April 19th

The argument between Modernism and Postmodernism is an ongoing struggle in which designers are torn as to which to identify with. Postmodernism is used to describe the break away from Modernism. We see it in Art, Design, Literature, and Architecture. Ther is an emphasis on feeling rather than rationale. Emphasis on surface, texture and materials. Self-conciousness or self-referencing. Mixes of highs and lows. Historical references, and vernacular.

Manifestations of postmodernism arrive in the 1960s.

Wolfgang Weingart starts EVERYTHING. he begins to push the styles of modern design, except without a computer; he uses the letterpress. In 1969, he works with lead type and open systems in a playful way. He is important because of the experiments he does. He opens up the doors for us designers today. His characteristics include: changing letter spacing on sans serif type. Stair stepping rules (lines) diagonal type, reversing type out of bars.

Vaughn Oliver and Peter Saville create new design that looks like the way we work now.

When the macintosh is introduced, things go crazy. It revolutionizes design and morphs it into the way we design today.

Sagmeister and Carson... Very... interesting styes that I am not a fan of.

Chip Kid is a book designerm creating competent design. Clean work for great clients.

Paula Scher creates equally clean design, working at Pentagram.

In my opinion, the work of Sagmeister and Cason, even though helping along the way design is developing recently,, is not the kind of design we should be moving towards. There are plenty of people who like this design, but from things that i have seen, design should not be random, it should not be composed on a page according to "feeling" it should have an underlying structure.

April 5th

Review on the Bauhaus: Its open from 1919 - 1933, and its in Weimar, Dessau, and Berlin.

Jan Tschichold studied caligraphy as a kid, because the ideas of open grids being the norm was not yet established. The design of the time is more assosiated with the victorian era because of the quality of the articuloation. In 1925, he makes an insirt about asymmetrical typography. Most type is being printed in textura in germany, but aesthetically when you look at this work, it makes you think of lissitzky and distijl. The aim of all typographic work should be to deliver a message in the shortest most efficient matter. That is modernism.Sans serif typography, limited palet and nice, open space works so well.

Herbert matter's approach to type was different. his type/image relationship is very matt mitchell esque. diagonals are used very dynamically, and the images fill the posters. They fill repeat over the poster and activate the space. His ads are very interesting, and bring a new style to the modern ideas of poster design. He uses a limited palet and a sans serif typography in order to create a very modern looking design that we might see today. the widely spaced sans serif typography really hits home with design today.

Leister Beil creates posters using the simplified negative form with the electrification posters. They try to convince that if we have electrification, we can defend our homeland. you are better if you use electrification. Using a limited palet becomes extremely popular because of the rise of the use of silk screen.

Corporations begin to make a large impact on design. They spread the gospels of the design. when people create design for corporations, the designers can send their message to everyone.

March 29th

The Bauhaus is the big cheese.

It existed from 1919 - 1933, in Weimar till 1925

Walter Gropius is the Director of the Bauhaus from 1919 - 1928. He is very important. He has a new idea that maybe we have to go back to the old ways. In publishing the Bauhaus manfesto, he has a woodcut of a cathedral. He is using the Cathedral to represent Painting, Sculpture and architecture. A work of art that represents a new social unity. People put their entire lives into the Bauhaus, they move from other countries to just to be there.

Gropius has his Council of masters; Gerhard Marks in charge of sculpture, Lyonel Feringer of painting, and Johannes Itten of the Priliminary courses.

Itten is extremely interesting, because he invented the way we think about core classes today. He talks about things in relation to their opposites (e.g. soft/hard). Always using contrast and hierarchies.

The movie very interesting explains the rise and fall of the Bauhaus, then the reopening of the Bauhaus in Dessau. It is interesting how it is driven away to somewhere that is more liberal. I think even to this day, art school are more accepted in more liberal areas. The discussion about the addition of architecture to the Bauhaus is extremely interesting, because we dont have anything like it here at ringling, and it is the most interesting because of how much it changes or the Bauhaus. As much as i love sans serif typefaces; Its nice to at least have the option to use serif faces, therefore when the bauhaus gets rid of serif faces, i personally think its crazy!

Learning about the Bauhaus has been extremely interesting, because its amazing to see how such an important historical school progressed, and even though it was only open for 10 minutes, it has made such an incredible impact on art. Why hasnt Ringling made an equal impact on art? are the students just not good enough? or has everything just been done before?

The Bauhaus

All I know about the Bauhaus is that it is a school in Germany that established a lot of influential design. I know there was more than one school in germany associated with the Bauhaus, and they output many famous artists.

