Friday, January 27, 2012

Your turn #2

Incunabula by William Morris (1834-1896)
Hi. This class consisted of a more detailed survey of the history of graphic design right after Gutenberg and into the Counter-Reformation. We examined the impact of the new technology for 1- standardization, 2- new forms of reading, 2- a new market, 3- division  of labor, etc.

Simultaneously, one can see a stylistic development in typeface as such, which has two aspects: the inherent technological advance makes possible a different production of typeface styles as well as the proliferation of regional differences (for example, why is it that Gothic becomes so popular in Germany shortly after Gutenberg where as Rotunda, a similar sharp-cornered yet slightly more rounded script is created in Bologna?).        

(as we saw, some designers, such as Ratdolt, who worked in Venice, are good at both) .

We also talked about the book as a kind of architecture. Once we have printers and regional styles, we get a sort of "made in" constant. So we get, incipit, rubrication, border, frame, column, marginalia & illustrations, all aspects of standardization of the profession:
example of illustration inside the page using metal engraving, copper plates, an intaglio method
so-called column, they are explanatory notes around the text of the laws, in fact the type is set so that notes are arranged to surround the text in incunabula
Pick any of these themes or any variation of it. 

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Beliefs were (and still are) formed by exposure to graphic representations

Emblematum liber, circa 1500's
Spicy Adventure, 1935
DC Comics, late 1950's

Friday, January 20, 2012

Your turn #1

Illustration by Ricardo Leite
Again, welcome to my class. Nice first meeting. There is plenty to talk about:

1- Design as individual mark, as communication, as expression, as lebeswelt. The importance -and effect- of technology, the good and the bad of it  (forgot to mention global warming, an obvious effect of human -involuntary- design).
2- Style as form, personal stamp, as methodology, as performance, etc.
3- The relativity of epoch and the idea of obsolescence (i.e., purposeful decay built into the design).
4- How design is relative to materials, i.e., language, alphabet gets inscribed in stone, papyrus, vellum, paper, or digitalized ( i-pad, kindle, etc). The idea of books as objects, media, memorabilia, etc (I made a case for a future Kindle that is 3-D, and feels like a analog book). I find a peek into the immediate future of tablets here (in fact we commented this possibility):
McIntyre also predicts that tablets, and not just smart phones, will become more like digital wallets, replacing the need to carry physical currency or identification. She suggests that identity will be vouched by “voiceprint” (speech verification) or software that can analyze an individual’s keystroke patterns.
 5- If there is anything else worth saying, go ahead!

I am closing this post next Thursday at 4pm.