Thesis 2

Neville Brody pushed the boundaries of visual communications in various areas of media--including newspaper design, album art, typography, and corporate identity design--through his challenging, creative, and experimental work.

Thesis

Neville Brody provides a forerunning example of how innovative typefaces can be incorporated and combined into designs, creating a bridge between typography and graphic design.

Chapter 20

World War II brought about many technological advances. People began to consume more and more and art became the means of making this occur. "good design is good business", was the motto for the graphic design community during the 1950s. Design became a way to convince customers of the reliability and quality of an object.

Even though visual symbols had been used for identification for centuries, the visual identification system of the 1950s took the ideas of the past even farther than simple trademarks and symbols. This began with designers putting their personal mark on the works they developed for clients. This started with Behrens at AEG with Olivetti Corporation.

The Columbia Broadcasting Stystem, otherwise known as CBS in New York City became a forerunner for the corporate identity system. This was mostly due to the president, Frank Stanton who realized that art and design had serious potential when it came to their business. He came up with the idea for a single typeface and overall design to be used in all aspects of the company.

The US government eventually began th Federal Design Improvement Program in the 1970s. This was due to the realization that design is an important tool for achieving goals. It was organized by the Architectural and Environmental Arts Program. All areas of federal design was upgraded due to this program.

Most Interesting:

What I found most interesting of this chapter was how the MTV logo was manipulated in Pat Gorman and Frank Olinsky's logo. It was called the "puzzle" logo and was assembled, dismantled, melted, shattered, but still was identified by the audience.

After Class 4/12

We talked about New York School and how important it was to the development of graphic design in society. Magazine covers became very important as well as movie posters. America also used, in 1965, for the first time, someone who wasn't caucasian in their advertising. It was for a Jewish rye bread. This period of design was interesting because there were many social issues going on including the Vietnam war and women's rights.

Question:

UW GB found a cheaper way to print, which can save up to $10000 in ink costs every year.

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/cba5cc6c175649998718d2915ab005f8/WI-ODD--Cheaper_E-mail_Font/

What are some other things that people interested in typography can do to change society, such as this? We looked at highway signs and now this, but what are some other examples?

New York School

The New York School of advertising reached it's height in the 60's. It started by European immigrants in the 1940's. When it came to America, artists introduced their originality. It was a little looser and free-flowing. New York was a "cultural incubator" due to the amount of people that came through, when immigrating, therefore there was a surge of different cultures. One of the pioneers of NY School was Paul Rand. He was an editorial designer who was influenced by visual forms and universal signs. He attempted to upgrade taste and designed a poster for the AIGA. Alvin Lustig also was a pioneer and was a graphic design that moved between interior design, graphic design and architecture. He was an advocate for symbols.

The Yale School of Art sponsored the first ever graphic design program at a creditable university. They hied Alvin Eisenman to direct the program. They mad a lot of major graphic designers come in and give seminars and teach classes.

Editorial design was an important part of the 1940's. But very few magazines were actually designed well. Cipe Pineles was a major artists for various magazines such as Glamour and Seventeen. Experiments began with large-format publication, by using two-ages for large images with large type. Despite these changes there was still a need for new editorial design.

Designers moved into a movement of typographic expressionism. They began to use different display fonts to illustrate an idea with scratched torn and bent display fonts, moving away from legibility.

New York School was inspired by city life, abstract expressionism, Surrealism, and Jazz. It occured after World War II in which artists were interested in European avantgarde and modernism. New York School began to inspire a lot of the Pop Art movement.

After Class 4/9

First we went over our questions and talked about different graphic designs schools.

We then talked about Modernism of the United States. Overall America was really changing due to war and the economy and design was less flat and more texturized with a 3d appearance. We also saw the presentation of International Typographic Style which is also called Swiss Style which allowed for faster communication and increased global trade. It had a mathematically constructed grid.

Question:

I'm going to the exhibit Street Seen in Milwaukee. What style would that fall into? Or is photography totally seperate?

Chapter 18

In the 1950's a new movement emerged in Switzerland and Germany. It has been called Swiss deign but also The International Typographic Movement. Critics complained that it was based on a formula with results in the same solution. Others said that its purity gave designers means to achieve a perfect form.

The International Typographic Movement showed how the visual unity of design is achieved by asymmetrical organization of design elements on a mathematical grid. Sans Serif types were used in flush left ragged right alignment and the visual elements were clear and factual.

Various grids and also sans serif type were used because it reflected the spirt of the age, and of the 1950's.

There were plenty of new Swiss sans-serif typefaces, including the Univers font created by Adrian Frutiger. Edouard Hoffman created Helvetica and Hermann Zapf developed Palatino.

Emil Ruder taught his student that legibility and readability are primary concerns.

Josef Muller-Brockman was the leader of the movement. He sought to show an objective and impersonal communication to the audience.

