April 19th

Post modernism

used to note a break w/ the earlier modernist principles by placing emphasis on form over function, by reintroducing traditional or classical elements or by carrying modernist styles or practices to extremes.

-Seen in art, design, literature, and architecture

-emphasis on feel rather than rationale (why put gothic writing on my tattoo? Because I can)

-emphasis on surface, texture and materials

-self consciousness or self referencing

-mixes high and low

-historical references

-vernacular

Essentially, post modernism is an extension of the idea and basis of modern design. It is ever present in all aspects of the art world, from fine arts to architecture to design. It is an emotional idea, based on feeling as opposed to rationality. It speaks to the impulsive side of the viewer, feeding their gut reaction and feeling with no true thought or solid idea behind it. You see a complete mixture of various elements in post modernism, anything goes, and the idea is to blur all rational meaning. Post modernistic design and art isn't immediately recognizable as to its function, again playing on the idea of feeling and emotion over rational thought. The basis of this style is the reaction to something, be it a painting, a sculpture or a building. 

Post modern architecture- diverse materials, silly and whimsical, no hint as to the function of a building,

pluralistic, it opens the doors for many different materials and ideas, it is very free and democratic

Vegas is a perfect and almost stereotypical example of post modern architecture, a complete hodgepodge of design styles and cultural influence, from egyptian to greek architecture. 

Post modernism can be seen as based on the computer, the digital world.

Just a few important people worth noting are....

Wolfgang Weingart- one of our pioneers as designers

he was doing the things we do on the computer with letterpress

he taught at Basel school of design and Yale

He began to tire of the international style, so he begins experimenting, which was important in pushing us out of international style 

As a teacher, he's taught many successful designers of our time.

Characteristics:

-experimented with stairstepping rules

-diagonal type

-reversing type out of bars (black bar w/ white type)

-introducing variations within a single word

-experimented with letterspacing sanserif type

-works with open systems and playful elements 

Rosemary Tissi- plays with design and type by pushing design boundaries and the usual rules and precautions in design.

April Greidman

opens studio in LA, magazine cover reminder of lissitzsky, student of Weingart, she loves triangles and was an early adopter of the Mac technology

The Situationists- reminiscent of dadaist ideologies, art for arts sake, the world and life have no meaning and neither should art. They advocated experiences of life for the fulfillment of human desires and experimented with the construction of situations, or the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of such desires. In other words, they create happenings, situations and they make fun. 

Memphis Design group-based out of milan

hoped to erase international style, function is secondary to style

Teddy boys- looking rockabilly/50s-like

Paula Share- all about parody and riffing on things, paying hommage to dadaism, it could be debated that she simply ripped people off and copied to an extreme extent

Charles Anderson (associates) promoted the ideas of cultural language and repackaging

spaghetti sauce packaging- unlike the simple graphical packaging up until that point, appropriating vernacular to connect with the audience (or the consumers), this vernacular is characteristic of post modernism, spoke to the audience in a new way, taking the large bold text of the packaging up till that point and made it more rustic and illustrative

Peter Seville- (still alive)- he created an aesthetic of industrial inspired designs, design director for city of manchester, as art student his buddy was doing designs for buzzcocks so he follows

Von Oliver- associated with and worked for 4AD records

These designers still working traditional means, but then with the invention of a little thing called the Mac computer, a big shift happens, with the invention of this new technology, and the new way it was advertised, it changed the way we worked, creating a completely new aesthetic, digital and clean polished aesthetics. 

Cranbrook- the studies here took a theoretical approach to design, looking at deconstructive theory

Ed Fella- designs and hand draws/ builds his own art and typography

David Carson- given art director job w/out formal direction and knowledge

Sagmeister- hand carved type in his skin, yet another man in a line to go to the extreme for his art, brought forth the question of "what would you do for your art? how far would you go for it? would you bleed or even die for it?"

