Your turn #9

Between the 1930's and the 1950's, these are some of the new developments:

Graphic design took on the intangible and lent it visual form,

System approaches became a pervasive metaphor for design,

Universal Signs became familiar (design goes international),

Graphic design moves to Hollywood and becomes a fluid medium,

Design means sophistication and affluence,

Go ahead!

Your turn #8

Well, there's a lot to talk about, geometric abstraction as a sign of functionality, the thin line between fine and applied art, more importantly, DESIGN AS A DISCIPLINE! Go ahead.

De Stijl

Die Stijl, ("The Style") included a group of Dutch artists in Amsterdam in 1917 (such as painters Piet Mondrian, Theo van Doesburg, the architects Gerrit Rietveld, Pieter Oud, and the poet A. Kok). Its members, working in an abstract style, were seeking laws of equilibrium and harmony applicable both to art and to life. De Stijl's most outstanding painter was Mondrian, whose art was rooted in the mystical ideas of Theosophy. Although influenced by his contact with Analytical Cubism in Paris before 1914, Mondrian thought that it had fallen short of its goal by not having developed toward pure abstraction, or, as he put it, "the expression of pure plastics" (which he later called Neoplasticism). In his search for an art of clarity and order that would also express his religious and philosophical beliefs, Mondrian eliminated all representational components, reducing painting to its elements: straight lines, plane surfaces, rectangles, and the primary colours (red, yellow, and blue) combined with neutrals (black, gray, and white). Van Doesburg, who shared Mondrian's austere principles, launched the group's periodical, De Stijl (1917-32), which set forth the theories of its members.

Your turn #7

 

Besides Dada, my favorite, we reviewed a shower of Twentieth Century "isms," Expressionism, Surrealism, Constructivism, Suprematism, what are your thoughts? 

Grace Barnes rightfully calls my attention to my mixing up Hans Arp's gender. It's a HE. Es tut mir leid. It's not the first time I mix up Arp with this British sculptor  whose work I love.

Now, this is my contention: 20th century art until the 1960's was pretty much female-less art. Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Surrealism and Constructivism are phallocentric (though Surrealism is pretty "soft"). Even in America, are there women abstract expressionists? Bourgeois, and Nevelson were more like outsiders. 

During the 60's & 70's a bunch of female artists started exploring alternative materials. Schneeman and Ono, and later Mendieta and Abramovic explored the body. Bourgeois' soft forms were seen as a viable alternative. Then, Eva Hesse opened up a whole gamut of forms and materials. Plastics, fabrics, textiles, ceramics, and "soft" forms, were important explorations in female art. Have to go now... (to be continued).    

List of visuals for the Midterm exam

This is the list of images for the midterm exam. From this list, I'll pick a smaller selection of about 18 images.

1. Cristophe Plantin's Biblia Polyglotta, (1569-1572).
2. Hans Holbein's Imagines Morti, (The Dance of Death)
3. Aldus Manutius's Hypnerotomachia poliphili, (1499).
4. Erhardt Ratdolt's Euclid's Elements of Geometry, (1482).
5. The Nuremberg Chronicle (above) is one of the best documented early printed books (and, being printed in 1493, is an incunabulum).
6. Johannes Gutenberg's Bible, (1450's).
7. Vesalius' De 8. Humani Corporis, (1543).
9. Bodoni's Epithalamia Exoticis Linguis Reddita, (1775).
10. Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature, (1844–1846).
11. Felix Nadar's photo of Sarah Bernhardt (the poster girl of the mid-1800's).
12. Walter Crane's Railroad Alphabet, (1865).
13. Owen Jones's The Grammar of Ornament, 1856).
14. Charles Dana Gibson's The First Quarrel, (1914).
15. Howard Pyle's No Haid Pawn, (1887).
16. Ford Madox Brown's Work, (1852-1865)
17. John Everett Millais' Christ in the House of His Parents, (1850).
18. Charles Rennie Mackintosh' s Glasgow school of Arts (1897-1909).
19. A. H. Mackmurdo's chair, (1882).
20. Jan van Krimpen's Deirdre and the Sons of Usnach, (1920).
21. William Morris' The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, (1896).
22. Jules Chéret's Le Pays des Fées, (1889).
23. August Endell's Atelier Elvira, (1898) façade and interior.  
24. Alphonse Mucha's Gismonda, for Sarah Bernhardt's play, (1895).
25. Henri Privat Livemont's Rajah Coffee poster, (1899).
26. Jan Toorop's Psyche (1898).
27. Marcello Dudovich's Poster for Campari, (1901).
28. William H. Bradley's poster for The Chap Book, (1895).
29. The Beggarstaff's Kassama, (1901).
30. Peter Behrens' The Kiss, (1898).

