There’s so much to say within a single post. (Stressing how to keep this under 200 words yet I am also wasting them in this very moment).
Considering that I jumped into design from a different completely field, I was really intimated to be honest and doubtful of this courses’ experience due to quarantine. But I was pleasantly surprised and found myself being immersed with learning so many new things!
I learnt how there was much more to design than what I initially assumed. I knew it strategic, but it was new perspective realising how design is methodical and mathematical. Even extending towards the realms of being philosophical and rebellious, during certain times in history. And now it excites me to be aware that design is exponentially becoming more innovative and revolutionary.
I’m also glad that we were still able to interact and bounce ideas and discussions off one another, despite the unconventional online setting. Where the practical classes we had with Bailey were refreshing and such as contrast to the super academic ones I had last year. The classes were engaging and opened broader ways I could experiment with new techniques and aesthetics. In addition, the assignments enforced us to reflect and apply our creativity and pushed me to create things outside my comfort zone and things I haven’t done before; for which that I am grateful for!
Overall, I feel encouraged that this subject was one of my first steps into the world of design. Despite it felt a bit overwhelming sometimes, I now know so much more than I ever did before! Going into design this year has certified that I want to pursue a creative career and whatever I end up doing in the future, I’m sure that this experience has aided me to get to that destination. From here on, it’s just continuing to improve myself, learn and experiment further!
So thank you to Bailey, Andy, Karen and my classmates for being in this journey so far, looking forward to seeing everyone again in the future hopefully.
And sorry Bailey for when you’re reading this, this defs isn’t under 200 words but I promise that I tried. :’ )
Honestly, I have had a blast making weekly posts tumblr, but the time has come to wrap this assignment up, and post probably my second last post!
I didn’t want to finish the tumblr without showcasing and talking about my Zine, (even though there will probably be some finishing touches and refinements between now and Friday).
Below is my 8 page zine, with 6 double page spreads and a front and back cover. I have come a long way since I started the zine, even though I am still not 100% convinced it’s my best work, there are elements I really like, like the notebook back-cover from Microsoft bob help messages and some of the illustrations.
Adding small hints to the origins of comic sans, to allude to its success in fulfilling those criteria helped me add texture and more interest into the zine. The inclusion of ‘extra information’ boxes has also helped the overall feel of a publication I think (I might need to add some more historical info into those).
Through this project I have learnt not to let fear of failure get in the way of starting something. If I had begun the rough design play earlier, I would have had even more days to keep coming back to my work and refine it.
I have also learnt that it’s ok to ask for help, it’s ok to ask the tutor when I’m stuck or ask peers for feedback - It always sparks new creative ideas for me.
The past few weeks I’ve often seen your posts about your journey with your zine! I thought Comic Sans was an interesting and sentimental interview subject! Although many despise it and make fun of the font, can’t lie saying that it’s nostalgic and we all probably used it during primary school thinking how epic it looked on our PowerPoints and Word Docs.
I really love the colour scheme you went with and the details from the warping of the text, and even the halftone dot pattern going on. I think your zine effectively embodies the childish, fun and carefree font that Comic Sans is. :’ )
for my ask me anything zine, I wanted to show a style that represents my design era (1950s/kitsch catalogue) but also has a more modern twist, to reflect my style or the new technologies and methods I’ve learnt in comm design studies over the semester. Here I had a go at some photocopying, where you move the page around during the scan to warp the final print, similar to some of the techniques that were seen in the punk posters we looked at a few weeks ago.
I tried using the ‘collaged’ version of the poster I made in photoshop as one of my design options, but my class all suggested that using the original 50′s style design showed that authentic style the best.
I still need to try this with the other interview pages, and work out some ways to maintain at least a bit of legibility, so my interview can actually be read, and how the whole zine will be presented!
I think it was the first WIP with Bailey’s workshop where I saw your first initial development of your Tupperware zine. Although we were all shook how cool and realistic the vintage aesthetic you had recreated, I remember there were concerns that more personal touches needed to incorporated (which I also struggled trying not to mimic my interview subject too.) So seeing these new versions with distortions was cool contrasting, twist from what you had originally! Love how trippy it is!