Post modernists will create work that is difficult to read and understand and that will slightly disgust or repulse you, it is better communication because it effects you more, it pulls at your heart strings and effects what you feel more than what you think, and emotion is much stronger than thought

In my own respects, I can see the appeal and effectiveness of post modern design, but its not something that really floats my boat. In the arts and architecture today, there is definitely a strong mixture of modern and post modern influence, and to a certain extent, I value the style of post modern architecture and design, but it is something that can only be taken in small doses. I can easily see myself being influenced in some ways by post modern design, but only where it can truly fit, not a heavy and easily recognizable influence. The idea of art for arts sake is a very comforting thought, being able to release yourself from rules and regulations and produce simply what you feel and what looks best, but without purpose, then what good is anything really? I find so much pleasure in creating something that moves past a simple reaction and plays with a persons mind, something that makes the audience think, and from that thought emotion and feeling is easily born. So as far as myself, I can easily say that I am more of a modernist, that emotion and irrationality isn't an effective base for my work. 

April 12th

Swiss Design and The International Typographic Style  (synonyms?)
More than just grids, visual unity through asymmetrical organization, use of objective photography, sans sarif type flush left rag right, and mathematical grids


Most important is attitude over appearance and design is both socially useful and important

Traced back to the Bauhaus and constructivism

Max Bill and Theo Balmer- took on swiss design early and both were Bauhaus students

After WWI the swiss adapt to modernist ideals

Balmer is student at Dessau in the 1920s and uses implied grid in design

Max Bill involved in planning the Ulm (the Institute of Design) which is important due to its inclusion of semiotics as a field of study

Semiotics- the philosophical theory of signs and symbols, what things mean in relationship to other things

Syntactics- order

Semantics- meaning referred to

Pragmatics- hot its used

Ferdinand de Saussure- the dyadic model, a signifier and the signified

In reference to THE BRAIN-

it always finds the quickest and easier meaning, they will try and put things together that don't compute

Adrian Frutiger- b. 1928- creates the Univers (one of my favorites) family in 3 years, trashes the traditional roman system and uses numbered system in place of it (Univers 55), tremendous variation while using the same family

Armon Hoffman- HES ALIVEEE!!!

creates the archaic swiss style and a system of contrasting relationships, negative space plays a highly important role in any composition

"if you design the negative space, the rest will work"

Josef Muller Brockman- consistently uses implied grids and objective imagery, uses the grids as art


Modernism- theory with a lot of thought, it acts as a real belief system
European- how can it help society vs. American (morph modernism and make it more pragmatic)- whats the concept


Paul Rand, Saul Bass and Ivan Chermayeff
1940s post WWII economy is growing, more european immigration, introducing more advertising along with European ideas

Paul Rand- cover for Direction magazine, uses dots to convey different meanings, often uses hand made media found images cut paper and collage, rough and less refined, designed the original UPS logo

Art- 
an idea that has found the perfect form
aesthetics- when form and content become one

Saul Bass- designed film titles, many for Alfred Hitchcock, and the Man with the Golden Arm


Ivan Chermayeff- harvard and yale graduate (designed many logos for huge companies like Chase and NBC)


Personally, swiss design seems to take rigidity to a new level and the work of many of the people we've learned about is interesting but i'm not really sure how I completely feel about it. Its all about grids and designing to a system, and i think it relies a bit too much on the fusion of form AND function. I enjoy seeing that wabi sabi feel that type and design used to have, that hand crafted and imperfect feel. I love the clean cut and crisp style as well, don't get me wrong, but swiss design takes it further than i feel anything really did before it. Yes, it definitely feels like everything is EXACTLY where it needs to be to communicate most effectively, but its that intense stray from the hand crafted I feel pushes me away, the minimalistic and clean design seems to remove emotion and feeling from the art and move far into the world of organization and perfection. Its sometimes intimidating to look at this sort of work, because there it stands in front of you, bold and strong. The style is very flexible, though, and i really enjoy the idea that within such a well designed and perfect system, there is the flexibility and a designer is able to really personalize and create fresh imagery all the time with such contrast to other work. I can definitely see the influence of this movement on current design, and its truly amazing how the ideals and imagery stood without true contention that long, and most likely much longer based on how the future looks. 

