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Witchy Retreat flyer design I made for my graphic design class 🌕

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3 examples of graphic design in my home! A digital produced print, a graphic novel, and a tapestry

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Art Nouveau Woodblock Prints vs Contemporary Digital Art Prints

Art nouveau thrived from 1890-1910 and is considered to be the “bridge between Victorian clutter and Modernism.” (Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. 6th Edition. Pg 212) At the time “art nouveau” was coined in Paris, the style was considered the ‘new art.” Art nouveau's most identifiable features were it’s free-flowing lines, subjective color, floral motifs, and it’s rejection from traditional art forms. Artists of the time primarily created books, posters, and advertisements; producing beautiful artworks which drew inspiration from gothic arts, Victorian paintings, nature, fantasy, and Japanese woodblock printing. Artists of the time primarily used the woodblock printing method for sharing their new art with the world. Many countries had distinctive styles within the umbrella of art nouveau, but an international new style emerged with technological advances in printing presses, and the market for art for middle and working class people increased. There was a demand for art depicting everyday people, activities, and scenarios, rather than images of unrelatable people and places. Women enjoying life’s pleasures such as drinking and dancing were a huge subject matter for posters. Additionally, some books of the time had illustrations so scandalous they were outlawed in England. Oftentimes artists gained notoriety due to the controversy of their artworks.

“Woodblock prints were a careful collaboration between publisher, artist, block cutter, and printer. The publisher financed the production of a print and coordinated the work of the other three partners. The artist supplied a separate drawing for each color. These were pasted onto woodblocks and the negative or white areas were cut away, destroying the original drawing in the process. After all the blocks for a print were cut, printing began.” (Pg.209) This extensive planning and tedious work that went into some illustrations for printing show the skill of the team at the presses. Mistakes could easily be made while carving the woodblock that could compromise the integrity of the original art, so highly skilled etchers were sought out. Aubrey Beardsley was briefly a renowned artist during the art nouveau period and found a solution by using the “photo engraving process to transfer his artworks from paper to woodblock press, retaining complete fidelity to the original art,” unlike hand carved woodblock illustrations. (Pg. 219)

Besides the team of hands required to produce prints during the art nouveau period, other contingencies posed issues in the woodblock printing process. Inks had to be applied expertly and quickly during printing which posed another problem at times. Only limited colors were available in the past, and only so many could be used per design for fear of colors bleeding and muddling the details. The printing process required a lot of time and manpower to complete, and a plethora of expensive materials were wasted in the trial and error process, unlike today, where we have unlimited digital tools at our fingertips with thousands of colors available to us.

The art and process of making art today is much more efficient, cost effective, and convenient. Contemporary art has many focuses, styles, and mediums thriving. One of my personal favorite styles is digitally created psychedelic art, which draws inspiration from multiple religions, spiritual beliefs, psychedelic experiences, flowers, animals, the nude body and music.

Throughout psychedelic graphic art there is use of repeating or kaleidoscope patterns, sacred geometry, surreal imagery, with vivid and contrasting colors. Oftentimes there’s a sense of a journey, the unknown, or out-of-body experiences. Art of today focuses more heavily on storytelling, entertaining and creating an ambiance or statement in a room, versus depicting the day to day life of the public. A lot of contemporary art can be described as hyperrealistic, as the line between a painting or a photograph is hard to identify at times. Artists of today have the ability to bend reality within photographs, sometimes without detection. Digital art mediums such as Surface Pro’s and IPads are easy to transport and make art easily accessible, in places traditional mediums would be too messy.

Android Jones is a digital artist who is extremely accomplished in our contemporary times, from his fantasy dreamscape artworks to his own graphic design programmed called Microdose VR, which operates conveniently on surface drawing pads. In his artistic process he is able to single handedly make artworks that would have in past times required a team to make. The burden of mistakes, spacing, and wrong colors is removed from the creative process as digital paintings can be erased, redrawn, skewed, recolored, and resized endless times- all without wasting paper or inks. Creating digital art allows for quick, easy, high quality printing. In fact, you can have your artwork printed in as little as an hour as of currently, and there are self service options which would allow you to create prints, from start to finish completely autonomously. Producing a print was a feat in the 1890s-1910 which could easily take months.

I must conclude that contemporary digital art is better versus art nouveau woodblock printing for the fact that supplies are not wasted in the process of making digital art, the process of making prints requires only yourself and the person running the printer, every color and brush imaginable is available in digital art programs, and finally, contemporary art is what I have grown up around, what I can deeply relate to, and what inspired me to start painting myself. There’s nothing I love more than making paintings and I owe that appreciation to the artists whose exhibitions I stood in awe of before at the Smithisonian.

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Journal 10

Adobe was invented in 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke , and quickly revolutionized the way artists and designers create. They designed the computer program PostScript, was specially designed to describe the precise position, shape, and size of objects on a computer-generated page. When this program was shot down by Xerox, the pair founded their own company, and named it after a creek by their homes, Adobe. This program was used by Apple Inc in combination with a Cannon printer to create a LazerPrinter. The success with PostScript led to the creation of about 2500 typefaces, and the computer program Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator for graphic artists.

