Lecture 4....Reading 4....Response

The New York School

Honestly, I didn't really like reading this article. I though it had some interesting points but I struggle with reading multiple biographies about multiple designers. I get all confused and muddled up with the different designers and their works.
I really liked reading about Paul Rand. I like his designs and I think he is a very influential designer. I can understand his work more than the other designers but I think that is because I studied him for an assignment.
It was quite interesting though reading about the different magazines that were created over the many years. This was great to know considering the theory was that magazines will die out due to the technological advancements.

- European migrants brought modernism into America. They started the ‘trend’.
- Although Europeans started this, American’s added their own forms and concepts to the designs to make it their work.
- Paul Rand (modern designer) was a very influential artist and began the American approach to the modern design.
- The magazines that he was classified as an editorial designer for included: Apparel - Arts, Esquire, Ken, Coronet and Glass Packer.
- Rand believed that shapes which were invented had a self-contained life. They were both symbolic and expressive and he used this in his designs as a visual communication tool.
- Rand was an independent designer with an increasing emphasis on the ‘trademark’ industry. He believed that everyone should be known for their own work and by doing this creating a trademark that was related back to your own work.
- Another designer was Alvin Lustig. He was known for incorporating his subjective vision and private symbols into graphic design.
- Many book and editorial designs were also created during the 1970s, not just magazines.
- A main creative tool that was used during the designing of these ‘covers’ were freely drawn and decorative letterforms.
- The certain letterforms weren’t just created for printed material but also movie titles and headlines.
- Saul Bass (another very influential designer) created pictographs for magazines as well as film titles and even stationary.
- A quote that stood out to me was George Tscherny’s designs were “elegant, to the point and disarmingly simple”....this is what I follow when designing. I love simplicity and I think personally simple things capture the eye more than complicated situations.
- A major point that stood out was the “New York Firm”.....they named their working place a “Design Office” instead of “Art Studio”.....apparently this changed their attitude altogether for the designs.

Graphic Design education at Yale University School or Art
- 1950 - Josef Albers - appointed director of the art school at Yale University.
- Albert and Eisenman are both directors and typographers for Yale University art school
- Eisenman taught Yale Graphic Design program which included very influential designers from around the world.
- Some designers included: Lester Beall, Ken Hiebert, Anton Weingart, Steven Heller, - - Adrian Frutiger and many more big names in the design industry.
- A designer know as Ives, began creating collages from scrap pieces of paper and pieces from detached sources....this was known as a new art form from then onwards.
- Two very influential art directors known as Will Burtin and Leo Lionni are known for the design and creation of many fabulous American magazines....some include: Seventeen, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Mademoiselle.

- Many designers were convinced that the magazine ‘era’ would die out and this was due to the major technology change that was happening during the 1900’s.
- They were obviously wrong as magazines are still around today and many more are being produced each day.

- Doyle Dane Bernbach - New advertising agency.
- Main aim - For each campaign the company developed a strategy this was based around the companies advantages, distinguishing characteristics and superior features of the product they were designing for.

- Herb Lubalin is a typographic genius of his time.
- He discontented the limitations of metal type in the 1950s.
- Lubalin and Ginzburg were the two designers that came up with the ‘square’ format known as Avante Garde.
- International Typeface Corporation began so that designers could be compensated for their work.

George Lois
- He believed everyone should treat graphics and words with the same reference
- 1962 - The Esquire magazine started going down hill due to all of the magazines ‘younger’ audience started moving onto the Playboy magazine.
- I found this fact extremely interesting because I never knew Esquire had any relation to Playboy but now I know it did.
- Lois’ main concepts played around the idea of “challenging, shocking and provoking” his audience.

- The New York School had been born with excitement and started off with the European migrants but then fueled by economic technological expansion.

Reading 3....Response

The Modern Movement in America

For starters this reading get extremely hard and complicated to read because 4 pages were missing but from what I did understand was that it spoke about the history of art and design around the war period in America leading up to the Bauhaus period. It spoke about different arts and art movements as well as design projects for example the Federal Art Project and the National Recovery Act.

- Modernist European design was not a major influence in America but around the 1930s this started to become the case.
- Lester Beall (1903-1969) was a self-taught artist and graphic designer who was a native of Kansas City but then originated to Chicago.
- After gaining much experience in the 1920's he broke the traditional American advertising layout.
- He worked on designs and masterpieces during the Depression era.
- Designs made it into an art museum

Migrants to America
- Cultural leaders from Europe who were mainly graphic designers migrated to the country of America
- Georg Salter (1897-1967) - was one of the more prominent book designers of the day.
- Two thirds of his commissions were actually book jackets and this ended up becoming his trademark.
- He was a modernist and focused mainly on calligraphy, photo montage, airbrush scenes, panoramic watercolours and pen/ink drawings.
- He died in 1967
- Erte was another illustrator and designer but from Paris. He worked during the art deco era and designers covers and fashion illustrations for Harper's Bazaar magazine.
- His work consisted of styled drawing such as a cubism approach, an exotic decorative-ness and a sophisticated fashion look.