April 5th

Bauhaus review:

Walter Gropius was the first director of the Bahaus from 1919 to 1928 

the final director was Mies van der Rohe. 

1925 until 1932- Dessau, Gropius replaced Meyer in 1928 and then Meyer was replaced byVan der Rohe in 1930. 

During this time ideas from all art movements were applied to the functionality of design and typography was utilized as communication. 

Herbert Bayer designed the universal alphabet with no capital letters, which in turn made it harder to read. 

Walter Gropius came to America in 1937 when he accepted a job at Harvard. Once he started his job he became overwhelmed with the way architecture was taught in America and decided to take over the architecture school at Harvard. He taught his students the same lessons that were taught at the Bauhaus and and greatly influenced design in America during the Great Depression, with other schools beginning to adopt his ideas. Soon many others from the Bauhuas followed him to America to teach as well. Laslow Maholy Nagy became very close with Gropius and moved on to each architecture in Chicago and created a new Bauhaus. Maholy's approach to teaching was to give students projects that helped them succeed by letting them explore and make mistakes on their own.

Jan Tschichold - caligraphy, hand written invitations, san serif type, limited color, open space

1924 - Writes pamphlet describing typography and design, while producing work similar to Bauhaus.  

1925 - Writes an elementary book about asymmetrical typography 

1928 - Publishes the new typography at age 25

Jan states that the most efficient way to send a message through type is clearly and simply while using grids and and simple construction. Later in his life (after being confronted by Nazis) he moves to Switzerland where he sets out to create a new style using a more classical approach. 

Herbet Matter - Starts his own style after coming to America in 1936

He utilizes: clear typography, extreme perspective and scale shifts, and creates a photo montage in posters designs.

Throughout his career he eveloped a basic vocabulary of elements to create travel brochures, did work and advertisements for Knoll chairs, and creates sketches for NHRR logo.

Addison Duiggins - San Serif type

Utilizes an abstract composition and a limited palette.

WPA was a federal art project that was paid for by US tax dollars and gave artists plenty of work and also provided posters and designs for important causes.

Ladislav Sutnar - Uses abstract designs with negative space. 

Lester Beale was one of the first to bring modern aesthetic teachings to America. This artist uses a lot of arrows, bars, and rules in his compositions along with old wood cut typography. He was known for work with Rural Electrification Administration. This was to convince population that electricity is a good idea for rural areas. 

International style: clean and efficient works, which included everything from graphic design, fine arts, typeface design, and architecture. 

March 29th

Originally, I didn't have a post for this particular class due to the fact that I was absent, but going with the notes I received from others in the class and my own review of found material, this is what I've come up with....




So this class was largely about the Bauhaus, something I didn't know much about, other than the small fact that Dorian's website (beachaus.com) sounds remarkably similar to the school.


So basically, the Bauhaus invented what we consider to be the modern art student, providing for new age thinking and design. 


It lasted from 1919 to 1933, spanning across 3 different locations.
A brief timeline includes:


1919-1925- Weimar (1st location)


1923- First public exhibition


1924- Letter of Resignation


1925- 1932- Dessau (2nd location)


1928- Groupius replaced by Meyer


1930- Meyer replaced by Van der Rohe


1932-1933- Berlin (3rd location)


Walter Gropius- founder and first director of the Bahaus. He introduced the school using a cathedral model- the 3 spires being painting sculpture and architecture together as one, thought these areas should be equally valued, not separated. 


The Bahaus was a place where people put their entire lives, a strong sense of community where people put everything they had into what they were doing and truly believed it meant something. 


