Reflection Essay History of GIC 3/23/09

It was interesting to look at how Graphic Deign was changing away from what was commonplace from the World Wars.  Futura was a brand new font which came along with the ushering of a new era, which belonged to the movement of "Art Deco" and featured geometric style. People applied what they'd learned from Cubism and De Stijl by making reductive compositional principles. Art Deco was the predecessor to branding in advertising.

AM Cassandre was a Russian Graphic Designer who was considered one of the great illustrators during hte 20th Century who possessed great Typographic skills, who brought about very different approaches to advertising, such as a fictitious character that sells a product. Its interesting to see how much this is used in today's advertising, such as the Camel mascot of cigarettes or the dozens of characters invented to sell cereal. He brought about Bold designs, emphasizing two dimensionality and iconic symbols.

I was fascinated that American Designers were copying Russian Graphic Design. Graphic Design was reaching a point where it was notable to see positive and negative graphic design, and the fact that America was looking up to what the Russians were doing, given their relationship with the USSR at that period, the fact that Americans would even look up at Russian design was very curious.

We covered a lot of the posters of World War II that were obviously influenced heavily by the war. I've learned a lot about it in the past, but its always interesting to see this kind of heavy handed patriotism mixed with subliminal messages designed to insight fear in the average citizen so they don't hurt the war effort or not contribute how they should. As always, war seems to be the foundation of progress for just about everything in the human world, Graphic Design is not exempt.

Swiss show off their exemplary work. They don't do illustrations in their work on the grounds that it is too subjective. One such designer, Herbert Matter, pioneered the integration of B&W photography with signs and color areas, which became a model for later practitioners of the International Typographic Style.  All of his pieces are considered masterpieces of 20th century graphic design.

Reflection Essay History of GIC 3/16/09

It was interesting how after some years of Graphic Design, it started to become such a major part of commercialism and our culture, that it needed to be passed down to a new generation. Fundamentals to the art form were being cemented and a general sense of what was good and bad design was entering the consciousness. The Bauhaus was an integral part of GIC History, it helped define the art form, founded on the idea of providing solutions for the industrial age. 

We discussed several many things relating to the schooling of Graphic Design and some of the pioneers of the media:

Maholy Nagy designs the first course that studies in Graphic Design.

Johannes Itten makes a color theory program in the Bauhaus.

Form Follows Function

Mondrian limited himself to primary colors and straight horizontal/vertical lines, no diagonals.

Simplicity and Function in furniture

Neoplathisism 

De Stijl architecture

De Stijl passes along with designer Van Doesburg in 1931

Swiss Design vies to create a design understandable internationally.

Hierarchy 

Design Discourse One

A Reevaluation of the Situationist Thesis

Veronique Vienne

• Our minds are linked to what we do. A body that sits idle will dull their mind, while someone who crafts with their hands will stimulate and improve their nervous system.
• Many simply buy products to satisfy themselves, but not necessarily think.
• "Acquiring things is a poor alternative to fashioning objects"
• "The more you consume, the less you live."
• Members of the Situationists would deliberately disorient themselves and refuse labor-saving devices to stimulate their minds.
• "They are buying your happiness; steal it back."
• French describe happiness as being euphoric, mischievous, prankish.
• "Environmentalists, students, anarchists, but also old socialists, christians tired of violence on TV, critics of genetic engineering and card carrying Union members- every single one of them worried about some unofficial global government body enforcing some elite agenda"
• Social and Environmental responsibility of Graphic Designers
• Drifting, defying space-time

This is a cynical and very appropriate quote for the overall tone of the article. People nowadays just seem to dwell on material well-being and are because of it, becoming very narrow-minded and dulled husks of what they could've had the potential to be. Its a shame. Its a bigger shame that they are throughly taken advantage of by governments and corporations for their own well-being, their own material well-being.

This is exactly what Veronique and the Situationists were ashamed of in this world. People who only take in, who do not contribute to the world. Whats interesting is that he is holding a football, but instead of playing, he is simply watching television. A body that sits idle numbs the mind. People really are becoming brainless by doing nothing, and its a shame because each and everyone of us really does feel better when we make something, so how come we don't get up and actually do it?

This image in particular is a good representation of what the Land of the Free has become. A Land of the Minds imprisoned to consumerism. Our country wholly supports our unrelenting appetite of stale enjoyment. I wonder what our forefathers would have thought had they seen our country's future, or the thousands of people that indeed recognize the sad state of our nation, but are unwitting to do anything about it. A big help they are.

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.