March 15th

El Lissitzky moves onto constructivism. He begins to use his work to prove a point, applying it in practical ways such as his USSR photo montage poster. This is built above his base of cuprematism where he uses just simple shapes to express a new form of art. Photography is seen as a tool of the modern age; a tool of the new age... a machine. Its a new way to create art, and its wonderful.

Serge Eisenstein: Potempkin rules over all past films, and opens new doors with its violence, montages, and new tricks in cinema.

This is the iconic scene; the massacre on the steps of odessa literally sets the stage for many future movie scene ideas. This movie also obviously has the greatest soundtrack to ever have been featured in any movie since the dawn of time. I wish it was on iTunes. The untouchables has the same scene! It is extremely strange... in my highschool english class, we watched both of the same scenes from the untouchables and potempkin. Very strange but interesting Deja Vu.

Alexander Rodchenko: The key person of russian constructivism. He attends art school from 1910 onwards. He creates very non representational suprematist work in school, and builds on his style from there. Left front of the arts is a magazine that he works on. Using black bars as graphic elements as we do today! Very lissitzkyesque. In 1932, Stalin is in power, and artists are decimated. No-one wants to center their governmental direction around artists propaganda anymore.

De Stijl: "The style" A utopian approach to aesthetics. If you take a step back and look at suprematism and constructivism, they are creating something that is theory based, based on functionality or spirituality. De Stijl asks the question; what is the key to good art? How can everyone make good art? They use squares and ratios. Dorian is obsessed.

Mondrian, Theo VanDoesvurg. De Stijl dies with him.

De Stijl evolves. In 1921, there is a formal change that explores Asymmetrical composition (Dorian gets goosebumps) It is the foundation of modernism design and composition; very beautiful. There are implied rectangles of the elements, but the air moves around and flows. Theo VanDoesvurg publishes Dadaist poems in his magazine. It is curious to think that it took graphic designers so long to come up with these asymmetrical uses of rectangles and white space, as we take it for granted these days.

Everything keeps builind upon other things before, and moving towards what we are creating as designers today. It will be interesting to see how it came about that we create things exactly how we do today, as i can not pin an exact way that people are designing today. Not like in the past when you can tell exactly when they are from because of the style.

March 1st

reductive reductive reductive. the forms in the new posters by the axis powers are reductive. When hitler looks back at the world war I posters, he thinks that they are not good because they should all speak to the lowest common denominator. They were too intellectual for the average german. Hohlwein has badass posters that are pretty high above the rest. Edward McKnight Kouffer: cubist birds. Uses the language of cubism. you can look at it and decode it baded on relationships. Cubism starts of as an intellectual form of art. But when it catches on, it explodes. A.M. Cassandre makes very structured posters because people are looking to science. Looking to apply logic and science to design.

Cubo futurism is taking the ideas of futurism and cubism, and mushing them together. If youre looking for something new, thats a good direction. Then comes suprematism, then constructivism. suprematism rejects utilitarian function. we do not need any more pictures of trees and cows. The black square form 1913. ridiculous. frick yeah! he is forced to start painting things that arent quite as much BS.

Art should not have utilitarian function: suprematism

the only meaningful art has function. things that have function are art: constructivism.

vladimir tatlin, rodchenko, lissitzky. THEY RENOUNCE art for art's sake. art should serve the new communist society.

Kandinsky invents abstract painting.

Lissitzky invents suprematist paintings.

proun is an acronym. looking for the intersection between painting and architecture. buildings and architecture become very important. beat the whites with the red wedge: bullshevic army vs the white forces who were conservatives opposed to the bullshevics. lissitzky is looking how to construct things and explore space.

february 22nd

Josef Hoffman creates flat patterns. These are a reoccurring theme, seen in the pattern work of aubrey beardsley and mocha. peter berrins (sp?!?!) creates the androgynous kissers with long tendrils of hair. Berrins starts to set type in sans serif, and uses rectilinear images alongside the type. Compositions begin to be created using geometry. elaborate systems using nothing but circles and squares. He develops a logo for an electrical company, AEG, using a honeycomb as a metaphor for division and structure within the factory system. He develops a logo, typeface, and consistant layout system. he even applies the system to tea kettles.

Lucian Bernhard is a young painter. Living on his own as a painter, because when he was a kid, he went to an exhibition and saw paintings, went home and painted the walls. his dad kicked him out.