Council of Masters-
Gerhard Marks (sculpture/pottery)
Lyonel Feringer (painting)
Johannes Itten (preliminary courses)


Itten- focused on the individual student, attempting to release the creativity of each of the students, not simply follow everyone else, "it wasn't about making the students do what someone else wanted, but what was inside of them," established the preliminary courses, focused on materials as well, developing an understanding of physical materials, classes studied high contrast (soft/hard, round/rigid, light/hard), created work from found objects (rummaging through junkyards and scraps to find forms which could be used), a reflection of the students situation, they didnt need to worry about money and tuition


Itten leaves the Bauhaus in 1923 due to a change in the direction of the school


in 1923, the first exhibition is held, the public was curious as to the goings on of the school and what their money was helping to support, so they were shown, it not only showed the public what was going on there, but provided new inspiration for other artists and designers (such as Jan Tschichold)


Itten replaced by:
László Moholy-Nagy 
very experimental, all about typophoto (unification of all elements- image and type), he sees photography as replacing painting, trying to develop a new "visual language" of sorts with photography, experimented with photograms (playing around with the film as you expose it) creating interesting and unexpected results, the idea was to not worry about the result but just see where the process would take him, used photomontage, collage, assemblage etc. 


Herbert Baehr- created the universal alphabet which did away with capital letterforms
The Bauhaus experimented with typography as well, doing away with serifs, experimenting with contrast, hierarchy, composition, flushed left and ragged right, used bars rules grids and open compositions, strong verticals/ horizontals in compositions


The final move of the school to Berlin was a transition from a nice and modern building in Dessau to a very depressing old building, but things didn't work out, you know, with the whole Nazi thing in Germany


The Bauhaus was a very progressive school all about new directions and Hitler saw the work they produced as degenerate and subversive, and the school was finally pressured to close in 1933


I am truly blown away at the magnitude and importance that this school holds. It was only open for 14 years, yet in that time, it gained worldwide recognition and became a hugely influential design force still recognized today. Comparing our schooling to that of the Bauhaus, I can't imagine having the freedom and curriculum those students were allotted. As art students today, we do follow the same basic principles of core study to learn the basics and fundamentals of art and design, slowly branching out to gain our own direction as we progress each year, but throughout our years at Ringling, I feel we will always be made to follow in the footsteps of those before us, that the level of experimentation and freedom the students of the Bauhaus enjoyed will never be achieved by us. We must always follow the rules, and when we don't, we are penalized for it. However, we have the same spirit, I feel, the same love for what we do, and no matter the obstacles before us, we will continue to produce work and continue to change the world the way we see fit. 

March 22nd

No post, test time!

March 15th

Back to the ole' grind. Luckily today was a short class, probably one of the best things that could happen right after a week long break.

Today we didn't talk about too much, starting of with

Photo montage becomes very popular

photography is a tool of the modern age

development of montage in cinema

Sergei Eisenstein- use of montage in the Battleship Potemkin

shows intense violence without gore, it implies the violence without showing it flat out

critical point in cinema history in which many modern day examples pay homage

The Untouchables- modern day example of similar montage to the Battleship Potemkin

Alexander Rodchenko- born 1891

Pure Red color, Pure Yellow color, Pure Blue color- oil on canvas

He makes the statement of reducing painting to its logical conclusion

1923- Works for magazine Left Front of the Arts

De Stijl- The Style

Movement developed in the Nederlands

It is a utopian approach to aesthetics

Art should be useful, have purpose

Concerned with what makes good art??

Experiments with structures, it is an intellectual pursuit

Rectilinear planes, void of surface texture and decoration except for pure primary hues plus black and white, no trees or happy cows

Looking for universal harmony in art

The idea of De Stijl is applied to architecture, sculpture, graphic design, etc.

Theo Van Doesburg- Founder, leader, and publisher of De Stijl

Piet Mondrian- most well known De Stijl artist

De Stijl evolves- the beginning of exploration in using asymmetrical composition (which is pivotal in modernist design)

Theo Van Doesburg prints Dadaist poems- He believed dadaism was necessary to destroy the existing system in order for De Stijl to come into place and make its name

March 1st

WWI- different design during the war
Allied design soft and illustrative

Axis design more graphic and sophisticated

Ludwig Holowein 1914- reductive form, play with figure and ground, negative space.