American Kitsch

Kitsch is a German word that means "in bad taste". Kitsch is typically used to described pretentious, vulgar, or overly sentimental art. This term does not describe the "American Kitsch" style very well. Because of this it is also referred to as "50s art".
James Dean helped pave the path for the youth of America breaking out and dressing in an independent adult type fashion. Tshirts became a much bigger norm. This look was adapted by Artists and Bohemians.
American Kitsch was slightly futuristic with dramatic curves and lines. These curves became a staple of the 50s. It can be seen in automobiles and architecture such as the Las Vegas casino designs and diners.
Anything "atomic" was also a common theme in the 50s along with kidney shapes and stackable chairs. "American Gothic" became a part of pop culture as well along with posters featuring Uncle Sam and heroes of comic books who began to develop dramatic qualities.
A well known artist of the era, Rockwell, was an American Illustrator who was famous for his idealized idea of small-town suburbia America. He Painted 322 covers for the Saturday Evening Post.
Casual-looking handwritting styled typefaces became popular during the American Kitsch period along with caricatured images.
Advertising shifted and products began to be promoted with bright, loud and obnoxious packaging. Celebrities also were very popular to be used in ads during the 50s.

Chapter 15

Chapter 15 discusses A New Language of Form. Cubism begins to permeate into all areas of Visual Art. But Visual art also moves beyond the restraints of pictorial imagery and into the invention of pure form. The ideas about form and using space from painting to sculpture was quickly applied to the problems of design. Modern design is not a step child of the fine arts. Innovation became very apparent in art and designs and new ideas were presented often. By the end of WWI, graphic designers, architects and products designers began to push the boundaries of form and function within visual art. During this time Russia began to go through an era of political troubles. Due to this cubo-futurism was developed, a mixture of cubism and futurism. This style was a reaction to the values of czarist Russia.

Supermatism was founded by Kasimir Malevich. This was a painting style that included basic forms, pure color, and nonobjective geometric abstraction.

Art's purpose began to be questioned as spiritual or social. Constructivism was founded due to this conflict. It is categorized with three words; tectonics, texture and construction. Texture is how materials were used, Tectonics was how communist ideology was used visually, and construction represented the process of visual organization.

In the Netherlands the De Stijl movement began. It was characterized with abstract geometric styles that sought harmony. The works were purely abstract and consisted of dynamic movement and balance.

Interesting fact:

Within the De Stijl style, curved lines were almost completely eliminated and sans serifs began to be much more favored as a typeface.

After Class 3/19

Kevin gave his presentation on New Objectivity and Peter Behrens. The new century brought about a need for new direction. Art and design permeated into social, technical and cultural areas.

Peter Behrens was a German artist, architect, and designer. He sought typographic reform. He is also considered the "first industrial designer". He formed the AEG and came from a wealthy family. He was orphaned at age 14. He loved art and pursued it when he began school. In his later years he came to believe that architecture and typography defined the types. He developed his own typography called "Behrenschrift". With this he combined blackletter type with the Roman style. He focused on the needs of the industry and had the formal eye of a pointer and the structural apporach of an architect. With this he created the first visual identity system. This is something people associate immediately with something else based upon its color, logo, and type.

Question: I was wondering about the sort of architecture Peter Behrens influenced and if there is evidence of it around it today.

Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens was a German artist, architect and designer. He developed a path for design in the first decade of the new century. He wanted typographic reform, and also was an early fan of sans-serif type. He developed a grid system that was used to structure space in his design layouts He is considered the "first industrial designer". He manufactured many different products such as street lamps and teapots. He also worked for the Allgemeine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft. Also known as AEG. This company was considered the first comprehensive visual identification program.

Behrens was orphaned at age 14 but he was left a considerable amount of money from his father's estate. This helped him evolve in to the figure he is seen as today. He studied art in Hamburg and chose it as his career.

He embraced the German version of Art Nouveau, Jugendstil when he abandoned social realism. He also designed his own house and all the furniture, including everything in it, demonstrating total design. He was concerned about designs forms of social, technical, and cultural aspects. He believed that typography, after architecture was "the most characteristic picture of a period, and the testimonial of the spirtual progress" and "development of a people." Behrens standardized strokes used to construct his letter forms unlike previous styles.

Eventually Behrens began to accept commissions for architecture and moved away from graphic and product design. He centered around this and eventually his advanced thinking inspired further developments in later years.

Most Interesting:

What I found most interseting was Behrens interest in architecture and how he designed EVERYTHING in his own house.

After Class 3/17

CLASS

Patrick gave his presentation on The Genesis of Twentieth century. This was a period in which rtists questioned the status quo of the times and began to develop modern style typeface.

We talked about Frank Lloyd Wright who was an architect who was ahead of his time. He managed to maintain recognition world wide and was also a graphic designer. He is considered the most amazing architect of all time.

Next we talked about the Glasgow School which was made up of 4 Scottish student artists. who became known as The Four. They introduced new geometric designs, and flowing contours. Jessie Marion King and Tawlin Morris were inspired by Glasgow School. King created a unique medieval style fantasy illustrations. Morris became the director of Glasgow publishing firm of Blackie's.

The Vienna Secession was a movement started by students at the Kunstlerhaus resigned due to a disgust for few ideas in their fields of study. It was a countermovement to Art Nouveau. Ver Sacrum was a magazine that was a design laboratory and had a ever changing editorial staff.

Question: What was the problem with art nouveau that the students of Kunstlerhaus found?

Chapter 12

This Chapter discussed the Genesis of the 20th Century. Art Nouveau inspired artists to begins innovating new things and technologies. Industrial advances were vast during the Genesis. The works of Frank Lloyd Wright, an american architect, became widely known throughout Europe within circles of artists and designers.

