Week NIne

Introduction

The following chapter was simply about post modernism. It signaled drastic changes in how the average American saw the society around him or her. This was an approach that was very different as compared to earlier movements such as the Renaissance or the Pop, Protest Era. Most scholars would agree that modernism began as early as in the late 19th century and continued to be a dominant cultural force all the way up until the 20^th century. Like all movements, modernism comprised and was composed of many competing individual directions and is impossible to define as a discrete unity or totality. It was recognized by its lively pastiche sensibility, its absorption of retro and techno motifs. Retro is a term that is used to describe, denote or classify culturally outdated or aged trends, modes, or fashions, from the overall postmodern past. But as time moved on have become functionally or superficially the norm once again. The use of "retro" style iconography and imagery interjected into American postmodern art, advertising, mass media, etc. has occurred from around the time of the U.S. Industrial Revolution to present day. It was also at this time that subcultures such as punk, beach culture, heavy metal and also grunge groups began to form and develop. They sought to disregard historical conditions and defined they ways of life in a different manner and tone.

It was during the late 1970’s and the 1980’s However, its chief general characteristics are often thought to include an emphasis on "radical aesthetics, technical experimentation, spatial or rhythmic, rather than chronological form, [and] self-conscious reflexiveness" as well as the search for authenticity in human relations, abstraction in art, and utopian striving. These characteristics are normally lacking in postmodernism or are treated as objects of irony. New Designers sought to disregard historical conditions and defined they ways of life in a different manner and tone, especially that of the International Style. Individuals that played a major role in this movement included April Greiman, Paula Scher, Wolfgany Weigngart, Rosmarie Tissi and Neville Brody.

Brief Boigraphy

April Greiman was a contemporary designer. She is recognized as one of the first designers to embrace computer technology as a design tool starting in the late 1970’s, for introducing the new wave. Her work evolved from her graduate education at Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland. As a student of Armin Hofmann and Wolfgang Weingart in the early 1970s, Greiman was not only influenced by the International Style, but also by Weingart’s introduction to the style later to become known as New Wave, an aesthetic less reliant on the Modernist heritage. Greiman is credited with establishing the New Wave design style to the US during the late 70s and early 80s, along with early collaborator Jayme Odgers.

Reflection

The International style was a major architectural style of the 1920s and 1930s. The term usually refers to the buildings and architects of the formative decades of Modernism, before World War II. The term had its origin from the name of a book by Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Philip Johnson written to record the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1932 which identified, categorized and expanded upon characteristics common to Modernism across the world. As a result, the focus was more on the stylistic aspects of Modernism. Hitchcock's and Johnson's aims were to define a style of the time, which would encapsulate this modern architecture. They identified three different principles: the expression of volume rather than mass, balance rather than preconceived symmetry and the expulsion of applied ornament. Everything seemed to be pushed to the extreme.All the works which were displayed as part of the exhibition were carefully selected, as only works which strictly followed the set of rules were displayed. Previous uses of the term in the same context can be attributed to Walter Gropes in Internationale Architektur, and Ludwig Hilberseimer in Internationale neue Baukunst

Postmodernism literally means the period after the modernist movement. While "modern" mean the present or futuristic. The movement of modernism and the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives. It is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of literature, drama, architecture, and design, as well as in marketing and business and the interpretation of history, law and culture in the late 20th century. Postmodernism is an aesthetic, literary, political or social philosophy, which was the basis of the attempt to describe a condition, or a state of being, or something concerned with changes to institutions and conditions as postmodernity. In other words, postmodernism is the "cultural and intellectual phenomenon", especially since the 1920s' new movements in the arts, while post modernity focuses on social and political outworking and innovations globally, especially since the 1960s in the West.

Summary

Postmodernism arose after World War II as a reaction to the perceived failings of modernism, whose radical artistic projects had come to be associated with totalitarianism or had been assimilated into mainstream culture. The basic features of what we now call postmodernism can be found as early as the 1940s, most notably in the work of Jorge Luis Borges However, most scholars today would agree that postmodernism began to compete with modernism in the late 1950s and gained ascendancy over it in the 1960s. Since then, postmodernism has been a dominant, though not undisputed, force in art, literature, film, music, drama, architecture and philosophy. Salient features of postmodernism are normally thought to include the ironic play with styles, citations and narrative levels, a metaphysical skepticism or nihilism towards the grand narratives of Western culture, a preference for the virtual at the expense of the real, and a “waning of affect” on the part of the subject, who is caught up in the free interplay of virtual, endlessly reproducible signs inducing a state of consciousness similar to schizophrenia.