1936: germany lost to a black athlete, Jesse Owens 

the poster depicts epic man soaring with wings over stadium

Hitler refers to the role of propaganda in the war effort

he believes the design of germany during the first war to be wrong minded and that they should appeal to the lowest common denominator

posters of the Allies considered to be superior

Holoweins reputation is tarnished due to his work and association with the Nazis 

Edward Mcknight Kauffer 1918- incorporated cubism into his design

there is a generous use of negative space

things become abstract

posters understood based on juxopotion

A.M. Casander- uses abstraction

looking for logic and reason, 

pictoral and illustrative posters, sophisticated design

Dubonnet campaign- constantly in use since it was created

Before WWI there are waves of unrest from the workers

Russian Revolution - 1917 

the russian avant-garde- consists of 3 parts

Cubofuturism- expresses motion through still images

work made out of scrap and whatever is available (cut paper and found objects)

Suprematism- rejects utilitarian function and pictorial representation

Kazmir Meliavich- the essence of art was the perceptual evolution through color

1915- the red and black square

Constructivism- stands as the opposite to suprematism 

Vladamir Tatlin, Rodchenko, and Lissitzky- art must have function, renounce "art for arts sake"

the belief is that art should serve the new communist society

Lissitzky- painter, architect and typogropher
develops the idea of the proun- the relation between art and architecture
the idea of building and how architecture is very utilitarian

February 22nd

Vienna workshops-
Joseph Hoffman and Koloman Moser- foremost artists of the Vienna Secession movement 1897
The Vienna Secession movement- group of young painters, designer, architects etc. that placed an emphasis on the craft and wanted to make things that are useful
Similar to the ideals of William Morris 
Strength lie in proportion and materials
Things were thought to be designed, not simply made


Peter Behrens- 
the first use of sans serif  in running type
the first comprehensive identity defining program
Also built non load bearing walls 


Walter Gropious- First director of the Bauhaus
Mies Vanderroeg- Last director of the Bauhaus 
Both worked with Behrens
Behrens became the director of the dusseldorf school where he implemented a variety of successful reforms 
Sets up a base for the bauhaus 
Behrens designs his exhibition hall from the grid system 
He joins AEG (basically the german electric company) 
Creates the logo for AEG (based off a honeycomb, creates his own typeface) and is kept on as an artistic advisor 


Plaketstil- German poster style of simple imagery and style, graphic and abstract, bold dominating type
Began by Lucian Bernhard in 1906 with his poster for priestar matches. 

MOVIE TIME!

Today was definitely an easy class, with alot of our time spent watching a pretty interesting film. I really enjoyed seeing the connection between the history of the world and that of the graphic design and artistic world. 

February 15th

Just to start off, i've gotta say that today was, for whatever reason, just not easy to pay attention, the information was smacking me in the face with no real absorption, so heres the notes on what I got from the class....


So there's Rudolf Koch, a german typographic artist inspired by William Morris
he held the alphabet in very high regards
created "Nueland" typeface designed to be the pinnacle of German typography
created a variety of gothic faces as well, used heavily in Germany
twist in his story?
His German typefaces used heavily in African and Caribbean printing 
Today most often seen on the decals and tattoos of minorities 


Art nouveau inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement 
Becomes lead by more younger artists and due to this takes on a more risque visage and becomes uncensored in a way, very edgy stuff


Jules Cheret- father of the modern poster
Created a series of posters in 1900, sold for a large sum of money
You typically see a central female figure surrounded by movement, activity and typography
inspired by the work of loutrec for Moulin Rouge


Jules rival is Eugine Grasset
has a coloring book style to his work, with heavy black lines and flat panels of color

The Studio a popular magazine in 1893 centered around the graphic arts and illustration

highlights work of Aubrey Beardsley

also inspired by William Morris

Yellow Book- magazine for the excessive

High contrast illustrations that are reminiscent of wood block prints

very shocking

Alfonz Mocha- illustrator working in paris- 1890's

worked on thin vertical posters

designs are all very pragmatic

richly illustrated with a lot of texture

tiles, floral in the hair, volume, all the while being a flat articulation

Louis Reid & Will Bradley are the two leading practitioners of Art Nouveau inspired design in America.