One of my questions relate to how Gaudi’s work is unique and different and for that, I wanted to visually answer that through his ‘Park Guell’ design. This park includes a multi coloured lizard mosaic which can be found at the main entrance. I found the vibrant colours and intricate tile work very eye catching and one of a kind - thinking what other park do you know that has mosaics? let alone a giant 3D mosaic of a lizard.
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Therefore, I knew I wanted to incorporate something similar in honor of him. I initially thought having it sprawled across the page would be very eye catching and interesting, similarly to how it looks in real life. So here are my first few designs:
In terms of the colours for the lizard, I didn’t want to completely replicate the lizard from Gaudi’s one for different reasons. Bailey mentioned to not completely mimic the aesthetic or style and to put your own twist on it so I changed it up however it still shares the similar eye catching quality and feel. Another point is, that colour is a very important aspect to Antoni and can be seen across all his works. Although it was the Casa Batllo that also inspired my colour choice. The Casa Batllo I’d have to say is one of my personal favourites as the variety of colours makes me feel this certain way. As corny as it may sound, I find this design so magical and dreamlike, when I look at it I feel as if I’m in some sort of fairytale. Therefore I have aimed to combine his other unique works such as the Casa Batllo within his Park Guell design through the lizard as a visual way of answering the question.
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The background is a photo of one of the walkways within the Park Guell - I did this in hope to give all the information and lizard more context. However in doing this, the text got lost among the background so I then played around with white and black tints and making the text colour contrast. Overall I was happy with the layout until I did some more reflecting as I felt something was off about it. Thinking from a general perspective, I realized that if I was to read all the information, that I’d like to see more images of Gaudi’s work or some sort of other visual aid to support and complement what is written. So I looked into further refinement ideas to address this, here is what I came up with:
After this, I still wasn’t completely satisfied, I felt the pictures were a good addition however in another way it also looked as if it was almost just squashed in at the last second and that it didn’t really flow or connect in with the rest of the design layout.
I went away for a bit, days later I decided to take another approach towards this idea and design, as what I had currently just wasn’t working for me, something was missing. I knew I wanted to keep the lizard design in terms of the visuals and I knew I wanted to find a way of using the lizard among pictures of some of Gaudi’s other work.
New idea/concept: I thought to place the lizard on a log outline and to then have his tail wrap around as a way to divide all the pictures within the log.
Here is how I went about creating this idea:
As you can see I went through a lot of random steps and techniques to try and make it all work😅. But here is the final outcome for this question:
During this whole process I was able to learn a lot and gain more experience with adobe which I’m very grateful for. This whole experience of making my zine had me going from photoshop to illustrator to indesign one after the other as they all help with a variety of things. I was able to learn more on how to arrange text such as making it diagonal like what’s shown above - this can come in use any time for any design brief or creative task.
Throughout the weeks of everyone being busy developing their zines, I remember how your chosen subject interviewee Antoni Gaudi, really stood out to me! I had never heard of him before so when I saw your shared posts and pictures of his work I thought it was something out of Disney Land or a fantasy movie set from how surreal and beautiful they look! His architecture really is one of a kind and can’t even be flexed because it really is that unique.
Love the way you’re paying homage to his work, yet still putting your touches to it. I think the rainbow colour scheme was a great move too and the mosaic effect is awesome! It’s also cool seeing the the ups and downs, and how you got to your final outcome for the question. :)
In Lecture Seven, we looked at the Bauhaus design school in Germany. Before watching the lecture, I found some background information about the school, so I could get a bit of context. The Staatliches Bauhaus was first formed in 1919, however, stopped operations in 1933; taking place during the Modernist design period.
The Bauhaus teaching system, gave students a holistic approach to design, creating a specific Bauhaus ‘design style’ that was both simple and architecturally intricate. They believed in an idea of designing objects in a way that was true to the materials it would use. Meaning, the materials were ‘wanting’ to be formed in a way and the design would follow. The school emphasised an insanely long and somewhat unpronounceable phrase: ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’. This German word is the combination of all arts into one design space, and according to Wikipedia, has been accepted into the English language. (Note to self: use in future employment situation to impress bosses.)