Since the late 1990s there has been a widespread feeling both in popular culture and in academia that postmodernism has gone out of fashion. However, there have been few formal attempts to define and name the epoch succeeding postmodernism, and none of the proposed designations has yet become part of mainstream usage.

Week Eight

Introduction
The following chapters were simply about how graphic designers began to identify and label themselves. Citizens and inhabitants of the United States had come out pretty prosperous and also a conservative nation after World War II. Europe was undergoing a reconstruction and a reform as a result of this. Graphic designing began to take a different approach as compared to what Graphic Designing usually involved. They began to reflect there attitudes, moods, ideas etc in their advertising. This time around, their approaches were distilled into rationalist and functionalist. Graphic designers all over the world began to adapt strategies and other methods and ways in which they represent themselves that would not only make them stand out but also ones that would make them significant and unique. It has always been said that images and texts which graphic designers claim are universal are always referred to as “suspicious.” This is simply due to the fact that all forms of design and visual communication have evolved from one main source. As time moved on, things are added, removed and even modified. Logotypes were not any particular language but drew a so called universal language.

Time Era
The International Typographic Style, also known as the Swiss Style, is a graphic style that was developed in Switzerland in the 1950s that emphasizes cleanliness, readability and objectivity. Hallmarks of the style are asymmetric layouts, use of a grid, sans-serif typefaces like Akzidenz Grotesk, and flush left, ragged right text. The style is also associated with a preference for photography in place of illustrations or drawings. Many of the early International Typographic Style works featured typography as a primary design element in addition to its use in text, and it is for this that the style is named.
A typographic grid is a two-dimensional structure made up of a series of intersecting vertical and horizontal axes used to structure content. The grid serves as an armature on which a designer can organize text and images in a rational, easy to absorb manner. The less common printing term “reference grid,” is an unrelated system with roots in the early days of printing. During the 1950’s and the 1960’s, campaigns became corporations. These were usually associations of individuals, created by law or under authority of law, having a continuous existence independent of the existences of its members, and powers and liabilities distinct from those of its members. But most of these organizations crossed the border lines and were independent of authority or any sort of law. As a result many independent institutions were unsuccessful economically.

Personal Reflection
Graphic designers though were hired to provide identifiable images. Their work now involved large scale, co-coordinated communication campaigns that was meant to preserve and maintain the identity of a particular co-operation.
Slogans, catchy phrase and logo types began to develop in main steam corporations. Such institutions included UPS, Xerox and also JC Penny, to mention a few. Slogans were usually distinctive chants, phrases, or motto of any party, institution, manufacturer, or even a person. Good visual communication was able to easily gloss over irregularities. These were usually artfully misinterpretation of a specific company or organization. Representation was a far as how employees dressed up, and how they interacted with their immediate society. Their recognition therefore depended on clear and distinctive symbols rather than texts and images.
Ford was launched in a converted factory in 1903 with $28,000 in cash from twelve investors, most notably John and Horace Dodge (who would later found their own car company). During its early years, the company produced just a few cars a day at its factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other companies. Henry Ford was 40 years old when he founded the Ford Motor Company, which would go on to become one of the world's largest and most profitable companies, as well as being one to survive the Great Depression. As one of the largest family-controlled companies in the world, the Ford Motor Company has been in continuous family control for over 100 years.
In 2005, Ford Motor Company was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush.
Major Individuals
Max Bill
Josef Brockmann
Emil Ruder
Armin Hofmass
These were members of the Swiss 'Zurich Concrete' group. These were architects, painters, sculptors, politicians, educationalist in short, a 'universal creator'. They stressed highly logical, grid-system of making layouts. They analysed the principles of Concrete Art and sharpened Theo van Doesberg's definition as follows:

" we call those works of art concrete that came into being on the basis of their inherent resources and rules - without external borrowing from natural phenomena, without transforming those phenomena, in other words: not by abstraction. concrete art is independent in its characteristic features. it is the expression of the human spirit, intended for the human spirit, and it should have the sharpness, the clarity and the perfection that must be expected from the human spirit. concrete painting and sculpture imply creating something that is open to visual perception. their creative resources are colours, space, light and movement … concrete art is ultimately the pure expression of harmonious measure and law. it orders systems and uses artistic resources to give life to these orders … it strives for universality and yet it cultivates uniqueness. it suppresses things individualistic in favour of the individual." Bill also requires that art should find a mathematical mode of thought to guarantee that the creative principles can be controlled. In the mean time he sees this as only one of the possible methods, "a useful aid, through which ideas can acquire visible form."
Celebrities often led the way when it came to advertising and establishing one’s image. Artists, politicians, and also business leaders began to grasp the importance of their image. Long hair, short skirts, and highly in your face images became part of everyday of newspapers and magazines. A different side to sense of humor also began to develop. I refer to it as different because it was usually out of the usual and were more sophisticated because it was at this time that homosexually, sex, rockers, was being recognized and liberated. Consumers began to feel like they were being manipulated to indulge or event participate in these events and activities. Retouched images played with jolted perception. At a time were blackness, drugs, and also materialism, these were made sure to be made mention of in the mass media, be it television, radio, magazines, etc. Men were objectified as sex tools to satisfy women and vice versa.

Sources
History Of Graphic Designs
Abstractdesign.com
Wikipedia
Google Images

Week Seven

Introduction

In the following chapters, the book goes on to describe how graphic designing influenced major events that’s too place around this time frame. Graphic designing brought about a movement in the arts, 1929, from modern which was usually referred to as modernism. Modernism is a term that dates back as far as 1737. The general meaning is "deviation from the ancient and classical manner. Advertising had become so prominent in the early 19th century that it was literally used for anything you could possible think of. Images and pictures came to replace the simple notion of providing quality goods and services to its customers which were began to be referred to as consumers. Branding had built a solid foundation in the advertising industry and graphic designers were taking advantage of it. They began to enhance or polish products that indicated status rather than satisfying their needs. This was referred to as conspicuous consumption. This was basically the acquisition and display of expensive items to attract attention to one's wealth or to suggest that one is wealthy.
Time Era
Designing the modern lifestyle usually depicted one’s status and also one’s class. The house one lived in, the car they drive, were few of the many things that lead them to earn a pleasant and respected position in the society. Designers also helped promote all areas of buildings, clothes, cars, created by the culture of a given society. Cinemas, Neon Lights, and Phonographs also played their part in making such events glamorous and attractive. One attention could not help but be attracted to all the flashing lights; neon signs which without a doubt and catchy phrases. In order to make consumption fascinatingly attractive, exploiting new degrees of mobility and leisure was very necessary. New strategies were constantly tested and mediums through which these were done include packaging.
As a result, more products were sold as a result of their prestigious images and other elements that should out. This helped them to remain unique and something you had to have to prove yourself worthy of the status or category you wished to be placed in. Graphic Designing looked very different in the 1900’s. Different discoveries managed to make its way across the Atlantic through trade routes, merchants, and other designers across the globe. Most of these discoveries were experimented art.