Reid embraces pattern and panels of vibrant colors.

Henry Vandevelde- painter, architect, and designer

Draws influence from a variety of sources

japanese prints, art nouveau, arts & crafts together

title pages and poster design

"Jugend" (german for "youth")- magazine for younger society- young people style 

Peter Behrens- member of the jugend group 

known for multicolor woodblock prints 

"the kiss"- mysterious subjects, 2 figures kissing, but their sex is unkown

Characteristics of the glasgow school-

geometric

curved elements

rectilinear structure

symbolism

stylized 

February 1st

Oh god. So the dreaded test is next class, that means I need to actually retain some of whats been said in class??

We started of todays class with the rest of the film about William Morris and the legacy he left behind.

Arts and crafts movement comes around in reaction to industrialization

When people rebel against something (industrialization) they need to fill the void with something

With John Ruskin, utopian ideas begin to be had, more and more people are beginning to wrestle with these large ideas. Ruskin refuted the idea of the mercantile economy. 

Ruskin-philosophical leader that arts and crafters look to

With the union of art and labor, the idea that your work should be in service of society (constuction of gothic cathedral, as an example, various people coming together and putting together their ideas and skill)

How can art and craft combine for a beautiful result?

How can we bring the craftsman back?

Most people remember Morris for his pattern design.

The original wood plates designed by Morris are still in use today for wallpaper.

Morris established the Kelmscott Press in order to produce books by traditional method.

Golden Legend- type designed by William Morris, based on Jenson

Troy- Blackletter

Chaucer- Smaller version of troy

1894- Story of the Glittering Plain- Borders designed by Morris, Illustrations by Walter Krane

In the U.S.- the arts and crafts movement associated with Bruce Rogers, Frederick Goudy

Roycrofters- take the ideas of the arts and crafts movement to the U.S. And put an American spin on it, they have a more pragmatic business model and create more affordable pieces, Roycroft movement much more pragmatic than its English arts and craft counterpart

New information is sort of lacking in this class, but the review was extensive

Since I've covered almost all of the ideas and points in my previous blogs, theres no real need to go over it all again. 

A few of the points we touched on:

Point size measured from highest to lowest

Focus on sequence and overarching themes and ideas more so than dates, remember chronological order. 

Ars Memorandi- 1470- Art of Dying

REMEMBER THE PUNCH and the process associated with it

textura- even texture, seen in the Gutenberg bible

31 line Letters of Indulgence (not something done by hand, early manifestation of Guttenberg's printing) vs Gutenberg bible

*exemplar page

Well, the movies drew on for a while, and to be honest, I got a kick out of the way the host talked, but there was definitely ALOT to hear about the life and legacy of William Morris. Hopefully I do well on the test next class, god knows I need it.

January 25th

1800- first iron printing press, great because iron can be cast easily so more can be made quickly, iron is durable and can apply more force

Frederich Koening- 1814- inventor of the first durable cylinder steam powered press, the double cylinder can produce 1000 prints an hour

Ned Lud- led revolt against technology

Luddites- people who refuse technology

Due to this belief, construction and use of these machines had to be done in secrecy to avoid damage and destruction by the luddites.

Penny papers- cheap and visually conservative, they gave the common man the opportunity to afford a paper, to make up the lost money, these newspapers sold ad space

The first Ad Man- John Goober- 1881- had the first ad agency 

The first ad men were brokers of space

Otmar Mergenthaller- 1886- perfected the linotype machine, allowed the user to set an entire line of type at once, 1 person can do the work of 7 or 8

Victorian era graphics- marked by their aesthetic confusion

Victorian era- marked by strong moral and religious beliefs, the victorians loved fussiness

During this era, which is loosely related to the rule of Queen Victoria, you have a rise of the middle class, a rise of people with extra money to spend, these are the people who never had money who all of a sudden have plenty so they buy, and with the rise of these people are the people right next to them to help them spend it. You have a radical decline in the quality of products, with more people around to spend money, people become business people existing to simply sell, so you have people making chairs and what not who arent craftsman or love the craft

