Lecture on Post-Modernism, April 14

Key Points:

• post-modernism involved questioning contemporary views
• Post-modernism came about through the Vietnam war
• those that couldn't affort college were drafted
• It was all about opinions and the ambiguousness of them.
• new wave type
• Wolfgang weingart
• Rosmiere Tissi and Siegfried Odermatt were very influential post-modernists.
• Paula Scher - "Art can only be repetitious".
• use of imagery and contradictory wording to cause audience to think.
• deconstruction
• Derrida
• David Carson "disturbing the audience"
• late 80s, with the Mac home computers, brought about more type
• making type became a fad and influential movement
• Fontography
• Use of pop-culture references to force views.
• culture jam "citational grafts"
• obsession with human body
• Extreme liberalism

Why is post-modernism important? Plainly put, it's the world we live in. The lecture tonight concerning post-modernism was a reflection of the last centuries, and the movements that brought us to today's artificial world, which is mainly about sharing opinions and being plastered by stereotypes and advertisements. Post-modernism was a break-through because things can be either conventional or liberal, it is all a matter of opinion and self-expression. Artists featured today made strong marks on human thinking, as well as causing us to question the world we live in.  What is reality and what isn't? It's all a matter of deconstruction and how we look at it. That's post-modernism.

Discourse 2

Claudia Klees
Previous posting: March 5th, 2010
"discourse 1 pt 2,Television Did it First: Ten Myths about ‘New’ Media."

April 7, 2010

Key Points:

• Paul Rand develops identities in a non-traditional way. 
• Rather than using rational logic to compose his work, he went out to ride his bike to come up with ideas.
• The time period was largely known for its need for identity.
• Every brand needed an identity.
• Lois started using covers and designs that irked the viewers and therefore made a bigger impression.
• Swiss design = rational logic and clear.
• Post modernism.
• Las Vegas is a hub for post modernism.
• Post Modernism and its development.

Today’s lecture regarding the branding age and post-modernism is important for a design student, as it opens one’s eyes to how design influenced culture and which things proved themselves as successful. The ways brand designers developed their ideas and success. Post-modernism is important because it emphasized a freedom of expression, including architecture and design. Can one apply one's ideals to design and architecture, if so, how would your self-expression manifest itself?

McLuhan’s Tetrad

iPod Touch, iPhone

1. 
   
   
   What human trait or experience does the medium enhance?
   The iPod touch and the iPhone enhance our lives through the usage of applications, as well as music. In fact, iPods, which were originally just designed to play music like any other media or mp3 player, have developed into a single tool for multiple purposes such as the usage of applications for daily life – from flashlights to rulers – all sorts of smaller tools can be contained in this one tool known as the iPod touch or iPhone. The iPhone has the additional functionality of a phone or small camera. Despite that it is called an ‘iPhone’, the phone functionality is secondary only to the applications.

2. 
   
   
   What Pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does this medium obsolesce?
   The iPhone seems like some sort of innovation that tries to become a monopoly by itself. The smart phone, which partially replaced the generic cell phone, which mostly replaced the home phone, which again replaced the morse code-based telegraph, has become a competition to prior inventions contained in its apps, which include innovations such as calculators, GPS(which have mostly replaced paper maps) and flash lights. One can also browse the Internet with an iPhone or iPod Touch’s ‘Safari’ web browser, which also ships in it’s full version on Mac OS X. MP3 players, of which the iPod originally was one, have also replaced CDs for the most part (and usually when one buys a CD it ends up on an MP3 player anyways). Included software such as iTunes has become very strong, and probably will end up consuming such things as local CD and music stores. (By the way, CDs have previously consumed audio tapes, which again replaced the music record.)
   
   
3. 
   
   
   What technology, method, system or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does this medium retrieve?
   The iPod Touch and the iPhone both bring back vintage or even ‘obsolete’ innovations – just in digital form. For instance, there are various applications that emulate the use of an abacus or an ancient sun-based compass, which have both become obsolete.
   