Personal Reflection
Mass consumption began to take place as a result of mass production which was the beginning the American system of manufactures. In the middle of the nineteenth century Foreign engineers viewing production on the Western side of the Atlantic Ocean noticed some regularities in the way Americans seemed to do things. Their manufacturing industries made simpler and rougher goods, used much less skilled labor, and seemed to incorporate much more of the knowledge needed to run the process of production into machines and organizations--leaving much less in skilled workers' brains and hands. In the early years of 1929, the New York Stock Market had come to a complete stop and sources of employment had become a big burden of citizens all over the state. In order to the pace of work could be increased. Unskilled workers could be substituted for skilled labor. In other words, skilled and qualified workers would supervise unskilled and unqualified workers who were literate to some extent, not only because they understood procedures and processes of production, but also because they performed they same tasks of supervisors and were played much less than they were. Unskilled farm laborers, immigrants, minorities, and women were usually the victims and were left with n other options or choices. What else were they suppose to do when they had children to cater to and mouths to feed. It is quite ironic that foundation of the whole United States was built by slaves, immigrants and basically foreigners. Natural resources were often exploited from other countries which are now referred to as second and third world countries, to be brought into the United States. Slaves were made to work on these productions of cotton, wood and farm crops. Over 55 percent of the land we call the United States were once land to the Mexicans. Other parts of this land was derived as a result from banishing the Native Americans out of their land and claiming “they did not know how to use the land”
Summary
Public Interest and Campaigns also began to take new turns in the early 1900’s. Graphic Designers were called to a public service and their role was to impact society on political and social issues. Methods of presenting information gained clarity and its impact was embodied with a sense of urgency. During World War II, they only way information that could be made available to the public was through Public Communication. Information designers also adopted visual lexicons that were used for military, scientific and also statistical applications. A lot of information was presented in these magazines, pamphlets, newspapers, etc. Columns, Sections, etc were therefore necessary to compactly place these statistics in an organized manner.


Wartime Propaganda
• Posters were used to mobilize sentiment and action on all sides of the political conflict.
• Government resorted to graphic strategies to drum up war support
Women were encouraged to volunteer and support the military service

Wartime Information
• Diagrams and charts delivered crucial information that presented a dense amount of information in an economical and well organized form
• These encouraged graphic designers to adapt.

Now it is natural to be of two minds about this surge of product differentiation. It seems wasteful--sacrificing potential economies of scale for diversity--and deceptive: Coca-Cola doesn't "really" "add life," does it? Wearing celebrity-brand sneakers while listening to one's ipod does not "really" bring one closer to the lifestyles of rich and famous celebrities than does listening barefoot, does it? Maybe it does.

It makes you feel good about yourself, confident and gives you a little bit of self esteem. You would be surprised at the price difference of popular name brands compared to that of not so popular brands. These weren’t only in clothing and fashion. The products of mass production diffused through America was astonishing: not just automobiles but also washing machines, refrigerators, electric irons, electric and gas stoves--a whole host of inventions and technologies that greatly transformed that part of economic life that takes place within the household. For one of the major consequences of mass consumption was the building-up of the stock of capital goods for within-the-home production.
























Sources
History Of Graphic Design
Google Images

Week Six

Introduction
During the 1880’s and the 1900th, arts and crafts had begun to take over a new form. Designers had changed their overall approach to the methods of production due to the advancement in technology. Graphic Designing had always been used as a form of communicating ideas, opinions, values, and culture. This time around, their main focus was to deliberately address social and cultural issues that were at hand. It went on to talk multi disciplinary fields such as architecture, furniture and decoration, etc.

Time Era
Original styles of painting seemed never to be out of place during the early 1900’s, this was also because of the influence some people had, and how they placed emphasis on the importance of the working class and its effects on graphic designing. These individuals include Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. Everyday objects in our day to day life should be beautiful, precise, well designed and anything proved less of the inhabitants of that society.
The Arts and Crafts Movement began primarily as a search for authentic and meaningful styles for the 19th century and as a reaction to the eclectic revival of historic styles of the Victorian era and to "soulless" machine-made production aided by the Industrial Revolution. Considering the machine to be the root cause of all repetitive and mundane evils, some of the protagonists of this movement turned entirely away from the use of machines and towards handcraft, which tended to concentrate their productions in the hands of sensitive but well-heeled patrons.

Yet, while the Arts and Crafts movement was in large part a reaction to industrialization, if looked at on the whole, it was neither anti-industrial nor anti-modern. Some of the European factions believed that machines were in fact necessary, but they should only be used to relieve the tedium of mundane, repetitive tasks. At the same time, some Arts and Crafts leaders felt that objects should also be affordable. The conflict between quality production and 'dem

' design, and the attempt to reconcile the two, dominated design debate at the turn of the twentieth century.
Graphic designers and artists made journals and diaries in which their explained their views, opinions, etc of a particular situation at hand, they also made sure to add their suggestions and also recommendations. Paper was not easy to come across, so handmade paper was used instead. This was able to accelerate word of mouth and also allowed the word of these artists to spread rapidly and conveniently. Vendors to publish journals were usually kiosks and bookstores. This was thus made available to the whole public and furthermore anyone who was interested in reading them. Obviously filled with sensitive topic that could easily cause a protest or uproar was written in these journals. I would also say that the vendor also took a risk upon himself to sell particular diaries of certain artists.


