History of GIC 2/23/09

In today's session, we focused on the early 20th century, and how the World Wars and art movements affected Graphic Design. To start with, we discussed how before Television and even Radio took off, Posters were how media was broadcasted, and there was a huge emphasis on how they were put together and how best to get the message across to the audience. I've always heard how military funding and wars in general are the basis for human expansion in nearly all facets of our way of life, and so i found it intriguing how it affected Graphic Design, as there was a need to catch the attention of passerbys to get them involved in Wars, and so attention was paid to the design of posters such as the famous "I Want You!" Uncle Sam recruitment works.

I was also interested in how movements such as Futurism and DADAism tried to break the normal conventions of art and escape what had been held in place for so long, to embrace what the future held. I think about the events that are happening now, how constructs such as the internet and rampant consumerism are shaping the world, and how Graphic Design will play its part. I find myself on the wrong side of my own morals, studying in a field that is there solely in the interest of corporations to make a profit. The world seems increasingly isolated even in its rapid expansion of communication, I feel we are losing ourselves to material well-being and a fascination/obsession with one another's lives while never leaving the sanctity of our own homes. I believe in a technological singularity, that one day we will lose our own purpose amongst the empire of machines we build, and that on that day, we will have to part our ways with these silly machinations and rediscover ourselves, and what it means to be a human, or simply disappear. 

But that is enough of that, it was an interesting lecture, and I enjoyed the idea of Automatism and Surrealism, that people like Salvador Dali would deprive themselves of sleep and food to see how the subconscious could emerge in odd ways and affect the artwork they produced. I'm always intrigued by what the mind is capable of. Perhaps I should isolate myself from facebook and the internet and all my material possessions such as my phone for a month, to see what things I could conjure.

New Media Video

New Media Design tasked us with finding an article and creating a typographic video out of it. A focus was stressed on type, imagery was secondary and to be avoided if possible. One can find a myriad of imagery in type itself if only you take the time to look.

My article was about children getting stuck to pool filters and having hundreds of pounds of force pulled on their bodies, completely disemboweling them.  I was fortunate enough to have never succumbed to such a fate in my blissfully unaware years as a child who loved swimming; but this disgusting and unfortunate death apparently happens more than people realize. It made for a fun project at least.

Fluorescent Light Icon (cont.)

Fluorescent Light Icon

Phonebooks (cont.)

Phonebooks

History of GIC 2/2/09

Today's seminar focused on the 1800s, into the early 1900s, and was largely about how the Industrial Revolution revolutionized Graphic Design.

There was a focus on printing and getting things out to the mass consciousness, and machinery expedited this process. It was interesting that just as fonts were being simplified, the invention of printing processes allowed for elaborate font faces to resurface, as it was no longer done by hand and writing speed was no longer a factor.

A new attitude emerged, focused on the era's middle class. Their culture and morality came into play. They had no design philosophy and so design changed to fit their sensibilities. Design became a thing of pragmatism. Things started changing more to how they are today, with a focus on commerce.

I think what is really interesting about this was how the period thoroughly cleansed and changed things. There was a completely new outlook that came with it, a change in design. I'm very interested in what is to come now, with the advent of technologies such as the internet and telecom networking, what will become of objects that have been prevalent up until now, such as Books and TV. What will become of design as it is constantly calibrated to suit the minds of the audience, who are ever so changing as we progress as a species?