we covered plenty of middle-ages marks: life in the country, in the city; cheese, dung, feces; our fabricated myth of "organic"; scribes, scriptorium serendipities, piment!; we contrasted the slow evolution of typefaces from trajan to beneventan to similar developments in architecture; codexes, old book parts; illumined manuscripts; frontispiece, etc., colophon, secretary hand; decretals; minuscule vs. majuscule; book of hours; ars moriendi; dance macabre,
wow.
pick a subject and spin it like you did last time. as usual, I close the comment option next wednesday 10pm.
13 comments:
In yesterday’s class we focused primarily on the middle age, a fascinating era within European history that included both the highest highs and the lowest lows. I was particularly interested in the concept that “a book is architecture” and that it alone is one of the greatest achievements of historical construction. Not only that but the term “serendipity” was brought into connection with reading, something I had not thought of before. I completely agree that when someone reads a book, things begin to happen serendipitously. It is hard to describe in words however ideas and concepts come together and further your knowledge simply through the act of reading. In addition to that we went into discussing how books are far different than they used to be in every aspect. Books are becoming seemingly more digital and less thought provoking or difficult to understand than they used to. There are many reasons for this with the age of digital media and shorter attention spans however we must not forget the beauty of serendipity that occurs with a proper piece of literature. In conclusion I believe books are not only architecture, but they are architecture that must be preserved for the same reason we preserve anything with significance and old age, so that those after us will also be able to experience them when we are long gone.
-Charles (Harry) Reid
What I found most insightful from Thursday’s class was the the parallels of architecture and other art forms maturing at the time (most notably books and the lettering that scribes did for them). For example, the book displayed in this post has exquisite illustrations adjoining the pages. This reminds me of cathedrals that were erected during the middle ages and the details that would be added on the outside and inside of these buildings. Most notably, the large stained glass windows and the illustrative molding seen on baseboards and columns.
In terms of today, this reminds me of the simplified buildings popping up more in Miami (the modern ones that are more boxy with clean lines and flat architecture) and the United States in general. These clean and simple buildings parallel the more minimalist style that graphic design is adhering to now. Logos are moving more towards simple type rather than expressive typography, newer branding designs are more scaled back and simple compared to even a decade ago. The most stark change of this happening can be seen when Apple changed the style of their icons and some of their apps. Instead of utilizing the more realism icons that they launched with, they opted for more simple graphical icons. The notes app went from being hyper realistic with shadows and little details to a flat and simple graphic style. Overall, architecture and other forms of art and design tend to parallel and be inspired by each other.
Student: Briera Crockett
When I first learned about the living conditions of people in the Middle Ages I was probably in high school and I remember being disgusted and unable to comprehend how people lived that way. The thought of co-habituating with animals and wading through feces on the daily was not something that appealed to me. Frankly, I found it to be completely backwards and a faraway part of history. However, after our last class I began thinking more about how parts of history are interpreted by people in the future. For example, at the time of our class I might have thought the middle ages were a disgusting backwards era, but the people that actually lived it believed it to be new, exciting and normal. This got me thinking that 200 years from now, in whatever “age” we are in, those people may view my lifestyle the very same way. I think this also made me mull over an even grander idea, that everything is about perspective. Just as in my previous comment I mentioned that perspective can be changed on a mark with time, so can your opinions on something depending on your perspective.
Olivia Ginsberg
People take so much for granted, and when they don’t take something about their own lives for granted, they judge others’ lives. When people can’t control absolutely every single little thing about their lives, they go on to be affected by what they see in those around them.
I already knew how different life was in decades, and centuries before me. People live differently at different times. But what fascinated me from the last class and made me reflect was to see different times with beauty, instead of calling it Dark Ages, and picture misery for example. A term which in fact, “The majority of modern scholars avoid the term altogether due to its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate. Petrarch's pejorative meaning remains in use, typically in popular culture which often mischaracterises the Middle Ages as a time of violence and backwardness.”(Wikipedia)
It is easy for the latest generations to look back in time and be horrified at those realities. But that, it is looking back, with eyes that belong to the right now. People don’t shift their perspectives before making their judgment about something different from what they are familiar with.
Beyond that, people make their judgments based on the obvious marks of that time. And don’t look at the core of those lives. Those people from past and drastically different ages, were living, growing, and sharing, just how we do. They lived how they knew, the same way we live with what we know. And seeing it with this perspective is not the same as neglecting the bad, but just instead not expecting everyone’s lives to be the same, and judge the different as horrible just because my idea of good is only “what is mine”.