The Vienna Secession came about when young members of Kunstlerhause began to protest. Foreign artists were not aloud to exhibit in the Kunstlerhause . The Vienna Secession became the countermovement for Art Nouveau.

The Genesis of the 20th century brought about a break from art nouveau in German, Scotland, and Austria. They paved new directions due to their personal and societal needs. They maintained a concern for spatial relationships, inventive form, and functionality.

THE MOST INTERESTING: The most interesting fact I found was Peter Behrens as the first industrial designer. He manufactured products such as street lamps and teapots.

AFTER CLASS chapter 10

AFTER CLASS

The Arts and Craft movement is characterized by a shift from industrial-inspired art works towards nature-inspired botanical related works. functional.

Industrial revolution had a social impact that affected design

Robert Owen= made fortune in cotton. Shocked by living conditions of factory workers and child labor. established a model village that respected workers and living conditions. believed there was a connection between morality and enviornment.

Britain began to change as it was leading world in industrial power. middle class grew with better working conditions.

William Morris. Biggest impact on the AC movement. Came from a wealthy family. wanted to give workers respectful professions. wasn't divided labor, designers were a part of process from beginning to end. wanted art for everyone, for the common man. Started making stained glass but construction of churches began to decline. started working towards making wallpapers and textiles. inspired by nature. Known for book design. Carefully planned everything. Began the Kelmscott Press business. Renaissance of book design. This idea spread around the world.

The Century Guild:

Arthur Mackmurdo= inspired by Italian architecture. Gathered together artists and designers and began an organization. They rejected industrial revolution and machines. Came up with The Hobby Horse, a magazine devoted to design. Believed that all visual expression deserved the title of art.

Charles R Ashbee= wanted to bring AC back to a social thing. Started The Guild of Handicraft. students were taught as apprentices.

Chapter 10

SUMMARY:

The Arts and Crafts movement was a result of a variety of events. First of all the quality of book design and production declined due to the Industrial Revolution. William Pickering played an important part in reversing this and separating graphic design and printing production. The decline in book design continued for some time. Eventually a revival occurred. This revival first treated a book as a special and unique piece of art. This influenced commercial production, and was in general a direct product of the Arts and Crafts movement. This movement flourished in England at the end of the nineteenth century. It was a reaction against social, moral, and artistic confusing that occurred during the Industrial Revolution. It was encouraged to return to design and handicraft. The leader of the Arts and Crafts movement was William Morris.

John Ruskin was a writer and artist that inspired the philosophy of the movement. He asked how society could order the lives of its members "so as to maintain the largest number of noble and happy human beings". Ruskin was concerned with social justice, and improving housing for industrial works, a national education system and retirement benefits.

William Morris on the other hand was a pivotal figure in the history of graphic design. He decided to become an artist instead of a clergyman. He struggled with romantic paintings but was never fully satisfied with the work. He joined instead with six friends to start an art decorating firm (Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company). He proved himself as an amazing two-dimensional pattern designer. Art and craft had the ability to combine and create beautiful objects from bedding to buildings.

Arthur H. Mackmurdo met William Morris. He was inspired by the ideas and accomplishments he had in design. Mackmurdo studied the Renaissance and eventually led a group of youthful artists and designers to band together and start the Century Guild. Their designs provided a link between the Arts and Crafts movement and Art Nouveau. The started The Hobby Horse, which was publication devoted completely to visual arts. This publication sought to proclaim the philosophy of the The Century Guild. It displayed Arts and Crafts through typography, graphic design and print making. Mackmurdo was a forerunner for the private press movement and the revival of book design. The Century Guild disbanded in 1888.

Individuals concerned with the craft revival came together to form the Art Workers Guild in 1884. The opened their first exhibition and changed their name to the Arts and Crafts exhibition. William Morris was on tapestry weaving, Walter Crane on design, and Emery Walker on design and printing. They advocated a unity of design. Morris moved into typeface design and printing. He enlarged incunabula typeface to study their forms and counter forms. He began a new enterprise called the Kelmscott Press. The influence of Morris and his press on graphic design and book design showed the value in a well-made book, beautiful typeface designs, and a sense of design unity.

MOST INTERESTING: What I found most interesting was that the quality of book design declined at this time. Seems as if that craft was lost pretty quickly which is surprising.

After Class 2/2

AFTER CLASS:

Today in class we reviewed what we went over previously. We talked about illuminated manuscripts and the evolution from Egyptian Hieroglyphics to styles such as Carolinian, Spanish, and Celtic. We also talked about the invention of writing starting with the Caves of Lascaux and cuneiform.

Question:

My question is why is it that Celtic was so monumental in the time period?

Chapter 9

SUMMARY:
The Industrial Revolution was a tremendous change of social and economic proportions. It wasn't just a time period. Energy took on a whole new meaning with the use of animal and human power and the emergence of factories. Cities grew quickly along with population. Political power became more important than the aristocracy that ruled prior centuries. Manufacturing dominated production and science became important in improving it. The capitalist replaced the landowner and nearly everything became a matter of efficiency.
With the emergence and frequency of manufacturing, this obviously led to a significant increase in typeface innovation. It was no long solely a matter of 26 letters and grammatical symbols but rather letters became visual and abstract forms. Major design innovators of this time were the London type founders. These type founders assisted in the shift mentioned above by inventing a more decorative type. They also developed the "bold" type and sans serif.
During the economically important time the woodtype was developed to replace the heavy metaltypes used in printing. They were expensive and difficult to produce. The wooden types were light, cheap and just as efficient. Printing also took a big shift when the steam-powered printing press was invented. Next it was modified more when the first version of the type writer was released. This sped up newspaper printing and book making.
Photography also became an important part of this era of change. Photography was initially a research tool that was used to developed wood-engraved illlustrations. It was used to capture major events and eventually became a very important part in mass communication. Many different people worked at developing a simpler process for photography. It began to define human history and began to capture very important events such as the Civil War.