The Works Progress Administration Poster Project
- The Federal Art Project - massive 'hit' and worked really well
- Many poster designs were created and over 2 million copies were printed of about 35 different designs.
- Influences included the Bauhaus, pictorial modernism and constructivism...this is how the modernist approach was created.

Fascism
 - Art movement
- Due to the rise of this movement in Europe it created one of the biggest transnational migrations of intellectual and creative talent.
- Will Burton - significant designer
- Was recognised as one of Germany's designers after he refused to work for the Nazi regime
- Skill included bringing together structural and symbolic formations
- Was extremely influential as he made a major contribute to the visual interpretation of graphic information.

Patron on Design 
- Major figure in the developmet of American modern design
- National Recovery Act - Federally funded organisations 
- During the war period - helped with the Depression period
- Trauma of the war disrupted many governments and this then moved onto the producing of propaganda.
- Painters, illustrators and designers were then hired by the government to produce graphics of war information.

After the war 
- George Giusti (Italian and Swiss decent) moved to New York City in 1938 to produce simplified and minimal essence designs.

Information and scientific graphics 
- Ladislav Sutnar - design director
- Information design - defined as a synthesis of function, flow and form
- Format included: signs, numbers and words.
- Underlining size and weights contrasts spacing and reversing
- The designer Herbert Bayer created an atlas called "World Geo-Graphic Atlas"
- America benefited greatly from the European migrants thoughts and ideas. 

Lecture 3...Notes

Subconscious and conscience
- More than just 5 senses
- Just because a car can be driven - there are other feelings towards the car that draws us into the vehicle
- This is similar to marketing - this is where a metaphor comes into play
- You can use a metaphor to give the advertisement more meaning
- If you compare different states you're not making metaphors but comparisons…

Pure metaphor - something that stands for a product or the feeling we get from it, complicated or obscure.
Dictionary meaning:
"Sometimes you can just show us something that isn’t your product at all and tell us it is. You’re using a pure metaphor: something that stands in for your product (or its benefit or the feeling we get from it) that helps clarify and convince. This is a good idea when your product is intangible, but also when it’s boring to look at or complicated or obscure or unknown. Or when everybody else in your category does one thing (show the car, for example), and you want to do something different."  http://www.howdesign.com/design-creativity/metaphor/

A lot of advertisements use surrealism these days
The link to dreams and alcohol change your brain, this could be good or bad

Fused metaphor:
Dictionary meaning:
"Pure metaphors, though, are rare. Why? Because it’s easier to create a fused metaphor. With a fused metaphor, you take the product (or something associated with it, the way a toothbrush is associated with toothpaste or the highway with cars) and fuse it with something else."
 http://www.howdesign.com/design-creativity/metaphor/

- Easier to create
- Take product or something associated with it
- Some one with an eyepatch may have a 'different life'
- Mick Jagger - goes again the norm and against the 'stone'
- Absolut Vodka - campaign research
- Help contextualise the selling argument; we don't have to live quite so far but when what what we're looking for is for sale.
- You catch our attention and argument but morph something into a selling point.

Addition
- Tomato that's been sewn up after it's been sliced
- The Lincon's stove pipe hat with sweaty grime on the brim

Substitution
- Bob Dylan - example of substitution, hair taken away and replaced with colours and lines
- The keys city shape teeth

 - "A smile in the minds"

- It's like a (something) for your (something)
- Eg. the internet is an example of a 'pipe'
- Broadband and large pipes - metaphor

- You look at one problem - see through it and find the answer to another question
(the serendipity of innovation)

- The serendipity - stumble across a whole new world….eg. musicians stumble upon a new song….working on one problem and find the solution to another problem
eg. eyelash growers
- A simple solution to a complex story
- "Don't be too literally, try to find metaphors that capture psychological essence than simple external reality."

Reading 2....Response

Corporate Identity and Visual Systems

“A symbol is an image of a company, an institution or an idea that should convey with a clear statement or by suggestion the activity it represents...” 

This reading was a little confusing at some points, it seemed to skip from company to company pretty quickly and just giving brief descriptions. I really enjoyed reading about Paul Rand and Saul Bass. I think overall the article was interesting. It emphasized a lot on how a simple pictographic or identity can stick in someones mind just by being very metaphorical and simple. I really liked how at the end of the article they spoke about the idea of the Olympics and how making icons universal so anybody who isn’t blind but maybe deaf could see this icon and know exactly what it means, it was a very good communication skill also for those who did not speak the language of the country that the Olympics were in that year.

