Bruce Mau was both a designer and massive optimist

If you want to start off 2016 with a hearty dose of optimism, head for the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see "Work on What You Love: Bruce Mau Rethinking Design."

Mau, the Toronto graphic designer, made his name two decades ago for reviving interest in the printed book as a design object. Working mostly for publishers who specialize in social and aesthetic theory, Mau made books that looked as difficult as their texts. Their unexpected, at times perverse, typography embodied the lumpiness of their prose.

His most celebrated book design, S,M,L,XL, (1995) done with the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was in large part a meditation on size, and the volume is so big and heavy - six pounds - that trying to read it is a physical struggle as well as an intellectual one. Most important, perhaps, it is a formidable presence on your bookshelf.

Mau still loves books, if not necessarily readers. The exhibition begins with 200 of the books he has designed filling up a large wall. In the middle is a declaration by Mau that the book is "a dynamic, cinematic, four-dimensional object, evolving in the hands and mind of the reader." Even now, he asserts, if the book did not exist, it would have to be invented. Mau's quotation is a still image on a video screen. (Elsewhere, he recommends reading only left-hand pages, in order to save time and keep your mind open.)

Mau is the 2014 winner of the Art Museum's Collab Design Excellence Award, and, as is usually the case with these exhibitions, the winner largely creates the exhibition, with relatively little critical intervention from the museum curators. This show includes mostly recent work by Mau's consultancy, which in 2010 was renamed Massive Change Network, to express ambitions that go beyond what is traditionally meant by graphic design. Mau is trying to make a better world, one client at a time.

He claims to take his inspiration from the British historian-philosopher Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975), who characterized the 20th century as an "age in which human society dared to think of the welfare of the whole human race as a practical objective." Mau comments that the phrase practical objective redefines the welfare of the whole human race "as a design problem, not a utopian vision." That means design can make a real difference.

Or, as a panel in the exhibition declares, "Massive Change poses the question, 'Now that we can do anything, what will we do?' " Not surprisingly, Massive Change seems to be a bit of a bully, spewing exhortations that fit nicely on the buttonlike signs Mau has scattered through the exhibition.

Mau's approach reflects a recent effort to define design thinking as a universal discipline, applicable to anything, rather than as not-quite art, not-quite-engineering, or not-quite marketing. But it is also, as the Toynbee quotation suggests, a blast from the past. It recalls the days when Buckminster Fuller cast himself as "a comprehensive anticipatory thinker" and the architect Richard Neutra wrote a book called Survival Through Design. Such optimism about the healing powers of design was certainly well-intentioned, though often arrogant, and ultimately naïve. Design makes a difference, to be sure, but so do many other forces designers never get to direct.

The show is organized around a handful of Mau's slogans, showing projects that respond to them. "Compete with Beauty" comes close to being a conventional definition of what a designer does. Mau's response, though, is more like an art project. He has studied the shape of the light patterns cast by fixtures manufactured by the Austrian firm Zumtobel, which hired him to design its annual report. He later worked with artists to realize these elusive three-dimensional shapes in glass. The results are truly beautiful, but they may not save humanity.

By contrast, changing the culture of an entire country, even a small one, would be a massive change. Mau was hired a decade ago by the education ministry of Guatemala to find a better future for a country that has suffered for decades from civil war, genocide, and widespread displacement. "Begin with fact-based optimism," is Mau's rubric for the project. He says the very process of design is an expression of optimism that things can improve, and if that optimism is missing, there is little hope for positive change.

Mau created a slogan, "¡GuateAmala!" - an expression of love in the tradition of "I Love NY" - along with a logo for it and a series of posters that promote national pride and confidence in the future. This is nation-building through branding, and it may well be useful. Moreover, it is a way a graphic designer can be useful. But compared with the massiveness of Mau's ambition, it seems almost petty.

Most disappointing is the way Mau responds to his slogan "Design the Invisible." Giving a perceivable shape to the vast quantity of information our civilization generates would allow people to understand what is happening in their lives and help us do something about it. It might be the most profound service that graphic designers could possibly provide.

What Mau gives us, though, is a variation on the classic aluminum Navy chair, designed in 1944, made from newly formulated plastic in Coca-Cola red. This project grew from work done for the soft drink giant. Each new chair is made from 111 "upcycled" plastic bottles. Mau says the chair gives the brand not a new image but rather a deep meaning that shows the company can be part of a powerful social movement. "Design isn't just style - it's material, process, system," the exhibition tells us. "Sustainability isn't just about recycling - it's about making things that endure."

With this project, Mau has created a recognizable and very likable icon that can be used to explain the economic and physical systems of which Coca-Cola is a part. Yet the chair tells only a partial truth. What of the company's role in creating an oversweetened population and the health problems that follow?

You can see why an advocate of massive change would want such a globe-bestriding patron. But is he designing the invisible, or just giving his client a likable face?

tom@thomashine.com.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday.
Admission: Adults, $20; seniors, $18; students, $14; children, free.
Information: 215-763-8100 or www.philamuseum.org

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