Mar. 31, 2010

• Early constructivism

• ISOTYPE

• Ladilav Sutnar

• Modernism and NY School

• Paul Randi

• Alexey Brodovitch

• Editorial design

• Black and white images

• Claude Shannon

• School at ULM

• Theo Ballmer and Max Bill

• early formal vocabulary

• Anton Stankowski

Early constructivism, Universal visual communication without text.
ISOTYPE (International System of Typographic Picture Education)

Ladislav Sutnar
It was familiar iconography from early Plakastil and propaganda posers. Information designers had the power to shape public opinion.
Designers align with the notion of engineering objective rational systematic.
Design system becomes a pervasive metaphor for design.
Idea of eye controlling for structuring text and image as logical information patterns.

Modernism and NY School
The flight from Hitler and Fascism created the greatest transitional migration of intellectual and creative talent in history.
Images cast off neutrality, traditionalism, and provincialism and an embracing of the modern world.
American design was reflected in its culture egalitarian with capitalistic attitudes and values.
Small groups approached American design to modernist design of European models.
Plakastil simple image simple type.

Paul Randi
Early voice in proposing the essence of modernist theories un visual communication.

Alexey Brodovitch
Editorial design and the NY School 30’s and 40’s.
Commissioned major European artist and designer to produce work for editorial design.
Black and white images started to appear on editorial design.

Claude Shannon
He modeled the problem in terms of Data Signal Processing and thus heralded the coming of the information age.

School at ULM
Developed a curriculum that addresses new needs of this age.

Theo Ballmer and Max Bill
Established its early formal vocabulary based on a rationalist model.
• Linear division of space into harmonious parts
• Modular grids
• Mathematical and geometric progressions, permutations, and sequences.
• Reliance on visual compensation to equalize contrasting complementary relationships.

Anton Stankowski
Major contribution creation of visual forms to communicate invisible processes and physical forces.

Helvetica
This type ace was created to improve readability from a far distance on any medium and any size, this typeface was revolutionary for the United States commercial design, now days this typeface has become very popular and its used in almost everything, signs, posters and books are just a few examples where this typeface appears.
Helvetica is a strong and clean typeface that makes designs look clean, powerful and this is one of the reasons designers use it so much.

McLuhan's Wake - Automobile Technology

1. What human trait or experience does the medium enhance?
You begin with so little to survive just your scenses, your ayes collecting details.

What is the intended function of the medium or technology?
To facilitate the way humans move around.

What does it improve or make more efficient?
Improves the time of travel between places.

Does it extend part of the human body?
The steering wheel is an extension of the arms that guide the automobile and the feet because it allows you to move faster.

One or more of the senses?
Visual senses, sense of touch.

Does it extend an aspect of the human mind, such as memory?
No.

Does it amplify some human capability or augment some form of human action?
Amplifies the human capability to move faster and travel bigger distance in less time.

Does it extend the individual, the group or society?

2. What pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does this medium obsolesce?
The use of a float and a horses.

What older technology does the new medium replace?
The use of a float and a horses.

What does it render unnecessary?
Makes unnecessary walk for a long time to get to another location, or ride a bike.

What procedures does it short-circuit or bypass?
The procedures of travel and event transport objects to different locations.

What happens to the old medium that is rendered obsolescent?
Some of them disappear and others will just lose their popularity, humans won’t use then as often as the new technology.

Does it disappear entirely, become an art object, or find a new niche?
The automobiles and all transportation technologies have become an art object, you can look at cars as art objects.

3. What technology, method, system or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does this medium retrieve?
Automobiles retrieves the technology of the wheel that has been around since its invention, cars where ones built out of wood and now they place wood as a luxury inside the car to make it look more fancy.

What archaic elements are made relevant again?
The use of a parking meter, they used to use a ring where the horses where tide up it was free but now days for cars we use parking meters to have a place to park the car.

What previously marginalized or repressed ideas, practices or artifacts are brought to the fore?
Yes, now days any idea is valid and previous ideas that people thought that never would work now humans are making them work, for example Da Vinci had the idea of a machine that could fly and now we have the airplane.