Personal Reflection
The whole United States of America was influenced by this, especially the Midwest and Eastern parts of the states. This began to influence forms and ways of cultivating thinking. It then resulted in Public Opinion. Different artists in the world began to diverge from common forms of artistry and began to adopt unique styles that singled them out from their counterparts in other parts of the world. These were Paris, Berlin and also Vienna.


Fortunately, new forms of this artistry were referred to as Art Nouveau. Developed in during the 1890’s though 1900’s, this new artistry explored a new style in the visual arts and architecture that developed in Europe and North America at the end of the nineteenth century. The exhibition is divided into three sections: the first focuses on the 1900 World's Fair in Paris, where Art Nouveau was established as the first new decorative style of the twentieth century; the second examines the sources that influenced the style; and the third looks at its development and fruition in major cities in Europe and North America.
At its height exactly one hundred years ago, Art Nouveau was a concerted attempt to create an international style based on decoration. It was developed by a brilliant and energetic generation of artists and designers, who sought to fashion an art form appropriate to the modern age. During this extraordinary time, urban life as we now understand it was established. Old customs, habits, and artistic styles sat alongside new, combining a wide range of contradictory images and ideas. Many artists, designers, and architects were excited by new technologies and lifestyles, while others retreated into the past, embracing the spirit world, fantasy, and myth.
Art Nouveau was in many ways a response to the Industrial Revolution. Some artists welcomed technological progress and embraced the aesthetic possibilities of new materials such as cast iron. Others deplored the shoddiness of mass-produced machine-made goods and aimed to elevate the decorative arts to the level of fine art by applying the highest standards of craftsmanship and design to everyday objects. Art Nouveau designers also believed that all the arts should work in harmony to create a "total work of art," or Gesamtkunstwerk: buildings, furniture, textiles, clothes, and jewelry all conformed to the principles of Art Nouveau.
Judgendstil was an artistic Artistic style that arose near the end of the 19th century in Germany and Austria. Its name was derived from the Munich magazine Die Jugend ("Youth"), founded in 1896, which contained Art Nouveau designs. Its early phase, primarily floral in character, was rooted in English Art Nouveau and Japanese prints; a more abstract phase emerged after 1900. Primarily a style in architecture and the decorative arts, it also included the great Austrian painter Klint Gustav.
Other forms of artistry also developed which were mainly Decadence Aestheticism and also French Symbolism. These were often suggestive and filled with twists. Nude women, men, and also animals were in these pictures. These were basically an expression of renaissance fostered by Arts and Craftsmen. Cobden Sanders and Emery Walker took over Dove Press though and made some drastic changes. They resorted to only using the best material and also the finest workmanship. As a result, elegant type and exquisite printing were usually outcome of their work.

Summary
During this same time, a critical foundation for professional practice was built. There was revolution and people started to become more aware of spiritual intergrity and they began to react to the developing technology around them. They were newly defined principles of graphic designing which was also a factor and agent of social change.

This was during World War 1. Mass media, public opinion, and persuasion went hand in hand during this time. Photo graphic images were becoming very popular and motion pictures created more excitement in the entertainment industry. Never before had people seen moving, live pictures.
They used to still pictures that told a story while it stood still, but in this case, moving pictures could do a lot more than make an onlooker guess what he or she is doing or about to do, according to the texts that usually came with pictures. The way in which information was spread caused it to be recognized, which influenced major key players in Graphic Designing make it an academic field. The name given to the institution which taught this was called Bauhaus. Bauhaus was influential, forward-looking German school of architecture and applied arts. It was founded by Walter Gropius with the ideal of integrating art, craftsmanship, and technology. Realizing that mass production had to be the precondition of successful design in the machine age, its members rejected the Arts and Crafts’s emphasis on individually executed luxury objects. The Bauhaus is often associated with a severe but elegant geometric style carried out with great economy of means, though in fact the works produced by its members were richly diverse.

Source
History of Graphic Design
Wikipedia
Google Images
An Introduction to Art Nouveau