Influential Designers: Last Day

Friday, May 15 was the last day for our influential designer presentations, as well as the last day of class. There were only two left and we heard about Kyle Cooper and Shepard Fairey.

Kyle Cooper is a title sequence creator who was influenced by Saul Bass, famous for his innovative design for movie titles, and Stephen Frankfurt. Frankfurt did the title sequence for the movie "To Kill a Mockingbird". Kyle has done the titles for all three Spider-Man movies, Seven, Dawn of the Dead and Curious George to name a few. He uses experimental type, montages, cartoons, and smooth transitions. He really gives the viewer an introduction to the movie they are about to see and he does it well. He has a company called Prolouge and also does TV animation for commercials and TV stations/channels.

Shepard Fairey was born in South Carolina and was influenced by skate parks, punk music and pop culture. He started out making stickers for skateboards and continued that tradition later on. He is part poster designer, part vandal and likes to make a statement. One of his biggest projects is "Obey" with his Andre the Giant drawing. He also does posters for bands and political and social issues. The posters Fairey designs have an Art Deco influence with dark images, bold fonts, sunbursts and hidden messages.

Influential Designers: Day 4

On Wednesday May 13, we had our second to last day of influential designer presentations. We learned about Stephen Stagmeister, Clement Mok, and Leo Burnett.

Stephen Stagmeister was for sure a very unique and unconventional designer. I enjoyed hearing about him and his work very much. He was born in Austria and studied in New York. He worked with Leo Burnett and Tibor Kalman, who was his greatest influence. He appreciated Tibor's typographic style and the support he gave social issues, as well as things he believed in. Stephen did a lot of handwritten work and photography. He liked using the human body a lot in his images because it's familiar and relateable. One of the most interesting ways he used the human body was in an image of his own body where his intern cut words into his skin. Most of his works were for music groups or for social issues like the True Majority Initiative.

Clement Mok started out working for Apple and designing software for the Mackintosh computer. The skills he acquired there helped him in his own business later on where he had the capabilities to meet any need a client may have, including web design. He did a lot of idenity systems for companies like Adobe, IBM, and Sony. He work sometimes has an Art Deco feel to it, but is mostly freehand and drawings. It's geometric and bold and he likes to use symbolism and abstract images.

Leo Burnett was an advertising executive that was responsible for many of the cereal box characters that we grew up with, like Tony the tiger and Tucan Sam. He had started out working for Cadillac Motors, but joined the ad industry later on. In 1935 he opened up his own company in Chicago. He got some criticism and some people told him he'd never do well, but he did and proved them wrong. His personal logos are based off of what he believes and how people told him that he would fail and wind up selling apples in the streets. They are an apple, for obvious reasons, a hand reaching for stars, for his famous quote about reaching for them even if what you get isn't a star, and a black pencil to represent humanity and hard work.

Influential Designers: Day 3

We had our third day of influential designer presentations on Monday May 11. The class heard about Tibor Kalman, David Carson , and Matthew Carter.


Tibor Kalman was born in Hungary, but grew up and attended school in New York where he spent an isolated childhood. He put all his time alone to good use in his designs, though. He did a lot of designs around social issues and making sure his ideas got out there. One of the major things he did was for Benetton magazine and their campaign "The United Colors of Benetton". This project lead to Tibor's own magazine called "Colors". On top of this project he had a studio with his wife, Maria, called M&Co. where he did many things including odd objects like paperweights and watches. He has a very quirky, fun style and you can see that in the work that he does.
David Carson is another designer that I really enjoyed learning about. He did a lot of experimental typography in his designs and had no formal classes. He didn't believe in a grid system and didn't have a theory about his work. He really just let it be what it was and expressive. His most famous saying was, "Legibility should not be mistaken for communication," which meant that just because the viewer could read the message didn't mean that it was compelling. He was the art director for 5 different magazines and was most well known for his work for "Raygun".
Matthew Carter is a typographer and type designer. He learned young how to make the type from his father, who influenced him a lot. He was also influenced by other type designers like Andrea Mantegna and Robert Granjon. Some of his well known type faces are Bell Centenial, which is still used today in the phonebook, and Walker. He also came up with the ink trap in his letters where the ink would have somewhere to bleed and still have a sharp corner. He is known for redesigning the Museum of Modern Art logo so that it would be easily recognisable to even those who couldn't read the letters in it, and he also owned the largest type foundry, Bitstream, Inc.

Influential Designers: Day 2

On Friday, May 8 we had our second round of influential designer presentations. The class heard about Neville Brody, Art Chantry, and Storm Thorgerson.

Neville Brody grew up and attended school in London. He was highly influenced by the punk music scene and it shows in his work. The type is really bold and streamlined and the total layouts of many of his designs hold a lot of energy. A lot of people disapproved of his work, calling it rebellious, but he continued on and became very successful. Neville worked on record covers and t-shirts, several magazine publications, as well as his own called "Fuse", and his own studio, Research Studios.
Art Chantry grew up in Washington state with his mother and abusive father. When Art and his mother left, they had very little funds and Art had to grow up in a rough nieghborhood. When he finally made it to college there were difficulties there for him too. He had started out attending a private religous school, but he didn't feel comfortable there. However, he did find out that he wanted to be a designer and started classes at a community college. There he felt like he didn't fit in. Many of the classes were fine arts based and didn't want advertisements or messages in the works. Art finally settled in at Western Washington State University. He didn't like working on the computer with digital images and preferred recycling actual pieces and making them something new. He even printed his type by hand. I really enjoyed his work because of how he would find images and just manipulate them by hand. He used what he had and could find and made something really cool out of that.
Storm Thorgerson is also a designer that I enjoyed. He is also an English born designer who never actually had any design schooling. He's mostly known for the album covers that he's done for Pink Floyd, as well as many others, but he also did some TV and commercial work. He tried to work with music videos, but they didn't turn out as successful as he would have liked. Storm works with photography for the most part and likes to layer pieces of pictures together. His images contain a large central object or figure, with a smaller secondary figure, and he likes to make his images so that you look and ask questions. They hold a surreal feeling to them and they always seem to make you think about what's going on because they are strange in the sense that they are different than anything that is out there now. Storm also had a couple of his own studios, one of which was "Hipgnosis". It was a creative photography studio that he started with his partner Aubrey Powell. Currently he is still working for many rock artists and freelancing from another studio, StormStudios.

Influential Designers: Day 1

Wednesday, May 6 was the first day of our influential designer presentations. The class heard about April Grieman, Milton Glaser, and Seymour Chwast.

April Grieman went to school at the Kansas City Art Institute, where she learned about modernism, and attended graduate school at the Basel School of Design in Switzerland. At Basel, she discovered New Wave design with the help of Wolfgang Weinhart, one of her professors, and began to design in that style. New Wave had mostly to do with the way the typography was designed, which was unconventional and innovative. She later became involved with photograpy and digital imaging. April inspired the beginning of digital design with the images she was creating, especially with the Design Quartery #133 image. It wasn't like what anyone else had done before or even seen and she became very influential to this way of designing.

Milton Glaser attended an art and music high school and Cooper Union with Seymour Chwast and the other members of the Push Pin Studio, which they formed in 1954. Both have a similar cartoonish way of designing and drawing, using thin black lines and art nouveau influences. Milton had a more simplistic and direct style and tended to leave out details, allowing the viewer to fill them in, while Seymour explored typography more and had a very distinct sense of humor in his pieces. After Milton left the Push Pin studio he worked on several different projects. He had a couple of his own companies, one of which was Milton Glaser Inc, where he worked with many periodicals or did his own print graphics. Seymour stuck with the Studio and expanded it and published the Studio's own periodical that lasted for about 5 years. He became well known for his poster designs and wrote and illustrated around 20 of his own children's books.

