the magazine (for the working class)

the Penny Magazine, published every saturday from 1832 to 1845, was an illustrated british magazine aimed at the working class. though initially very successful—with a circulation of 200,000 in the first year—it proved too whiggish to appeal to such audience.

CAUTION!

19th century use of titling face to spread "vigilante" racist messages

your turn #3

found this and reminded my of vesalius' de corpore fabrica, right? this is nunzio paci.

hi kids: as you can see, i was able to fix our blog a little bit. it will get better.

there's plenty to comment on, pick your favorite subject: incunabula, gutenberg's printing revolution, maps, bible translations, baskerville, caslon, blake, romantic imagery...

below there are seven posts i couldn't discuss with you because our website's glitch: bembo, imagines morti, garamond and geoffroy tory. take a look at them. remember i said that roman typeface comes back?

ok, go ahead!

Google's Modern Atlas

Localized coloration in the roadways of Tokyo, London, & Paris. See late-afternoon shadows cast across San Francisco's Pioneer Park

Google Maps  & how it plans to design the Modern Atlas.

A sample of Google extensive icon system

Google Transit has an archive of more than 475 cities all over the world!

your turn #2 (please, read my summary & you'll be fine)

this is one of my favorite ornate initials: Lindisfarne Gospels (c.698aD). simply amazing!

after we finished last night, i felt i owed you a summary.

there are two main points to keep in mind about last class: how the mark evolves culturally, and formally:

(I) how the mark evolves culturally (from roman times to high middle ages/renaissance)?

1- the emergence of literacy (more people read, "the more you read the more you read"). why do people read more? from 8th century a.d., we have new vernacular languages: old english, high german, iberian (spanish), regional italian, etc. 

2- christianity spreads throughout europe and the bible is translated into the vernacular. we looked at examples of the codex (a book form, rather than a scroll), the hymnal (people sang along with their little copies), the book of hours (remember you carry this one with you at all times),  illuminated manuscripts (to catechize children, didactic everyday moral teachings), ars moriendi, (the nearness of death because of the "great plague"), the middle ages erotica (a thriving underground genre), etc.

3- spread of knowledge, i.e., the university (look at the 67! universities in europe by the high middle ages). because of the influences of the universities we get: 

4- spread of science (ratdolt's euclid's elements)

5- spread of humanism (this is a renaissance development)

(II) how the mark evolves formally? now we're looking at typeface itself (from trajan to gothic)

see the different decorative systems of the gothic? there is an equivalence between architectural and calligraphic developments, tracery = typeface 

what spearheads typeface this evolution?

a- the influences of different languages, and b- the diversity of writing tasks reflected in majuscule and minuscule. majuscule for the church, government, minuscule for scholars, the literati, the secretariat, bankers, in other words: the emergent bourgeoisie. c- each change in the mark reflects cultural conventions.

let's take a look at development new roman to gothic. imagine an arrow of influences moving first from south to north and then back again from north to south.  it takes 700 years!

south and east traveling to north and west  (this is basically the movement of christianization to the north)

new roman (uncials and half uncials or majuscule) majuscule are the headings and titles. uncials are miniscule.  
visigothic = greek and arabic 
old english (anglo-saxon with a normand influence from france).  
carolingian (latin, but ruling over franco-germans)

now see the arrow moving north to south (since 1500's the movement of the reformation from north to south)

gothic and all its variations: 
textura, (gothic in netherlands & germany), 
rotunda (gothic traveling south to spain, italy), 
bastarda (gothic in england) and 
cursiva (gothic in france, germany, england).

now, what's on your mind? say it.
     

movable type technique (again)

 
In the standard process of making type,

1- a hard metal punch (made by punchcutting, with the letter carved back to front) is hammered into a softer copper bar, creating a matrix. 
2- the matrix is then placed into a hand-held mold and a piece of type, or "sort", is cast by filling the mold with molten type-metal; this cools almost at once, and the resulting piece of type can be removed from the mold. 
3- the matrix can be reused to create hundreds, or thousands, of identical sorts so that the same character appearing anywhere within the book will appear very uniform, giving rise, over time, to the development of distinct styles of typefaces or fonts. 
4- after casting, the sorts are arranged into type-cases, and used to make up pages which are inked and printed, a procedure which can be repeated hundreds, or thousands, of times.

your turn #1: in the beginning was the mark

chinese-canadian tattoo artist nomi chi

hi kids: welcome to my arh 346 class.

we started this course talking about the importance of the mark. 

first, the anthropological need to make marks. then the many instances of marks:

the social ritualistic (paleolithic ancient cave murals, egyptian dead rolls, the willendorf venus, etc), the psychological (the "i love you" on a wall),

the political (graffiti),

the rule oriented (hammurabi code, confucius' analects),

the economic (ancient coins),

the semantic (as in alphabet development),

the scientific (early mathematics), etc.