Most Intersting
I found Victorian typography and other parts of this period very interesting. I sort of wish I would have done my project on this!

WEEKLY IMAGE

Gold Leaf Keyboard!

Other than looking AMAZING, this keyboard has a typical keyboard function. Plus its has had a gold leaf applied to it.

I am very interested in gold leaf and illuminated manuscripts so I perused flickr in hopes of finding something interesting.

The letters upon the keys are sans serif. They are simple an easy to read. They object itself has a gold leaf applied to it.

Obviously it's pretty intense considering that the keyboard as a whole as the gold leaf. This definitely took a great deal of craftsmanship.

I am very attracted the the effort used with the gold leaf. It has a pleasing effect to the eye and is very nice looking.

Lately in class we have discussed the various uses of the gold leaf in relation to illuminated manuscripts. This shows how this technique has been translated into this generation.

After Class 2/19

SUMMARY:

Today in class we had our debate about three different Renaissance men. The first man was Erhard Ratdolt. He was one of the men that made steps towards a printed book.  He was a master printer and invented the first title page for a book. We talked about Aldus Manutius which my group talked about. He had a vision to publish the ideas of the great thinkers of Roman and Greek scholars. He also developed the italicized type. We also talked about Geoffroy Tory. Besides being someone who made significant leaps in the world of typography he was also a professor, scholar, translator, poet, author, publisher, printer, bookseller, calligrapher, designer, illustrator, and engraver. He basically did it all! He was an excellent definition of a Renaissance Man.

MOST INTERESTING:

A very interesting fact was how Geoffroy Tory developed so many different punctuation marks still used today.

QUESTION: A question I have is how punctuation was really developed into what it is today? Its just strange to me how it became what it is now.

Chapter 7

SUMMARY 

Our Renaissance man was Aldus Manutius, who is arguably the most influential Italian designer of his time. He founded the Aldine Press in Venice when he was forty-five because it was his dream to publish the great Greek and Roman works. He recruited his staff, which was comprised of important scholars and skilled technical workers who helped him print a five-volume edition of Aristotle .

Manutius's publications were famous for their beautiful combinations of typography and illustrations. In 1501 he decided that he wanted to publish a smaller, pocket sized book. The prototype for this was Vergil's Opera. He and his partner, Griffo, developed the first italic style typeface for this book. Around 1502, Manutius and Griffo went their separate ways. Griffo became unsuccessful without his partner, unable to sell is original designs to other printers. Manutius, however, continued to thrive and print many classical editions in his pocket book size with italic typefaces and was successful until the day he died in 1515. Design innovation ended in Venice with the departure of Manutius and Griffo.

MOST INTERESTING 

The most interesting thing I found in the reading is how unsuccessful Griffo was after he left Manutius. Griffo supposedly designed the popular italic typeface design, and his designs made Manutius's company famous.

Chapter 8

SUMMARY

The use of Graphic Design was slightly declined during the 1600's, but during the 1700's typography came about much more. Scholars began to develop a new type for the King of France. These letters were designed "scientifically". The new type face had an increase in contrast between the weight of the strokes.

The French art style, rococo, flourished in art in architecture and began to influence the graphic design aspect of the area. Fournier le Jeune developed an independent type-style. He developed decorative types. They worked remarkably well with roman fonts. Overall printing can be referred to as "the artillery of the intellect". Engraving also emerged as a technique of graphic design. Engraving is drawing made with a graver instead of a pencil. This can be done on a smooth copperplate instead of a sheet of paper. Engravers became very skillful. They began to produce books independent of typographic printers. They hand engraved both illustrations and text.

Type and design ideas traveled across the continent from Holland, where William Caslon emerged as a forerunner of type design.  He opened his own shop that showcased his engraving skills. He began to take up type design and founding and was very successful. His type designs were not very fashionable or innovative. But they were very popular due to their legibility and sturdiness. They were comfortable to read. He worked in the old style of roman typography and graphic design that had began over 200 years ago. 

John Baskerville was an innovator who broke rules of design and printing and produced 56 editions from his press. The paper he used have a smooth, glossy furface that had not yet been seen before. The most ambitious book he published was a folio Bible. This book was seen with indifference and hostility. The design of the type and books became very important across the continent and many people became very enthusiastic about his work.

The term modern defines a new category of roman type. It was first used by Fournier le Jeune in his Manual typographique to describe the design trends that culminated in Bodoni's mature work. These were thin, straight serifs. Bodoni made letters that were created through a combination of very limited identical units. His work was very dcorative and functional. The page design was simple and had generous margins with wide letter and line spacing. 

Overall this was the era of typography and the slow emergence of graphic design during the 18th century and in Europe.

