project for next week

On a standard sheet of white paper, draw (ink) an essential ritual object of yours, following a continuous vector line. Rehearse it, but the end result should be as simple —and succinct as possible. 

By "essential ritual object," I mean a thing you find purposeful, or useful, or meaningful in your daily life. Something you use, treasure, or even long to have, or lost and miss, or keep thinking about. The idea is to try to reproduce (as if you'd go back in time to find yourself in prehistory) the very "magic" of your own prehistoric mark.

This design is referred to as "the most influential car of the 20th century"

the "T" is regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relatively low price was partly the result of Ford's efficient fabrication, including assembly line production instead of individual handcrafting. It's studied in economics as "fordism."

The T was designed by Childe Harold Wills, and Hungarian immigrants Joseph A. Galamb and Eugene Farkas.

an ubiquitous mark: the mobile phone

Steve Jobs presenting the first iPhone, January, 2007

According to Steve Jobs, the "i" word in "iPhone," "iMac," "iPad," etc., stands for internet, individual, instruct, inform, and inspire. 

cool, isn't it?

and the dinosaur below? 

the Motorola DynaTac 8000 X, the first commercially available handheld cellular mobile phone

No graphic object is isolated. The more "natural" is appears, the more culturally indicative it is

a stone wheel, Mesopotamia

Venus of Dolci Vestonice (11 cm) from upper paleolithic (circa 80,000 BC)

The point is that objects belong in a time and space. the venus of Vestonice is not a "venus" in our modern sense. It's a female symbol of fertility that upper Paleolithic people used. 

 

Young pregnant women would touch it, believing it would ensure many healthy births. 

It was not art. It was magic. 

We have to understand the history to understand the use and form.

Same with these masks:

oldest known masks (9,000 BC), late neolithic

People wore masks for ritual ceremonies. Today, we hang them on a wall.

a different take on column marks.... typeface

take these examples, above, from egyptian architecture. compare with this h typeface:

shaft =stem
foot = base
capital = head (serif or sans serif) 

from now on, you can see arches as Hs. 

For example, this Roman arch in Coimbra is missing the ascender stem.

the reason for column marks (why do ancient doric columns have flutes?)

an example of doric columnata 

Take a look at this example of Doric columns. They are shallow and always end in a sharp ridge, unlike the Ionic flutes that always had a narrow, even plane between the flutes (called fillets).

Why the fluting?

1- they add dynamics to the column by emphasizing both verticality and roundness
2- they add a counterpoint between the flutes and the round form of the column (this is the ceremonial look to the temple)

See the difference between a flute and no flute.

Tempietto by Bramante

The deal is that this is a marble column. No better or worse, just different. 

This is Renaissance. Bramante is doing something different than the Greeks & what would that be?

the mark as colossal design (very rare these days)

The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون ; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's place or land"), a multi-lingual stone inscription approximately 15 meters high and 25 meters wide, located on Mount Behistun in Kermanshah Province, near the city of Kermanshah in western Iran.

The inscription was written by Darius I, the Great, sometime between his coronation as Zoroastrian king of kings of the Achaemenid, or Persian, Empire in the summer of 522 BCE and his death in autumn of 486 BCE.

What we get here is sheer size and visibility. Darius I was bigger than life, so size and visibility were paramount. Needles to say, the narrative depicted in the inscription was a local token for the peoples of Persia.

Today, political messages don't show in that manner (unless we are in a place like North Korea).

Statues of leaders Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il (North Korea), see the people's genuflections

Monument to the African Renaissance, Dakar, Senegal (49m,  160 feet tall, 2008-2012)

These statues, above, are a good example of grandiose political design.

How the mark takes on the myth as animal form

Another point about marks: they take the animal form. why? 

Animals are crucial for our survival, which is why we worship them.

Here, the mark becomes a vulture, inscribed into a relief in an ancient Egyptian frieze. The vulture symbolizes protection and maternal care. 

So, the mark follows the myth. and the myth becomes decoration, which appears in temple ceilings, headdresses, cornices, armor, etc.

The scarab was considered to represent the creation of life. It appears in reliefs, amulets, decoration of columns, etc.

Horus (the falcon God) battles Seth (a dog-like animal) to become the pharaoh of Egypt (5000 BC)

who made these design decisions? the craftspeople? the priesthood?

some invaluable source of marks!

handbook of ornaments by franz sales meyer, (1849)

history of architecture by a.d.f. hamlin (1855)

history of ornament, ancient and medieval by a.d.f. hamlin

ibidem, renaissance and modern, a.d.f. hamlin

the mark following nature (the lotus)

this Egyptian column shows impressive dexterity. for detail symmetry, etc., here the mark follows its own possibility of formal variations. The designer just followed the possibility already implicit in the formal shape of the flower. When you doodle and keep doodling, follow the formal essence of the design, for example, the ellipse. 