In class, my lecturer asked in anyone of us would be interested in attending the Bauhaus, with this form of teaching. Though I would be interested in a holistic approach, combining all forms of design/art, I think I would find the structure rather rigid. The Bauhaus created ways for materials to be used and formed, but, out of sheer rebellion, I would find my own ways to explore and experiment.
Lecture Eight looked into the Futurists and the affect technology had on the way artists would draw and paint. From the 1910′s, the progression of technology inspired artists to create works that were more machine-like. Compared to early still-life’s and portraits, these design represented a kind of speed or energy.
We were shown an image of ‘liberated text’ - Paroles in Liberta. Having studied French, I was really excited to see the way the words ‘Mon Ami’ (my friend) were written. If you compare the correct pronunciation of the phrase and the size of the text, you will see that the sizes of each letter represent the ‘importance’ or strength of its sound. For example, the ‘M’ is the strongest sound in the word and is therefore the largest letter form. However, the ‘N’ is the weakest sounding letter in the word and is printed in lowercase. In French, the letter ‘i’ is similar to an English ‘ee.’ Which explains why ‘Ami’ is spelt ‘Amiiiii.’
However, after feeling like the greatest genius possible, reality had set in to remind me that the cover is in Italian.
The wonders of Google will always surprise when i was able to read a preview to the Futurist Cookbook. Upon read the first two lofty sentences, I have found a new book to hunt down.
“Contrary to criticisms already launched and those foreseeable, the Futurist culinary revolution described in this book has the lofty, noble and universally expedient aim of changing radically the eating habits of our race…
This Futurist cooking of ours, tuned to high speeds like the motor of a hydroplane, will seem to some trembling traditionalists both mad and dangerous: but its ultimate aim is to create a harmony between man’s palate and his life today and tomorrow.”
The phrase ‘trembling traditionalists’ is enough to convince me to search for it on Book Depository.
Not sure if it was this post in particular, but I remember Bailey sharing your tumblr posts to the class, for your great analysis’ on the lectures. And I couldn’t agree more!
After watching the Futurist lecture myself, I thought your interpretation of ‘Mon Ami’ in Paroles in Liberta was a really cool insight. I too, was really invested in your breakdown how Mon Ami’s pronunciation is reflected through the way it was strategically typed. So although it may be Italian and not French, I’d like to think your analysis was a smart pick up and the thought process behind the designer’s decision. :’)
Très bien mon ami! (Also learnt French for 4 years in high school but all I really remember is oui and how to say potato.... la pomme de terre).
My question is.. How can design be more sustainable?
Working from home has been a challenge. Had to push my skills and boundaries to complete this assignment. I had in mind to use fresher ingredients but thought better since I wanted to focus on the sustainable part of my question.
Everything is reusable. I had everything in my pantry: black sesame, macaroni, lentils, lemon thyme, oregano and adzuki beans. My unit smelled lovely for a while.
It took me a few days to complete, I played with different layouts and type choices.
I was inspired by a popular artist Becca Cleeson
Final piece:
I think I will try this method for other design, it was challenging but it made me really aware of shapes and forms I was creating, like the thickness of the calligraphic part, the tracking and sizes. But I needed lot of patience, slight movements would have changed it all. Steady hand and time needed!
I remember being in Bailey’s class where we had to share our WIP of the ‘Hello my question is...’ assignment. Luckily enough I was in your breakout group that day, before you had to show your work to the whole class. So I remembering seeing you turn on your camera and taking those pictures of this massive whiteboard with such meticulously organised seeds and foods! And imaginging the terrible fate this assignment would face if it was exposed to some wind! :’)
Really adored the diversity of the type-fonts and the materials that you chose which highly reflect your question. It was inspiring and refreshing to see your approach with this assignment!
Before the very last post on this blog, here are some posts and works from other classmates in our cohort that I’ve noticed throughout this subject when scrolling and messing about on my Tumblr feed!
ASSESSMENT 2 PROGRESS (PT 3) - HOMESTRETCH AND STUFF I REALISED ALONG THE WAY.
