designers who are also entrepreneurs and idealists at heart. We looked for those who, in addition to doing what we understand as graphic design, have also either started a business venture or developed an experimental alternative practice.

What we ended up with was an astonishing array of products and projects that range from websites, blogs, stores, galleries and type foundries, to club nights, magazines, publishing houses, product lines, fashion labels and software programs. We also found studios entirely oriented around research or a manifesto, and those that use teaching or writing as a way to improve both the local and global conditions of graphic design. You’ll see the visual manifestations of some of these remarkable enterprises and some of this new thinking on the following pages.

It’s clearly important for today’s emerging designers to be directing their own schedules, physically making things where possible and to be evolving their practices beyond the familiar territory of graphic design. The School of Visual Arts’ Designer as Author MFA program graduates a dozen designers each year who enter the marketplace not only with a portfolio but also with a viable product or intellectual property. Deborah Adler is the poster child for this course; her ClearRx prescription packaging was picked up and rolled out by Target in 2005 and is now used in the company’s national advertising. But even those who don’t attend this program are thinking along similar lines. They are becoming their own publishers, producers and distributors. Such responsibility requires investment and sacrifice. Building a fashion magazine from scratch, for example, can be punishing, but the rewards of being one’s own boss and creating a product in one’s own image are apparently worth the effort.

To begin with, launching such initiatives as a blog for Chicago’s fixed-gear cyclists, a fortune cookie-shaped coin purse, a monthly night for Brooklyn’s gay community or writing a column on logos in Business- Week leads their authors away from graphic design. Participants in this year’s Field Guide, however, note that in addition to helping hone their practices and broaden their frames of reference, their self-generated work is also what tends to attract new clients. This is good news for everyone. Clients are better able to understand design’s scope and potential. And as for the designers, they can use the money to reinvest in their independent enterprises.

Many Thanks to our advisors, who included John Bielenberg, Stefan Bucher, Kristin Ellison, Mark Fox, Eric Heiman, Karen Hsu, Ellen Lupton, Mark Owens, Mike Perry, Matthew Porter, Robynne Raye, Terry Stone, Jon Sueda, Scott Thares, Joshua Trees, James Victore, Alissa Walker and Helen Walters.