For instance,

 

the first selfie?

the scribe, Sesh, wearing a knee-length kilt, his arms raised to present a papyrus roll and possibly a writing palette. the sketch is signed with the hieroglyph of "scribe", consisting of a palette with wells for red and black ink, shoulder strap, water pot and red pen.

an animated history of writing

typeface = chair, building

the hieroglyph is a pictogram. pictograms are pictures of objects. any object.

for instance, a chair can be seen as a pictogram of a building-structure .

 

above, intersections & superimpositions of buildings photographed from below. Do they look like letters or chairs?

the social character of written language becomes inscribed in its design

Trajan's Column, circa 114, CE. 

This is Trajan's column. 115 feet in height, including its pedestal. The monument's shaft is made from a series of 20 colossal Carrara marble drums, each weighing 32 tons and having a diameter of 12 feet. A sophisticated scaffolding system must be used to lift the drums and place them exactly in place by means of four iron sockets; the drum has to be level with the previous one. inside the shaft. then, a spiral staircase of 185 steps provides access to a viewing platform at the top. the capital block of the column weighs 53.3 tons. imagine the engineer lifting it to a height of 34 meters!

Below are the formal capitals inscribed on the base of the column, which are considered the pinnacle of Roman letter design (called Trajan typeface). These letters are remarkable for their elegance and consistency and the harmony of their proportions (though they were not used with the help of a compass or ruler). The serif effect is obtained by the chisel's indentation on the stone's surface.

the best hypothesis of scholar and Father Edward Catich is that the type form was first sketched using a flat square-tipped brush, using only three or four quick strokes to form each letter. the characters were cut in the stone by the same person (not as some supposed by a scribe and stone mason), and the illusion of form is created by shadow.

 

SENATUS POPULUS QUE ROMANUS IMPERATORI CAESARI DIVI NERVAE FILIO NERVAE TRAIANO AUGUSTO GERMANICO DACICO PONTIFICI MAXIMO TRIBUNICIA POTESTATE XVII IMPERATORI VI CONSULI VI PATRI PATRIAE AD DECLARANDUM QUANTAE ALTITUDINIS MONS ET LOCUS TANRIBUS SIT EGESTUS.

graphic codes distinguished broad categories of written language during the classical period

Tetradrachm signed by Eucleidas circa 405-400 bC.

Obverse side: A female charioteer drives a fast quadriga, holding reins in hand and raising a flaming torch while Nike is flying to crown her.

Reverse side: Head of Athena facing three-quarters wearing double-hook earrings, a necklace of pendant acorns with central gorgoneion-medallion, and a triple-crested Attic helmet. On both sides, two dolphins swim downwards.

What's the deal?

The coin embodies value and serves as a cultural symbol.

Coinage is an act of collective faith grounded in social conventions.

You believe that it has intrinsic value. that's it!

earliest shorthand

keep in mind that the activity of writing needs to be ritualistic but also economical. the rituals for the priesthood and kingly classes as they are presented for the use of the masses. They, however, used writing in its quick abbreviated form. As long as we have writing, we have abbreviated means, fast, economical.     
\shorthand\

The earliest known example of a shorthand writing system is the Acropolis stone (Akropolisstein), which was discovered in the Athenian Acropolis in 1884 and preserved in the British Museum (Brit. Mus. Add. Ms. 33270).

The marble slab shows a writing system primarily based on vowels, using certain modifications to indicate consonants. 

You are pretty dexterous at this Internet shorthand:

2G2BT = too good to be true
303 = mom
404 = I haven't a clue
*$ = starbucks (?)
99 = parent no longer watching
143 = I love you

303 = Mom

420 = Marijuana

ADIDAS = All day I dream of sex

AP = Apple pie

much more here.

the mark of the dead

The Book of the Dead, used by the ancient Egyptians as a set of instructions for the afterlife, is considered to be one of the first illustrated manuscripts. In the earlier versions, the scribe designed the manuscript. If it was to be illustrated, blank areas were left that the artist would fill in as best he could. Then, the vignettes became more important and dominated the design.*

today we deal with the dead in a different way

We've lost that magic connection we used to have with our dead. 

The simplicity and functionalism of today's design of the dead speak for themselves (a sort of factory of the dead). 

 Holland Cemetery, Oklahoma

______________________
*check this link for a detailed discussion of many of the illustrations.

a brief history of writing

Writing comes with the Bronze Age circa 4th millennium BCE in Sumeria. The development of Egyptian hieroglyphs is also parallel to that of the Mesopotamian scripts, and not necessarily independent. 

The hieroglyphic script is logographic with phonetic adjuncts that include an effective alphabet. 

The world's oldest deciphered sentence was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen from the Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes.