MOST INTERESTING: 

The most interesting thing I found was how the book talked about William Blake. I thought it was very interesting how he incorporated the style of expressionism, Art Nouveau, and abstract art within his work with bright colors and organic forms.

After Class 2/17

CLASS 2/17

In class today we talked about the emergence of printing in Europe and how graphic desing was slowly introduced as well. One of the first signs of printing in history was the use of chops in Asia. The chops were used for identification. Another theory of the first sign of printing would be the Phaistos disk, which was a relief print (or xylography) found on an island near Crete in 2000 B.C. The Chinese began to move towards movable type but ceased due to the abundance of characters their language contains (44,000 at the time). As printing came to Europe playing cards became some of the first objects to be produced. They broke the social classes, allowing everyone to make use of them. Gutenberg was inspired by cheese and wine presses and went through a great deal of drama to achieve his goal of inventing printing. He used punches to type. The process of printing contained many jobs such as; producing parchment, paper making, arranging the type, removing sheets from press, illustrating, cutting woodblock, applying color and gold leaf, and book binding. Playing cards and prayer cards began to be printed in mass quantities. Metal prints were used for movable type along with copperplate engravings. We discussed "incunabula period". The word incunabula means "cradle" or "baby linen". It symbolized a new birth of printing and typography.

MOST INTERESTING:

What I found most interesting was how the Starbucks logo evolved from a French watermark.

QUESTION:

What I find intersting is the gold leaf aspect. How was this done exactly?

Chapter 6

Summary:

The emergence of graphics within texts occurred quickly after Gutenberg produced his printed book. Printing spread very rapidly and by 1500 over 140 towns were practicing this technique. Over nine million books were produced in this time. Book prices declined quickly. Typography can be considered a major communications advance between the invention of writing and electronic communication. Printing played an immense role in the social, economic, and religious changes occurring during the 15th and 16th centuries. Illiteracy declined very very quickly. Learning shifted into a private process instead of something involving a community. The Renaissance began to change information systems by creating two new visual systems. Painting could display illusions of the natural world and typography created repeated information and space. Very few printers still at this time could contribute to the advancement of graphic design, but design innovation began to occur in Germany with the publication of The Apocalypse. This was a book that illustrated surprising emotion through very graphic expressiveness. 

MOST IMPORTANT:

The most important aspect of this chapter would have to be the publication of The Apocalypse which managed to incorporate the use of graphics along with typography to evoke emotion.

Chapter 5

SUMMARY: 

Chapter 5 discusses the emergence of printing within Europe. Xylography is the technical term for the relief printing from a raised surface which we observe in Asia. Typography on the other hand is a term for printing exclusively with independent, movable and recyclable pieces of metal or wood. Each piece of material has a raised letterform upon it. Typography is an invention that is almost as important as the actual creation of writing. It was a huge advance in society and allowed many different effects. It allowed the economical production of the alphabet and let knowledge and learning spread quickly. Literacy increased and the demand for books went up. Europe soon was introduced to woodblock printing as well. Most book blocks contained about thirty to fifty pages. The system of movable type was sought all over Europe including Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy. Johann Gutenberg, who can be considered the father of movable type went through a great ordeal to achieve this status including lawsuits, new partners, and debt. Eventually he ended up with the forty-two line Bible. Sales of the book were quick and he did reasonably well, to say the least. Soon after Gutenberg's pivotal "invention" a long volume explaining religious ceremonies was produced featuring, for the first time, small-sized type to conserve space and the amount of text on each page. 

MOST IMPORTANT:

Obviously the most important and innovative subject of this chapter is Gutenberg's first printed book with movable type. This is also very interesting considering the hassle it took in order to reach this title.

Week 1 Image

Chinese calligraphy meaning "Eternal Life".
Tattoo
My sister
Kanji form of Chinese calligraphy
It's a very simple tattoo, I don't know if the quality is well done. To me it looks even and nicely done.
I was drawn to this tattoo as it was my sisters. Its very simple and makes a statement.
This relates to what we have read as it is a form of Chinese calligraphy and shows how it has survived until this age.

Greek tattoo the word "charis" meaning "grace" in English
Tattoo
My sister's wrist. (upside down in this photo)
Written modern Greek language in the Greek form of script.
Again, it is a simple tattoo. I like how it was written and seems to be done well.
I was attracted to this tattoo in particular because it is a different form of Greek than the ancient one in which we studied. It flows more than the ancient alphabet and has a more cursive-look to it.
This relates to our discussion as it is an example of how the Greek language has changed from the ancient form it once was.

After Clas 2/10

CLASS 2/10

Today we did in-class presentations. We first talked about Spanish Illuminated Design. When the Moorish army defeated the Spanish, the civilization was basically one big prisoner of war under the Moorish. The Moorish began to develop manuscripts by mixing Islamic tradition with the Christian design. This was characterized by flat shapes with intense colors. There were many included animals and displays of apocalyptic scenes.

The Romanesque and Gothic styles were a little meshed together. The Romanesque style had a renewed religious feeling in which monasticism reached its peak. It gave a new emphasis on the linear design of script. The Gothic style emerged from advance towns developing into cities and money becoming a main source of wealth. The developed "textura", a very bold style of lettering. They added color blocks to the end of lines to take up space. The Gothic style was a big contrast from the typical rounded lettering we have seen before. It was also very abstract.