   
4. 
   
   
   When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the medium reverse into?
   Imagine the iPhone or iPod running out of battery. All the tools that are on this ‘digital swiss knife’ end up dying with it (until you recharge it, that is). So if a person becomes solely dependent on this tool, and neglects packing the tools it replaced, the person will be left helpless. This is a dangerous thing. Imagine getting lost somewhere in the wild with nothing but food, water, and an iPhone. You then find out that the iPhone is dead. Not only do you have no access to the tools contained in it, but its original functionality – a phone – is not available to you, either! You better end up having a good amount of traditional survivor knowledge (If the dependency on modern-day technology hasn’t handicapped you too much, that is).

Conclusion:

The iPhone and iPod Touch have become very useful, yet potentially destructive, innovations. When they first came out I didn’t like them, but fate decided I should own them anyways. Fact is that these inventions by Apple might seem very useful, but the lesser-seen reality is that these inventions can bring about a problem of potential dependency, which can get in the way of basic survival. Therefore, from a very extreme view, they can be fatal to individuals -- and from an even more extreme view-- they can be fatal to human civilization as we know it(just like the Internet). What will happen once those batteries run out?

Discourse 1 pt 2

Television Did it First: Ten Myths about ‘New’ Media.

• Television will most likely not become forgotten.
• People seek more to be on television than internet.
• ‘Virtual Reality’ is just a new form of ‘escapist’ comedy.
• TV is an easier escape from reality
• TV viewers have a short attention span, like those on the internet.
• Broadcast news TV was ‘kinetic’ in order hook viewers, like internet.
• ‘Reality TV’ has been around for a while.
• The usage of ‘hyperlinked’ story telling was already evident in soap operas.
  ‘Tune in tomorrow’.
• ‘Real-time transmission’ allows people to ‘experience’ history in the making, but that’s been around since Edward R. Murrow who transmitted real-time shows.
• Chat rooms offer a new way to connect and build social groups with people, yet talk shows ‘did that first’.
• Both TV and web advertising is annoying.
• Things we are celebrating about internet was scolded on TV.
  
  
  
  
  
  This article here sounded mainly like a rant of an a person who is afraid on the new Internet. The essay went over ten ‘myths’ about how new media isn‘t ‘that new after ’, and argued why the television ‘did all of these things first‘. Amongst the examples given, he pointed out that  ‘virtual reality’, which is seen as new technology to emerge a person into a different, visual, world, has been around for a while through sitcoms such as I Dream of Jeanie or Bewitched, which offered a ‘break’ from the daily life by emerging oneself in a world full of fantasy, yet still very real. Amongst other things, the author also pointed out that ‘kinetic content’ has been around a long time to grab attention on television, just like the internet. Amongst many examples of needing dynamic, moving, content on television to convey information were news. He emphasized that news would be ‘boring’ to the viewer had they not such things as special effects and extreme camera angles. One of the examples given to prove this was 60 Minutes News which aired on CBS since 1968. This does, however, bring up an ethical question ‘do we watch news for their content or their special effects with the content?‘‘ Would the news be interesting by themselves? ‘Or would they, perhaps, simply fail at feeling the hungry audience?‘ One needs to answer these questions alone, however, we can not deny the fact that ‘users’ have short attention spans, whether it be television or the net.

Discourse 1

Looking Closer Four: Critical Writings on Graphic Design

Movie Titles: Much Ado about Little

by Peter Hall

• Majority of movies don't have memorable title sequence.
• Titles can cast a revealing like on film history
• Focus shifted from memorable movie titles to commercials and environmental signage.
• Everything has been done before
• Nothing new.
• Typography can influence audience
• Directors are designers, too
• Focus should be more on the movie’s design, not the movie’s title.