Although we were blessed with extensions to this Friday coming, it just happened that other subjects also decided to jump around with their due dates. So its been chaotic trying to figure out what to do first and multitasking all the assignments!
But let’s be real, my time management skills could of been a bit better the last few weeks to prevent a bit of rushing and clashing. 😅
As of the moment, I’m pretty much just executing the last few pages I have left so here are some few snippets of the journey so far.
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Here’s some of the sketches when I was planning my zine layouts. I often have to doodle quickly in order to get some ideas flowing.. so yes I’m aware that it looks a bit messy!
I still aimed to take inspiration from the well-known Constructivist posters; especially the colours, straight geometric shapes and the techniques of
photo-montaging (perhaps I should include more collage-ish elements in my zine). But putting a my own and a more modern-ish spin to it.
However, I’m a bit worried that the end product is more of imitation of Constructivism still. This is directed towards my first spread in particular, which I’m starting to doubt. Might change how it’s presented if I have time.
I’ve also realised that the text placement I had planned in my sketches looked better in my head verses when actually executing them.
When I placed my answers into my pages, I had to be honest with myself and came to the conclusion that it’s hard to read dense answers combined with the warping.
So I cut down words to not only improve the legibility, but to also make the answer’s more bold and really straight to the point. Through this, I think the answers are actually more reflective of Constructivism’s personality! Rather than a slab of a wordy paragraph.
It also parallel’s with their posters which mostly contained captivating singular words or a sentence or two at maximum.
Here’s what my answers look like currently:
Overall, although I’m not 100% with my layouts, I still appreciate feeling challenged and pressured with the limited amount of time left. I’m also learning so much on how to use both Photoshop and Illustrator; since I’m googling every 2 seconds on how to use a certain tool and what random buttons I’ve accidentally pressed.
(I’m honestly not sure if I’ve dated the correct week at this point 😅)
LECTURE.
This week’s lecture revolved around the idea of What’s Next For Design? and more-so the innovative technology that have recently emerged in the years. Here are some that really caught my attention from the lecture:
1. EYEWRITER
I further looked into the Eyewriter by Tempt1 and Free Art & Technology (FA&T) because I was fascinated that people had discovered another potential input device and found it heartwarming that art can still be created even in the most limited circumstances.
Looking into more with the people involved with this project, Tempt1 (also known as Tony Quan) is a LA graffiti artist, publisher and social activist who unfortunately was diagnosed with ALS in 2003. By 2008, Tempt1 couldn’t move his arms and legs, couldn’t speak or eat and had to rely on life-support to breathe. However, in 2009 he was able to draw for the first time in years by teaming up with FA&T and together they were able to develop the Eyewriter that tracks the movement of the artist’s pupil.
Eyewriter is recognised as highly accessible for creatives; as they have instructions to build the device on their website and is really cost effective ($50 USD)!
Similarly I found another artist, Graham Fink, who has also collaborated with programmers to develop an eye-tracking software for his Drawing With My Eyes series. (Perhaps inspired by the OG Eyewriter 🤔?). The software involves recording reflections of infrared light movements that are shined into the eyes. Hence, this allows Fink to draw by looking at a screen like that of Eyewriter.
All his portraits are drawn with a continuous line and through his surreal and abstract line-work, you can tell he let’s his eyes freely wander around as he builds the structures and values in his portraits. (There’s also an algorithm that converts what would be shaky lines to smoother ones whilst Fink draws).
Stuff like this really makes me wonder what technology will evolve into in the next few decades if this is just the beginning.
New innovative methods that go beyond the conventional ways to design or create art excites me; as it gives hope and the chance for everyone to be creative and expressive.
2. THISPERSONDOESNOTEXIST.COM
Then there’s this machine learning / generative design stuff that creeps me out on the flip side. This is some conspiracy-machine-will-takes-over-humanity stuff right here.
I had sorta of an idea that algorithms could be advanced but in terms of common known uses like facial recognition technology etc.
But I had no idea algorithms could produce such hyper-realistic fake people that make me question my own minute existence in this universe. Aaaaah, the infinite capacity of machine learning kinda scares me for the future, but I hope this can be used for the greater good.