List of Terms for Midterm Exam

This is the list of terms for the midterm exam. Each has a link to Wikipedia. Go by the definition in the first paragraph.

For instance, under Incunabula we have: Incunable, or sometimes incunabulum, plural incunabula or incunables, is a book, or even a single sheet of text, that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe.

Incunabula
Xylography
Moveable type
Imagines Morti (Danse Macabre)
Humanism
Chromolithography
Punch Magazine
Daguerrotype
Harper's Weekly
The Yellow Book
Arts and Craft
Jugend Magazine
Art Nouveau
Deutscher Wekbund
Futurismo
Plakatstil 
Aestheticism

Surrealism (3)

Though there are some similarities between Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí, the styles are perceptibly different. Dali used figuration in his landscapes while Tanguy preferred a quasi-abstract anthropomorphic renditions.

______________________

The painting immediately above is Tanguy's Indefinite Divisibility (1945), a Visual for the Final Exam.

Your turn #6

The Art of Noise

The Art of Noise by Luigi Russolo: "To convince ourselves of the amazing variety of noises, it is enough to think of the rumble of thunder, the whistle of the wind, the roar of a waterfall, the gurgling of a brook, the rustling of leaves, the clatter of a trotting horse as it draws into the distance, the lurching jolts of a cart on pavings, and of the generous, solemn, white breathing of a nocturnal city; of all the noises made by wild and domestic animals, and of all those that can be made by the mouth of man without resorting to speaking or singing.

________________
Let us cross a great modern capital with our ears more alert than our eyes, and we will get enjoyment from distinguishing the eddying of water, air and gas in metal pipes, the grumbling of noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animality, the palpitation of valves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of a tram on its rails, the cracking of whips, the flapping of curtains and flags. We enjoy creating mental orchestrations of the crashing down of metal shop blinds, slamming doors, the hubbub and shuffling of crowds, the variety of din, from stations, railways, iron foundries, spinning wheels, printing works, electric power stations and underground railways.

Your turn #5

Here is the post for comments. Again, I wanted to stress the unique phenomenon of Art Nouveau as a unique fin-de-siecle style and how it mutates and comes back in different incarnations, first as Surrealism, then back in the 1960's as Psychedelia. 

Also, I just posted an big piece at m.bourbaki on Darby Bannard's 20 year retrospective at CVC in Wynwood, entitled Darby Bannard and the curse of abstract painting. I'd like you to pass by and if you feel like it, leave a comment. Darby is a professor of painting at the University of Miami.

Your turn #4

We are tapping on this moment of explosion of design in the history of Industrial Capitalism, which produces an insatiable demand for information: quickly-packaged, digestible, consumable, easy, optimistic. Meanwhile, the market forces competing between modes of production, are negotiating new technologies, all of which makes for a diversification of the printed form. At this point the media deals with all possible economic and social needs: news, fashion, propaganda, advertising, education, sports, special interests, erotica, yellow journalism, art, literature. What's your take?

Your turn #3

How about the privilege of commenting on 300 years of graphic design history? What a gamble!