Lithography allows for crazy shapes, blends, and gradation

Chromolithography- begins in boston

ephemera- printed documents and things not meant to be collected (dime store novel, movie or show ticket)

scrap cards- chromolithograph prints, great examples of victorian era graphics, produced in mass, not intended as works of art

Victorian era graphics- fresh faced/idealized imagery of children, pattern work, exotic animals, trompe l'oiel, a lot of graphics promoting entertainment, our idea of father christmas comes about at this time

Around this time, a lot of examples of nationalistic pride

The use of color becomes much more evident and common

Chromolithography allows for the print of color on metal

It's around this time that we see the development of American food culture

1901- Quaker oats is developed from the combined effort of various oat sellers (this is also the time we see the development of Aunt Jemima and other brand names, products start adopting personas, developing a relationship with the consumer is important to win their trust)

Popular magazines begin to rise from the mid 1800s- “The Practical Housekeeper” with these magazines, the advertisements both juxtapose and play minds games of sorts ( practical housekeeping woman vs. leibig beef extract ad woman)

reductive style- akin to abstraction

toybooks- created for childrens entertainment

Walter Crane's absurd ABC's- 1874

Ralph Caldecott's Hey Diddle Diddle- 1880

Kate Greenaway's Under the Window- 1879

1840's- Harper's Illuminated New Pictorial Bible which was sold in 64 installments

Harpers Weekly, using engraved sketches

Thomas Nast- father of american political cartoon, he gave us uncle sam, the donkey and elephant, our modern depiction of santa clause, as well as Columbia, He is also credited with beginning the downfall of boss tweed in NY

Short video about William M. Tweed or "Boss Tweed"-  U.S. politician who heavily affected the politics of New York City and State around the mid 1800's, he was accused and convicted of fraud, treason, grand larseny, for which he was imprisoned.

John Ruskin- how can you consciously order the lives of society so that everyones happy, this is the beginning of socialistic ideals, he thinks about restructuring society

William Morris- father of the arts and crafts movement, supported the idea of getting back to the loving quality craftwork of making a chair, getting away from the shotty workmanship and produce more quality products, his entire life was a crusade against the ugliness of the industrial revolution, and his list of achievements include but are in no way limited to reviving the medieval art of tapestry making, wrote over 90 books, and was one of the most popular poets of his time  

January 18th

Welcomed to the second class with a pile of lead type characters of all sizes, leaving me in amazement that the job of making these tiny pieces of metal used to belong to someone.

Swevyheym and Pannartz- evolution to roman letters

1465- based upon humanistic writing of italian scribes (round letter forms), actually building off of humanistic writing of alcuan

Calendarium- first example of interactive (tidbit?) moving piece in a book

Steven Daye brought printing to the colonies in 1639

first book he prints- whole book of psalmes

he is much like gutenburg, the first to bring printing to a new area in some way, make a business decision

Letter engraving- letters to be drawn by scientific principles, a square divided into a grid of 64 units each of the was divided into 36 units for a total of 2304 units, meaning its completely useless

True or false, with the introduction of the romain du roi, typeface quality in france increased? False, no one was allowed to use it, had a spur in lower case L to signify its royalty, people who used it could be punished severely 

Roccocco- fancible french art and architecture of 1700s, floral and intricate, delicate, pastel

Fourmier le Jeune- helped develop a lot in typography, he dies before the revolution and due to the revolution, his type loses its social relevance due to the fact that when you tear an institution down, you get rid of everything, including aesthetics of roccocco

Copper plate engraving flourishes during roccocco, no longer limited to horiz. and vert., you can have extreme thick and thin, different characteristic of letterform, and it begins to influence style of lead type printing

Giambattista Bodoni- influenced by roccocco and froumiere, evolves to modern style and typefaces, he redesigns roman typeform with more geometric appearance, his idea is to look at base units in letterform design, bodoni simplifies as it evolves

