Discourse 1- article 1

The Final Days of ATT

from "9 Short Essays on Design"
by Michael Bierut

• American Telephone & Telegraph was founded in 1885 as a subsidiary of Alexander Graham Bell's Bell Telephone Company to create a long-distance network for Bell's local operating companies
• In 1915, AT&T opened transcontinental telephone service
• there had been a perfect synconicity between the inventor's name and the sound his product made
• unlike so many other brand names, it was a word that could be represented with a simple picture
• In 1968, Saul Bass was hired to bring order to the system, and created a classic modern identity program.
• AT&T agreed to divest itself of its local telephone operations, and seven independent "baby Bells" came into place. This was a "gold rush" for identity designers.
• logo would be nothing but a sphere, a circle crossed with lines modulated in width to create the illusion of dimensionality.
• Despite Bass's logo, after 1984, nothing was stable again in the telecom business.
• And now, after 20 years of telecom chaos, SBC Communications, Inc., a descendent of Southwestern Bell, is taking over its former parent company and wanted to create a logo that was the symbol is innovation and technology
• "Graphic design, unlike architecture , leaves no footprint. When one of the best known logos in the world disappears overnight, the only hole created is in our collective consciousness. By New Year's Eve, Saul Bass's sphere will be no more. Will anyone mourn — or protest — its passing? "

The images below show the AT&T logos over the years. The first logo being the actual bell showing the "bell system" seems to follow the history of the company since the founder was Alexander Bell. The later logo (#2) is the Saul Bass logo of 1968. Bass is known for using spheres such as the logos for Continental Airlines and Minolta...and the same was true for his design for AT&T. I really prefer the last logo and most current one by SBC Communications because not only is it dimensional making it much more dynamic and modern, but the sphere also gives the impression of a global communication...something that can be shared by everyone and is accessible to everyone. And that is perfectly isync with the philosophy of the company which says that they can communicate everyone and are a global network.

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Lecture 2/24/10

• De Stijl:

  • Sought universal laws that Govern visible reality but are hidden

  • same goals as Malevich and the Suprematists

  • Sought to purify art by banning naturalistic representation, external values and subjective expression

• Mondrian: defined horizontal/verticals as the two fundamental opposites shaping our world

  • Everyday objects would be elevated to a higher level of art

• Theo van Doesburg:

  • Applied de Stijl principles to architecture, sculpture and typography

• Visual forms developed from Mondrian’s paintings

  • pure form and assymetrical tension

• Mondrian: defined horizontal/verticals as the two fundamental

• opposites shaping our world

• Everyday objects would be elevated to the level of high art

• Art through careful application of the principals.

• Theo Van Doesburg:

  • Curves eliminated

  • Square module

  • Color is structural element

  • Favored red

• Kurt Schwitters and EL Lissitzky

• De Stijl architectural theory:

  • asymmetrical equilibrium

• Gerrit Rietveld:

  • Architectural and graphic forms in asymmetrical equilibrium

• Schroeder House

  planes in space, high tech industrial radiators

• J.J.P. Oud:

  • structure and signage identification as an asymmetrical facade

• Bauhaus: To solve design problems created by industrialization

  • Bauhaus establishes design as a discipline taught and practiced using modernism’s’ form and functionality.

• In Weimar 1919-1924: Intensely visionary period - possibility for a universal design that integrated aspects of society.

• Moholy Nagy

Piet Mondrian has always been one of my favorite artists. I love the way he simplified his paintings to a few colors and lines yet the philosophical theories behind his art are very complex. I watched a documentary on him and the way that he was so meticulous in his process was impressive. His paintings have this seemingly effortless elegance to them that people forget how difficult it is to produce something that is so precise yet simple-looking.

As a photo minor, Moholy Nagy has also been one of my favorites for a long time. I love his “photoplastics” because it has influenced my work a lot in the past. His work always works with symmetry and transparencies using classic darkroom techniques which I have done in the past and tried to emulate. He is just interesting to me because he has always been a constant experimenter and took classic techniques in photography to create something that was completely innovative.

Lecture 2/17/10

• Russian Suprematism,
• Constructivism and De Stijl
• Kasimir Malevich
• Cubo-Futurism
• Alexander Rodchenko-photomontage
• Salomon Tellingater
• Montage as the “fabrication” of a prototype for printing– not a unique work of art
• Rodchenko and Soviet Propaganda and Commerce
• EL Lissitzky
• Veshech-modeled after "Merz" magazine
• Prouns Space-merges 2 and 3d design in one space and becomes later exhibition design
• "Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge"
• "The Tale of Two Squares"
• "For the Voice"
• "The Isms of Art"
• "Design For Press"
• poster-icon of the 20th century graphic design
• The Steinberg Brothers
• Revolution completes the establishment of a "professional identity" for modern graphic design

I really enjoyed this lecture. I have always loved Russian Constructivism. I think that even though their art was used mainly for propaganda and to influence people, I think that he way they managed to do this was really interesting and beautiful. All of the posters are so visually powerful. It is also very interesting to see the way in which they used the new medium of photography and film as almost a substitute for illustration (which William Morris relied so much on). it personally great for me to study this movement because I love to create collages/photomontages and it has always been an influence in my work today...from their techniques to their somewhat stark color palettes. I also love the was they constantly used an axis in their work and their use of space.

Lecture 2/10/10

plakastil

sachplakate

Picasso- the relationship between form and communication

WWI posters

Ludwig Hohlwien

Ferdinand de Saussure- Structuralism

Futurism

Manretti

Dada Movement

Duchamp

Kurt Schwitters

Andre Breton

I have always loved the Dada Movement. I like the fact that it does not make sense and tried to almost destory everything that artists have tried to build since the italian Renaissance. I think that it was always going to be a "short-lived" art movement because art cannot be made just for the shock value. But it was revolutionary in the sense that it defied everything that the burgouise class thought was important. The only thing that I don not like about the Dada movement (and that I did not know until tonight) was the fact that they denied Kurt Schwitters from entering their movement. He obviously would have been a valuable asset to them.

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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