Julia M Martins
I find it very interesting to relate this book to the class. Nothing more than the title already gives a lot to talk about with the word "history" as it mentions it and as we talked in class the books were the tools that did not help us pass our knowledge. Mentioning a phrase that Charlemagne said, "Action is better than knowledge, but in order to do the right thing, we must know what we are doing." I know that we now have an immense capacity for knowledge in our hands that people in the past would like and in the present, we just don't pay much attention because to the fact that the world is already a very safe and different place, many people no longer have that spark of learning. On the other hand, something that intrigued me from that class was the fact of the small changes made inadvertently and their impact on the future. It makes me wonder how different the world would be without these mistakes. Another thing that interesting to me is the number of ornaments that the book carries and how well they are made, I don't know if they used some kind of stamping or everything was handmade.
Roman Moscato
What stood out to me in class was the mark of life in the middle ages. In these times, the folks in the city lived harmonious lives with their animals, living together in the home to provide warmth and sustenance. They were surrounded by farm animals and feces in the street, and it would be an environment that we today would think of as “disgusting”. If we walked off a plane today into a city with that smell we would think it was atrocious; but, for them it was what they were born into and it was beautiful. These marks give us a glimpse into their lives, and the depicted images show a boisterous, lively city filled with people who are living a ‘normal’ life.
It is so easy for us to cast judgment, and as a society we love doing so. We are an ethnocentric culture that assumes our way of doing things is the right and only way because we see ourselves as this advanced future. We look down on those who have come before us and who did things differently than we do, because we feel like we are an advancement from those times. But just like the point that was made about the olden times ‘organic’ and our ‘organic’, our way of life is not necessarily superior and actually has devastating effects for our future. We see their ways of doing things as morally inapt, yet it’s actually more humane than our current practices. We do not live harmoniously with the Earth or animals, we destroy, abuse and deplete its resources.
- Meghan Morrison
As typography has changed over the years something that interested me was the why. Thanks to a video done by Vox gave me some insight into a couple of reasons and in particular a very interesting font. After WWI in 1919, there was a big advertisement boom, the war was over, factories could focus their resources on making leisurely products and people had more money to spend again. So naturally, the need to advertise went up. Around this time the main material for the type was wood. Because the type was wood the letters had to be thicker and robust letters to ensure that they wouldn’t break over repeated use. Metal type was not introduced until Gutenburg created them to use for his bible. The metal allowed letters to be smaller, more precise, and thinner. This was wonderful for publications such as newspapers because it allowed them to fit more on a page. This was followed by Linotypes which speed up the printing process.
In 1920 a letterer named Oswald Cooper created a type faced called Cooper, which would later be made in its bold form and be known as Cooper Black. This typeface took the classic roman format and softened the serifs and made the lettering a bit chubby. This was a massive commercial success. This particular typeface was promising to graphic designers and printers because of how forgiving it was to mistakes. Because of the curved serifs, if the words or letters did not line up perfectly, it was harder to tell and not as much of an eyesore. The bottom serifs also tended to flow into one and another to create a fluid word. Some of the popularity also came from the corks that the typeface offered such as how the o has an off-centered vertical stretch, or how the f more of a squiggle to make it as bold as possible.
The process of Cooper Black only intensified when technology such as prototype, phototypesetter, and dry rub transfers was invented. These allowed graphic designers to place the type closer together and in different formats. The typeface has been on everything from a beach boys album, Ads, magazine, and is even the type that Tootsie Roll uses on their logo.
-Samantha Zeigler
What stood out to me the most during Thursday’s lecture was the relation between a book and architecture. From studying architecture and art history for the past three and a half years of college, I have yet to hear that comparison but after listening to Professor Triff’s discussion between the two I began to reflect more on the analogy. Professor Triff emphasized the word “serendipity” when discussing the two forms of art; “give space for stuff to happen” Professor Triff emphasized with the word “serendipity” and to me that statement is the best way to describe the design process when I work on my studio projects for the semester. One does not suddenly have one perfect design all figured out with plans and elevations, the process takes weeks and months of constant trial and error. Every studio design project I have worked on, the process of work is not one straight line but a series of incidents that make the final project.
Books and architecture each tell a story, they reflect the period and time in which they were created, giving us a look into their history and culture. The definition of the frontispiece has a definition for both books and architecture; one is defined as the frontal facade of a building, which gives an indication of the buildings grandeur and the leading elements of the structure. The definition of frontispiece for books is the decorative part of the book next to the title page, which is an illustrated façade of what will be read once one ventures past the page. Books and architecture share a timeless understanding of how our world works, that it’s not simple but a complex series of serendipity.