Seymour Chwast

He is thought of as one of the greatest graphic designers of his time, well known for his commercial works and typefaces. Seymour Chwast’s unique design got him the nickname “the left-handed designer” and numerous awards. His life, involvement in the Push Pin Studio, and the commercial art that made him famous are each elements of Seymour that continue to influence designers around the world.

Psychedelic Posters

Psychedelic posters were identified as such because the media and most people related them to the rebel cause and psychedelic drugs. They were characterized by curves like in art nouveau, warped lettering and complementary colors that ranged very close in values. Most often these posters were social statements versus advertisments, which were influenced by events such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the women's liberation movement. A majority of the artists that contributed to the psychedelic poster movement did not professionally taught and designed mostly for band concerts and dance clubs. Robert Wesley Wilson was at the head of the movement as the innovator and among one of the strongest self-taught designers. Other designers were Peter Max, who experimented often with printing techniques and different mediums, and David Lance Goines. He was kicked out of the University of California at Berkeley and worked for a press and later owned it and called it the Saint Hieronymous Press. He combined lithography and graphic design to create effective communications for both himself and the public. His work is characterized by the simple lines and contours, flat color, and symmetrical design. By the 80's, the poster was printed for decoration and photos and painting became posters for the masses with the artist's names and the work title printed as part of the piece.
I just like this style in general. It is so unique and different from previous movements and it wasn't used for advertisements outside of band concerts. I just like the self-expressionism of the style and the incorporation of art nouveau with the combination of bright colors. I also like Goines' individual style. I feel like you could pick his work out very easily since it is so distinct.
Why was the psychedelic poster movement so short?

Chapter 21

Conceptual images were the product of the desire for something new after the second world war and, instead of just telling a story, these images displayed and idea or concept, hence "conceptual images". Poland and America were two big players in the development of conceptual images, but it was an international movement. After the war, Poland basically had a whole lot of nothing left, but a Polish poster art school opened and brought color, hope and happiness back. Henryk Tomaszewski was one of the leading graphic designers at the time and used light-hearted paper cut-out collages to win over Poland and other countries. Franciszek Starowiejski experimented in the opposite spectrum of the poster world, working with surrealism and the metaphysical to show a darker side of Poland. This was mostly a reaction to what was going on with their government and in society at the time. A reccuring trend among poster designers in Poland was the collage and an influence from Art Nouveau. Some designers also used a variety of mediums in their posters, such as crayons and paints, and several colors. Many designs of this time are borderline trippy with the patterns and colors used. In America, narrative illustration was on a decline as photography became more prominant, but it soon found a new function in conceptual imaging. Milton Glaser, one of the Push Pin Studio artists, created his images using thin black lines and flat shapes of color that looks heavily influenced by Art Nouveau. He used bright colors and silhouettes, which echos the style. Glaser and his partner, Seymour Chwast, designed a few typefaces together that were influenced by the Victorian period, art deco and art nouveau. Many other designers who attended Push Pin Studio also became prominant designers of the time with their revivals and new ideas. Push Pin really was the place that illustration was given a new place in graphic design. The conceptual image idea on posters in third world countries soon became important after the war as well as a way to challenge authority and express feelings. Their posters were messangers for addressing social and political problems, motivation and international issues. This type of poster design became popular in Cuba in 1959.
I find it empowering and inspiring to know that after World War 2 left Poland with nothing to work with in agriculture or industry, a school for poster art sort of sprung from the ashes. I think that it was a very good thing for Polish society that it did because the people needed to see that there was some hope at the end of all the destruction that they went through. If the war could bring the end to everything, including the art and graphic design field, and then have poster designs appear when it's all over and flourish, then other things will be able to come back too.
Why were styles like art nouveau being revived at this time?

Chapter 20

Corporate Identity was important for companies during the 1950's, as well as their visual systems. Visual systems were important for the image of the company and help it reach the goals they wanted to achieve. Giovanni Pintori was among the first desginers to help develop visual identification. He worked for Olivetti, which wanted to promote their image of industry and engineering. Pintori achieved this well with the way he made his complex designs feel so simplistic by using small elements as a harmonious whole. At this time, the most well known and developed corporate identity became CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) because of its president, Frank Stanton, and art director, William Golden. Golden was the one responsible for the CBS eye that is so well known still today. He believed that the designers job was to make sure that the message meant to be expressed was done so accurately and well. Another designer for CBS was Georg Olden, who was important to the development of tv broadcast images. He learned how to design on-air graphics to suit the way television would display them and became the first prominant African American graphic designer. Paul Rand started doing trademark design and used simple, universal shapes in order to make them last. He redesigned the IBM logo into what is used today. He also designed the Westinghouse Corporation trademark, ABC and the NeXT computer logo. Many other companies underwent corporate identity changes with Lester Beall and Chermayeff & Geismer Associates. The general principle behind every designer and their design was to make the logo memorable to the viewer to keep them coming back to it and to recognize it anywhere, while keeping it simple. Transportation signs were also getting a facelift around this time. The principles were similar too. A lot of important information needed to be communicated fast and easily. To accomplish this, each transportation system developed symbols to unify communications internationally. This was also applied to international events like the Olympics, designed by Lance Wyman.
I think the coolest part of the chapter was reading about the MTV logo. It was the first of its kind to be as versitile as it was since it was so simple. The network could give it different personalities for any and every occasion and need. I think it is the ultimate design because it can be anything you want it to be or need it to be, while still meaning the same thing. The identity doesn't change, just the way it looks.
Why were there so many different designs for the Olympics?

Chapter 19

In the 1940s, America started to make steps toward their own modern style, which was influenced by European design, but became distinct in the need for personal expression and open ideas. Paul Rand was at the head of this movement in America with his designs on the covers of magezines. He used simple and contrasting design elements that made the whole symbolic and interesting. He also used a combination of wordplay and visual elements such as a photo or logo in later designs. His understanding of symbols and communication in general allowed him to create a design that exhibited both form and function while still getting his message across. Another influential postwar designer was Bradbury Thompson. His experimentation with letterpressing and combination of geometric and organic shapes in his designs gave them strong expression and meaning. Film typography underwent changes with Saul Bass. He unified the designs of the logos, posters and title in the film, which he pioneered many techiniues in. This chapter also discusses the graphic design program at Yale University and the impact that it had. Alvin Eisenman and Josef Albers were both teachers there and the exercises and studies they taught lead an advancement in the graphic design education internationally. During the 1950s, there was a revolution in the way editorial magezines were designed. Type and photography were used together, or type became the picture/illustration itself. There was an experimentation with scale and on location photos were used instead of studio shots. In the 1960s, the editorial magezine changed again, this time targeting specific audiences and emphasizing content and text in a grid format. The 50s advertisment was a change of the times too. White space and a concern for the clarity of the message to the consumer were new plans. There was now a focus in each ad that utilized headlines and images effectively. Figurative typography also became popular at the time as well as a rrevival of nineteenth century typefaces that were previously rejected.
I like Paul Rand's work a lot and feel like he was a very important designer to the modern movement in America, since he was one of the first. I just like the way he used contrasting shapes, colors and ideas in his designs to express his thoughts. My favorite from the book is the "Direction" cover with the barbed wire on the Christmas package.
What was the New York School?

