Blog Eleven 27th April 2009

Barbara Kruger seemed to be one of the main focal points of tonight's lecture. Her book love for sale was analyzed in detail and was a good transition into the topic of postmodernism and deconstruction. Her work approaches ideas from a different perspective, was untraditional, and stated that no speech is transparent. Others mentionable designers are Jacque Derriada and David Carlson. Carlson had an idea of a post structural world, having nothing coming from traditions. His work pushed typography to the max and as a result inspired many young designers to output numerous fonts, with the help of fontographer. Works from ad busters really spoke to me, i find it marvelous that designers collaborate to make a narrative of current events, allowing the public to seeing the negatives, when they are constantly being shown positives and consumerism. A worrying factor that arose from this lecture is from the discussion of outsourcing and how even designs are being outsourced to cheaper labor. The question that arises to me personally is what can i do as i designer to make myself valuable to a firm?

Discourse Two

On the Choice of Typeface
By Beatrice Warde

• There are a multitude of factors that determine what typeface a designer should choose for a design. A great quote from Warde that basically sums up the article is “ type, [is] the voice of the printed page”

• The factors are legibility, size, paper, and what tone or message you want to voice.

• Type can be legible and dull, or legible and fascinating based on its design treatment. When talking about type design in book printing, the problem of ocular legibility can be solved in advanced, however when one begins talking about readability there are a variety of experiments and options that can take place. For Example, given the same book in three similar typefaces, Fournier, Caslon, and Plantin, even a non-typographer would be able to notice the subtle differences, and have a subconscious bias towards one or another, because it is like three different voices or personalities.

• Typographer should be able to, within a moments notice, be able to calculate how many pages the copy will come to in a given face, and also be able to take into account the point-size, set-width, number of lines, and leading.

• The word “set” refers to the actual type of the widest letter in the font, ex capital M. All types have different type settings, some occupy more space others less.

• Some typefaces are more successful in sizes above 11pt.

• Quality of paper influences the choice of typeface.

• However the main deciding factors that narrows down the decision to choosing a typeface is bas on two generalizations:

1. Question whether the face itself is tolerable or intolerable; this is before any question of physical or literary suitability.
2. “Is the thing worth doing?” is it worth the time for the designer to make such a thought provoking decision.

this images suffices as an example of what the article is addressing, and basically what Warde main theme is, all typefaces have their own voice. As seen in this image the sentence "Design your own pads" is continuously used in different typefaces and font families. All express a different tone, a goood example of this is comparing Branding Iron with Korinna. Branding iron is a more condensed typeface and has a smaller 'set' than Korinna does, this would perhaps be effective for when one is conserving space and a designer wants to portray the feeling of claustrophobia. Where as Korinna could be used for a more airy and unconstrained design.




This image exemplifies the topic of legibility. If this typeface was to be used for an entire book is would be very illegible and difficult to read. As a result, designer would select this type of typeface purely as a small design elements on a composition.




This third images displays a successful type choice from a design perspective. The designer was comfortable in this typeface, which allowed for experimentation, and the creation of a dynamic composition. When choosing a typeface, one has to always take into consideration who the audiences is, if it is meant to be legible, and what the feeling they want to achieve in the piece.

Blog Ten 20 April 2009

postmodernism was todays focus in all aspects. What was discussed ranged from the historical models for Postmodernism, and its stages, to New Wave typography. I got a lot out of the documentary that was shown in today's class, it illuminated to the face the Post Modernism began as an architectural movement, that rejected the essentialist and foundational concepts. It examines the various cultural codes that govern our understanding of ourselves and our places, belongings, values, and anything else dear to us. It focused on knowledge and using language as a means to get to and achieve knowledge. Though it began with architecture it has managed to transcend through the other art mediums. The part of this lecture that grasped me the most, and which i thought directly related to me as a designer, which i could learn to implement, was new wave typography. It was established by Wolfgang Weingart, who experimented with different arrangements of types, and fragmenting the rules. Basically deconstructing typography. He completely strayed away from the traditional Swiss typography by mixing a multitude of typefaces and weights or reversing type. I feel that is was a great moment in typography because one has to try all alternatives of experimentation before they can create something great. Another notable new wave typographer was Willi Zuntz, who kept some aspects of swiss type. He kept more control of his type, staying tectonic and modular. 