Check this user-friendly link to understand the origins of writing.

from pictograph to early word

pictographs evolve into words through a slow process of picture/idea selection. 

pictographs are basically drawings that represent a physical object and are used to communicate ideas. they originated in around 9,000 BC in cultures everywhere, including ancient civilizations like mesopotamia and ancient egypt.

pictographs, ancient egypt

 

mayan script

look at the evolution in time of the script for the word "head."

steps 1-7 comprise 2,000 years!

the Hammurabi Code

this is one of the oldest existing codes. it contains 282 laws. the text contains a list of crimes and their various punishments, as well as settlements for common disputes and guidelines for citizens' conduct. 

the Hammurabi Code does not provide opportunity for explanation or excuses, though it does imply one's right to present evidence. believe it or not, this is one of the earliest examples for the "presumption of innocence.

the idea is that once you see the the slab in open display, no one could plead ignorance of the law as an excuse. 

the mark of fertility (venus of willendorf, circa. 30,000-40,000 B.C.)

the main idea here is that the symbolic form of the design has overwhelmed its materiality and the process by which it was made. this is all reproductive essence. what does this mean?

the mark of fertility is... abundance! 

 above, an actual model of the idea.

pre-alphabet marks

what is writing? a form of "marking,"which extends human memory by imprinting information into any media. 

writing generally starts as iconographic and then develops. as in this Shang dynasty (1200 BC) oracle bones, China. 

the scripture is a form of divination

or cuneiform, in Asia Minor (cuneiform is a variation of iconography that becomes logophonetic, i.e. marks and sounds). 

see that these marks indicate something: a thing, animal, a practice. 

in both examples, the Chinese and the Sumerian you clearly see things being represented.

these markings constitute a design form.  the design is pervasive to the form, but the form itself is an idea, i.e., a "mental mark." and the mental mark comes from the actual practice of the culture.

so, to "design" is to feel the practice of the culture.

early graffiti?

this is a paleolithic mark, the most basic form of graphic expression and design. but the imprint has a curious existence: a mark that is a sign of the self is also always other than the self. i call it ancient graffiti: anonymous, quick, ephemeral; the artist's purpose is to leave a mark behind, a trace of presence.

marks on the wall, art or ritual?

Prehistoric Persia

Prehistoric France

Prehistoric India 

Cave art is generally considered to have a symbolic, ritual, or religious function, sometimes all at once. The exact meanings of the images remain unknown, but some experts think they may have been created within the framework of shamanic beliefs and practices. One such practice involved going into a deep cave for a ceremony during which a shaman would enter a trance state and send his or her soul into the otherworld to make contact with the spirits and try to obtain their benevolence.

Some of these animals are extinct—cave lions, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave bears, etc. Later on, we see horses, bison, aurochs, cervids, and ibex. Rarely do we see birds. 

Most cave art consists of paintings made with either red or black pigment. The reds were made with iron oxides (hematite), whereas manganese dioxide and charcoal were used for the blacks.

the arch (then perfected by the romans)

the elamite tomb (dated 1500 BC) contains a parabolic vault which is considered one of the earliest evidences of arches in Iran.

how did they get it?

a true arch is composed of wedge-shaped blocks (typically of a durable stone), called voussoirs, with a key stone in the center holding them into place. the weight is transferred from one voussoir down to the next, from the top of the arch to ground level, creating a sturdy building tool.

the God of writing: Ashurbanipal

TO NABÛ, EXALTED LORD, WHO DWELLS IN EZIDA, WHICH IS IN NINEVEH, HIS LORD: I ASHURBANIPAL, KING OF ASSYRIA, THE ONE LONGED FOR AND DESTINED BY HIS GREAT DIVINITY, WHO, AT THE ISSUING OF HIS ORDER AND THE GIVING OF HIS SOLEMN DECREE, CUT OFF THE HEAD OF TE'UMMAN, KING OF ELAM, AFTER DEFEATING HIM IN BATTLE, AND WHOSE GREAT COMMAND MY HAND CONQUERED UMMAN-IGASH, TANMARIT, PA'E AND UMMAN-ALTASH, WHO RULED OF ELAM AFTER TE'UMMAN. I YOKED THEM TO MY SEDAN CHAIR, MY ROYAL CONVEYANCE. WITH HIS GREAT HELP I ESTABLISHED DECENT ORDER IN ALL THE LANDS WITHOUT EXCEPTION. AT THAT TIME I ENLARGED THE STRUCTURE OF THE COURT OF THE TEMPLE OF NABÛ, MY LORD, USING MASSIVE LIMESTONE. MAY NABÛ LOOK WITH JOY ON THIS, MAY HE FIND IT ACCEPTABLE. BY THE RELIABLE IMPRESS OF YOUR WEDGES MAY THE ORDER FOR A LIFE OF LONG DAYS COME FORTH FROM YOUR LIPS, MAY MY FEET GROW OLD BY WALKING IN EZIDA IN YOUR DIVINE PRESENCE.

ancient graphic design (Altamira)

many of the paintings at ancient Altamira appear to have been airbrushed, a sophisticated technique.

this is the photoshop of ice age hunters.

what is this mark appealing to? ritual symbols. worship? totem? a bit of everything.

see the "eye" of the face has been outlined in black. 

THIS IS MAGIC.