The article discusses wrong usage of packaging and posters, which convey the right and wrong message. The poster for “The Ice Storm” actually catches what the movie is really about, while the one for Dr.Moreau is somewhat misleading, even if the design is more attention-getting. The title is also not very explanatory, another thing he criticizes: off-the-wall titles. The article heavily criticizes wrong displayal in packaging and too much focus on the design of the logo, rather than the typography contained within the movie. I have also chosen Mission: Impossible, as the typography has actually built an identity for it, and also a creative name identity, which actually works well and is not off-the-wall.

March 3, 2010. Modernism, Cubism, and WWII propaganda

Key Points:

• Sabon is a Garamond rip-off.
• Zwart created unusually arresting layouts
• Post Cubism and Art Deco
• Paul Renner created Futura, which is THE Art Deco typeface.
• Futura’s round Os were perfect circles.
• Stylistic fantasies
• Modernism was everywhere.
• Mikestone: Dubinnet, showed a drink becoming part of someone.
• Modernism still has major influence nowadays.
• Visual Persuasion
• ‘Flight’(1916) first cubist ad poster.
• Synthetic Cubism
• ‘Imitation is the best form of flattery’...
• WWII Propaganda
• German art absorbed cubism, french ad art, lettering, type, and Russian contructionism.
• Ludwig Hohlwein
• Olympic games became propaganda event for Nazi Germany.
• 1942- Abrahan Games, Jean Carle, Bayer
• New approaches to Plakastil by combining it with photography.
• Usage of fear and uncertainty through images.
• Mythical Realism: Promoted patriotism at all levels of society through national symbols, fall of realism.
• Europeans took advantage of photographs, Americans used stereotypes.
• Spring Dance, usage of sexuality to demoralize the enemy.
• Platastil + Photos = usage of photomontages.
• Swiss graphic design.
• While the rest of the world was at war, the Swiss were busy making ski ads.
• Swiss developed the modern International Typographic Style.

Today, part of the class revolved around art-deco modernism and the other part revolved around WWII propaganda. The propaganda focused on differences between Nazi propaganda, Russian, and American propaganda, and the usage of fear to manipulate the masses. One can see different sides of the issue and the abuse of events like the olympics for such things as propaganda. These things should be a warning sign as well as a sensor to detect things like this in the near future. We saw the developments in art-deco and two of the favorite typefaces still in use today: Futura and Sabon. The things shown are even moreso important as designers to be aware of such things as manipulation and unethical advertising.

February 24, 2010. Bauhaus.

key points:

• ‘De Stijl’ means ‘The Style’ in Dutch. 
• Dutch Stijl and Russian Supremist deisgn pushed cubism to pure geometric forms, by isolating natural design.
• Mondrian based his designs on purely vertical and horizontal lines...also geometric forms.
• Bauhaus: Less is more
• Bauhaus school had 50% men and 50% women, even though women were mostly concentrated on weaving and caramics.
• Bauhaus moved around Germany, from Weimar to Dassau to Berlin, finances were always an issue.
• Bauhaus was focused on modern design, which was based on intuition, rather than technical finesse. The designs were too modern for people of the age.
• Bauhaus started having issues with Nazi Germany.
• Nazis had effect on art in that many people started evacuating Germany to find art jobs and similar in other countries, many which were in the US.
• The Bauhaus style focused on clean, flowy, lines.
• Mahaly Nagy: Single-handedly itemizes then applies the components of the Bauhaus graphic design legacy.
• Tschichold wrote a book called “Graphische Werbekunst” a.k.a “New Typography”. It proposed systems of typographic design with symmetrical organization and artificial-kinetic organization and artificial-kinetic asymmetrical design of contrasting elements.
• ‘Dynamic forces should be present in every design. Type should be in motion.’

The Bauhaus was certainly an important event in design history, their non-conventional design is what determined the ‘modern’ design style, and brought about international style. Many teachings were based off the Bauhaus that still influence art and design today. The teachings were a breakthrough in design and were therefore important. 