Fat face- extending a bodoni, making a bodoni fatter, an example is display typeform, used for anything but reading, perfect for the industrial revolution, with new brands great because people are vying for attention and trying to sell thing

During the industrial revolution, the world is affected socially, economically and politically

development of factory system and division of labor, there is the invention of wood type with the invention of the router which could make many copies of a small piece of wood type

large metal type a problem due to their weight and bowing when metal cools, rise of the middle class during the I.R. Breeds contempt with neighbors wanting what another has, mass unemployment horrible living and working conditions, on the plus side, growing literacy and education

1815- Vincent Figgins showed two lines pica, antiqua

two lines egyptian- for our purposes, first sans serif typface, made by simply cutting off the serifs

tuscan letters- display faces done with router, ornamental serif faces

shadow, knocked out and god knows what typefaces seen during the industrial revolution due to the invention of the router

Egyptian faces don't look egyptian, named so for the fact that we were excavating in egypt at the time

Poster houses start popping up, broadside posters not so much designed, simply made from practical concerns for type available, they started to decline in the 70s with the advent of lithography

In lithography- marble slab, ground smooth, and etch letters directly onto marble slab, its very freeing and smooth

5 historical type families-

Old Style- organic, ascender pass beyond cap height, based on traditions of the hand, the first roman faces, you can imagine it being written with a pen, ex. Garamond

Transitional- we see as evolution to the modern face, greater contrast of thick and thin, less bracket at serif, more vert. stress, ex. Baskerville

Modern- modern at the time, not present day, extreme contrast of thick and thin, no brackets on serifs, ex. Bodoni

Egyptian- even weight, slab serifs, ex. Clarindon or Century Schoolbook

Sans Serif- serif is absent

Beyond the 5 historical families there are-

Display

Black Letter

Hand

Script

Dingbats

12 points = 1 pica

6 pica = 1 inch

72 points = = 1 inch

Auto leading set to be 20% and above, set for text, running text

anything other than that (caption, editorial text, etc.) adjust the leading manually and make a decision

First Class 1/11/11

For the first class, we were introduced to historic examples of text and imagery, with an emphasis on the fact that these early examples have an impact on present day design. It is for this fact that it's important to study the history of this visual medium. 

Caves at Lascaux- 35000-10000 BC

-beginnings of visual communication 

-Its utilitarian not poetic

before writing, its important to have memory and be a good storyteller because of oral tradition

Phoecians to Greeks- the greeks refine and make phoecians letters more geometric

Greeks to Romans- romans conquer Greeks and refine the letters even further

Roman alphabet- 23 letters originally minus J,V,W (which were added later)

quadrada and rustica- type families with emphasis on hand quality

Rome falls and education and new learning and discovery falls with it

Book of Kells- 800 AD

the text looks the way it does, rounded for efficiency, evolved from isolation after fall of Rome

Charlemagne- emperor of holy roman empire appoints Alcuan of York

xylography- wood block printing

ligature- single character cast as 2 letters

incunabula- first 50 years

Playing cards on wood blocks- 1400's

The appeal was that everyone could have them, maybe not the same quality (some carved from ivory and others from simple wood for example) 

changes human brain (these carvings are examples of patterns and new ways of recognition, visual signs, good for entertainment)

Gutenberg press- printed on both vellum (parchment) AND paper

-parchment made from thinning skin

People would write letterforms by hand, no typographers at that time, 

Gutenberg Bible is a hugely important moment in the evolution of printing and is known for being highly legible and quick and easy to print

Gutenberg is betrayed by his fellow businessman when they kick him out of his own business, take over, and begin selling his printed bible as their own hand written manuscripts, but are soon arrested for witchcraft for producing so many prints, all of which looked exactly alike

Letter of Indulgence- get out of jail free card- less quality than bible

We give Gutenberg the credit for printing because he brought all of the systems together

Education and society fundamentally altered with printing because it makes books readily available and easily spreadable, information takes on a global scale

Aesops imagery loses its frame and plays with negative space

histories of Troy- first book printed in english William Castons, 1475