February 28, 2012

1, Notes

February 28, 2012

Youth Movements

·      Tapestry weaving hand printing, building things.

·      Glasgow, Art Nouveau

·      Roller, 1903. – psychedelic font.

o   You don’t want to read the font. People are challenging the readability and eligibility of text.

·      Riffing, trying to be new, at the forefront

·      Motifs, pushing ideas, modern poster style

·      Peter Behrens – down the road he is going to change the landscape for commercial art and graphic design. Becomes the design consultant AEG, german power company. First person to experiment with running serif/sans serif type.

o   Early advocate sans serif type.

o   First comprehensive identity package.

o   He pioneers the idea of load bearing.

o   1904 - Becomes influenced by a new professor. New professor was obsessed with geometric proportions.

o   1906 – peter designs Linoleum Pavilion

o   1907 – Peter is hired by AEG

o   1908 – files copyright for a logo

o   Comes up with the idea that in an identity there should be a consistent logo, consistent typeface and layout system.

o   Electric company was where to buy appliances. Peter came up with mix-and-match interchangeable parts.

o   Turbine hall, form is following the function, the building reflects what the thing is inside of it.

o   1890 – first electric railroad carts in London

Lucian Bernhard

·      Paints an ashtray, cigar, matches, etc, but then paints out everything except the matches and the name.

·      Commercial artist. Imitated by other people.

·      Abstraction

·      Thought art should not be a theory.

·      Plakatstil – poster paint. Recruiting poster for German.

·      Kriegsanleihe – 8^th bond drive. Propaganda poster. Sophisticated, not literal

·      Axis Powers posters – stunning, meaningful, graphic, abstract, got to think.

·      Allies Powers posters – Uncle Sam, riffing on a British poster. More about illustration, and easy to read and understand.

·      WWI – first mechanized war. Start  – Art Nouveau. End – Bauhaus.

Ludwig Hohlwein

·      Masterful designer.

·      Reputation tarnished because of ally with the Germans.

·      Hitler thinks that the Axis posters were bad, thought that the Allies posters were better. He thought that posters should be able to be read by stupid people.

·      Dramatic lighting.

·      Cubism, generous use of negative space. Influences of modern art.

·      Edward McKnight Crawford – made the “underground winter” poster.

·      A.M. Cassander – 1901-1968.

o   Poster of the telegraph – geometric and abstract.

o   Most known for travel posters now.

o   Very sophisticated, abstract languages to communicate ideas.

o   Wagon Bar – figure/ground. Cubism.

Suprematism

·      Influenced by futurism

·      Is about art, for art’s sake. About emotion. Pure feeling.

·      Rejects utilitarian function. Also rejects pictorial representation.

·      Art is a cereal box. Art is function.

·      Russian avante garde (front guard)

·      Tatlin, Rodscenko, Lissitzky

2. Personal Thoughts
I thought that today's lesson was very interesting. It was cool looking at the posters during WWI. Weird to think that the Germans had amazing designs that made you think, and the Americans had kind of boring compositions. Then again, Hitler was an artist so it makes sense. I really like how they would take these patterns, that by themselves are quit boring or ugly, and place them with another pattern and a flat color and make it look awesome.

February 21, 2012

1. Notes

February 21, 2012

Keywords & Topics

·      Arts & Crafts movement

·      John Ruskin

·      William Morris

·      The Kelmscott Press

·      Golden – Troy – Chaucer

·      Historicism

·      Aubrey Beardsley

·      Alphonse Mucha

·      Art Nouveau

·      Le Style Moderne

·      Will Bradley

·      Henri Van De Velde

·      Jugendstil

·      Peter Behrens

John Ruskin

·      Born 1819

·      Becomes the philosophical leader for the arts and crafts movement.

·      And the base idea that things are valuable simply b/c they are beautiful.

·      The cathedral, share the work, mastery and together they make the greater good.

William Morris

·      Becomes involved with book arts.

·      Golden, Troy, Chaucer

·      Initials, borders, title pages.

·      Vine work,

Aubrey Beardsley

·      Mort d’Arthur – 1893

·      Had lots of sex and influenced by Morris

·      Short life, but his work became more naturalistic

Alphonse Mucha

·      Job working at a print shop.