“Good design is good business” - To me this meant that if there is a good design, the audience who are the viewers would want to either buy the design or get a point across that influences the company and helps it in a positive way.

My favourite quote from this entire article is “Just when you’re beginning to get bored with what you have done is probably the time it is beginning to be noticed by your audience." This is so true! It is saying that if you yourself, the designer is getting bored of your design, thats a sign that the design is either becoming out of date or the viewers aren’t enjoying looking at it any longer and therefore it is time for a change. This is the best way to fix your designs, pretend you’re the audience viewing it.

- Before the 1700s, people trusted each other and didn’t feel the need to ‘imprint’ their mark on their designs.
- Camillo Olivetti - Founder of Olivetti Corporation in 1908
- Adriano (son of Camillo) - became president of the foundry and hired Pintori
- Giovanni Pintori - Was hired in 1936, he put his “personal” stamp on Olivetti’s graphic images

- CBS - Columbia Broadcasting System.
- President Frank Stanton and art director William Golden.
- Used many pictographics and surrealism in their designs for the company.
- Wouldn’t use the company signature if it didn’t match the design look.
- Golden made sure the designers had a sense of responsibility and an understanding of the function of their work.
- Design = Verb.
- Television was becoming a very fast paced medium and because of this the company knew it was going to grow in the next 5 years or so.
- Olden was the first African American designer due to the United States Postal
- Service who first commissioned him to design a postage stamp for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, this was a huge campaign and he became well known very fast.
- As the company changes over time and continues the designers and designs also have to change and transform. New perspectives and ideas reflect on the business and this creates a better outlook. 
- Raymond Loewy was the man to recognise the significance of comprehensive design systems.
- Loewy used much of his personality to influence his design work.
- Also designed major industrial brands.
- Took note of what his audience wanted by studying his audience and doing specific analysis.

- A symbol should be universal, visually unique and timeless...this meaning it never ages.
- During Paul Rand’s IMB logo, he used metaphoric pictures to represent the letters.
- By having the logo on packaging this emphasis the usage of the logo also how well it can be applicable to other forms of design.
- The specific medium that the designer uses says a lot about the actual design, it shows a lot about the actual corporate-identity itself.
- A corporate-identity manual was created and the aim of this was to “provide management with a strong mark that could be readily adapted to an immense variety of applications.”
- Letterforms and symbols were altered to create a unique design.
- Consistency and uniformity in the application is extremely important.
- Different symbols that a successful logo portrays places a ‘stamp’ like image in the viewers mind.
- Muriel Cooper - First designer to create new electronic media as 3D text.
- The design must not go out of ‘date or time’, it must have a continuity affect on the society.
- Unimark - This is an international design firm that grew to 48 different offices around the world.
- Unimark rejected individual design and believed design was more of a system.
- Massimo and Vignelli were two incredible typographers, they were part of the
- Unimark corporation but then branched off into their own company called Vignelli associates.
- The focused very heavily on typography and this enhanced dramatically due to the period in time.

- Major international events, large airports and other transportation facilities have pictographic signage.
- Pictographic signage is an incredibly amazing way to communicate important information and directions quickly and simply.
- Pictographic signage is universal and consistent worldwide, therefore anyone should be able to read it and understand it.
- Many large corporation use pictographic signage.

- The Olympic games also use pictographic signage.
- This was a huge hit and very applicable, it could be on tickets, billboards, uniforms or even ‘giant balloons’.

Lecture 2...Notes

Notes from Belinda because I was absent from this lesson but I found the metaphors myself :) 

- Classicism is about rules, proportion, perfection
- Romanticism is about emotions, exotic interior or subjects, can involve a lot of movement involving passion.
- These two continue to show through art today in different ways.
- Modern Art New York 50s and 60s
- Op Art, flinging art represents the classical verses romanticism
- Art back then and art now
- Franz Kline Blue – responding to it emotionally.
Rothko:
    - Artist that killed himself
    - Beautiful artwork
    - Colourful



Find a metaphor for the following words  (using Photoshop, combine images) 

Danger

Over worked

Expectations that are too high

Not ready for responsibility

Reading 1....Response

Whitney Graphic Identity - Whitney Museum of American Art

This article is about a Graphic Identity team who came together to work on the idea and only idea for the signage that the Whitney Museum of American Art wanted. They are a professional graphic design team who focuses mainly on the importance of conceptual ideas instead of the outcome. The team only came up with the ideas instead of creating the actual finished product, the museum’s actual team of graphic designers used the graphic identity program’s ideas to compose the finished design.