Chapter 18

International Typographic Style, also known as Swiss design, came about during the 1950's and was characterized by a grid design which was sometimes clearly included in the overall design and sometimes ommitted. Information was presented clearly and a very organized manner, often left-aligned and sans serif. This style of design also left behind propaganda and exaggerated design to ensure the clearity of the portrayal of the message. Ernst Keller, a teacher at the School of Applied Art, was an important designer in the development of Swiss design. He felt that the content of an image should decide the design and not fit a specific style. Theo Ballmer was also a designer that had an impact on Swiss design. He studied at the Bauhaus and was influenced by De Stijl. His poster designs utilized the mathematical grid of Swiss design and geometric letterforms. Another student of Bauhaus, Max Bill, was influential in not just graphics, but in many other fields including architecture and painting. Art Concret was his idea for a universal design of clarity built on mathematics and was visually abstract. Bill designed based on an organized and ordered whole, utilizing the ideas of mathematics such as permutations and sequences and grids. Another unique contribution to design was given by a designer from Zurich by the name of Anton Stankowski. He was known for taking photos of everyday objects and abstracting them in his designs from the patterns and textures he found. From this, a visual form of invisible forces and processes such as radio waves and the conduction of heat was produced in his posters. Like I said before, one of the characteristics of this style was the use of sans-serif type styles. Adrian Frutiger designed twenty-one styles of the Univers family that exhibited a unity together that wasn't repeated in Helvetica by Edouard Hoffman and Max Miedinger. Herman Zapf designed a roman inspired Palatino, a modern Melior, and a thick sans-serif called Optima. All were influenced by past typefaces, but also displayed Zapf's understanding of the modern time and technology. Several other designers that furthered the Swiss design style came from either Zurich or Basel at this time, where the major design schools were at. Josef Muller-Brockmann came from Zurich and became important to this style. He wanted to design and convey a message without his own feelings and ideas getting in the way of what the viewer thought. He used the overall design as a symbol and scaled photos and different angles to achieve clarity and impact. Josef also utilized geometric forms and symbols as well as grids in his designs. Siegfried Odermatt was also influential in the clarity and impact of his works, but applied in the business and corporate end of design. He used typography to achieve the same impact graphics could simply by the strength and organizational placement of the type. The Swiss design style was influential in America after the war. The grid structure and asymmetries were adapted into designs for book covers and album covers and was embraced at the Massachusettes Institute of Technology.
I particularly enjoy the works of Stankowski and Muller-Brockmann. I like the idea of creating patterns to represent things that we physically cannot see and often can't feel, with the exception of heat. I also like the way Muller-Brockmann used scale in the photo elements of his designs. I think that they have a bigger impact and are more dynamic that way.
What was the big deal with the application of mathematical methods and grids in design?

Week 7 Images

Both of these images are my own sketches of the Band-Aid Brand packaging. The bottom image is Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. I looked particularly at the designs he submitted to "Liberty" the magezine as inspiration, as well as the stained glass windows that were in many of the houses he designed. I used simple lines and geometric shapes and I used a typeface that was based on a lettering style he used. I think it's simple enough and the type interacts well with the lines. I would like to have been able to use color so I could show an interaction with white space as well.
The top image is a package design influenced by futurism. I did my best to make the words "Band-Aid" legible while using the images of band-aids. I think I would fix the "i" in "Aid" to look more like an "i" because looking at it now, I think it reads like an "L" instead. Futurism is a style where they made images with typography and I think I did that with the picture of the band-aid by writing "flexible fabric" in the shape. I think I like the simplicity of the design since there is quite a bit of white space, but I wonder if it would need something more. I'm also afraid of making it too complicated and sending a different message. I tried to not do anything real special for the type in the shape of the band-aid, just for readability and simplicity since the brand name was the focus.

Week 6 Images

These images are two sketches I drew myself, redesigning the packaging of the "Band-Aid" brand. Both are a little sloppy, but they are only sketches and my first attempts. The top sketch is an example of the art nouveau style with the flowing, organinc lines. I tried to incorporate some flowers and use a typeface that matched the organic shape of the vines. Art Nouveau was known for its organic designs and the female form was actually the most popular kind of design on posters. Flowers and birds were also used. The bottom sketch is an example of the Victorian style packaging. I tried to make the type detailed and to vary it within the design, like they did in posters of the time. I also tried to add details and use every space of the package. I don't feel that I had enough elaborate details, but I do like my overall design layout. I used examples of tobacco packages I found in the text book as inspiration. I noticed that the actual product wasn't on any of the packages or the advertisements, so I didn't put the band-aid on either package design, only the typography and some details.

American Kitsch and WW2 Posters

American Kitsch is a movement that is about the tacky, sentimental and amusing art that isn't neccesarily quality art. It can be anything from literature to the way a person behaves. It can also be described as melodramatic and overdone and was once over produced, but with time it gains value and becomes a collectible. Kitsch items are often thought of as junk by people who aren't collectors or appreciators of the style. Kitsch uses bright colors and cheap metallics and has a feeling of charm and nostalgia about it.
Posters from World War 2 most often were advertising and encouraging production of materials and food for allies, like eggs. Since there were a lot of strong feelings with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the actions of Hitler, the posters also displayed a lot of strong feelings. They were still designing with simple shapes and bold colors and, because of the war, symbols were also prevelant. Ben Shahn achieved an intense communication through his graphic pictures and interesting use of type, especially with his Nazi brutality poster that showed a victim with a hood to hide their face. Kauffer and Carlu, among others from the Bauhaus, were also popular poster designers using photos, hand illustration and typography. After the war, everything shifted from the needs of the troops to consumer needs. The same Container Corp of America (CCA) company that commissioned the ads for paperboard during the war started a series of posters from across America that set the bar for institutional advertisment uniting art with life, taught by the Bauhaus. After that series came out, poster design was relatively the same with the symbolic, geometric shapes and minimalism, but collages were also popular as well as photography. Herbert Matter actually made the molded plastic chair of the 50s famous and known for the time period with his photos in ads.
I think I like the idea of kitsch. It's funny that people will appreciate, even love, tacky, gaudy pieces of art or collectibles, even if they aren't high quality. People like it because of what it makes them think of or reminds them of from their childhood. I also really like the graphic quality of the poster Ben Shahn made. It's scary and has so much emotion in it. It gets the point across so well.

Art Deco

The movement known as art deco was a geometric style influenced by cubism and De Stijl, among a list of others, and was popular between the 1920s and 30s. It was mainly the type of look a lot of graphics, mostly posters, architecture and the design of other products between world wars. The two most important designers to this particular style were Edward McKnight Kauffer and A.M. Cassandre from America and Ukraine, respectively.zeKauffer was born in America and started his art education there, but left to continue in Europe where he felt the movement was more modern. He designed mostly posters there and a series of travel posters for the Underground that had a much simpler design and utilized flat interlocking, representational shapes. Cassadre studied and worked in Paris where he designed posters that were geometrically symbolic, natural and used bold colors. He also worked with typefaces. He designed the Peignot, Bifur, and Acier Noir typefaces. Others like Jean Carlu, Paul Colin and Joseph Binder also made great contributions to the art deco movement with their poster designs, geometric with bright colors and basic forms.
When we read this chapter, chapter 14, I felt that Jean Carlu was the most interesting person to read about. I still feel this way and I respect his ideas concerning design. He wanted to make his designs the most simple he could, using the fewest number of lines he could or expressing his message the best with only one idea.
If Kauffer's famous "Daily Herald" poster was flawed in the type choice and placement, why did it become so famous?

