Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Day 13

Notes:
Semiotics is a philosophical theory of signs and symbols
-what things mean in relationship to each other
Swiss Design and The International Typographic style...
a philosophical way of thinking. More then grids.
Visual unity is achieved through asymmetrical organization.
Swiss thinking- design negative space, everything else works.
Asymmetry makes negative of ground active.
Embrace the objective of photography, sans serif type, flush left-rag right, mathematical grids, design as being socially useful.
Attitude is more important then the appearance.
Because of designers having grandiose ideals, design has been revolutionary.
A spiritual belief in the design... "what if?"
1950 a New school in Ulm, Germany until 1968
Contrast is very ideal
At this school, they introduced a study of semiotics.
syntax is order, semantics is meaning or referred to and pragmatics is how its used.
According to Jacques Derrida- everything is meaningless, we assign meaning.
Swiss Modernism vs New York Modernism
Paul Rand embraced European modernism
Saul Bass and Rand embraced handmade things, not perfect shapes.
Ivan Chermayeff collected items that are beautiful (Dorians favorite)
Advertising starts resembling the modernism movement in the 1940s
European with the Theoretical and New York with Pragmatic.
"The Big Idea"
"Conversations with Paul Rand"
Paul Rands work he is doing- paper ripped/just there/cut and paste/collages/cubist way of approaching art/modern/layers of paper/loose quick fun/organic.
Saul Bass:motion Film title:Man with the golden arm
Chermayeff did branding for everyone
Post Modernism is hard to define because everyone has a different opinion about it and also cause controversy.
Are we modern or post modern?
Form follows function. Seeking universal harmony. Structure order. Reaction to chaos. Social changes. Try to look at the world. Lets organize it. Make it nice and tidy.
Frank Gary is a post modern architect. 
Rose Mary is an influential Swiss designer that screwed with someone else's logo
1958: Wolfgang Weingart created chaos after thinking that international design was to clean and minimal. Companies see Swiss design as easy and when they design the cliche is formed because there is no theory.
Dan Freedman brought to America what he learned from the Swiss Design and the Weingart.
April Greiman copied off of Lissitzky and she's still alive in California doing work.
Memphis Design is an Italian design group that asked for More ! Their form didn't follow the function and is now the reason why design exists today. MIlano,Spain.
Michael Graves:Bauhaus and tea kettles



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Day 12

Notes:
Herbert Matter is a Swiss born American photographer/graphic designer.
He is important because of his uses with imagery and scale shifting.
His work influences New York School for Designers.
Swiss Gross is being articulated with what's around it.
Exaggerating scale ship/angled ship. Dynamic Graphic Type.
1936 Paul Rand comes to America and liked because he is seen as a normal guy.
Charles Ems makes the abstract of form to speak about.
Modern tradition that embraces abstractness.
Modernism was slow to take place in America.
He created an Ad for Knoll Furniture Company.
The Container Corporation of America made/invented cardboard boxes.
The corporation then hires A.M Cassandre and Herbert Matter to design ads and prints.
Embraced Modernism and European art
Tischold's elements of typography was not embraced.
Lester Beal works as a designer from in the 20s/30s
He is a self taught graphic designer/smart
When he's 35 he moves from Chicago to New York.
Becomes involved in the Corporate Design Movement
Recognizes Beal's visual contrast and elements.
Bizarre love for wood type which works really well for contrast modern design.
White space in contrast to the element, love arrows and lines do a lot of work for rural electrification administration.
Rural Electrification Administration uses forms that arent there
Communicating the most information with the least means
Like dots and diagonals, graphic silk screening becomes popular.
Works Progress Administration or WPA
They take an effort to employ millions of Americans
Built roads, bridges and art
They hired European artists to create posters that promoted modernism
Simplicity of form as necessity of medium
Silkscreen gets the most equity of paper
Thoughts:
Since I missed the lecture in the beginning of the class and I only got to see the film, I didn't really get the  full information. From what I know, Herbert Matter seems to be an amazing man. He influenced a whole school with his imagery and shifting of scales. From reading the notes, Charles Emes doesn't seem like he had a big affect on the world atleast not as much as Matter. Lester Beal is pretty lucky to have been able to taught himself graphic design and also being able to get involved in a corporation. WPA seemed like they really helped out a lot of people by employing millions of them.
Questions:
Saying that the Container Corporation of America invented/made cardboard boxes sounds kind of random. What purpose does that have to do with Graphic Design? How did Lester Beal get involved in a corporation with no experience in school?