Discourse 2

Deborah Levison

"The Final Days of AT&T"

Originally posted on 3/2/2010

Lecture 3/7/10

• Swiss design: Zurich and Basel
• Basel school of design: laboratory of international school; Emil Ruder and Armin Hoffmann
• Paul Rand: Enron, UPS
• Saul Bass: United Airlines, Exxon, AT&T, movie sequences
• Corporate Design at the NY School
• Bradbury Thompson: expended range of design
• Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar
• "Early Design Office" with strong aesthetic background through educational diversity of the partners
• Vignelli Associates: unigrid system, NY subway system, Knoll
• Henry Wolf
• George Lois: Esquire magazine
• Photo-typography: Herb Lubalin
• Movie:
• high vs low art
• Frank Gehry vs. Vegas garrish architecture
• Andy Warhol
• Jenny Holzer
• Jeff Koons
• Cindy Sherman

I really enjoyed the movie about Modernism. It talked about the differences between high and low art which I found very interesting. I think that Andy Warhol was really the one who blurred the line between high and low art. After him, there was Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman among many others who are considered great artists....but I think that were it not for Warhol, these artists would not be as successful as they were.

Lecture 3/31/10

- isotype movement: pictorial, universal language

- search for a universal language without words

- lexicons (pictorial language) for communicating information are engineered rather than illustrated -- socialist in nature

- Otto Neurath

- designers align with the notion of engineering - objective, rational, systematic and programmatic

- reliance on electronic information management

- design systems become a pervasive metaphor for design

- data integration from multiple sources - Herbert Bayer

- modernism and NY school

- modernism- images cast off neutrality, traditionalism, and provincialism and an embracing of the modern world - NYC is the cultural center

- 1940s design reflective of european models...step toward an original American approach to modernism

- Lester Beal - art of construction

- Paul Rand - an emphasis on the role of content and meaning

- Alexey Brodovitch - Harpers Bazaar

- Theo Ballmer

- Anton Stanowski

- Max Miedinger - Helvetica

Lecutre

McLuhan's Wake

For McHulan's Tetrad i chose to work with the cellphone.

1. The obvious enhancement from the cellphone is the human voice. Besides that, the cellphone is also portable, which allows people to be in communication all the time and assuming they have a good signal everywhere, the cellphone connects people from all around the world. And if you look at certain phones like the iphone, people not only can call everyone all the time, they can also be connected through e-mail, internet connection and text messages.

2.Because of the invention of the cellphone and the calling plans that cellphone companies now have, a lot of people are now using their cellphone as their main phoneline...making their landline obsolete. Many people feel that having a landline at this point is pointless because if someone calls you at home and no one answers, then they end up just calling your cellphone anyway. It really becomes more economical sometimes to just have a cellphone these days because of the hundreds of cellphone calling plans that companies make that fit into different people's lives. They have the plan for the working mother, the single man, the senior citizens etc..

3. The positive aspect of the cellphone is not only the communication aspect, but it also makes people much more efficient. For example with the iphone or some other PDA, if you want to see how much is in your bank account or need to pay a bill, instead of having to look at it in the computer or having to go to the bank, you can just look at it in your cellphone and pay your bills no matter where you are. Or, if you get an email...instead of only seeing it when you are in front of a computer, you will see it instantly wherever you are and will be able to answer instantly.

4. Even though the cellphone was made the bring people from all over the world closer together because they can have constant communication, people now tend to use their cellphone even when they can talk to someone in person. It has become the norm to talk on the cell or text someone instead of having to talk to them face-to-face because it is much more efficient to just do it from wherever they are instead of having to go meet someone. More and more, people are even talking less on their phone and simply texting because texting is something you can do all the time, even when other people are talking around you (which is one of the draw-backs of talking on the phone). One thing that is a "reverse" of the cellphone is that even though you seem to be able to do anything on your phone (while completely isolating yourself in the process), you can only do those things assuming your cellphone works. When your cellphone does not work, then it almost seems like it completely hinders your entire day.