Judaic manuscripts evolved from the Jewish people be dispersed during the "Dispora". Because of this migration there is not a specifically defined style of manuscripts. They mostly focused on Jewish history, usually covering the Exodus from Egypt and Jewish celebrations such as Passover. They also contained Hebrew calligraphy.

The Islamic script is very beautiful and is most often found in the form of their holy book, the Koran. There are also typically no pictures as their religion holds the belief that only God is the creator. This is also an early form of cursive with all letters being connected with no beginning or end.

The Late Medieval period was dark. Manuscripts were popular for private use, specifically the Book of Hours which contained religious texts for every hour of the day. They also contained minature paintings. These were pretty little paintings that used atmospheric perspective. They were realistic and had a lot of depth. These paintings were used to create a calendar with pictures for each moth. There were many more paintings used than typography, but when script was used it was usually Textura from the Gothic style.

MOST MEANINGFUL: I believe the most meaningful bit of information this class period was the Celtic development of spaces between words. This makes reading very simple and obviously it translated today as well.

QUESTION: Anything about Judaism interests me. My question is what is Diaspora?

Chapter 4

SUMMARY

Illuminated Manuscript is a term used for handwritten books with the look of being illuminated through the application of gold leaf and its reflection of light. The gold leaf gave a dazzling effect but the production was expensive and time-consuming. It was applied in different ways but the preferred method was hammering gold into a fine sheet and then adhering it to another material. The illustration and decoration of the manuscripts were not just decorations. They pictures also contained very fantastical and spiritual clues. The manuscripts were small enough to fit into a saddle bag. This allowed them to be transferred simply from one area to another and then gradually through time. These books had the ability to further vocabulary through graphics, pages, illustrations, and typography. The was an important forerunner in graphic design.

MOST INTERESTING

What I think is the most interesting was what happened in the early Christian era. They had specific rooms made for making manuscripts. The head of this production was a early version of an art director. 

ILLUMINATED PRESENTATION

CELTIC MANUSCRIPT--

the look of the style:

Celtic design is abstract and extremely complex. Geometric linear patterns weave, twist, and fill space with thick visual textures and bright pure colors. The design is also intricate and decorative.

the history & influence of the style:

During the collapse of Rome during the 8th Century there was a time of migration and upheaval throughout Europe. Different ethnic tribes fought for territory. These unsettled times were the darkest decades of the medieval era.

The Celts living in Ireland enjoyed relative isolation and peace.

In the 5th century, St. Patrick and other missionaries began to convert Celts to Christianity. The mixed culture and religion transformed Pagan temples into churches. Celtic ornaments were used in religious objects.

the key designers within the style:

Celtic design developed a lot of monograms that were used a lot in the bible. The book of Kells is the culmination of Celtic illumination. It has more full page demonstrations than any other Celtic manuscript.

the typography of the style:

A big innovation derived from the Celtics was the invention of spacing between words to help read a string of letters faster. They wrote in half-unical with full rounded characters, strong bows, and ascenders that bend to the write with a heavy triangle on to of these ascenders. It was written very carefully because of the intricate, artistic design. When you look back on the documents, there is a lot of grammatical errors because they focused so much on the design of it.

After Class 2/8

CLASS

Today in class we discussed how written language evolved into an alphabet. An alphabet is a set of symbols or characters that are used to represent elementary sounds in language. We discussed the use of logograms (like the $) sign. The Phaisotos Disk was an early example of not only movable type but also stamping, and printing. Next came the Phoenician alphabet that lacked vowels. The Greeks followed with a prettier and vowel-inclusive language. They developed 'uncials' which was a rounded way of script.

Rome developed the Latin alphabet. They were greatly influenced by the Greeks and developed Serifs. There are different theories as to how these "flags" were added onto characters. The Arabic written language was also developed and was very beautiful, along with the Korean alphabet.

Parchment was invented but was always organized in the form of scrolls, and Christians began to frequently use the codex.

The Chinese culture contributed greatly to the written language with their development of calligraphy. It was a more abstract form of writing that was very artistic. It began with the inventor examining claw marks and footprints from animals. Calligraphy evolved many times throughout history, mostly due to various emperors attempting to unite all people under one understood written script. The Chinese did not make much use of movable type as the language contained over 40,000 characters thus rendering movable type inconvenient.

MOST MEANINGFUL

I believe calligraphy is the most meaningful thing we discussed in class today. It brought a completely different dynamic to the written word. Not only was it used for communication now, but also it became an art form.

QUESTION

I am a little confused as to what exactly a codex is!

Chapter 3

Summary:

The ancient Chinese, along with other areas of Asia made quantum leaps when it came to script and the system of writing. Calligraphy, the Chinese ancient writing system, is still used today by more people than any other language system. They contributed many other writing necessities to Europe, who adopted most of their inventions and eventually used them to take over much of the planet. 

The Chinese writing system is completely visual. It is said that the first written piece of language was performed by Tsang Chieh who was inspired by claw marks and foot prints of various creatures. He developed simple pictographs that were highly abstract but easily understood. The Chinese moved away from the realism found in hieroglphys and moved towards abstraction. They characters are "logograms", which are graphic signs representing an entire word (like the $ symbol). Interestingly, there is no relationship between written Chinese and spoken Chinese. They are both independent of one another. One is to hear, and one is to see.  The Japanese adopted this idea along with the logograms. 

