Friday, April 4, 2008

Your turn #11

16 comments:

j.namon said...

Y'all should know Banksy's the man. Ok that's out of the way. I've never seen his work personally but admire the ideas and political statements made with his work. His imagery is created mostly with stencil but he has not limited himself to only two-d works. He is known to vandalize monumental sculptures, walls and even infiltrated popular museums throughout the world. He could be known as the art anarchist. It is important to note that banksy does not waste the space he vandalizes, rather his images are well thought out and serve a purpose the viewer wether it be serious or witty which heightens his status to an artist. The sense of anonymity associated with his work also helps it gain popularity and wide-spread circulation. On top of all the work he creates, he documents each piece so well that the photographs themselves could be works of art. The documentation is just as important as the piece itself and that alone shows just how well rounded of an artist Banksy is.

Just learning the silkscreen process this year, i am beggining to understand the use of stencils within the process. The stencil itself can be used to create the same image many times. Screen printing was used in the early 20th century to make many copies of one image and was used in newspapers and magazines. Now it has evolved into a great medium in art, especially in multiplicity. Banksy's use of stencils could help classify him as a graphic designer.

Alfredo Triff said...

Absolutely, there would be no Banksy without Blek Le Rat, who reinvented a new school of graffiti for the streets of Paris since the early 1980s. The art is called pochoir, the stenciled art of the 1920's, very popular among French artists of the time, such as Holouze, ERTE, Brasier, etc. In time, Le Rat's work was seen in three continents until he got his show at the Pompidou. Banksy belongs in the second generation of global graffiti art. Justin, I think you're right, graffiti is a viable socio-political form, immediate, public. It rescues the best of the poster art of the early 20th Century.

Emma said...

I was pretty surprised at how brief the mention of "typolution" was on this week's blog.. maybe that's because lately I have been utterly obsessed with motion graphics/typography, but I definitely think it's a huge deal in the graphic design world. Motion typography is becoming omnipresent in our society without a doubt, probably due to the influx of desire for multimedia. I see motion type being used more and more as a staple in familiar places as film title design and credits, but also in TV commercials, news lead-ins on basic cable, and in the tiny corners where the name/logo of the TV station used to sit dormant and plain...now it moves with color, type, and animation (just look at Comedy Central channel if you don't already know exactly what I'm talking about). I've quite some time just watching 2-5 minute videos on youtube that students or professionals have made in programs like AfterEffects, experimenting with type as a media of design. There's a ton of awesome stuff and some crappy stuff too, but all of it makes me really want to learn how to do it. Apparently UM offers only one class in what I basically think is motion graphics, it's not marketed towards graphic designers but rather film students, but I'll take whatever I can get (hopefully if it doesn't fill up). You guys should check out motion graphics/typography on youtube when you get the chance, it's worth taking a look at.

Anonymous said...

April Greiman was one of the first designers to really use computer technology as a designing tool and also had great influence in her work by her teacher, Weingart, showing a new style called the New Wave. This style was a new approach to typography that went against strict grid-like compositions having inconsistent letter spacing, different typeweights within one word, and the characters set at different angels than one another. I like her work because it reminds me of the projects we would do in ART 103, which is 2-D design, and in that class we would cut out magazines and make our own designs. It was an experience to develop such an inconsistent piece yet completely balanced - which believe me isn't an easy task. Her images, shapes, texts, and colors are vibrant and eye-popping causing her pieces to develop from two-dimensional works into three and four-dimensional continuums of time and space.

ChoCkada said...

I was excited to see eBoy on our blog since they have inspired many of my designs. They are the edgiest group of designers out there in my opinion, yet their illustrations make sense to me. They are symmetrical, and they express what kind of an era we are in: the digital era. They turned a mistake of our time (a pixelated image) into artwork and expression. It is amazing to see art take place in front of your eyes when their designs have been in my Grove Armada CD.
If you haven't seen their trading cards you should see them, they are genius featuring pop culture ideas and ridiculing our lives today. They have expressed this movement in Legos for sculpture, web design, art exhibitions, wall decorations and many more. I think part of my obsession with them is that they remind me of my childhood years when I used to play with Atari and Nintendo.

- Belen Estacio

Lisa Kaplowitz said...

Jop van Bennekom has the roles of designer, editor, and publisher for 3 different magazines. When looking and reading about his works, I became interested immediately because they were about ordinary people and everyday activities while my own personal work is about everyday life. His magazine “Butt” was created in 2001 and was for gay men but its simple, disciplined, black and pink visuals and straightforward sexuality made it a wonderful book combined with photo essays and interviews. This magazine is a wonderful work of smart design and everything down to the choice of text for the title “Butt” was carefully chosen. His magazines are unconventional. He mixes the elements of writing, editing, and photography to create a language which he uses to communicate with and I, personally, think it works extremely well. Thumbs up to Jop van Bennekom.

-L.K.

Ruth said...

Jonathan Barnbrook is quite the graphic designer. Anywhere you read about him you learn that his work is quite controversial and the fonts he named are truly something to say the least (as mentioned in the blog they include Mason, Exocet, Bastard, Prozac, Nixon and Drone). He is very diverse with his work and it can be seen how he blends his typography with graphic design. Barnbrook can definitely exhibit his wide range of discipline in every single one of his works or art. For instance, in his work Heathen for David Bowie’s album, he uses one of his typefaces; Priori was seen for the first time. The design is appropriate considering that the focus of the lyrics are about the degradation of mankind and the world. It is even more creative that heathen was purposely spelled upside down. Considering that heathen is someone that does not acknowledge God, it becomes the equivalence of an upside down crucifix in a way to symbolize a similar meaning. Once again, still focusing very heavily on the purpose of the album.