Chapter 15

Chapter 15 discussed how cubism and futurism influenced Russian graphics and became suprematism and constructivism. Civil war and other political issues allowed a brief period of creativity. Kasimir Malevich founded suprematism, which was a style of painting with basic forms and pure color. He didn't believe in utilitarian function and pictorial representation, but that art must remain a spiritual activity. El Lissitzky was the eptiome of a constructivist, which was the opposite of a suprematist. They felt that paintings were useless and concentrated on industrial design. Among his achievments, Lissitzky developed a design style called Prouns, designed covers for the magazine Wendingen, created the journal Veshch and totally designed a book of poetry. Lissitzky also used the photomontage to make dramatic and powerful posters or magazine covers. After his death he was remebered as a great pioneer of design and type. Another influential constructivist was Vladimir Vasilevich Lebedev. He simplified forms to their basic geometric shapes while he illustrated books for young children and became the father of the modern picture book. He was inspired by how children actually draw and called it "infantilism". De Stijl was a movement that strived for equilibrium and harmony universal in art. Piet Mondrian's works were where the philosophys and visual forms were formed. He used only primary colors and painted abstract images of horizontal and vertical lines. Bart Anthony Van der Leck and Theo Van Doesburg both used a similar paint style during the 1910s. Doesburg worked with the De Stijl theories to sculpter, architecture, typography and on the cover design of a book. He didn't used curves in his typography. He prefered sans serif with horizontal and vertical structure composed in rectangular blocks. Doesburg experimented with his architecture using asymmetries in the spaces. The Schroeder House helped De Stijl architectural theory to become realized with its radical design. The De Stijl movement died out as an organized art movement along with Deosburg, since he was De Stijl, according to the book, with his energy and creativity. I thought that Lebedev's work was the most interesting, along with the application of the De Stijl theory to architecture. The simplicity of Lebedev's geometric forms and children's illustrations feel refined and expressive at the same time. I feel like they would communicate well to a child and he did his job to the best of his ability by putting himself back to his childhood to decide how to paint.
What made the Schroeder House so radical when Frank Lloyd Wright and the Glasgow group designed buildings similarily?

Wednesday, March 11

We had another presentation in class today. Victoria talked to us about pictorial modernism and the style of the posters at the end of the eighteenth century through the nineteenth century. World War 1 and Lucian Bernhard were the main influences of the time. Bernhard was the first to start simplifying the advertisement poster with just the product and the product name. He used flat colors and bold designs to get the product across. We spent some time in class talking about the different poster styles of the Central Powers and the Allied Powers during the war. The Central Powers used the bold colors and simple design with a central figure and old style typefaces, while the Allied Powers had very realistic, detailed and emotional posters. A popular theme we discussed was how each side was trying to get people to donate to support their soldiers and what a poster today would have to look like. This was interesting to discuss because there were two main kinds of ideas where we could use a graphic picture to show what's going on without support or the good that the troops are doing so that people want to donate to a good cause. Though we came up with two different ideas between four groups, we all agreed that we would need a realistic image, like a photo, with emotion in order to make it relateable, which is similar to what the Allied Powers were doing then. How long was it until America picked up on the sort of designs that the Germans were using, or did we ever really?

Chapter 14

Chapter 14 was about poster designs influenced by modern art and both world wars. The Beggarstaffs were the ones who took the first steps toward a simplified poster design with strong colored shapes and silhouettes. Their work wasn't very successful financially, but very artistically attractive. Lucian Bernhard also worked with simple poster designs and became famous with is Priester poster that was just the brand name and two matches on a flat colored background. The works he produced after, went with this same formula. Bernhard also had a typeface designed after the broad sans-serif letters he was using in his posters. World War 1 was the biggest influence in the design of posters at the time. Recruitment and public support were popular messages. The posters designed by the Central Powers were Vienna Secession inspired designs while remaining simple. Their messages were conveyed through shapes and patterns or simple pictographic symbols, which was Julius Klinger's style. They also included the destruction of enemy symbols or flags. The Allies' used literal and illustrative images to get messages across. Public patriotism and the protection of traditional values, the home, and family were important and popular themes. Posters encouraging troop support and help, like blood donations and the Red Cross, were also popular in Allied countries. After the war, technologies and the industrial form was what was important. Poster designs were influenced by the cubist movement and art deco was a new term used to identify the geometric works that evolved. Edward McKnight Kauffer and A.M. Cassandre were the designers who worked to define this new style. Jean Carlu of France was also influential with his simplified cubism designs. I think he is one of the designers that should be remebered from this reading since he had started out as an architect, but lost his right arm in an accident and had to relearn everything with his left hand. That he could design his posters with such a precise communication of the emotions and messages he was trying to get across is phenomonal. Why were the posters on each side of the world war designed so differently?

Monday, March 9

We had another presentation today about the Modern art movement. A lot of what was going on was about expressing something in a completely new way, like Cubism with Picasso and Braque. We talked about expressionism and surrealism and expressionism includes lots of colors and exaggerated figures while surrealism was more about fantasy or dreamlike images. Personally I really liked futurism, where they made images from words and letters, and Dadaism. I think that the little group exercise at the end of the presentation was helpful. We got to see different pictures and works of art and decided what style they were. It made you think about what characteristics each style had and whether or not it applied in the images we were given.
Why didn't the Dadaists want what they were doing to be seen as an art movement?

Chapter 13

Many things, mostly political, changed during the twentieth century and the influences of those changes introduced new styles of art and graphics in advertisments. Cubism was started by a series by Pablo Picasso with geometric lines combined with African tribal art, as well as Paul Cezanne. Both demonstrated a new way to express feelings with abstract figures and geometric planes, mostly representational elements. Cubism was influential to the way painting and graphic design was done from then on. Filippo Marinetti was a poet that began Futurism as a movement where the arts were up against the new science and industrial age. Mostly poetry and typography was talked about in the chapter. The style was chaotic and nonharmonious. Writing took shapes and became visual designs. Some of these techniques were taken in by the Dadaists, who were rebelling against World War 1. Most of the works of this movement were meant to be shocking and held a strong negative and destructive meaning. The photomontage is credited to Dada artists that took photos and manipulated them to create new images. Surrealism and expressionism were two other big movements in Europe at the time. Surrealism was the opposite of the Dada movement with poetic faith in the spirits of mankind and humanity. Visual works were often too personal and abstract to acurately communicate an idea, but were well accepted almost because of this. Two groups of expressionists were big in Germany, "The Bridge" and "The Blue Rider". "The Bridge" expressed their emotions by working the subject matter, while "The Blue Rider" expressed their emotions through perceptions given by an object. Photography also went through some changes during the modern movement. Man Ray was a big player in how it changed. He applied Dada and surrealism to his photos by manipulating things in the darkroom or using different studio set-ups. He also started using solarization to strengthen contours in photos.
I thought that reading about Dada was the most interesting, as well as the way people started to manipulate photography to get something new. I find it fascinating to see how artists of the time reacted to the war and that people were upset by it and conveyed the anger and destruction of it in their images. I also liked seeing how photos were changing with the styles that the poets and painters were using too. I'm still confused about what surrealism actually is, so what is surrealism as a visual and poetic style?