now, write a 120-word minimum comment addressing any particular angle that you find interesting of this first class. again,

to make a comment 

click at the bottom of this post where it says "post a comment." you will get a box, after you are done, write down your full name at the bottom of your comment (even if you have a google alias). click "anonymous" (unless you have a google account with your alias). i advise you to write your comment first on word and then copy-and-paste it to the comment box in case it gets lost (this has happened to students). click i'm not a robot and click "publish your comment." by the way, you can preview your comment before you publish it.

 again, to look at what comments look like click here.

don't forget student evaluations!

thanks!

art chantry's low tech approach to graphic design

chantry builds his record, poster, and magazine designs by hand, eschewing the now-ubiquitous computer and laser printer for X-acto knives, Xerox machines, and photoset type.

it's all about about low tech,

who says design cannot change the world?

For now, Poster Boy and his movement is doing his part to fight De$ign.

Postmodern satire: Heeeeere's is The Onion

For the Onion's history click here.

Then, there's Spy!

Now with Kurt Andersen's selection of covers.

Rick Valicenti

Rick Valicenti formed Thirst in 1989 as the evolution of a career already eight years under way. I can think of no other body of work by any designer that has the amount of strength that Rick’s does, while simultaneously plundering the depths of style and defying uniformity (...) Often otherworldy, and sometimes dripping in political or social commentary, Valicenti and Fisher rode in tandem to fame partly on these electric, visceral pieces. And it is worth noting that bike enthusiasts—not just designers—remember these pieces from a time when personality in product as well as promotion was both appreciated and desired. What Rick forms with his clients is a relationship, what they give him is trust, and what results is a personal conversation which draws on all of their experiences and fuses the boundaries between expression and promotion. While each individual piece may at times seem bizarre, slick, cold or inscrutable, the work as a whole has continuity, love, passion and depth. While Rick's style has been emulated, the essence of his work has rarely been repeated (Marian Bantjes, AIGA's Medalists).

your turn #11 (what would the history of the poster look like without polish school's contribution?)

circus, viktor gorka, 1968

The stars of the Polish School of the 1960s and 1970s: Starowieyski, Lenica, Cieślewicz,  Wałkuski, Bodnar, Gorka, Tomaszewski, Zameczni, Świerz, Polka, Trepkowski. 

What do you think?*


________________
* I briefly referred to Polish cinema and theater as part of the cultural explosion going on in Poland during the 1960s &1970s: Take a look at Jerzy Grotowski's amazing theater (I only found this youtube documentary in French and translated into Italian). Another Polish theater iconoclast I forgot to mention is Tadeus Kantor (here a portrait in English). Kantor and Grotowski's so-called "traumatic theater" have influenced contemporary theater all over.
For Polish Cinema of the 1960s: A list of films and directors. Watch Andre Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds. Arguably the best realist Polish film. A masterpiece. 
The grisly murdered of Sharon Tate (then Polanski's wife here).
Jan Lenica's Labyrinth (1963).

your turn #10

r. crumb, 1960s

Kula Robbins' Jenny On The Job, Advertising, Pre-Logo years, Fortune Magazine, Anton Stankowski, George Giusti, The International Typographic Style: Huber, Armin Hoffman's vector fonts, Müller-Brockmann's rational order, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Chermayeff & Geismar, Logo History. What's in a LOGO?

your turn #9

anton stankowski, 1950s

there is plenty to talk about in this rich period mid1930s- mid1950s: modern designstars, piet zwart (master of de stijl), piet mondrian's contribution to modern design, the one and only master of preWWII elegance, a. cassandre, ladislav sutnar (the neue typographie standardizer), herb lubalin (the laconic master of positive/negative), the avangardist ted mcknight koffer, the exquisite moods of cipe pineles,  saul bass' groundbreaking collaborations with o. preminger and a. hitchcock, the inimitable alvin lustig. then we have WWII posters (both sides of the war) and a brief analysis of propaganda.

pick what you like and spin it.  

your turn #8

this famous alan aldridge poster for chelsea girls has its surreal twang

We talked about Surrealism (within the context of graphic design), WWI and WWII posters, and the star émigrés of the New York School: Binder, Beall, Matter Brodovitch, Agha (more to come). For better or worse, they changed the direction of modern graphic design. 

your turn #7

Natalia Goncharova. In A Game in Hell: A Poem (Igra v adu: Poema), 1912

We've covered an amazing chunk of history: Cubism, Expressionism, Constructivism, Neue Typographie, Futurism and Dadaism. At each step of the way I've tried to connect these developments and techniques to graphic design, only now, graphic = a mark and design = the possibility of a mark in a space. 