Various artists developed different calligraphy writing styles. Eventually the they were all united under the emperor, Shih Huang Ti. Though he sacrificed thousands of lives during the construction of the Great Wall, his reign brought forward the third phase of design in Chinese calligraphy. Calligraphy is still considered the most important art form in China, even more than painting. Spiritual ideas and feelings can be expressed through this art. They consider calligraphy to have bones, meat, blood and muscle. Just like a living and breathing creature. The bones are the size, the meat is the proportion of the characters, the blood is the texture of the ink, and the muscle is the spirit of the art. Calligraphy can be dynamic and inventive. it is said to "evoke natural objects, forming movement and energy into an organic whole". 

The Chinese also contributed greatly towards the use of paper. The inventor is considered to be Ts'ai Lun, a government official. He is considered to be the god of paper-makers. Before paper Chinese wrote on bamboo or wooden strips with a bamboo pen. 

Printing, another important breakthrough in history, was also produced by the Chinese. The first form was relief-printing. It is argued upon how it was initially invented, although. One idea is that the usage of engraved seals used for identification eventually developed into a printing system. A second idea is that the Chinese practice of ink rubbings from inscriptions evolved and became printing. Rubbings were not only made of writings but also from stone relief sculptures carved into tombs. These resembled paintings. The oldest surviving printed manuscript is the Diamond Sutra. It contains seven pages of paper put together to form a very large scroll. Paper and printing became more widely used in the ninth century when the Chinese government began the distribution of paper certificates and paper money to use due to a shortage of iron money. China became the first culture in which an everyday person would come in contact with a printed image on a daily basis. 

China's invention of all these crucial discoveries eventually spread to the West right as the Renaissance began, thus contributing greatly to European history.

Most Interesting: 

What I found most interesting in Chapter 3 had to deal with the relief prints and the ink rubbings performed in China. The Chinese would inscribe upon a stone tablet and then do ink rubbings over the top. This had a downfall.  One book's tablets require thirteen acres of storage space for the tablets. They were arranged in rows similar to tombstones. Thats HUGE!

Chapter 2

Summary:

The very earliest language systems became increasingly more complex. Pictographs developed and became more intricate and eventually evolved into the alphabet. The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. An alphabet can be defined as a set of symbols or characters that are used to represent simple sounds, syllables and words in the spoken language. 

The Minoan or Cretan picture symbols developed around 2800 BC were possibly the forerunner for the Greek alphabet. An interesting artifact from the Minoan culture, the Phaistos Disk, was discovered in Crete. It contains what to be some sort of alphabet formed with typelike stamps that pressed each character into wet clay. This was the  first hint of movable type used in the Western culture.  The original inventors are still unknown. But it is believed that the Canannites, Hebrews, and Poenicians were somewhat of a source. Phoenicians were able to combine cuneiform, hieroglyphics and script. 

Ras Shamra script was found on tablets of clay originating from about 1500 B.C. It contained 30 characters resembling cuneiform and also thought to represent simple consonants.  There were no recognizable vowels.

The Aramaic alphabet was used in tribes in an area that is now Syria. This alphabet had 22 letters with consonant-type sounds written from right to left. Similar writings have been found in Afghanistan, Egypt, Greece, and India. This script developed a foundation for hundreds of others including modern Hebrew and Arabic. Both of these are still written right to left. The Aramaic script, which replaced Old Hebrew in the western Mediterranean area after the Babylonian exile, was influenced from Old Hebrew developed into the Square Hebrew alphabet.

After taking on the alphabet, the Greeks improved upon its beauty and usages. It is said that King Cadmus was who introduced the alphabet to the Greeks and Athens developed a version that became the standard throughout all of Greece. The Greeks were able to take the uneven Phoenician script and convert it to an art form. Initially they continued the Phoenician tradition of writing from right to left. This system evolved into the method, "boustrophedon", meaning to plow a field with an ox. Every other line would read in the opposite direction. By the second century A.D. the Greeks developed the style "uncials". This was a rounded way of writing which allowed the scribe to write quicker. Eventually they developed a better stylus from reeds cut into nibs and split allowing sufficient ink flow. In the Greek culture the alphabet managed to play a significant role in democracy. It was incorporated into voting, trials, documents, and public service. Alexander the Great introduced libraries to the culture, including one that contained hundreds of thousands scrolls. 

As Rome rose into the greatest city on earth it adopted much of Greek literature, art, and religion. The Etruscans, a people of the Italian peninsula, introduced the Latin alphabet. The use of parchment later became a common practice especially with the rise of Christianity.

The Korean alphabet, Hangul, was developed by the korean monarch Sejong in 1446. It was an extremely scientific writing system. The Koreans used the complex Chinese for their written script. It was not written in a linear sequence but rather in letters combined within an imaginary rectangle to form syllabic blocks. The syllables were combined with at least one consonant and a vowel. 

Overall the Alphabet was a system that brought democracy and literacy to all peoples. It is a great achievement for humanity. It brought communities together and managed to preserve memory for the future.

Most Interesting: 

What I found most interesting about this chapter was the debate centered around the serifs in Roman alphabet history. Some consider serifs to be "clean-up" strokes performed after carving a letter. Some believe it was due to the short gesture made after inscribing. Either way it seems as if serifs were a necessary accident, and now are a staple in most typographies.