Anonymous said...

The work of Laurent Fétis caught my eye because of the use of color on the piece titles “dazed and confused”. His work seamlessly incorporates various styles from Victorian to Psychedelic to 80s, for a feel that is cutting edge. I think his work is important because he works as an artist in the medium of graphic design. I think a lot of graphic designers work from a different standpoint. I think his end product looks like art, rather then a layout or a book cover.
I think another interesting aspect of his work is that is often clearly computer generated. Not to the extent of some other artists like eBoy, but still can be seen in the sharp jagged edges on shapes. This approach is interesting, when it feels like a lot of computer generated design tries to be something that it’s not. It’s like manufacturing something to look handmade, it’s just a strange phenomenon.

-Raymond Mathews

rhett said...

Banksy has become some-what of a revelation to me over the course of this semester. Since professor Triff mentioned him when the class started, I went on to look at some of his work and I have since became hooked. Graffiti always stood in a certain light my whole life. I respected it for what it was when it first started out; i.e. the voice of urban youths rebelling against whatever ailed them. But I've only gotten to experience street art as a bunch of people putting their names everywhere. That might be fun for them, but it never did anything for me. Discovering Banksy on the other hand has really opened my eyes to the power of street art, and how we've only scratched the surface with it. His pieces are so graphic and powerful, while at the same time he tries to rebel everything that the art establishment has become...it all seems to come together as a very profound statement. I have encountered some other interesting street artists such as Invader and Blek le Rat and I look forward to learning more about this exciting form of art.

Anonymous said...

Banksy is a very talented man and he is tackling some real issues with his art. His black and white stencils are beautiful, witty and gently subversive: policemen with smiley faces, rats with drills, monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, little girls cuddling up to missiles, police officers walking great flossy poodles, Samuel Jackson and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction firing bananas instead of guns, a beefeater daubing "Anarchy" on the walls. What he is doing is inspiring to a lot of young artists and is so original. Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or pro-freedom. Banksy is Britain's most celebrated graffiti artist, but anonymity is vital to him because graffiti is illegal. The day he goes public is the day the graffiti ends.

Maggie McClurken said...

I was surprised to see that I recognize a few names on this week's post that I recognize: Bansky, 2x4, David carson.

I really enjoyed Bansky's Naked Man image, in Park Street, Bristol, on the wall of a sexual health clinic. I think the placement and the humor of that work is what art is all about. Banksy once said, "art should have your pulse racing, your palms clammy with nerves and the excitement of creating something truly original in a dangerous environment." I find it fascinating that Bansky never had formal art education and that he learned his craft designing bootleg rock memorabilia. And before that, he started spraying graffiti as a 14-year-old student.

2x4 has accomplished so much for graphic design. Their environmental design is beautiful. I also really enjoy their website. For a company that had accomplished so much, they have a beautifully simplistic page that is easy to navigate.

I've paged through a lot of David Carson's books and really like his style; I've come to admire his work and my design style has mimicked his.

Bruno R. Matamoros said...

I really enjoyed this week’s posts, as it gets closer to our times it gets more confusing, or difficult to say what trends or styles stand out and matter, at least for me. I too enjoy banksy’s fine artwork, the wittiness and smart messages in them, very needed in these times we are living, when television and other communication media are not as transparent as they should be. The statements of banksy and similar artists are very welcome by the people who find them, unless you hate street art. I find it really annoying that people remove banksy’s artworks from their original locations just to show them in galleries or to sell them. Street art is street art and it should remain there and fade out with time.

Bruno R. Matamoros said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

After the first class, I was wondering if Triff would discuss graffiti. Growing up in Los Angles, my friends and I sprayed graffiti everywhere, all the time. I always appreciated Banksy and how he was infamous as well as unknown. His work has transcended into the world of “high art” as Triff mentioned a brick wall painted, was sold for 400,000 British pounds. I’m not sure if he himself profited from this, but his gorilla work in the museums makes fun of this notion of “high art”. Apparently, those pieces hung in the museum for weeks before authorities realized they were there and took them down. So far Banksy has made art for the sake of art and left nothing but an alias to responsibility of his work. I commend Banksy for shaking the grounds of the art world and still holding true to some of the principles of graffiti.

Bruno R. Matamoros said...

I thought this could be interesting for some people, note the last post is somehow influenced by banksy's work?

also I find this blog very addictive:
Desig Boom

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately I have been having trouble viewing the blog all week so some of the specific examples of work are showing up as grey boxes. I found myself surfing through the different photographs taken of Banksy’s work online to get a better idea of his style.

After browsing through photographs of his other work, I remember spending over an hour reading and flipping through an entire “coffee table” book of Banksy’s work, completely in awe of his talent. I was flipping through in awe of his physical ability to paint the way he does on an exterior surface and in awe of his mental ability to convey such meaningful messages.

Although his work is considered “graffiti,” it is drastically different than what I would normally consider graffiti. His work has meaning and substance. I would consider his graffiti more of a fine art that what I see as I drive northbound on I-95 through downtown. Although both forms of graffiti are considered vandalism, there is definitely a difference between these two types. Banksy’s work contributes to the world around it. It adds new meaning or sends a message versus the multitude of names and eyes I see on the backs of buildings as I drive through downtown.