Placastil. dominant typographic element. THE THING. flat background. This is around the time of WWI, there is more abstraction, and metaphor. the axis powers have badass posters. the allies have shitty illustrations that look outdated.

This film has shed a lot of light on the way design has changed in the past century. it is interesting to see hwo much the times have altered design, because of certian things such as presidential shift.

February 15th

Certain gothic faces such as Neuland are created to symbolize the pinnacle of German typography. Neuland is strangely used today mostly for african and Caribbean themes. Jules is considered to be the father of the modern poster. the graphics look victorian. Jules became known for the colorful posters, usually with a central female figure, with things going on around her. Lautrec and Cheret are in the same time period, creating posters like the moulin rouge posters. Eugene Grasset comes into the picture with his coloring book style of work. flat color and heavy black lines. The next guy is Arthur Mackmurdo. He has the influence of arts and crafts, but pays attention to the line quality of art neuvau. Beardsley vs morris. Morris has more beautiful intricacy, and beardsley prefers sex. Alfonzo Mucha is like us, studys in paris and works at a print shop and makes prints for a living. The tendrils of hair in his "JOB" piece.

emanuel orazi: flat female form. posed before a counter of objects that the place sells.

Bahrens, another member of the Jugens group became well known for his multicolor woodlblock prints, inspired by french art and japanese wood block print. The kiss exploits the androgeny, you dont know which is a girl or id both are girls.

THE GLASGOW SCHOOL 4 margaret and frances macdonald, herbert mcnair, and charles renee macintosh. Characteristic elements:

Geometric, curvilinear elements, rectilinear structure. symbolic imagery, stylized forms

This leads to Talwin Morris. He is influenced by the 4, and created the red letter shakespeare series. people are inexplicably obsessed with this guy.

koloman moser, josef hoffman. Succession style which is very intellectual.

This style of design is really moving towards todays style. You can really see the development of todays design in this art. There really is day to day application of things we are learning about art nouveau.

February 1st

The arts and crafts movement arrives, and people begin to develop utopian ideas. Their thoughts are bigger than "i want a new car", they start thinking about how the world works, and what they can do to better it. The idea that your work should be in service of society (EG the gothic cathedral). In mercantile language, the person who acquires, is the person who profits. Ruskin is the philosophical leader. The one who the arts and crafts people point it. There is a strong movement back to the medieval times. "Back to the good ol' days!"

How can art and craft combine to create beautiful artists? How can workers find enjoyment out of their job? There is a surge to bring the craftsmen back, but there isnt enough money to buy these kinds of crazy crafted things! only enough money for... Ikea...

Industrialization (steam powered presses -> less quality)

in response-> interest in fine arts again. (frederick goudy)

William Morris designs Golden, the typeface to use in a book. He tried to then recreate the aesthetic of the incunables. Morris also then designs the borders (very intricate) CARVED! that would suck. If something goes wrong, thats it! Morris also designs Troy (blackletter) and smaller version of troy called Chaucer. The tonalities of his boarders are perfectly even. They look extremely beautiful.

William Morris is basically a badass. His stuff on wood block prints are mind boggling.

Jan 25th

It is interesting how printing has come so far. The double cylinder press sounds so prehistoric today, but it was a great improvement. The rise of news papers helps graphic designers. The first mad men were born, running around, placing adds in the old newspapers.

The next person to contribute is Ottmar Mergenthaller, the man who perfected his linotype machine in 1866. This made it easier to set type, because you typed a line into the machine, and it would smelt a whole line of time. This is really amazing, because it made everything easier!

The way we type today is based on how the old linotype worked. Victorian graphics were very "fussy." There is a rise of middle class, and people have money, but don know what to do with it. Therefore, they buy a lot of nik naks.

Ephemera refers to written or printed things that arent meant to be collected.

Lithographic printing is a HUUUGE step forward. Printing in color? On metal? However you want? niiiice!

This opens up space to print on tin cans, in order to make badass packaging. There comes the development of american food culture. The Quaker oats dude!

Its interesting that even though lithography came in, there are still wooden typographers trying to make a living. This is the world we live in today. There are always new things coming out, and we have to adapt.

The idea of having a bible that was sold in installments with 2390285923058 wood cuts sounds ridiculous. I could never imagine getting books that way. Getting a book for a class is bad enough.

Wow Thomas Nast is a pro; he made santa clause, Uncle Sam, The Donkey and Elephant. Pro.

William Morris. The father of the arts and craftsmen. He is inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and things happening in reaction to industrialization. He realizes that things manufactured by robots... are shit. He decides people need to start crafting good things again.