After Class 2/5

CLASS 2/5

In class today we discussed most of Chapter 1. We covered the petroglyphs, pictographs, and ideographs. Petroglyphs were carved into clay and rock. Pictographs were drawn and were usually simplified pictures. Ideographs were also drawn but were more symbolic. You had to be taught what they meant. Next we discussed the basic needs of man and looked at the very first artifact displaying communication which was a carving upon a piece of bone found in Bulgaria. We also looked at the caves of Lascaux which contained a variety of detailed and interesting pictographs. We moved on through our timeline and discussed cuneiform which was the beginning of letter formation which developed through the evolution of the stylus. The Code of Hammurabi helped unify society around 1780 BC. People were exposed to it and were almost required to understand this universal set of rules that were placed in the center of the city. Egyptians evolved their writing next with the development of hieroglyphics, which directly translates to "sacred carvings". This leads one to believe that they were technically petroglyphs. Personally I believe they were a very complex combination of all three forms of writing. They were carved petroglyphs but they were easily understood pictures or pictographs but they also stood for different things as ideographs. The Egyptians definitely evolved the system of writing into something very complex. They also developed the first manuscripts by combining pictures and writing. The "cartouche" was developed which was like a type of border that separates proper names and important words. Papyrus was also made from the plant as a replacement for heavy stone tablets. Lastly we discussed the Rosetta Stone. This provided a forerunner for the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics. It was discovered in 1799 but took 23 years to figure out. It contained three languages; hieroglyhpics, demotic egyptian script, and Greek.

MOST MEANINGFUL

What I found most interesting today was actually a small piece of information regarding the caves of Lascaux. We talked about how a couple little boys managed to stumble upon them. This actually is very intriguing. I put myself in that position, and I find it absolutely incredible. I can't imagine stumbling upon something so great. As a young child you probably wouldn't even understand the greatness of it but after looking at the photos it must have been awe-inspiring nonetheless. If I was 8-12 years old, stumbled upon that cave, I probably would have thought it was something magical. Its amazing that early man was able to create art that could leave people hundreds of years later completely breathless. Wow.

QUESTION:

What I still am having a hard time understanding is how the cartouche helped understand hieroglyphics and manuscripts of the past. I also do not understand it's full usage.

Chapter 1

Summary:

The origin of man has remained unknown for the species entire existence on Earth. It can be assumed that human originated somewhere in Africa. In this place their bodies changed along with their capacity to learn. They developed speech. Writing, being the direct counterpart of speech can be assumed to follow. The earliest human markings were found in this continent over 200,000 years ago, in the form of paintings upon cave walls. These have been shown to be done with a mixture of pigments and animal fat. This cannot be considered the start of art, although. But rather this was the beginning of written and visual communication necessary for survival. These writings obviously took a great deal of brain-power and memorization to obtain. They were the very dawn of pictographs and also developed a foundation for writing.

The forerunner of writing sparked an intellectual innovation that affected not only the social aspect of life but also the economy, the culture, and technology. It is still unknown how the earliest writing developed. Some intellectuals believe that it evolved because the economy and the temples needed this resource for record-keeping and safe-housing information. Or perhaps it was a tool to identify produce and various other goods. Eventually the pictographs evolved into cuneiform due to the development of a superior stylus. This form of scribing was made into 560 different signs that were difficult to learn and master. Because of this, writing became very important and almost mystical to society. One who knew this coveted art was respected and revered. Writing completely revolutionized knowledge.

As the Mesopotamian civilization came to an end the Egyptians took on a very advanced system of pictographs which eventually became known as hieroglyphics. They used great amount of detail to be very decorative with this form of writing. The Egyptians also developed papyrus, an advanced paper-like material which became a major forerunner toward visual communication. They became the first peoples to produce manuscripts with both words and pictures that better communicated with their audience.

Overall the origin of writing occurring in the Great Rift Valley and spreading out to the Phoenicians and the Egyptians allowed this system to travel around the world, evolve more quickly, and also let knowledge spread like fire.

Most Interesting:

I always heard about the "Rosetta Stone" (and the infomericial advertising the language program) but never had I completely known what it entailed. This book not only provided an excellent description but also a great photo of the actual artifact. I find it absolutely fascinating. To be able to translate a message into three different languages definitely shows the complexity of the Egyptians writing system. One wonders as to how the developed not only the hieroglyphics and the demotic script but also how they came to know the Greek language as well. I find it very interesting.

After Class 2/3

CLASS 2/3.

We began our very first day of History of Graphic Design in true Laura Huaracha style with a ice-breaking play doh exercise that illustrated various difficulties when it comes to communication. Things such as color, proper names, and times are challenging to describe when one does not have resources. This directly relates to the very beginning of GD, and the very limited ancient peoples had. We later discussed the importance of communication and taking it one step further than we did previously in Visual Communication. We examined the different reasons why we should take a class such as History of Graphic Design, and why it should be significant in our journeys to become Graphic Designers. We then followed typical first-day tradition and went over our syllabus along with a short discussion about our blogs. After we started our blogs, and left for the day.

MOST MEANINGFUL.

The most meaningful piece of information I found was the page Professor Huaracha showed us relating to careers and salaries that can be found in the Design career.