Week 5 Image

This is an image that I found on designer Paula Sola's website under her projects (www.paulasola.com/portfolio/projects/posters). This is actually a poster I used in my presentation on Wednesday, but I really liked it and thought it would work for my weekly image. It is a poster for an art nouveau exhibition that highlighted "The Four". It fits the Glasgow style with the typeface that was used in previous Glasgow posters by "The Four" and the style of the image. It's not as abstract as the original style, but the rose is a signature of their designs and the goemetric leaf shapes and lines feel like their style. Since it is a poster for the art nouveau style, the curves in the stems and the actual roses themselves fit the design. I like the clean cut look and the color scheme. The red really pops out against the black and white. I also like the way the designer organized the information on the right side of the poster with the border.

Wednesday, March 3

I gave my presentation in class about the genesis of 20th century design. I talked about Frank Lloyd Wright, "The Four", The Vienna Secession and their magazine, "Ver Sacrum". Afterwards, we discussed Peter Behrens and his style. He had a very structured design style that could even be used as plans for a building. We also talked about questions that we had about art nouveau and the answers we had come up with. I was glad to get my project out of the way and I feel that discussing our questions in class was interesting. I got to hear what other people wanted to know and it was interesting to know what information was found. I especially liked the question about the American Art Nouveau movement since we didn't read about it in the book. Why is it that we are reading very much about what's going on in America during these different styles?

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 is about the style that developed from art nouveau into a modern style. The style of the times was geometric abstract forms, sometimes combined with floral, curvilinear forms. "Total Design" was also a big philosophy that was generated by Frank Lloyd Wright and his works. He was an American architect that designed homes and other buildings based on the idea of "organic architecture" and space. He focused on opening up the living spaces of homes to suit people living in them. He also designed everything in each home he built, down to the cutlery. Wright was also a graphic artist, which few people know about. He used white space in his designs and thought of his pieces as unified wholes, like his architecture. "The Four", from the Glasgow School of Art, was inspired by his works and philosophies. Charles Rennie Mackintosh, J. Herbert McNair, Frances and Margaret Mcdonald were the group of collaborators from Scotland that designed with abstract human forms and symbols with bold lines and flat colors. They weren't quite so popular in their homeland becaue of their human figure abstractions, but did well for themselves in Germany and Austria. Besides just graphics, Mackintosh was also involved in architecture and designed and built the new Glasgow school building. He became the most famous out of the four. A movement in Austria, called the Vienna Secession, took great steps toward a different style as well. The members of this revolt wanted to start designing something less traditional and moved toward the abstract and symbolic. Gustav Klimt was the leader of this revolt and also founded "Ver Sacrum", which was the magazine of the Secession. It had an unusual square format and page layout with wide margins and very little detail and decoration. Though the page layout was cleaner and more refined the cover page was bold and elaborate with hand-lettered titles and color on color line drawings. Peter Behrens was a designer that used san-serif typography and a grid system in his design layouts. He was known as an "industrial designer" with his innovations on the teapot and electric lamp, among other things. He was also an innovator in typography with his Behrensschrift, causing some controversy.
I think that it was interesting to learn about the contributions Frank Lloyd Wright made towards the graphic design industry. I think it's important that we know this side of him as well since it isn't as well known as his architecture and his graphics were inspiring and beautiful even though they weren't always accepted.
Why were people so against the abstraction of the human figure in the posters by "The Four"?

Chapter 11

Art Nouveau, meaning "new art", was an international design that involved all aspects of the art world, especially posters and magazines as advertisements. The characteristic quality of art nouveau was very organic, fluid lines from the feminine form and plants. An art form called ukiyo-e made an impact on the beginnings of the art nouveau style. This screen printed style was the last phase of the traditional art in Japan and quickly moved on to woodblock print. European artist drew their inspirations from this style. Two designers in France, Jules Cheret and Eugene Grasset, were important in the transition between this art nouveau style and the Victorian style. Cheret became a popular poster designer and rose to fame in Paris with the actress Sarah Bernhardt when he began to design posters for her theater shows. He enjoyed using bright primary colors with one or more central figure. The women in his posters, Cherettes, were inspiration for many women and gave them new social freedoms. Grasset was Cheret's only real competition with his watercolor designs in his "coloring-book style". Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was influenced by Grasset and became another big name in France with his new dymanic design. Alphonse Mucha was also a big name who became famous with his Bernhardt posters and his female figures often portrayed in his works. Aubrey Beardsley was popular in England for about five years with his bold pen line and white and black design. Charles Ricketts followed with a Celtic design and flat, stylized figures that he drew with minimal lines and flat shapes. The art nouveau style moved on to America where it grew with Louis Rhead and Will Bradley, who mostly designed magazine covers and layouts. Jugendstil was the name for the art nouveau movement through Germany with strong influences from France and Britain. Peter Behrens was known through this time for his large woodblock prints for the publication "Jungend" and his experimentation with ornaments and vingnettes in other publications.
I love the work by Cheret with his bright colors and only a few central figures in his poster designs. I also enjoy the impact that he had on the female society at the time. He got rid of stereotypes and showed that women could enjoy what they pleased without looking like a prude or overly sexual.
Did the European style of the art nouveau movement take anything more from the ukiyo-e style than the organic lines and shapes?

Friday, February 27

We had our first styles presentation in class today about the Victorian Era. It was named after the queen of Britain, Queen Victoria and characterized by their intricate and detailed typefaces that had a kind of romantic quality about them. The Victorian Era had a youthful and niave style with their romantic designs or children and puppies and they were also all about socially appropriate behavior and religious morality. The Chinese, Spanish and Islamic cultures influenced their designs a lot as well with the colors and patterns used. The poster design of the time was also important because they used many variations in the styles of typefaces and sizes, using up all the space on the poster and leaving very little or no white space. I like the Victorian style of fancy and romantic typefaces because of the craftsmanship and work that went into designing them and they're asthetically pleasing to me. We also saw a video that showed an old fashioned printing press that was still in use. The people running the press made their own letter forms, designed the pages and put them together by hand. We saw a similar printing press in Tennessee that was a hand-press and they printed posters by putting together the letters and sometimes making new images. I really found those videos interesting and I'm glad I saw them because I really like the idea of the hand-printed designs that those people did and I love that some people out there still care about the style and are putting efforts into keeping it alive in the digital age.
How much does a hand printed poster or something like an invitation go for?

Week 4 Image

This image is the cover of a "Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends" DVD that I own. I wanted to focus on the text that says "Season" in the top right corner of the image. I tried to crop it, but I had problems loading that image, so bear with me. I chose this example of text because it reminded me of the kinds of text that were starting to appear during the Industrial Revolution and the Victorian Era. It's got some fancy detailing, shadowing and decoration that draws your attention, kind of like the elaborate typefaces they might have used in advertisments or product labels. The whole word also starts to curve, which I noticed that often occured on package designs. I'm sorry I couldn't make it much bigger so you could see the details, but I feel that they are what makes this example a modern use of the typefaces that were popular during the Victorian Era.