·      Whiplash tendrils, the hair.

·      Tile work

·      Trompe l’oeil, playing with depth

·      Abstract graphic

·      Sexuality

William Bradley

·      Plays with dimensionality, abstraction, and negative space.

·      Printed “Bradley, The Book”

Henri Van De Velde

·      Troplon

Peter Behrens

·      Made a poster called “The Kiss”

1877

·      Glasgow school of art.

·      Built around 4 different people.

o   Margaret and Francis McDonald.

o   Herbert McNair

o   Charles Renee Macintosh

·      Geometric, curvilinear elements. Elements that are curvy, not a lot of right angles. But has a rectilinear structure. Symbolism is a carry over from Victorian.

·      Herbert marries Francis and Charles marries Margaret

Talwin Morris

·      He gives a practical expression for he ideas of the 4.

·      People collected his spines of books.

Sessionstil

·      Austria

·      Break off from traditional group.

·      Goustaf Climnt, Kolomen Moser

·      1898

 




2. Personal Thoughts

I think that today's lesson was very informal. The movie was a it long, but then again I just prefer class movie clips to be shorter because then I start to get sleepy with the lights being off. I did learn a lot though. It was very interesting to know how long it took people to do patterned cloth and paper. It said that one project took 500, give or take, hours. It's also interesting learning about art nouveau. 

February 7, 2012

1. Notes

February 7, 2012

Timeline

·      Lascauz

·      Sumerian Cuneiform

·      Early Phoenician

·      Greek

·      Roman

Cuneiform

·      Cave painting as pictorial, elemental, abstract.

·      Cuneiform shows us pictures.

·      Become glyphs.

·      Capitals Quadrata – Square capitals.

·      Capitalism Rustica – Rustic capitals.

·      Caroline minuscule from the Alcuin bible.

·      Book of Kells created around 800 ad.

·      Xylography – wood printing, (xylophone made of wood)

·      Ars Memorandi -  deathly, instructions on how to die.

o   Books using block printing

o   Textura, black letter, gothic

·      What style of lettering did Guttenberg use? Gothic

o   Why? B/c that’s what people were using at that time.

·      Typographc printing

·      Growing middle class, student at universities, money taken from church. King of France not in favor of printing.

·       Mergenthaler gives us the linotype

·      letter of Indulgence – early example of letter press printing.

Xylography – ?

Ligature – letter forms cast as single character

Incunabula – first 50 year of printing

Fleurons – flowery, decorations

Caldarium – calendars, science, mathematics.

Steven Daye – amateur, printed book of psalms.

French Rococo

o   Rococo lent itself to copperplate engraving. You could draw directly on the plate with a stylus and have contrast between thick and thin.

Bodoni – modern

Posters

o   Decisions based on pragmatics, what will fit and what do I have enough of

Point size – highest to lowest

Leading – baseline to baseline

Ephemera – wasn’t intended to be preserved. Movie tickets, calendars, printed picture materials.

o   Scrap – meant to be thrown away, unimportant.

Trample effect – pages overlapping

Ladies home journal and The Practical Housekeeper– respected journal for women of the day. Had an interesting idea. When they write articles, not to mention products b/c they wanted them to believe them and trust them.

Books that are meant to entertain – most of it is about entertainment, maybe teach you something.

Bibles were sold by subscription.

Thomas Nast – did editorial illustrations of what was going on. Offered 500k from Bost Tweed.

Bicycles was used in ads back then b/c it just came out.

John Henry Heinz released a line of prepackaged foods, ends up with 57 pieces of food. Erects one of the largest signs in New York, corner of 5^th and 23^rd. One of the first people that employees are your marketing. Hire lots of young girls, display windows for people to see the girls working. Had a company store for women to buy clothes, and had a swimming pool and deck to be fit and tan.

2. Personal Thoughts

I thought that this class this week was simply a repeat or overview of the past notes with a couple new elements to the lesson. We took a test that I didn't do too well on, but I am a bad test taker. I am looking forward to learn more about type faces and what type faces started where and why. I just wish that there were more words on the slides for me to copy instead of trying to type while you are talking. It's difficult to get a lot of the information.