Yesterday, I reiterated this idea of typeface as the smallest graphic experimentation unit. So,

Typeface  =  line (drawing) =  floor plan (architecture) = chair (furniture) = string quartet (music) = monologue (theater) = pirouette (dance).      

What's on your mind?

________________

pS: I said that Johannes Itten was a director @ the Bauhaus. Not exactly. He was director at the Kunstgewerbeschule, and one of the masters at the BAUHAUS faculty. Gropius, Meyer and Mies (in this order) were directors are BAUHAUS.  My lapse and my apologies. :)

your turn #6

kandinsky, improvisation #19, 1911

plakatstil, klinger, werkbung, gesamkunstwerk, new typography, adolf loos & ornament, blue rider, expressionist woodcuts, schmidt rottluff!

your turn #5

toorop, dalende gevolen, 1894

Chéret, L'art pour l'art, Art Nouveau, Decadence, Viennese Secession, Beardsley, Toorop, Lebeau, Mucha, Delville, van de Velde, Delville. Pick your favorite.

your turn #4

edward steichen, portrait of marlene dietrich (early 1930s)

this post is ongoing with the forthcoming info (of next monday class). remember i close the comment box early next wednesday morning.

your turn #3

takato yamamoto's erotic illustrations at juxtapoz (check its current erotica section)

photography (daguerrotype), photography as hobby, monsieur nadar, freaks!, pictorialism, designing circus, the civil war illustrator, erotica.

your turn #2

hypnerotomachia poliphili (1499)

we've travelled even deeper into typeface character: ratdolt's euclid's elements, griffo's amazing bembo, from gutenberg's high gothic to italian and french roman, geoffory tory's pre-neoclassical design, the broken pot, humanism, the nuremberg chronicles, garamond the virtuoso. unlucky tyndale, maps, vesalius's human altas. wow!

what's on your mind? 

your turn #1

this is one of my favorite ornate initials. 
Lindisfarne Gospels (c.698aD). simply amazing!

hi, class. we've covered miscellaneous aspects of the history of graphic design (up to the high middle ages), right around the emergence of the Gothic script (circa early 15th century).

you should post a 150-word comment on any of those aspects treated in class: whether a specific typeface, design style, design development, image, concept, object, mark, etc. try to make your comment relevant to our discussion --so far. don't be just casual about it, think about what to say and do your best to add something meaningful to the discussion. next wednesday we'll open the class with your reading of these comments.

you can post anonymously if you wish, or with your google, facebook accounts. just don't forget to sign at the bottom of your comments (not alias, but your real name).

 i'll close the post for comments on tuesday night.that's the deadline for posting a comment. 

mall-r-us

designing sexploitation

redesigning parking

parking lots are urban wastelands of asphalt, but there is a solution: implementing solar panels in car parking lots to keep regular cars cool and in some cases to charge electronic vehicles. at about 4 meters high each 'tree' is topped-off with a canopy covered in solar cells.

how advertising does food

redesigning coastal development

the impacts of climate change are likely to worsen many problems that coastal areas already face. shoreline erosion, coastal flooding, and water pollution affect man-made infrastructure and coastal ecosystems. confronting existing challenges is already a concern. addressing the additional stress of climate change may require new approaches to managing land, water, waste, and ecosystems.

 

designing food

food deserts: 2.3 million americans live more than one mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle. the report also notes that minorities and lower-income communities are often affected, as “urban core areas with limited food access are characterized by higher levels of racial segregation and greater income inequality.” it is not uncommon to go into these communities and the only food outlets found are fast food restaurants and convenience stores stocked with products that are highly processed and genetically modified – both characteristics that contribute to poor health and environmental degradation. food deserts have been a major contributor to obesity and other related health problems in these communities.

designing transhumanism

a list of 10 transhuman technologies happening or relatively soon in the horizon. 


nothing against technology. but transhumanism embraces technology unproblematically. designing transhumanism demands a careful balance between the liberating potential of technology with the moral consequences of an unchecked optimism.

other possible outcomes: the idea of reprogenetics to alter people's IQ. also, the idea of technologies for human enhancement.

your turn #9

nate waldon for adbusters

a long list of emergent designers from the 2000's (under 30) and mid-career star designers. the common thread of the work is the modularity & malleability of the mark, whether 1D, 2D or 3D.

in our post-human era, typeface becomes font, elevation, furniture, building, installation, environment, even data/structure.   
 
what's in your mind?

below, find our topics-for-the-final. also don't forget your teacher evaluations!

Typophiles of the world unite!

Typedia: still the wikipedia of typography

If you love typography you should check Typophile.