Class Session, February 17, 2010 --Avant Garde and USSR Design

• DADA’s usage of photo collage influenced Russian design
• Photography creates myth -- not to restate reality
• Rodchenko: Photographs became the primary design elements in his work.
• Photoraphs had greater capacity to engage vierwwes.
• Early Russian design was very structured ‘mechanical’, emotions had no place
• Attempt to create the USSR, and attempt at a utopia
• El Lissitzky co-edited with Hans Arp. 
• Pictorial spreads
• Advertisements were created for USSR monopolistic companies
• Designs were constant
• Designs promoted equality and unity between the sexes.

The lecture today shows what happens when we need ads for monopolistic companies. It also helps us view the old attempts and propaganda to develop the USSR before it fell. The hype regarding the development of the USSR was also interesting because they made it seem like a different world, and showed us a lot about what the minds were thinking at this time.

February 10, 2010. 20th Century Art.

Key Points:

• “Plakastil” or “Poster Style” emerged in Germany early 20th century.
• “Sachplakate”, “object poster” developed in Switzerland, had a reductive “flat color” design.
• Cubism made things more unrealistic
• The use of symbolism in cubism, rather than actual object rendering, was what made cubism special.
• Lucian Bernhard set the ground work for distinct professional identities such as logos.
• Automobiles became popular
• “Plakastil” developed into a tool for propaganda, especially during WWII.
• Allies focused on mythical realism and unity through effort, Axis was more focused on direct, simple, shapes and patterns for symbolism.
• Ludwig Hohlwein was skilled at expressing emotions through a natural style, plakastil master.
• Futurim was a nehilistic form of communication. 
• Semiology was put in the social sciences.
• Lewis Carol’s book, Alice in Wonderland (1886) worked with experimental typography to convey the story.
• Simulteneity -- text playing several roles at once. Both visual and verbal.
• Anta Karl made a very experimental and expressive piece called The Bats Meow, in which the letters for ‘Meow’ were used to form the shape of a kitty.
• Iconoclastic -- Attacks settled beliefs or institutions. 
• DADA developed iconoclastic imagery, which was vert experimental in the sense that they used mediums such as photocollage to convey their messages.
• Fine artist Duchamp was very influential in the world of graphic design because his art encouraged graphic designers to become experimental with different mediums.
• DADA despised conventions and traditional role of art.
• John Heartfield and Kurt Schwitters produced many photocollages, even though Heartfield was more political, and Schwitters saw the concept as simply art.
• MERZ generated much interest in emerging Holland and Russian movements.
• Avant Garde, Surrealism developed, and was more a visual expression of emotions and thoughts of the subconscious than actual portrayal of normal objects.
• Automatism -- A pure psychic exercise often used by surrealists.
• Man Ray was influential in the area of modern photographic expression, and created surreal art with photography.

The lecture today was primarily focused on 20th century art and uses, and their influence on graphic design. The designs shown from the WWII era were useful in the sense that they portrayed a lot about the cultures themselves -- their preferred communication. This teaches that simply looking at contemporary propaganda art and design can convey a message about the culture it’s created in, and therefore provides a powerful tool for cultural awareness. The Axis powers were mostly concerned with the direct portrayal, and strong, bold, symbols and shapes, the Allies were more concerned with ideological portrayal -- I thought this was very interesting. It also taught how modern art has developed into its liberal expression it conveys now, rather than following exact structures as it has in the past centuries. What else can we learn about other cultures and history through the examination of their art? 

January 27, 2010 Victorian to Modernism

Key points

• Victorian period was from 1837– 1901
• The Victorian period focused on highly decorative and gothic forms.
• The beauty of the art in the Victorian period covered the reality of suffrage and child labor.
• The forerunner of modern printing was chromolithography, which made illustration dominant.
• Santa Claus was created in America during this period. (Louis Prang)
• Monotype gained popularity
• Thomas Nest was the father of political cartooning.
• Wood engravements led way to comic books.
• Modern movements, such as the arts and crafts movement, emerged.
• Morris was one of the first socialists, and developed the typefaces Golden, Troy, and Chaucer.
• Art Nouveau was “Art for Art’s sake”.
  
