February 23rd, Lecture 1- unit 2

Today the major points we learned about were:
-Plakastil= or the modern poster style
The Futurist movement- appreciate war and machinery
The Dada movement- break all standards, no consistancy
Lucian Bernhard- started Plakastil with Priester matchs poster
Filippo Marinetti- typographic Simultaneity
Surrealism movement- picks up after dada, altered state to create.

The Dada movement really takes graphic design to a new level because it breaks the old standards which we today continue to use. The posters we saw today are the closest thing I've seen so far that look kind of like what we are doing today in design. It was nice to see some things breaking away from the grid. The idea of rejecting tradition was so amazing for the time, and doing that today is difficult because so much has already been done, being new isn't easy.

The ideas all of these artists were developing are still common today, a lot of designers like David Carson and Sagmeister use techniques like this, breaking out of the standards. Our poster art today is still completely derived from this time period. I unknowingly designed a poster like this last semester without really researching this at all. The surrealist style is also still used a lot by designers and illustrators. It was great to hear about ManRay again because I love his work and saw a lot of it at the Picasso musuem in Paris this summer. Completely fantastic still not matched today I believe in the way he combined imagery.

February 9th, Lecture 3.

We started out today diving into the Art Nouveau period. The artists had a lot of interesting influences to get to these incredible posters and icon images of women. I was astounded to hear that Art Nouveau was one of the first real international art movements. The colors of the later Jugend movement were outstanding, the pictures were illustrated so well. The idea of total design and the evolution into modern graphic design is still prevelant today. The geometrics and ways of problem solving are still used in the Studio today. The way they used geometric solutions can be compared to the way we use the grid system now. The way the Vienna Secessionists used minimalist techniques and white space is something I know I use personally, but had never even seen some of those posters. The change from curves, patterns, and florals, to clean edged, modern, and sophisticated designs has been the biggest jump from the old styles into the newer things like we have today. The theroies that they developed during those years have real significance to myself because I almost went to architecture school because of my love of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Art Nouveau architecture. Those ideas are still in my head and find there way into my designs today. I think its pretty cool that I switched from Architecture to graphic design without knowing the connection between the two of them was so huge. Peter Behrens was someone I hadn't heard of but will not do more research on because he seems to be a real leader of the times. The last slide of the Underground logo with the font and layout was awesome to look at because I spent 3 weeks in Europe over the summer and saw that sign so often as well as the Metropolitan signs in Paris.

Febuary 2nd, Lecture 2.

Today we really got to see how the Industrial Revolution greatly effected type and design. The machines allowed for mass production, mass communication, and shoddy work. The creation of Slab Serif and Sans Serif typefaces drastically changed typography and the way type can be viewed. Chromolithography and packaging lead to the beginning of advertising. The Victorian period was not a good time for type or design, it lowered standards. Later type foundries began to design typefaces that illustrators had hand drawn, which I thought was interesting because it turns the tables on us modern designers. After the overwhelming industrial movement the handmade Arts and Crafts movement brought the connection between architecture and design.
In connection to studio design today everything we learned today is of great importance. Sans Serif alone may be the biggest advancment in design in the last 100 years. The way the Arts and Crafts movement brought design into modernist period today is still completely prevelant today even in my own designs. The old ways of mass production without regards for style and design are out the door and clean, well crafted products rule the market.