tomsdesignhistoryblog

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PECHA KUCHA CLASS REVIEW

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 7 Reading

ANALOGUE TO DIGITAL

Everything was done by hand

Exacto blades (cutting) and glue (pasting)

After Layout came bluelines for proof readings, then sent to film for litho printing

RIBYLITH used for masking and separations for print

Letrtasets were used for typography and lines

Instant lettering

Desktop Publishing

Apple LaserWriter Mar 1985

Aldus PageMaker 1.0 Jul 1985 allowed the combination of text and graphics in columns

Macintosh Plus and 800k external floppy disk drive Jan 1986

Mac II first colour computer and Mac Plus first computer to access the internet

Top specs in 1980s

Early FD - 800Kb

Normal 1.44 Mb big

Massive RAM 512Kb

DIGITAL REVOLUTION

DESIGN

DTP - everyone thought they were designers

- New technology disrupts quality control due to it creating new avenues for designers to use

- Similar revolution to painting/photography scenario

- Designers had more control and didn’t need to rely on professionals

APRIL GRIEMAN

1948

New Wave Design

One of the first designers to use computers in her design work, encouraged others to use the computer as a tool

1982 head design for CalArts

DAVID CARSON

1955 Texas

Moved to California

Started as a sociologist and surfer

Art director of Transworld Skateboarding

Set up art design studio in NYC 1995

Newsweek claimed he has “changed the public face of graphic design”

1995 - Published “The End of Print”

HTML - HyperText Mark up Language

Designers had to code everything to sty in page on the page

Images had to be codes in manually

Had to preview in the browser to see what the code looked like

LINEAR TO NON-LINEAR

Before digital revolution, media was displayed in a linear format

GRIFFIN AND SABINE (book) - CEREMONY OF INNOCENCE (game board)

Motion in parts

Started off in print created an early form of visual narrative

STEFAN SAGEMEISTER

1962 Austria, studied in Vienna

Created album covers for Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, David Byrne and Aerosmith

INTERACTIVE STORYTELLING

Precursor to games

Stories made structurally rather than linearly

One start multiple outcomes

One start, multiple routes, one outcome

One start, multiple outcomes

(Choice based games eg DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN uses a tree based choice system)

Game asset production - environments, characters, interactivity

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 6 READING

RISE OF BRANDING

Coca cola

1886 atlanta pharmacist develops soft drink

1887 coupons in newspapers to collect for free drinks

1905 use of slogans

Changed their marketing to suit the times

PISH PIN STUDIOS

1950s Cooper Union in “Push Pin” Almanac

1954 PPS formed by Glaser, Chwast and Edward Sorel

SAUL BASS STILL TO MOTION GRAPHICS

Average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is 34 years

Moved to California in the 1940s and in 1954 designed a title sequence for Carmen Jones

The Man With The Golden Arm

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN - DREAMWORKS

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 5 Reading

PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN

Painting became a dead art since photography can capture a scene instantly and for a cheaper cost.

Painters felt threatened. Some though found new aspects of representing their art such as movement, colour, Surrealism, simplifying objects from complex ones, representing form (Cubism)

Mondrian: Broadway Boogie Woogie

Painting abandoned description and turned to abstract colour

Led to photographers and painting cross utilising ideas and concepts

It wasnt just a tool anymore

Pictorialism

Movement where photographers experimented with the camera

The camera presented things too realistically

The scene wasnt as important as the artistic quality

Emotional impact more important that the actual photo

Soft focus, special filters, lens coatings, manipulation, toning and darkroom processes

Painting was of a higher status than photography

People revolted against this movement

Social commentary

From 1890s social justice was a preoccupation

The camera was used to right wrongs

Emotion could be portrayed through the photos, with an added impact

Lewis Hine

Focused on the human condition

Based in New York and photographed child labour, immigrants and sweat shops

Captured private lives in public contexts

Precursor to documentaries

Captured Russian steelworkers in 1908

Immigrant workers in the photos were made to make the viewer sympathise with them, as well as exploiting and diginifying deserving candidates for US citizenship

Influential Modern Portraiture Photographers

Looked at composition

Broke down the traditional ideas of what was considered to be portraiture and took it further

Imogen Cunningham

The Unmade Bed

THE AFGHAN GIRL (1985)

Became a famous image

People wanted to know who she was and tried to find out

Found in 2002 - Sharbet Gula

Do you help someone now or later?

VISUAL STORYTELLING

Controversial images

Tracey Moffat

Aboriginal adopted and raised by a white family

Photographs represent the Stolen Generations

Sets up images to tell a story

Dominique Paul - Pushing Technical Boundaries

Challenges photography with the light source being part of the photos

Brett Stanley - Underwater Photography

Challenges gravity

Creates a set underwater

Uses a pool

Shoots the set for a few months

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 4 Reading

ISOTOPE - International System Of TypOgraphic Picture Education

A teaching museum initiated by Otto Neurath. It aimed to present social facts with images rather than slabs of large amounts of text to make them more engaging and appealing, thus making it easier for people to comprehend. The goal of the museum was to explain to the people how they fitted into society.