This article goes through the different ideas that the team came up with. It goes into detail about different shapes and the meaning of these certain elements that I personally wouldn’t have even thought about until I read this. It starts off with the quote “every story needs a beginning.” They started thinking about words and sentences and how this changed into a shape which is a ‘line’. It goes into deep detail about how a line can be manipulated and changed, they used the example of a zig-zag. 
This then led onto the shape of a ‘W,’ which the team later refers to as the ‘Responsive W.’ Although it is just a letter, it has certain meanings such as a pulse or a heartbeat. The line now has a meaning and also an emotion. 
The Graphic Identity team focused much of their time on this specific letter. The letter ‘W’ stands for ‘Whitney’ but also it stands for what Whitney resembles which is a “breathing in and out’ institute, it is open and closed at the same time.” The Whitney Institute is now being personified.

The team then speaks about how the ‘zig-zag’ line resembles architecture, this meaning the shape is used on buildings and archetypical roofs to create a stable environment. I noticed that in all ‘stable’ architecture the zig-zag pattern is used....and example of this is the Harbour Bridge.

Using the “W” as a shape, the team also began to use it as a grid, they would place the title “Whitney” onto it in different styles to create a design. The lines of the ‘W’ can also be seen as borders, arrows, connections and columns. This was quite an interesting form I never really thought about but now I understand it, I think it would be quite fun to play around with.

After playing around with the shape, the team then started constructing many sketches, they would leave the same element in each which would be the positioning of the Whitney name but then play around with the second ‘V’ in the ‘W.’

After the design of the main title was completed, the team thought of some more ideas that were consistent to the title. These were different signs that could be used around the building, keeping the ‘W’ theme attached. Instead of using the entire ‘W’, they used just a ‘V’ but turned it on it’s side to create a more different approach, this looked like an arrow.

This article really interested me and broadened my perspective on signage. I never realised how much one shape or letter or symbol could have such an impact on the society or be manipulated in such ways that was never even thought about. This creates so much more emotion and meaning then I originally thought.

Lecture 1...Notes

Semiotics - The study of meaning

• Theory of signs and the study of meaning.

• Signing is vital to human existence because it underlies all forms of communication

• Within semiotics, anything that is used for human communication is defined as a sign: gestures, facial expressions, poetry, rituals, clothes, food, music, morse code, marketing, commercials, film etc.

• Signs are important because they can mean something other than themselves

Eg.      - Stop means Stop              - Stop also means Danger
           - Apple means Apple         - Apple means Healthy
           - Crown means Crown       - Crown means Royalty

• Interpretation of a sign is dependent on the context in which it is used, its relationship to other signs and its environment.

• Mundane way of changing the context is visiting another country, the context of the sign changes.

• There are numerous relationship that can exist between signifier and signified. We can have the same signifier with a different signifieds and a different signifiers with the same signified.

Eg.       Signifier:       Signified:
            - Apple         -  Temptations
            - Apple         -  Healthy
            - Apple         -  Fruit

• Signifier - image and word. Context can change the meaning.

• Icon: The signifier is perceived as resembling or imitating the signified. A pictorial representation. Eg. A picture of a cat

• Index: Connection that points towards it's object. Eg. Cat foot print

• Symbol: Has an arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the signified. This can change depending on different languages. It must be learned and agreed upon Spoken or written words are symbols. Eg. The word Cat. 

• Metasymbol - A symbol whose meaning transcends the tangible realm of simple one-to-one relationships. History, culture and tradition all play a role in  creating metasymbols. Eg. A dove with an olive branch as a symbol for peace.

• Denotation and Connotation

• Optical and perceptual life, graphic forms have symbolic life as signs, symbols and images that combine with one another to convey a message to the viewer.

• Denotation - (picture of a wine glass 'martini' Eg. Direct meaning of a word, sign or image

• Connotation - meaning (picture of wine glass represents 'good night out') second level of meaning , conveyed or suggested in addition to the denotation. Eg. graphic design - changing context and meaning by changing the font of something.

• Metaphor - implied comparison between teo similar or dissimilar things that share a certain quality. Eg. Simile - we say z is LIKE y but with a metaphor we say that x IS y.

• Logo - Nike
• Logotype - Nike (word)
• Mark - (the tick)

• Different aspects of a 'logo'….Visibility, application, distinctive, simplicity/universality, colour, descriptiveness, timelessness (doesn't look dull or outdated), modularity (keeping information seperate), equity (when changing the logo you try and keep all the same elements of the old logo when designing the new one),

Semester two, 2013

 

2013:

Visual Communication & the Designer