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April Greiman is an influential Graphic Design from New York who embraced digitalization of design in her New Wave style. You can see exampled in this photo her use of pixelated typography, unique use of space, and cohesive color pallete used in different ways. "Her invaluable contribution to graphic design had the American Institute of Graphic Arts present her with the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement. " This is an incredible woman in design!! (via https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/april-greiman)

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In my reading this week, I learned of an amazing female trailblazer from the 1930s on, Cipe Pineles! She immigrated from Austria to New York and won a scholarship to Pratt University. Cipe was the 1st woman ever to be inducted into the New York Art Director's Club, and she later served as art director for Glamour, Seventeen, Charm, and Mademoiselle. She was truly glamourous and creative in her designs, and I adore this cover for Vogue, showing an imperfect person who is still worth the picture. Photo via (https://www.commarts.com/features/pioneer-cipe-pineles)

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In my reading this week I learned of the artistic styles of Cubism, Modernism, Dadaism, Futurism, and Expressionism. The French artist Jean Carlu stuck out to me in my reading, not necessarily because of his graphics, but because this artist had his right ARM CHOPPED OFF by a trolley car, changed directions with his career, and became so successful. He based his approach by "...avoiding the use of 'two lines where one would do,' or expressing 'two ideas where one will deliver the message more forcefully.' "(Meggs' History of Graphic Design, 6th Edition, Pg.311) In my own art I prefer using a busy and interpretational message, so I admire his opposite approach to art.

You can see this styles conveyed in this painting called "Repaying Nature's Riches, 1941" (americanart.si.edu)

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Diving deeper into "Meggs' History of Graphic Design" I learned about the roughly 2 decades (1890-1910) where art nouveau flourished in all forms of design- fashion, books, advertisement, products, and furniture. I was particularly intrigued with Jules Cheret, a French lithography artist renowned for his poster designs featuring happy women freely indulging in life's pleasures like dancing, drinking wine, smoking, and wearing low-cut dresses. His poster designs showed these women, dubbed "Cherettes," in a new light. This is contrary to the polite homemaker role of the Victorian era and was an important media used to familiarize the public with the evolving role of women in the world, sometimes his poster designs were even life-sized.

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In my reading this week I learned about the innovations of the Industrial Revolution, and later, the Arts & Crafts Movement. I found I resonated with artists of the Arts & Craft movement of that time whose ideals that mass-produced books, lacking cohesive style are inferior to well designed and artful literature. I am a lover of small details and an artist's flair, so the call for the revival of thoughtful designs, with beautiful fonts, and illustrations in books made sense to me. Bookmakers of this time were part artists, designers, scientists, and inventors, as they experimented with new ways to create type, produce images and prints, and invent tools to make their crafts quicker and easier. One renowned couple of the era were Lucien and Ester Pissarro, who collaborated in book design with great success, exampled in this photo from "Meggs' History of Graphic Design" (Pg.199) You can see how the pair successfully used "image, color and ornament combine to generate an intense expressionistic energy."

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Journal 3

 Something that keeps running through my mind during my reading this week for History of Graphic Design is the fact that I have terrible handwriting, and now I’m learning more in depth how the alphabets we use were developed (Obviously over thousands of years) but really, so much work and mathematical planning has gone into an alphabet that I write so sloppily. I’m not sure if being an artist with bad hand writing is a universal paradox or what, but now I think I’m going to take more time with my writing.

After last weeks reading I was inspired and I bought wax and gold plated seals with my initials so I can start stamping the back of my canvases before I sell them. I like the ceremony of it, and maybe with a little jazzed up handwriting I could send someone an unexpected letter. 

Yeah I just really like old timey stuff, but don’t we all? 

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Journal 2 Design Dreams

I just wrapped up taking my first quiz for History of Graphic Design and I’m relieved I did well :D Of course learning the history of something your passionate about is always cool, and the first 4 chapters in my textbook had me inspired! I really like old timey things like wax seals and beautifully penned calligraphy, even though I lack calligraphy skills personally (I know... an artist with bad handwriting UGH) so I decided I wanted to start adding wax seals to the back of my finished paintings, and I bought some very snazzy and heavy gold plated stamps, and a variety of wax beads :D I’m gonna get back to reading and see how else I can be inspired !!

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Design Dreams

I’m thrilled to be living in a time where blogging is a requirement for my schooling, because I know networking and sharing my journey is important. My name is Stevie Huff, I’m an acrylic artist living an art fueled journey in the beach town of Hampton VA. This is my first time pursuing higher education, as I want to expand on my skills and help my art business Abstract Oasis flourish. It was a long journey to get myself into school and I am so motivated to learn from others and share my biggest passion.

As I unboxed my new #MeggsHistoryofGraphicDesign textbook, I got so excited and dived right in. In the first 4 chapters I found myself putting myself in the shoes of ancient artists, scribes, and designers and imagining their hardships, and also their ingenuity and creativity. I admire so much that some ancient works have survived until present day, and how still study and admire them. I hope that for my own paintings one day, as I’m sure every artist’s dream is for their work to survive them and be of value for generations to come. I scanned every picture in the book and the journey of design will be such a captivating one.

Long live art! 

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My art page is:

http://www.instagram.com/abstractoasis

www.facebook.com/abstractoasis

www.etsy.com/shop/abstractoasis

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My latest painting @ Abstract oasis 🩸🩸

Vampires will never hurt you

#mychemicalromance #originalartwork

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»misunderstandings« by andrew j steel

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“Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”

— Karl A. Menninger