Blog Nine 13th April 2009

Today's lecture encompassed the subject of American corporate design. The forerunner of this, who defined a new American graphic design that turned away from European sources, was Paul Rand. He invented form for both symbolic and communicative forms, also bringing branding to a new level. I found it fascinating that this branding of corporations such as IBM, VW and UPS where able to with stand time and its basic essence has remained untouched. Another occurrence during this period is creating a branding promise. Meaning, branding now carried more meaning than just identifying a company, its was the utmost important visual feature that helped to shaping the company or corporations reputation. Other mentionable names of the time were Brabury Thompson, Chermayeff and Geisman, Vigneli Associates and Saul Bass. Of these names, Saul Bass stood out the most for me, this is because he is one of the great pinoneers of motion graphics. He introduced the use of basic cutout elements to created phonomanal pieces for his time as well as employing the use of kinetic typography. i feel that it is very important to study his work because he was the one who first began expirementing with all the design elements in motion, creating key pieces of his time. To create great art one needs to understand the greats and be able to learn , appreciate and effectively take elements from these pieces and then be able to implement it in your own unique way.

Blog Eight 6th April 2008

The stress on having a universal language form began to emerge in the early constructivist movements. As a result the Isotope movement arose, and created the set of conventions to formalize the use of a pictorial language. The development of this universal visual language was one of the most important innovations in informational design of the 20th century. I feel like this was one of the most important developments of that time because graphic design is based on effectively communicating to your audiences through the use of of understood visual language. Without having a set standardized universal icons, we would not be able to have globalized ad campaigns and agencies. Communications would stop inside a country and creative exchanges might not be the same. Other topics and movements that were addressed in this lecture were international style of typography, modernism and the Swiss and NY schools of design. Another interesting topic of the lecture was the discussion of Swiss design and seeing Brockman works.

Blog Seven 23rd March 2009

Post Cubism and Art Deco was the topics that were addressed today. In these periods we saw both graphic design movements from the period coming together. During the mid 1930s the arts were suppressed by the supremacist and fascists and mechanized war was devastating central Europe. As a result faith in the machine was at an all time high and pieces were reverting to geometric forms. I found it interesting that this was the time that futura was created and used abundantly in all poster works. The intentional spacing between the letters perfectly complemented the style of the time, as well as helping with the overall movement of the works. One of the greats of this era was AM Cassandre, who is also considered one of the great illustrators in history. Illustrator as well as designers look to him for emulation. What i found most intriguing was the concept of emulation and the question of what is original. Americans in particular mimicked i high volume of European design and made it appear as their own. What i found ironic was that the pieces that they mimicked mostly came from their enemies, Germany and Russia. Branding was another big factor of this period, it was readdressed and more importance was placed on it. It was Cassandre that brought about this attention, one of his prime examples is the Dubonnet rebrand, where he created a character as the brand.

Blog Six 16th March 2009

Tonight's lecture was a basic continuation of last weeks discussion on pure form. It addressed the influences pure form had on design and the involvement it had on the future movements. The majority of the lecture discussed the De Stijl and Bauhaus movements. These periods were profound stages in time, regarding the history of graphic design, because it was the basis of modern graphic design and in establishing it as a school. The De Stijl movement addressed the idea of functionality as well as pure form; Architecture was also a big sector in this movement. A notable artist of this time was Mondrian, whose grid and geometric structures profoundly influenced design. He brought about the birth of analytical systems of layout, which was widely influenced the world of typography. Although De Stijl is a widely hated art movement amongst designers, due the the rejection of images, i feel that this was a fascinating movement. It simplifies object down into its most simple geometric forms and use visually pleasing grids. This especially important because type classes evolve around grids. The other topic that was addressed in much detail in tonight's class was the Bauhaus. This is also an altering time in history, because a set of guidelines and rules were formulated for art schools of the 20Th century. Two notable figures where Nagy and Bayer. What really intrigued me was the discussion Tschichold and Dutch design in regards to the 'new typography'. This is probably because of techniques such as uses of diagonals in a composition that created unity within the whole piece. This simple techique brings a whole different feel and movement to a piece but is still orderly and atracttive. I find dutch design phonominal because the order and structre that appears in there work cant be compared to as well as having the abilty to create different, fun, and unique compositions while still maintaining a grid in their design.