Lecture 1/27/10

• Victorian art- art of persuasion is born - typography is stripped of its historical evolution for -The sake of commerce
• ephemera
• chromolithography
• lithographic naturalism
• John Gamble
• Thomas Nast-father of the political cartoon
• Brand identities become commodoties themselves demonstrating a design concept was a marketable one
• John Ruskin and William Morris- The Arts and Crafts Movement - total design
• Kelmscott Press
• Art Nouveau: invented forms / ornament becomes structure / symbolic and philosophic concerns
• Cheret and Grasset
• decandence and aestheticism
• the Beggarstaffs
• Will Bradley
• Jungendstil and Sezenssionstill
• Koloman Moser
• Joseph Hoffman
• Glasgow School
• Peter Behrens
• Harry Beck

I really enjoyed this lecture because it was about art movements that I have always liked. I really love the style of Art Nouveau. I think that the romantic and ornate look to it is very interesting. i also enjoyed the second part of the lecture which talked about the end of the "ornateness" of Nouveau and the beginning of modern graphic design which is much more minimalistic.

Lecture 1/20/10

Key points:

early pictoral marking still show figure/ground, organization and scale

paleolithic markings- show that they were capable of abstract thought

cuneiform writing- faster way of writing...easily translated into phonetic communication

papyrus allowed for writing to be portable and much more widespread

notice difference from hieroglyphics to phonecian to greek alphabet (and later roman)

unicals

Trajan's column

illuminated manuscripts

insular scripts

incunabuls

Johannes Gutenberg-textura

German influence

typographers: garamond, Didot, Bodoni, Caslon

notice how the economy in the world influences typography (and vice versa)

It is very interesting to me to see the evolution of type. Since the early caveman had ideas that they wanted to express, they would carve it into a wall and still they were able to create something that even today we can understand. Even though a lot of time went by since the early caveman to the invention of moveable type or the creation of fonts like Bodoni and Caslon, it is really astonishing how much type has changed...and how much it might still change in the future. I particularly liked the section on Albercht Durer because I have always found him fascinating. He was really a Renaissance man in the sense that he did everything...and did it well. He was a master engraver, typographer, philosopher etc.

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