I think that the laws in the movie are important because it makes us think about the good and bad things about new technologies. I think that people these days take for granted that every aspect of new technologies and assume that they are all good...but the reality is that everything has its drawbacks. As with the example I used, the cellphone (specifically the iphone), even though the iphone has great applications, makes your life easier and and things every efficient, it also is making people much more isolated. Instead of having to go through the "hassle" of talking to someone or doing anything in person, people are resorting to text messages and such...anything that will save us from having to spend more time than we have to on something, even if it means we lose some human contact

Lecture 3/3/10

• Dutch Masters of the new typography
• The Dutch Modernism-the printing arts perform as an expressive tool. The technology of commercial reproduction become tools of creativity
• Paul Shoetema-typography and photography integrated in a total structure using overprinting
• Products promoted became icons, their own manufactured shapes serving as the basis of a system of visual forms.
• Hendrick N Werkman- "druksels"; represented a new look at methods inspired by modernism and "art of construction"
• Piet Zwart- used collage techniques with parts from the typecase; ordered word rules and symbols and manipulated to find the design; DADA inspired, masterful control;the diagonal unifies diverse graphic elements through common movements while defying formula; found balance between the playful and the functional
• style, more than substance, supplied the content of this campaign
• designers applied reductive compositional principles of Plakastil with synthetic Cubism inventions and the purity of De Stijl
• A.M. Cassandre and Edward Kauffer
• Art Deco Moderne
• tourism and entertainment industries flourish, exploiting new degrees of mobility and leisure in a growing middle-class
• design of the 1920's and 1930's become a common source of stylistic fantasies crucial to the growth of consumer culture
• Dubbonet
• E. McNight Kauffer- application of cubist ideas; best known for his London Underground posters in the 30's
• Joseph Binder-highly and styled naturalism based on geometric cones, spheres, and cubes, then stylized through Synthetic Cubism
• Schulz-Neudamn - cinema poster 1926
• WWII- European modernism had clearly proved it could raise arms; Germany was cultural hub
• Ludwig Hohlwien
• Abraham Games, Jean Carlu, Herbert Bayer
• Herbert Matter

I really enjoyed tonight's lecture. I forget how design can be found in places where I would not think about looking. War posters are not the place I would look to study graphic design but when I think about it now, it makes perfect sense that these posters be studied. No industry wants to attract more people at once than the war industry. It is no surprise then that the designers of these posters would not only deeply study their demographic, but they would design it in such a way that would impact their audience.

I have always loved the 30s and the design from that time. I really appreciate the way that they integrated typography, photography, illustration to create war propaganda, travel ads and other propaganda. In such a tumultuous time in history with the wars and the crash on the market in '29, it is great to see that design was still able to flourish....even though sometimes designers used this enviornment to manipulate their audience.

Discourse 1- article 2

Futura
from "Texts on Type"
by Alexander Nesbitt

• Futura's designer, Paul Renner may be one the most underrated designers
• Renner- author of 4 books (none which were in english...which is probably why he is not as well known as other)
• The National Socialist Regime removed him because he spoke and wrote sharply against the turn of events.
• The invention of the first useable sans-serif is still argued today-some people say it was William Caslon, others say Vincent Figgins and William Thorowgood's "Grotesque".
• When it comes to classifying a sans-serif, Futura is the best example because it has classic proportions in the capitals and the lower case is in traditional miniscule patterns
• After WWI, there was a lot of experimentation on typography...the most interesting innovations happened in Germany...Bauhaus
• There is still arguement over who came to use Futura first- some consider Edward Johnston's London Underground to be the first noteable useage of this type. Othes say it was Rudolf von Larisch
• Renner began his sketches in 1924
• Then the Bauer Foundry became interested in it and it was not until 2 years later that Futura was launched into the market
• The reason why it was so successful was because all the "kinks" in the type were resolved before it hit the market....so there was no need to go back and fix anything...it was just ready to be used by anyone who wished to do so.
• Influences on Renner-expressionism, constructivism, dadaism and non-objectivity
• Futura had great influence in American advertising because it was a functional kind of typography
• Renner wanted to construct something that was not trying to be something else (He said that people tended to still try to be Jenson or Bodoni but those types, although beautiul, were outdated)
• Renner agreed with Corbusier who said that the best way to move foreward and create something that was both beautiful and functional for the time was to "start again from zero in order to create clear decks"
• There are only 3 components to the printed job (in Renner's opinion): the purpose, the raw materials, and the techniques
• We should just be ourselves with a clear and simple typography
• Futura as a display type is great because it is a well designed face without bad optical illusions

I really love futura as a typeface because it is so sophisticated (and after having read that article I know why...since it was constructed so well). But the images below show futura being used in different situations. The first image is from another article about futura. I liked the way it was designed because it shows how each person liked to use futura including Stanley Kubrick, Barbara Kruger, Wes Anderson and Volkswagen and the way in which they used the type.

The second image shows futura being used as a display face. This image is an installation piece by Barbara Kruger (one of my favorite artists who used futura in a lot of her work because it is such a powerful font and perfect for display pieces. The last image is the alphabet that that Bauer company launched into the market and soon was being used all over the world.