Homework #2

Good class. Now, for this week's comments, go to Miami Bourbaki. Pantoja's work is about movies, and the idea of a wordless/poster. Don't forget to become a friend.

Go ahead!

Signs for thought

The relation to spoken language and and writing is not simple. Many things said in speech cannot be represented in writing, and vice-versa. So, what is the equivalent of an ironic inflection? A whisper? A seductive tone of voice? Writing has many properties derived from its graphic nature. What is the spoken equivalent of a hyphen? A decorative initial? A sans serif face? Or the divisions of text into two columns of a page?

Did you ever feel being Danny Torrance, frantically pedaling your tricycle through  a long, spooky hallway, looking back, running away from Room 217?

VIVA DESIGN! homework #1

It was nice to meet all of you. Ok. So we've covered roughly from the upper paleolithic right up to the 15th Century! We talked about a bunch of stuff, from food design, and celebrity chefs like El Bulli's Ferràn Adriá, to cheap food -as if designed by the Food Industry- to eco-design and eco-products suited for the particular needs of underdeveloped countries.

Even wars can be designed. 

Design is breaking boundaries: from cutting edge architecture to part furniture/part noise hybrids, to tiny portable gardens, to innovative environments for exchanging ideas, etc.

Finally, design can become the stuff of manifestos.

So, take any theme from the entries below (the entries start right after my syllabus) and just make a comment on something that strikes your fancy. Please, sign your comments.  

Don't forget to become a member of Miami Bourbaki.

Remember that I'll close this post next Wednesday @ 10pm. If you have any questions, post them here as well.

Just in case you have any questions

Student evaluations (Important!)

346 CLASS: You have been notified by e-mail with a link to the survey site about your evaluations of this class. They are due by 5 p.m. on Monday, May 18th. Your responses are, of course, anonymous. The University would like to create a climate where students understand the importance of evaluations and where most participate. Should any student not receive the e-mail, the survey site link also appears under the Course Registration menu in myUM as "Submit an instructor evaluation online" or under "My CoursEvals" on the Blackboard home page. Please, do it.

I care for your input.

Your turn #12

I've posted some interesting shorts to reflect a bit on our last class discussion. What is the place of design in the Twenty-First Century? Go ahead.

Water pollution (2)

Your turn #11

Let's share some ideas on my previous post.

Your turn #10

EricandMarie

EricandMarie, Éric Gaspar and Marie Bertholle, teamed up in 2002, but have known each other and worked together since the early days of their graphic design education. After a first qualification in France, they obtained the Bachelor of Arts degree at the Central Saint Martins College of Art in London, and then extended their graphic design training for a further two years, obtaining their MAs from the Royal College of Art. Through each new project, ÉricandMarie seek to develop a different, singular approach to graphic design. In parallel to their commissioned work, they research a personal grammar of ideas and forms, a sort of keep-fit gymnastics which often proves useful at timely moments. They have carried out commissions for the French Foreign Ministry ADPF, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the Royal College of Art, the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, le Musée de la Mode in Paris, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Akadêmia.

Your turn #9

For the subscription of Adbusters here (it's a little more expensive than I thought: $38, still a good deal).

Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser studied at the Cooper Union Art School and (1952–53), as a Fulbright Scholar, attended the Academy of Fine Arts, Bologna, Italy under Giorgio Morandi. From 1954 to 1974, Glaser was the founder and president of the Push Pin Studio (with Seymour Chwast, Reynold Ruffins and Edward Sorel) in New York and from 1955 to 1974, the editor and co-art director of the Push Pin Graphic Magazine. In an era dominated by Swiss Rationalism, the push-pin style celebrated Pop, the eclectic and eccentric design of the past while introducing a distinctly contemporary design vocabulary, with a wide range of work that included record sleeves, books, posters, logos, font design and magazine formats. In 1968, Glaser and Clay Felker founded New York Magazine. Glaser was president and design director until 1977 (as well as its ‘underground gourmet’ - writing about good, cheap restaurants in NY). Publication design had become a big interest. Glaser has produced a wide range of design disciplines - print graphics: identity programs for corporate and institutional marketing purposes, logos (among them the “I love New York” logo for the New York State Department of Commerce (the most frequently imitated logo design in human history). Glaser has designed and illustrated more than 300 posters, environmental and interior design: exhibitions, interiors and exteriors of restaurants, shopping malls, supermarkets, hotels, and other retail and commercial environments. From 1975 to 1977, Glaser was the design director of Village Voice magazine.

