Unit 3- Lecture 4.

Key points for tonight:

• Barbara Kruger- Word image combinations
• No innocent Speech- Jacques Derrida
• Cranbrook- Structuralism & Post-Structuralism
• Citational grafts- restructure mass media
• David Carson- attacks the type
• Postmodernism
• Sagmeister is big shit.
  

The ideas we looked at tonight are becoming more and more common around me. The idea of breaking the molds of type, and design are battling with the ideas of simplistic design right now. I tend to try both styles, however I generally lean towards the idea that "less is more." Postmodern design as amazing, however it doesn't always read with everyone, which can tend to make it bad for business... I can't survive off destroying typographic forms and playing with irony in all my designs. I don't want to just think on paper, just a production artist, but bring fresh ideas to the mix, but in a completely understandable method.

Unit 3- Lecture 3.

Tonight's key topics:

• Postmodernism rejects Grand Narrative, Enlightenment, and Modernism.
• Milton Glaser: design with humor.
• New Wave typography of the 1970's.
• Weingart starts use of MAC computers for experiements.
• Paula Scher: appropriation & copying of styles.
• End of History and Death of the Author.
• CSA design archive

In todays design world Postmodernism is still strong I believe. The idea of Appropriation is still an issue as well. Some people have the idea that copyright laws protect everything, but people still reuse ideas, leaving the original designer forgotten pretty often without any consequences. Advertisers bring back older ideas to sell new products the same way. Every day I go through probably 25-30 blogs looking at inspiration, I don't try to ever "copy" any of this work, but I'm sure it finds its way into my designs in all sorts of ways, but as long as I make it my own I feel its alright. Also I think that Jeff Koons is an amazing artist and shouldn't be blamed for stealing anything!

Design Discourse #2

Seventy-Nine Short Essays on Design - "Why Designers Can't Think"
-Michael Bierut

• Process Schools/ Portfolio Schools
• Process Schools = form-driven problem solving approach
• Portfolio Schools = The product, not process, is king.
• Value found in how design looks, not what it means.
• Today's designers "worship the altar of the visual."
• Design pioneers are well rounded intellectually.
• Modern educators push technology on design students.
• Students need to be exposed to more culture.

The above image is a great representation of this article because it shows how today's designers are not designing culturally, but just designing to please a client. The meaning of the mark in its culture was just disregarded. The firm tried to back the redesign with a bunch of graphs and mumbo-jumbo on emotions, but really they changed a line to get paid millions of dollars. There isn't a big meaning to the logo anymore, no connection that people make to the logo besides that it equals Pepsi. The author of the article explains that today's designers are in a vacuum that excludes popular as well as high culture, the pepsi logo only demonstrates popular culture because its stuck in our heads, but really means nothing.




El Lissitzky's " Red Beat the Whites" design is a strong visual to support the article because it shows what a classic designer could do with just intellect. He didn't have four years of design college to learn the principles of design, but just designed using his knowledge of culture. He wasn't "worshipping the altar of the visual," but nurturing the ideas and concept of design. When looking at Lissitzky's design you can tell he was trying to design for the people, not just for designers. His symbols are readable by everyone, and it didn't take knowledge of computers to do it. The author of the article explains that todays graduates are speaking a language only their classmates can understand. This visual shows how a designer can design for the masses.







This image is meant to show what a lot of designers a producing today, which is trendy design. Just visuals and effects showing off what we learn to do with technology in school, but not representing a bigger idea. It shows that designers are just learning programs, and basic ideas of design, but nothing more. People are just designing for these trends, but what will they do when its not cool anymore? Real proffesionals have a broad range of education, such as politics, history, science, etc. The graduates today don't know all of these other topics, and some do eventually learn, some try to fake it, but it needs to be taught in school. The author of the article calls it a cultural illiteracy which is a nice way of saying we don't know how to think outside of what we learn.

Unit 3- Lecture 2.

Key Points of tonight: Corporate identities and branding become essential for companies and products. Designers like Paul Rand and Lester Beal became major players of the New York school. Vignelli Associates developed Unigrid System used in National parks brochures & NYC subway system design. Saul Bass and motion picture credits were big development for design. The methods of New Advertising include visual statements with simple images, and not talking dumb to the consumer. Perfect matching of text and image let the audience participate in the advertisment. Conceptual ideas become very important in advertisment. Advertisment and Editorial design was greatly influenced by Photo-Typography.

We use the ideas of New advertising in not only the studio, but in every day life. We view hundreds of thousands of ads/commercials a day taking in so many different ideas. Advertisment today has started going back to some of these ideas of conceptual ideas to sell products, not dumbing down ad's for customers. The break thru of photo-typography has really influenced today's design. Overlapping and methods of working with leading have become important tools of design today. The ideas of pushing conceptual boundaries is something most designers try to use today, balanced with a simplistic style. My personal design is normally witty or drastic in its ideas and messages its trying to convey.

Unit 3- Lecture 1.

Missed class. I'll have it up soon.

Unit 2- Lecture 4, March 23rd

Art Deco Moderne was a big topic tonight. Illustrated posters in a style of Ludwig Hohlwien. The use of iconic 2D illustrations and bold design choices in posters. Propaganda posters from all sides in WWII are very influential for future designs. FUTURA GETS CREATED!! Herbert Matter makes incredible use of Plakatstil styles with Image & text combonations for communication.
These are some of my favorite historical posters. The styles they created with their illustrations can be seen coming out in my work with vector art. The use of micro + macro image and word combonations are essential skills used by all designers today and they are engrained into our brains here in school. The Swiss styles created during this time period are nearly perfect and helped bring graphic design away from so much illustration.

Unit 2- Lecture 3, March 16th

Today was a good day is History of Graphic Design. De Stijl and Bauhaus are two movements I've always been fascinated with. The use of purely vertical and horizontal in the design is fantastic and amazes me. The methods developed during the Bauhaus are what really make Graphic Design it's own medium. Type and image combinations with Modernist form and communication make for beautiful works by Herbert Bayer and Moholy Nagy. New Typography is very nice because of its use of diagonals and white space. Tschichold very important in revival of traditional typography. Dutch design is in it's own realm, they recycle ideas and use them in a new way. I love the printing arts they used. The ads and posters are so exciting and modern to this day.

A lot of the styles and techniques we saw today are very similar to todays modern design. The use of type and image is pretty much what graphic design is today. The use of random versus structure allows for designers today to create visual texture in our designs. Many of these techniques have been brought into todays motion graphics.