The images were simple and easy to comprehend, with no use of perspective as it would confuse the viewer. This method was also partly aimed to be put in use with schools to help kids learn easier, which also coincided with the socialists reformation of education.

Neurath stated that the point of the Isotype Method was “To present so many charts and models that everybody gets sufficient material for visual argument.” 

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 3 Reading

Signs

Signifiers-the physical object of the sign (STOP sign) what gives us that idea?

Signified-the interpretation of the sign (meaning) whats the idea?

Semiotics

Visual - Seeing - Signs

Communication - Sharing - Meaning

Design - Creating - Semioticians

Denotation - whats being pictured?

Connotation - meaning/association of whats pictured

Kinds of signifier

Iconic - resemblance

Symbolic - culturally learned

Indexical - relation between sign and signified

How does the text ANCHOR the image?

HITLER PROPAGANDA POSTERS 

-Wearing a military uniform showing that he is a man of action, his boots are on the ground and he is ready to fight with and stand for his people, instead of saying he will do things and not go through with them. 

-He is at the center of the image, the protagonist in his own story, as a bird of some sort flies above him with a light shining down on him as if he had the power or the backing of the gods

-Oak leaves are entwined around the frame, the oak leaves being a symbol of wisdom in strength and strength in wisdom, which is how the artist and others saw him

DESIGN AND MODERNISM

Clean open space makes you a nicer person

Modernism tried to be democratic, make it accessible to the general public, which included the poor

Public housing blocks

30s 40s 50s 60s built slums (hard to keep clean, outback toilets, no privacy and child protection issues)

How designers destroyed the world

History shapes design

Design shapes history

Emojis are shortened words

Less words means less thinking

Urban housing - slums

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 2 READING

ADVENT OF GRAPHIC DESIGN

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

Many 19th century design artists have been subject to criticism for over 150 years, which came about during the Industrial Revolution (IR). Due to the shift from rural agriculture to mass production of goods in factories, there was a huge population increase which also facilitated the development of mass culture. Because of the large population there was a variety of cultural ideas, such as the introduction of theatre and visual arts to society.

The time of the IR is usually associated with the invention of the steam engine, the railroad, coal, iron and steel. Another invention was the steam-driven engine press which exploded in the 19th century, where the British society saw the establishment of over 2000 magazines and newspapers. As a result, the demand for printed advertisements also went up.

Due to printings rapid expansion, mass literacy and communication also was on the rise and allowed for the development of Western democratic society. Some people took advantage of this through the local satirical newspaper to comment, criticise and question the governments authority due to the corruption within. In the 1830s Charles Philipon wrote articles titled “La Silhouette”, La Charicature” and “La Charivari”, which resulted in government censorship, threat of fines and imprisonment. Honore Daumier was also imprisoned as well for creating thousands of caricatures against the government. Later the two collaborated and switched from mocking and calling out the government to the rich society instead.

European and American women were offered work at factories and retail that eventually led to their demand for the right to vote and own property and as a result, their engagement with design as both producers and consumers changed as well. The poor however, suffered greatly because of the IR, with unsatisfactory living conditions that resulted in injury, disease and death.

As a response to this, German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels produced an essay critiquing the abuses of industrial capitalism that lied at the core of Western society. Many designers were influenced by this and acknowledged it as wrong.

NEW TECHNOLOGIES

Lithography had been invented late 18th century by Alois Senefelder as a cheap way to produce theatrical scripts. Commercial lithography had arrived in the early 20th century due to the invention of the rotary offset presses which made it more competitive with letterpress printing.

In the later half of the 19th century, chromolithography had become a mainstay in the commercial medium due to it being able to utilise colour in printing.

Newspapers provided the means for the production and consumption of mass culture due to their inclusion of news, entertainment, fiction and poetry. The pictures included in the papers made it more accessible to the public. Illustration had been a fundamental component of commercial graphics before the invention of digital graphics by the 20th century. While traditional methods is still relevant today, it is being vastly overtaken by the digital medium.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography was an important development that led to graphic design, with the question of whether of not it was simply another advent for entertainment or a new type of art form plagued its early years since its invention. Matthew Brady was well known for his photos of VIPs, one of his most notable photos being on of Abraham Lincoln during his campaign at the Cooper Union in 1860. Some of his political opponents had decided to spread rumours of his supposed ugly appearance. Due to many people never really seeing who they were supporting in person, and didn’t trust artists drawings of them since they could be manipulated to look a certain way, the photo of Lincoln taken by Brady was instrumental in winning over the people as it portrayed him in a manner that was befitting of a national leader.

[tomsdesignhistoryblog]

WEEK 1: Blogging Assessment

I made a few notes during the tutorial detailing what needs to be done for the assessment and will update with the relevant information when I can.

I have decided to use Tumblr instead of WordPress since I am more familiar with Tumblr and find it much easier to navigate than WordPress.