Your turn #8

DESIGN HOMEWORK

1- To design an "A, E, C, Q, U, P, S, N, G, T"- alphabet (capital and lower case).
2- One letter (capital and lower case) per page (8x11.5 inches).
3- Black ink or marker.
4- To be exhibited in class in 2 weeks from this Thursday.
5- Any question post it here.

Your turn #7

Below find my Design Manifesto (sent to MAP MAGAZINE just in time for ART/BASEL 08 but never published because of the bank meltdown) which has a lot to do with our discussion last Thursday. What are your thoughts on what design is and should do? This Thursday I'll lecture on Expressionism, Constructivism, De Stijl & BAUHAUS.

BY THE 1930'S POLICY MAKERS ALREADY GRAPPLED WITH THE EFFECTS OF THE MEDIA ON OPINION

Your turn #6

Your turn #5

List of concepts Midterm, Spring 2018

Moveable type: Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual letters or punctuation).
Incunabula: a book, pamphlet that was printed — not handwritten — before the year 1501 in Europe.

Typography: is the art and technique of arranging type, type design, and modifying type glyphs. Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques, such as typefaces, point size, line length, line spacing, adjusting spaces between groups of letters, etc. 

Linotype machine: The Linotype typesetting machine is a line casting machine used in printing, which produces an entire line of metal type at once. The machine revolutionized typesetting and newspaper publishing, making it possible for a relatively small number of operators to set type for many pages on a daily basis. 

Camera obscura: is an optical device that projects an image of its surroundings on a screen. It is used in drawing and for entertainment, and was one of the inventions that led to photography.

Daguerrotype: The daguerreotype is the first publicly announced photographic process. It was developed by Louis Daguerre together with Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niépce had produced the first photographic image in the camera obscura using asphaltum on a copper plate sensitized with lavender oil that required very long exposures.

Pictorialism: is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism.

Chromolithography: A very popular method for making multi-color prints during the second half of the Nineteenth Century. This type of color printing stemmed from the process of lithography, and it includes all types of lithography that are printed in color.

Arts and Crafts Movement: An international design movement that originated in England and flourished between 1880s and 1920s, as a reaction against the impoverished state of the decorative arts and the conditions under which they were produced. It was Instigated by artist and writer William Morris in the 1860s and inspired by the writings of John Ruskin.

The Kelmscot Press: Perhaps the most famous of the private presses, William Morris established the Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith in January 1891. Between then and 1898, the press produced 53 books (totaling some 18,000 copies).

Symbolism : A late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the movement had its roots in Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil, 1857) by Charles Baudelaire and the aesthetic developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s.
Art Nouveau: An international movement and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that peaked in popularity at the turn of the 20th century (1890–1905). Art Nouveau is also known as Jugendstil ("youth style"). A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, Art Nouveau is characterized by organic, especially floral and other plant-inspired motifs, as well as highly stylized, flowing curvilinear forms.

The Yellow Book: It was a quarterly literary periodical and a leading journal of the British 1890s; to some degree associated with Aestheticism and Decadence, the magazine contained a wide range of literary and artistic genres, poetry, short stories, essays, book illustrations, portraits, and reproductions of paintings.
Aestheticism: an intellectual and art movement supporting the emphasis of aesthetic values over moral or social-political values. Also known as art for art's sake.