January 18th

Interest in Science and Mathematics has grown. Calendars become interesting documents, made possible by wood cuts. They can be used to calculate solar and lunar cycles. The Tip-in is created, and creates a kind of calculator inside the book!

Steven Daye brings printing to the Colonies in 1639, and creates prints of the psalmes in 1940. They are very crudely created, but they are created by him as a career choice, trying to get along.

Steven Daye is like Gutenberg in the fact that he is just trying to make a living for himself.

King Louie decides to get people to draw out a font for the royal printing services. NO BODY is allowed to use this typeface... unless they want to lose a limb. The quality of printing in france as a whole was not risen, seeing as the king was the only person who could use the font. Rococo refers to the fanciful french art that was in the 1700s. It is floral and intricate. Rococo page design is also very intricate. Somewhat floral, and personal. Frounir creates his own prints, but they do not effect the revolution, as he dies too soon.

Copper plate engraving flourishes during the rococo era, because there is no limitation of 2d encasements. Hand engraved books from copper emerge. Printing is not good for the people in power, because people unite together, due to a common reading, and then the power falls.

Bodoni redesigns the Roman design, and makes them more geometric and modern. The creation of Bodoni's extremely contrasty font, influences the creation of Fat Faces, and Display faces.

Agrarian Societies develop into cities. Everyone competes for attention. People dont use huge letters, because it would be so hard to set large metal type. Therefore, wood type is created. With a router, you can create a lot of copies of wood type (not available before the industrial revolution). With posession, which arises with the industrial revolution, comes greed. The middle class is created. There is extra money from working, which can be spent on random nik naks. Then, there arises stealing and contempt. There is also a growth in literacy and education.

Egyptian fonts are known as that because Egypt was big at the time, so people associate the fonts with that era. (slab serif etc.) THEN ARISES THE MIGHT SANS SERIFFFF!!!

Tuscan letters are invented: ornamental serif faces (extremely ugly)

These are all made possible because wood cuts are much easier with the router. These do not make it a better design work exactly... there arises a lot of extremely ugly design.

Poster houses start popping up! easy way for people to start making posters (for money) These posters are not designed well, just made in order to make money. Like Gutenburg and Daye.

Wood type and metal type can be used in the same design. Lead is good for small, and wood is good for large. Posters do not exist anymore... those were the days.

NEED TO KNOW THESE: old style (Garamond) transitional (Baskerville) Modern (Bodoni) Egyptian (Rockwell) Sans Serif (Helvetica)

dont need to know, but still pretty awesome: display, black letter, hand, script, dingbats.

TRADITIONAL SERIFS ARE: rigid, pointy

OLD STYLE SERIFS ARE: round, organic.

MODERN SERIFS ARE: square, thin, awesome.

know: cap height, ascender line, x height, base line, descender line (all the stuff a graphic designer should know) Point size is measured from highest to lowest.

leading is measured base line to baseline. auto leading is 20% above point size.

12 points = 1 pica. 6 picas = 1 inch. 72 points = 1 inch.

MY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS:

It has been so enlightening, learning where fonts actually came from, instead of just accepting it as fact, that these fonts just came into being, and we now have to know them. The history behind the typefaces is so intriguing, and having to know the different families of fonts is extremely easy now that we know more about the background.

QUESTIONS:

Why is it that people go back and create more fonts that are based on old styles, when they are not in such common use today?

January 11th

Xylography: printing with wood.

Ligature: 2 characters that work together as a single unit: fi

Incunabula: first 50 years of printing.

Fleurons: cast decorative elements. Type embellishments for the press.

To Print you need:

· A growing middle class: to buy the printed material

· Students in and expanding university system: demand as a student, but also a more literate class.

· Increased Literacy.

Lascaux

Cuneiform -> greek -> roman -? Modern

J V W not added until middle ages

Letterforms have changed significantly over time. Starting with Cuneiform, transitioning into Greek, then Roman, now todays modern letterforms. Lower case letters have been added to increase efficiency, seeing as curves are easier to draw than straight lines. Xylography; woodblock prints, fundamentally changes the architecture of the human brain, allowing people to own prints, because wood block prints can be reproduced over and over again.

Gutenberg brought his printing ways to everyone else. Therefore, he is known as the first person to use printing. Printing evolves with images, as they lose their binding borders, and open up some negative space into the pages. "The history of the world" also puts printing into perspective, and unleashes the potential of thumb nail sketching, and printing, in order to create a book. The History of Troy (1475) is the first book printed in English.