Chapter 10

The Arts and Crafts movement was lead by William Morris who wanted products to have a purpose, be true to the materials and methods of production, and for there to be individual expression from the designer and the worker. This movement was also a revival of many things, such as the book and its design and older typefaces. John Ruskin was also a big part in how the Arts and Crafts movement developed. He encouraged the union of art and labor and felt that beautiful things were valuable and useful because they were. Ruskin also was involved in the social justices like education, improved housing, and retirement benefits. William Morris embraced Ruskin's theories and ideas and thus became a very important figure in design. He was a writer who had plans to join the church, but instead became an artist and established Morris and Co., which was an art-decorating firm. In 1888 Morris made the decision to start designing typefaces. His first typeface was named "Golden", which was based on Nicolas Jenson's Venetian roman faces. Morris began a press in 1890 called Kelmscott Press that committed itself to the incunabula design, woodblocks and all. Incunabula Gothic types were also brought back wider, increased size contrasts and rounder curves. Morris also designed a smaller version of Troy named Chaucer that sparked an interest in Jenson and Gothic styles. I feel that William Morris is the most interesting and important person in the readings since he was so influential to the time and he really cared about what he did. He wanted to bring back the beauty of functional works and craft, and I can appreciate that. I'm curious to know, though, why he chose Incunabula styles to bring back?

Wednesday, February 25

In class we started discussion about the Industrial Revolution. We talked about the style of the typefaces that were coming out and the new inventions, like the steam engine and how it influenced the new steam printing press. Wood type was introduced because of how much easier it was to use and linotype was discovered. The typefaces that were introduced at this time were fancier and much bigger. They had more details and were dramatically different than past faces to fit the growing trend of posters to advertise. Photography was also a major discussion point of the class period. We talked mostly about the development and how pictures were taken. I felt that this was the most interesting part, especially with the old cameras we got to look at and touch. It started to help me understand the process a little more to physically see what they used then.
How did the people who were helping in the development of photography know what chemicals to use when they did washes and things like that?

Chapter 9

The Industrial Revolution brought about many changes to graphic design as well as new inventions. It also created a need for new typefaces, which typefounders filled. Robert Thorne designed the fat faces category of type, which is a roman face with an increase in the contrast and weight with thick, heavy strokes. Vincent Figgins came out with the antiques with even weighted letters, short ascenders and descenders, and rectangular serifs. He also produced the first version of Tuscan-style letters, characterized by extended and curved serifs and was varied throughout the nineteenth century. The sans-serif type also appeared during this time by William Caslon the fourth. One invention of the Industrial Revolution was wood-type. Problems with metal-type lead to this cheaper alternative by Darius Wells. This allowed new typefaces to be made so easily that customers of a printer could create any kind of lettering they wanted. Innovations of the printing press made great strides too. Friedrich Koenig developed a press that ran on steam and produced 400 sheets of print per hour and worked with a roller that inked the type instead of the hand-inking balls. Curved stereotype plates increased printing speeds even more and soon machine-set typography and machine made paper brought about mass communication. The invention of photography opened up even more doors for graphic design. Joseph Niepce is credited with producing the first photographic image by putting a pewter plate in a camera obscura. He continued to experiment with other light-sensitive materials with Louis Jacques Daguerre who had perfected a process to produce his daguerreotype prints. William Henry Fox Talbot was doing something similar in England with his photograms, which are images made by manipulating objects with light hitting photogenic paper. During the 1860's photography was being applied to prints by wood engravings and then reproduced with a half-tone screen. Photography developed into motion picture photography due to Eadweard Muybridge's innovations. It's basically changing light going through several photographs in a row and joined by the human eye.
I think it's fascinating to learn how photography developed. It's something I think we take for granted today that really made a big difference in the way information and ideas travled from person to person. To be able to capture a moment or object exactly is a great concept and to see how someone thought that it might be "charming" to recreate them onto paper without a pencil or printing press.

Week 3 Image

This is an image of a poster advertising the release of the movie "Big Fish". I found this online at www.impawards.com since I didn't have the DVD. We only touched on William Blake and his work briefly during class on Wednesday, but I thought of the "Big Fish" movie cover right away. William Blake incorporated his type into his images and this is what the title is doing on the poster by having branches coming out of the letters like they were trees. It is also a kind of modern day broadside. I like the design because it is kind of simple, a landscape with a path and a man walking into the distance with the title forming trees. I also like the font of the title because it is whimsical, along with the fact that they are parts of trees, and it makes you think about what the movie is about. The placement of the title is nice since it makes you notice it right away and the rest of the information is smaller, making it clear that it is less important than the title, but placed so you notice it as well.

Wednesday, February 18

In class today, we reviewed the Reniassance a little bit and discussed the main typeface designers of the eighteenth century, le Juene, Caslon, Baskerville, Didot, and Bodoni. Each had a typeface that made them well known. Le Juene and Caslon made a typeface that was considered Old Style since the type had a handwritten look and bracketed serifs. Baskerville's Transitional style typeface had straight serifs and a contrast in the thickness of the letters. Didot and Bodoni made Modern fonts that were similar to Baskerville's, but with more contrast in the thin and thick parts of the letters as well as a more geometric design. We also discussed the rococo style with it's curvy style and intricate details and briefly went over informative graphics and William Blake, whom we didn't read about. His illuminated prints incorporated the letter forms into the pictures.
I felt that it was important and helpful going through the details of each of the fonts to be able to differentiate them. It helps me to understand the design of the times and match the typeface with the name of the designer.
Did anyone else start doing the same sort of thing with their type as William Blake did when his prints came out?

Chapter 8

Chapter eight talked about the graphic design of the eighteenth century. Romain du Roi was the new typeface at the start of the century made specifically for the King and his printing press. Pierre Simon Fournier le Jeune based his own typeface off of the royal font and pioneered standardization typeface proportions during the rococo era, which is named for the French art and architecture of the time. War and government control over printing had put a halt to most graphic innovation until William Caslon took up type design. He designed an Arabic font followed by Caslon Old Style with italic. His fonts were used in the American colonies and was even used in the Declaration of Independence. John Baskerville was also a popular type designer. He was involved in the printing process and a manufacturer before creating type designs that were wider than older types, but were elegant and light. He also chose not to include the intricatly decorated initials in his printing for a pure typographic print. Baskerville became known for his handmade paper that was smooth and glossy because of the way he hot-pressed the paper. Information graphics were developed with the help of philosopher and mathemetician, Rene Descartes. He came up with the Cartesian grid and coordinates for line graphs that William Playfair worked more with. Playfair is also responsible for the modern pie chart. Giabattista Bodoni and Francois-Ambroise Didot were two more printers that were big names. Bodoni took Fournier le Jeune's typeface and evolved it into the modern style. He also redesigned the roman letterforms, making the serifs more delicate and thin. Didot brought out a paper similar to that of Baskerville's and the maigre and gras type styles that are comparable to our condensed and expanded type styles.
I found the section about Informational graphics the most interesting since I used to be a total math nerd and enjoyed hearing how Descartes had an influence on graphic design in some way. I also like hearing that graphics are always pretty and sometimes need to display important information, like a pie chart or line graph.
What does "japanned ware" mean?

Monday, February 16

In class today, we discussed printing during the Reniassance, Albrecht Durer and Martin Luther. Albrecht was the man responsible for bringing the Reniassance to Germany. He had traveled to Venice and felt that their craftsmanship was better, so he wrote a book for the Germans about how to design on a grid. Martin Luther split from the Catholic church and pointed out their faults, inspiring some graphics of Christ and the Pope and the different Christian religions, such as Lutheranism. The start of our discussion of the Reniassance today was on the "reniassance man", who is good at everything he does. We highlighted Tory, Manutius, and Ratdolt and discussed what made them "reniassance men". Tory seemed to have his hand in almost everything and started the use of things like apostrophes in his text, while Manutius was basically the man with the money that funded a lot of what he got credit for and Ratdolt was most famous for having a complete title page and the woodblock border. I feel that this discussion of each man and his works was helpful because I had difficulty reading about them and got confused. Why didn't Griffo get more of the credit for his works in developing italics, among other things, instead of Manutius?