-Max Speziani
After looking at the detail of the examples of colophons we were shown in class, I was interested in looking into the subject more. The Greek origin of the word means “summit” or “finishing stroke,” and is a description of the methods behind a publication often found at the end of a book, and even though they are often formal and informative, they can have personality throughout them. Handwritten colophons can have potentially meaningful tells left by the calligrapher that historians or experts can use to provide insights about the process of creating the work. And even though printed colophons don’t have this aspect, it can still enhance the story that it is included with. They can be as minimal or as elaborate as one wants, and while researching I found a variety of them, such as booklets, poetry, and ones in multiple languages. In the transitional period we are at today in terms of books and technology, the idea of colophons could be considered a way to reference and reminisce upon the tradition of typography, as well as a reminder that books are created with an aspect of design, and are bigger than their authors alone.
Ellie Massaro
What really stuck with me from Thursday’s lecture was the constant relationships between book designs and architecture. Balanced structures are universally presented in design and in buildings, both out of necessity and because it is what instinctively feels right for a designer to practice. Even before a designer learns composition rules and grids, they have a feeling about where things look correct because we are drawn to create compositions that reflect a purpose-filled structure. Whether design is dynamic or stable, it always has components that seem to balance each other out, so it was interesting to see the architectural columns throughout history reflect the designs on margins of illuminated manuscripts and vice versa. The process is not a straight line, like how the idea of working with a grid would lead some to believe, but there are so many moving parts that it is impossible to visualize the end result from the start. Even if there’s mathematical backing to why something “looks right,” knowing that background is not always necessary (in design, in architecture then yes definitely), and breaking with those “rule” while still avoiding awkward placements is such a delicate balance but always produces the most interesting results.
Alejandra Moros
In class we learned about the Middle Ages and how history has misrepresented the lifestyle of the common man in the “Dark Ages.” This makes me think about how the events that we are witnessing today will be shaped by a powerful collective. Having been too young to remember 9/11 myself, I learned the history of it through my school and adults. I realize that the collective history of today is still bias. I often find myself looking back on history and wondering how civilizations normalized bigotry and allowed a one-sided narrative to evolve. But when I think about it, we can never really know how individuals felt during the time. Was the rise of capitalism the fall of the every-day man? Are we all constantly searching for “the good old days,” because we don’t actually know what happened then? Maybe our understanding of history is idealized and demonized to extremes that make it hard to relate to the communities of the past. I think it is helpful to find emotions in the history because mans emotions have not changed as the world spins into new times.
Emma Pitcairn
What I found most intriguing about last class were the serendipitous moments that have defined the mark over time. I was specifically fascinated by the evolution of typography, set into motion by scribes interpreting the mark by their own standards that eventually conceived whole movements of type. It was interesting to see that architecture evolved just as uncertainly as the elongation and regression of letterforms over time. Serendipity is also seen in the accidental inception of Roman architecture, as Norman builders executed their own perception of the mark with the Durham Cathedral. These instances bring to light the ever-evolving nature of the mark, which changes just as chaotically as humans themselves. In finding serendipity, it is a necessity to break the rules of design, push the definition of what is good, and leave a mark that is strange and extraordinary enough to be remembered.
Lauren Maingot
I suppose one of the most interesting things to me during this lecture is actually something I've been drawn to since I was little, that being the way of life during the Middle ages. It fascinates me to think that all that time ago, that was the normal for human kind in that particular area, which could bring upon the argument that "normal" in actuality does not truly exist. The only thing that is constant within this world is change. Our tomorrows will not be identical to our yesterdays, and the years to come will not look like how we are living our lives now. Obviously, not all changes have to be on a grand scale, but it's important to recognize and be grateful for our species' ability to grow, learn, and adapt. Of course, when most folks are first exposed to the order of things within the middle ages they can't help but be flooded with a sense of discord and perhaps even underlying displeasure, whether they voice it or not. Of course judgement is a natural part of the human condition, but when do we draw the line? When can we step back from our own judgements and just view things for what they are and how they’ve come to be? Animals living within homes, fecal matter not dealt with in the pretty little way it is today (down into an underlying waterline that most of us will never be directly exposed to), and sustainability achieved mainly through personal achievement and hardship. I think one of the main reasons why I have always been drawn to this time, even with all of it's imperfections, is the fact that it was simple. Of course, societally there were severe issues (allow me to disregard any and all gender roles and severely broken governmental systems, although those still exist today but that's a discussion for a later date) but at the end of the day, the life expectancy wasn't that long, you went to work, drank with your neighbors, and put food on the table for your family if you had one. Nowadays, there seems to be a finish line that keeps moving when you are one step away from crossing it. Almost nothing really seems like enough, and many individuals have lost sight of what they have and how to appreciate said beauties due to the chaos of our day to day lives. It’s good to go back to some of our origins, even if they aren’t directly our ancestors or anything and appreciate them. It’s good to really think and process any and all things that fall out of the line of our own perspectives. Hell, it’s great to get even a little bit closer to understanding our world, our species, and our own realities.
- Darian Valentino
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