What aspects of the prehistoric, ancient, medieval or early modern world are revived?
Non, every aspect changes, every day its always new technology implemented.

4. When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the medium reverse into?
It will reverse into an obsolete object and recycled to make new similar objects.

What effects will the medium create that are opposite to what was originally
intended?
It affects the environment, contamination and war.

What are the contradictions inherent in the technology?
The technology is being sold as a safe technology when is not 100% safe, an accident occur and people die.

What is the ecological impact?
Automobiles emit CO2, which has affected the ecology of the world. Has debilitated the ozone layer making poles melt and creating the global warming.

CONCLUSIONS:

Automobiles have been an invention that had help humans grow in a lot of ways, for example cities have grown in a large extent, communication between places are more easy to accomplish. If you look at these aspects you will say that this technology has help humans to be more successful, but at the same time this success is turn into a problem when its out of the human’s ability to manage it. For example in the movie we watched about the technologies it mention how all these technologies have made humans alter their senses. Whit this have been said I relate stress with sickness, now days humans don’t have a healthy life anymore, not just because of the polluted environment we live now days but because of the high speed life we live now.

Automobile has become a big part of humans life, we depend on this technology so much that we feel useless with out it, and because the cities have grown so much distances are larger, moving around without an automobile is almost impossible.

Mar. 3, 2010

- Dutch Modernism

- Paul Shoetema

- Rodehenko

- Optical dynamics

- German Plakastil

- Post Cubism and Art Deco

- Edward Kauffer

- A.M Cassandre

- Jean Carlu

- Joseph Binder

- Art Deco modern

- E. McKnight Kauffer

- Joseph Binder

- Ludwig Hohlwien

- Montgomery Flag

- Herbert Matter-

Between the wars Germany became cultural hub.
In Dutch Modernism the printing arts perform as an expressive tool means and methods of commercial reproduction become tools of creativity.
working with the image and where it takes and iconic role.
Photos had a power illustrationscould never convey.The use of collage technique with parts from the typecase became very popular.
Dutch Modernism partners with German Plakastil to define a modernist playbook for designing commerce and advertising.
Graphic design contributes to a culture of consumption modernism becomes a consumable idea popularized trough style trends.
The idea of motion and speed was invented, Tourism and entertainment industries flourish, exploring new degree of mobility.
Design of the 1930s become a common source of stylistic fantasies.
Art Deco modern mastered the graphic representation off industry and commerce their work prefigured branding in advertising.
Ludwig Hohlwien made the Olympic games become propaganda event for Nazi Germany. Evolution of his work coincided closely with Hitler’s concept of effective propaganda.
Hitler rejects the artistic in Plakatstil “Slogans and popular illustrations of Allies were more effective”.
Herbert Matter Understood Russian film innovations, the use of montage and collage.

Discourse 1

1992 American Gothic
Rick Poynor

• In Britain fate has overtaken the angular post constructivist type designs of Neville Brody, Zuzana Licko, and Max Kisman.
• These faces, once so urgently new, are judged less “contemporary” than san serif.
• In 1990 the critic Robert Hughes called “the shock of the new” to a typeface that evokes an authentic sense.
• Template Gothic designed by CalArts graduate Barry Deck.
• Tony Arefin, one of the first designers to use the typeface.
• Fontographer was the type design program used to create digitally the typeface.
• For now Template Gothic is one of the most interesting and original new faces we have.

I chose this image because is shows the Template Gothic characters from uppercase letters to numbers and symbols. Like the article said this is one of the most interesting and successful new typefaces in 1990.

I found this image of the Cornelia Parker exhibition catalogue designed by Tony Arefin in which he used the Template Gothic typeface for all the text in the catalogue. I think this typeface works really well, it’s easy to read, gives an interesting look and mood to the design.

This image shows a screenshot of the Fontographer program, this program was used to create the digital version of the Template Gothic typeface. With this program the face embodies a post-modern narrative on the methods of character-generation it supersedes.