Chapters 6 and 7

We were only required to go over certain parts of Chapter six, which discussed printing in Germany. From the invention of typography by Gutenberg until the end of the fifteenth century, the German writers called their books incunabula, which is Latin for "cradle". Broadsides were also popular during this time. They were single-leaf pages that were only printed on one side and evolved into posters, advertisements, pamphlets and newspapers. Printing was spreading very quickly and led to overproduction and the end of many printing firms. Only ten out of over one hundred firms survived the fifteenth century. Albrecht Durer was a printer in German and Latin and illustrated his book The Apocalypse with a new graphic expressivness that got him famous throughout Europe. He also wrote a book on the Italian text and printing and worked out a text using a square and a one-to-ten ration of the heavy stroke width to height. Martin Luther also was part of the graphic expressions, inspiring scenes of Christs life because of his work with the Catholic church and his theses.
Chapter seven talked about graphic design during the Renaissance, meaning the period of revival and rebirth of the arts and sciences. Floral designs and decorations were popular during this time, especially in the manuscript. Erhard Ratold took steps to bring those designs into the printing process as well as the text, to print the entire book. He had become the first to have a book with a completed title page and used a three-sided woodcut border as a kind of trademark of his works. A great harmony of typography and illustration was met in The Dream of Poliphilus printed by Aldus Manutius. New fonts were designed based on the Roman inscriptions as wall as the pocket book. Church and state battled with censorship, making it difficult for scholar-printers. Two major designers of France became popular for their works, Geoffry Tory and Claude Garamond. Tory was famous for his series of initials set in black squares with meticulate designs and ornamentations perfect for the Roman type by Garamond, who is credited with the evolution of the roman typeface.
I found the problem with printing during the fifteeth century interesting. It spread so fast that it wound up becoming too much and printers had to stop. I also like how broadsides became posters and advertisements or a pamphlet, from folding it differently, just from a single sided print of a book.

Friday, February 13

In class on Friday we had a guest, Andrew Lloyd Goodman, who had given a presentation the same day before our class. He showed us some more video art made on After-effects and participated in our class discussion. We talked over the evolution of movable type from the Chinese to printing with Gutenberg. We also discussed the styles of illuminated scripts from chapter four. I enjoyed having Mr. Goodman in class with us and I found it interesting to have a second voice in the lecture. It made the class time go by much faster and we touched on topics that probably wouldn't have been brought up, making it an interesting class period for sure.
Are there any other classes offered, besides the Images in Motion class, that teaches After-effects? After the presentation by Mr. Goodman and what he showed us in class, I'm a little interested in learning how to use it.

Week 2 Image

This image is an article from a back issue of Glamour magazine about inspirational women. I was just flipping through and the design of the page caught my eye. The bright red letter "K" made me think of the lettering they used in the illuminated manuscripts called diminuendo, where the words started out huge and gradually got smaller. I think it's a kind of modern twist on the style, even if it's not as dramatic. I kind of wish that it was a little more dramatic like the actual design and that the bold letters at the start of the article were a different font, but I think it's effective and eyecatching. The bright color and fancy font of the "K" bring your eye to the beginning of the article, which I feel is what the designers wanted. I also felt that the column of writing surrounded by an image was slightly similar to the style of the illuminated manuscripts, also not as dramatic and elaborate, but it highlights the text.

Chapter 5

Chapter five was all about the progression of typography in Europe and a lot about Johann Guntenberg, who is responsible for the development of the systems needed to print a typographic book. Typography is the printing of materials with independent, movable and reusable pieces of metal or wood with a raised letterform on each piece. Woodblock printing was the first kind to reach Europe from China. Playing cards were popular and devotional prints of saints became the first block printings with communicational functions, which soon became block books with religious writings and pictures that gradually left the form while literacy increased. Some were colored by hand or stencils and sometimes had tinsel, incrustations, or flocking to add luminosity to the picture. Johann Gutenberg started out as an apprentice to a goldsmith where he learned the techiniques required to make the movable type he created. His choice of letterform was a compact, square textura style and he used capital and small letters, numbers and ligatures in his printing. Each form was punched into a copper or brass matrix by steel for his type mold. He also created his own alloy of lead, tin and antimony for the type so that it would not expand and contract when heated and cooled, as well as his own linseed oil ink. His biggest project was the printing of the Bible, the first typographic book. Others that followed were a Latin psalter that displayed elaborate, two-colored initials and was the first book to have a printer's trademark, imprint and printed date of publication and a second had a small type style that conserved space as well as increased the amount of text per page. Copperplate engraving was developed around the same time as movable type by the Master of the Playing Cards, who designed a set of playing cards as his finest works. His skill showed that he had already mastered engraving and wasn't trying to perfect something new. There is some speculation as to whether or not Gutenberg also had something to do with engravings.
I found the way they added decoration to the block books was intersting. They would print with paste sprinkeled with bits of metal, colored quartz crystals, or powered wool to add interest to pictures. It would almost be like a work of art or it reminds me of those touch and feel books with different textures.
When Gutenberg printed the Bible did he copy one directly that was already written (word for word) and did he have pictures?

Wednesday, February 11

In class today we did practice quizzes online for both chapters three and four of our readings. I realized that I have trouble remebering names of people or particular manuscripts, but I'm fine when it comes to styles of type and illustrations. We then talked about the invention of paper and the progression of Chinese calligraphy from the shell-and-bone style to regular. Paper was a great invention of the time because it was cheaper and easier to use and helped to make writing and reading more widespread. Before the end of class we were told about a project coming up that we will have to present and write a paper about a style of design.
I think that the most useful thing about class today was the quizzes. Because of the type of questions they were asking, I feel that I will try and look at the details of the chapters more carefully, such as dates and names.
We were also told that in past classes they were able to make their own paper. What goes into the process of making our own paper?

Chapter 4

Chapter four talked about illuminated manuscripts of the Greeks and Romans, the Celts, the Spanish, Judiac and Islamic, and some designs of the Gothic, Romanesque and medieval periods. Illuminated manuscripts got their name because the illustrations were often decorated in gold leaf that made them seem illuminated. The Greeks and Romans designed the manuscripts to have the writing in a single wide column per page, in rustic capitals, with the illustrations next to the writings, the same width. Two new letter styles were formed in the search for something easier called uncial and half-uncials. The letters were rounded, eliminating strokes. A common pattern among manuscripts was the border around the pictures. The Celts often used interlacing, which was the elaborate overlapping of ribbon, and lacertines, which were interlaces created by animal forms. A new design in the letters also became known as diminuendo, with the large initials, and spaces between words for easier reading were introduced. After a period of struggle with the arts, a revival came with King Charlemagne and an attempt at the standardization of page layouts and writing styles as well as a successful reformation of the alphabet. The Spanish manuscripts were also very decorative, but had some Islamic design influences in their Christian manuscripts with intense color and flat shapes. Christian manuscripts during the Romanesque into the Gothic periods emphasised linear illustrations and the distortion of figures to meld with the rest of the page and then segmented illustrations with elaborate frames and borders. Religious illuminated manuscripts were also the finest in Jewish culture, called Haggadot. They are decorated with beautiful Hebrew calligraphy, gold initials on blue plaques, with pictures supporting the words, which were more important. The Qur'an is another religious reading that has beautiful manuscript design. At first only the calligraphy was ornate, then the framing became more and more elaborate with intricacies and geometric shapes.
I thought that it was interesting to know how many people it took to make an illuminated manuscript. It's almost exactly like what writing a book or other publication with pictures would be like. There is an editor who directs the whole project, there's someone who writes the letters and decided where the art would go, and finally there's the illuminator and later on a printer.
Why, if the text was so carefully lettered in the Celtic manuscripts, were there misspellings?