• The Japanese Ukiyo-e designs gained popularity along with Renaissance designs.
• The simplistic forms of Ukiyo-e and the development of photography gave way to modernism.
• Julies Cheret (French): Father of modern lithographic poster.
• Eugene Grasset (French): ‘coloring book’ style, influenced by Ukiyo-e.
• Alphonse Mucha (Czech): Created poster for Sarah Bernhart which was the first movie poster with focus on actors.
• Moulin Rouge posters predated cubism.
• low art = commercial art. Consumer oriented.
• America: Started putting letters in letters.
• Modernism decided to “eliminate all clutter”.
• Germany: Jugendstil
• Austria: Sezessionstil
• Poster for the first Secessionist Exhibition, 1898, was the start of art censorship. Lots of whitespace.
• Bauhaus: form follows design
• Harry Beck developed the first London underground map based on functionality and simpleness, rather than geographic correctness.

Today’s lecture running from the Victorian period to Modernist period is of use to my career as a graphic designer because it is important to see where the still in-tact ideals of “keep it simple, stupid (KISS)” developed, and how they developed. It helps one understand history and is important for determining the age and era of a design, or mimicking it. It also resolves questions regarding the typefaces created in this time, and why they were the way they were. Last but not least, it tells us how the disciplines of graphic design and illustration both gained weight, were at once identical, and how they broke apart, therefore provides a simple explanation when asked “how does graphic design and illustration differ?”.

Class Session, January 20, 2010 --A Quick Tour from 200,000 BC to 19th Century!

Interesting Key Points:

• Before type, there were simplified pictures. (Lascaux and Wall paintings)
• Out of Pictures came symbols.
• Sumarians were the first to have a sort of written language that wasn't illustration (Cuneiform).
• Egyptians copied Sumarians, developed hieroglyphs.
• Phoenician alphabet caused rise of Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin alphabets. 
• Rules of spacing came from Greece. Greek created Unicials.
• Romans took Greek alphabet,  also made square capitals and rustic capitals, and first attempt at something like a miniscule.
• Christians and the Codex
• Ireland continued to develop because it's an island. Celtics merged Christian texts with pagan decorations.
• Principle of Diminuendo
• First international style: Blackletter.
• Chinese made the first moveable type because they had too many characters.
• Chinese made 'chops', a type of stamp to reveal the owner.
• Gutenberg used Textura to disguise the Bible as done by scribes.
• Educational books developed. Gutenberg made lots of money.
• German style: Textura + illustration
• French liked lighter letters
• English moved the responsibility of typography to engineers, not calligraphers.
• Type grid had 2,305 units in cells for capital letters.
• They made a type manual.
• Roman Du Roi, 1701.
• Industrial Revolution led to modern styles, which broke with the classical. 
• Novelty was the most important for serif fonts after grotesque developed. 19th century.
• Grotesque and Sans-serif is the same thing.

This session was interesting for me because for one, it helped refresh my memory on some details I learned in Art History last year. I learned a lot about the development of the type, and find it quite interesting how pictures became letterforms. For two, knowing when and where the typefaces or glyphs were made helps me better reconstruct the typographic ‘feel’ associated with a certain time periods and places. This is a very important thing to know if one wants to be successful as a graphic designer. I am definitely going to look up the Roman Du Roi, and some of the other documents discussed today, as this session has peeked my curiosity and I want to look at them now. Perhaps I can learn even more?

History of Graphic Design-- First Session

Ringling College of Art and Design, Spring 2010. This course requires us to keep a blog regarding the things we learn in class. There will be weekly updates every Wednesday towards the end of the History of Graphic Design class which starts at 7 PM. It is taught by Prof. Higgins.