Chapter 3

Chapter three discussed what the Chinese contributed to the writing world. Chinese calligraphy is a writing system that started to develop around 1800 B.C. and is a language that isn't alphabetical, but visual, like hieroglyphics. Each character represents a whole word or idea, instead of a letter. Chiaku-wen is the earliest known form of Chinese writing and was written on the bones of large animals for the purpose of divination. Chin-wen is what they called inscriptions on bronze objects, which was useful for treaties, codes and contracts. Chen-shu, or regular style, is what is in use today. It is a true art in that every aspect of each character is designed by the writer, like the thickness of the lines and the black vs. white space relationship. The Chinese are also responsible for the development of paper. A man named Ts'ai Lun is believed to be the inventor. It was much cheaper than silk and lighter than the slats of bamboo previously used. Printing is another advance come upon by the Chinese. The first form was relief printing where the image is raised. It's then inked and paper is rubbed over it to transfer the ink. Paper money was first made this way making China the first culture that allowed ordinary people have contact with printed images. Pi Sheng, an alchemist, developed movable type using 3-D calligraphy forms in clay, which eventually were made out of bronze instead.
I found it interesting that calligraphy was personified the way it was and how the writer is given the freedom to determine certain things about the characters. Calligraphy is beautiful and there are so many characters, I have respect for anyone who can do it well enough to interpret things like the thickness of the lines and spaces as an artist would.
Why do the Chinese use the calligrapy instead of an alphabet?

Monday, February 9

We discussed in class early alphabets and how they were important to civilizations, such as allowing information to travel faster and other people being able to read and learn how to write. Alphabets were easier to work with since there were fewer characters to remember and they were more simplistic. We also pointed out differences in the styles of the letters between different cultures, like the Greeks and Romans. Both were geometric based forms, but the Romans had the serif. We also talked about how Hangul was formed, by the shapes the tongue makes in the mouth when forming the words, and that it was to combine the language and script the Koreans were using. I feel that the most useful thing I learned today was looking at the letter forms and really seeing the differences in the details, which matter. I felt that it was interesting that there were similarities between the ways the Romans and Greeks wrote their alphabet, but the difference was in the details.
After talking about different substrates, or what the letters were written on, I wondered why they chose baby animals, or just animals in general, to make their parchment out of?

Week 1 Image

This image is a pictograph of the instructions for the use of a hand-dryer that I found in a bathroom. If you want your hands dried after washing them, it shows that you need to push the button and warm air will dry your hands. This past week we've been discussing and reading about hieroglyphics, pictographs, and the early forms of communication and these instructions are similar to them. On the first day we say pictures of cave drawings that were essentially instructions for hunting. They showed where to put your spear to take down a certain animal. These instructions made me think of those cave drawings, only they are just showing you where to put your hands to dry them. I chose this image because they reminded me of those drawings and also just the fact that it's something that is used often. As far as the design goes, it isn't really attractive, but I feel that it gets the idea across that pushing the button will turn on the dryer and the air coming out will be warm by the red waves coming down on the hands. It's not pretty, but it's functional.

Chapter 2

Chapter two of our text talked about early forms of alphabets, which are sets of visual symbols or characters that represent the sounds of a spoken language. The North Semitic alphabet is believed to be where the idea of the alphabet originated. The Phoenicians developed their own scripts influenced by their business with the surrounding civilizations, creating Sui generis, symbols that didn't hold any pictorail meaning, Sinaitic script, an adaptation on the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Ras Shamra, which used cuneiformlike symbols and no vowels. The Aramaic alphabet is a major branch of the North Semitic script with twenty-two letters for consonants. It is the predecessor to modern Hebrew and Arabic, which are two commonly used scripts today. Both alphabets use the twenty-two letters from the North Semitic alphabet and developed other characters to include vowels. The North Semitic alphabet was also useful to the development of the Greek alphabet, who took five of the consonants and changed them to be vowels. The way the Greeks wrote the alphabet was structured and geometrical. All the characters were based on either a square, triangle, or circle and were written in a few different styles before finally being written left to right. The alphabet took on a role in the democracy of the Greek culture with voting, public services and signature seals. The Latin alphabet sprung from the Greek alphabet, giving us the twenty-six letters that are used in the English alphabet. The Romans also wrote in a structured, but stylized form with their attention to space and their use of the serif. Rome also began to use parchment instead of papyrus since it was cheaper and easier to write on and store.
I found the discussion of the Roman serif interesting since it wasn't really done on purpose that way, it was simply how it was done whether it was done while carving or by the flick of the brush during the writing. I also was interested to learn how much easier parchment was to deal with than the papyrus scrolls. I guess I never thought that the scrolls were that much of a problem to use.
After reading about the development of these different alphabets, I wonder how many people during those times could actually read the characters?

Chapter 1

Chapter One described how early man communicated their needs by painting pictures on their walls and how they changed from being detailed to a very simplified design over the centuries. As civilization grew, the needs to have a recording system to regulate a community also grew. Lables were made from clay and pictographs to represent the contents of a package and a decimal system based on the human hands to represent the quantity. Similar methods were used in recording many things needed to run a civilization, usually in a grid format written with a sharp pointed stylus, later replaced with a triangular tipped stylus that created a different style of writing. Most symbols used then were pictures that represented abstract ideas, but the pictures began to represent the sounds of the object instead as the need to express more and different things arose. Visual identification also became a need and was met with Mesopotamian cylinder seals, which could be rolled over a surface or stamped to claim ownership or identify the creator. Egyptian identification was derived from these people except they used carved scarab emblems. The Egyptians went through a similar pattern with their written communication. Their pictographs eventually evolved into hieroglyphics that were more simplistic in their design to write. They could be written from left to right, right to left, and horizontally or vertically. The Egyptians also developed something like paper to record on, called papyrus, made from the cyperus papyrus plant. On this, they became the first to combine pictures and words to communicate their messages.
I found the personal identification seals interesting. It's like an early logo, since these seals were used for identifying the creator of a product, or like a signature when proof was needed for the authorization of some sort of document. I also think these were interesting because the reading said that they were incapable of being forged because of the way they were designed.
Why did the design of the stylus used to write in the clay change and what exactly is cuneiform?

Wednesday, February 4

In our first class session of History of Graphic Design we discussed the first methods of communication by the human race. We learned that cave drawings and paintings was a big part in how people communicated their ideas, thoughts, and needs, like hunting for example. We also did an activity to see the challenges behind communication between others without using any known language, only clay images. I feel that the experience of trying to create a message out of clay, without numbers or letters, with the intention of others understanding the meaning and trying to understand what other people were trying to say with their clay figures was the most important thing I obtained from the class session. It's not easy to communicate without using language and I think it's important that we understand that. After seeing the pictures that were first used, I wonder when humans first started to use language, of any kind, and when we first started to write. What did our first letters look like? What kind of language did we speak?