I mean look at it when it fails especially; I don’t know if its relieving that you can realise it’s fake or even more creepier!
In fact, this actually reminds me of DeepFake Videos. A gnarly use of computer generated images where people can superimpose those and then realistically pose as celebrities and famous figures in satirical and graphic videos.
And the only way to kinda tell DeepFake videos apart from real ones, is the lack of blinking there is with deepfake person talking. euckkk.
ASSESSMENT 2 PROGRESS (PT 2) - RE-EDITED QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH.
Part of today’s workshop involved in everyone sharing their current WIP’s with Project 3.
I’ve finished up researching, refining my questions and answers and found some inspiration and now I’m about to start focusing on experimenting with layouts and graphics / images.
Hence, the feedback I could get at the moment were on my five questions. I wasn’t happy with some of the questions in my last version because I felt that they were a bit too ‘factual’ and not really insightful into the character of Constructivism. So I changed them.
Bailey pointed that although my questions reflect my subject more in-depth, my newer version of the second question (Do you regret not being artistically expressive?) is sorta worded in a way that bluntly states that Constructive wasn’t ‘artistic’ in any way. I guess I wanted a question that reflected how Constructivists used art and the movement in general as a tool, rather than something decorative and personal. But I agreed and realised that it can be a bit misleading as a question. With taking this in consideration these are my final version of questions!(as of date)
Bailey also pointed out some important advice from other people’s work that it’s preferred that we don’t just mimic the subject but also to include our own personal ‘style’ when designing the project. I didn’t realise this, as my original idea was to mimic Constructivist propaganda posters for my zine (as seen with my tonnes of Pintrest saves :’) ). But now I sorta have to change that and more-so incorporate some Constructivism elements and twist it into my own.
(Sorry if my handwriting is a bit hard to read, was trying to write quickly during class. And oops was meant to write to ‘make sure to NOT make text content too wordy / long.)
With all the other assignments looming in the distance, trying to multitask them can seem a bit overwhelming at times; since my due dates for all of them are quiet close together in the same week. But nevertheless I hope that I make the time to properly experiment for this project with the current stage that I am at.
EXTRA THOUGHTS:
Whilst researching about Constructivism I also found it really interesting how similar it was to Futurism in terms of values. They both celebrated humans moving towards a modern age of technology and mass production but most importantly, these movements really wanted to incorporate themselves into the cultural lives of people in all aspects (like fashion, media, film, food, living spaces etc..). Until learning about these from my classes and projects, I never realised how far of an extent these ‘art / design’ movements really went. At times, it seems like more of a lifestyle; where visual or artistic expression wasn’t the only way to reflect the social and historical changes that were occurring during the time period.
At the end of discussing some of the artists Bailey had shown us, we got to share other artists that used collage techniques as well.
Someone shared a digital collage artist, Matthew Cunningham (which unfortunately I can’t remember who did 😔), but I thought the common theme of the dissected heads are cool as, especially how vintage and 80′s inspired they look. Like with Joe Castro, I find that Cunningham’s arrangement of images to be seamless and super effective. They really fuse together to make these surreal and freaky portraits.
One artist that I know that incorporates collage techniques is a street art artist called Hush. I studied him during high school as he was one of my inspirations for my finals in Year 12 Studio Art; as I had never seen graffiti work like this before nor his aesthetic. I loved the way he combined traditional and modern techniques. Hush paints, spray paints and also fly-posts / collages to create his vibrant, bold and textured portraits of women and geishas.
IMAGE REFERENCES:
MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM
1. https://www.tattoolife.com/moon-patrol-the-real-life-of-matt-cunningham/
2. https://www.booooooom.com/2018/01/17/80s-inspired-digital-collages-by-artist-matt-cunningham-aka-moon-patrol/
Ahh yesss gotta love the combination of my dying internet whilst doing online classes at the same time 💀. I guess all things have a bad side to them.
I have the convenience of watching online classes from my cosy room. But now I also deal with weird lag that makes people sound like sped-up demonic robots which happened yesterday throughout the whole workshop :/
BUT I think I got the general gist of what was going on!
Here are some collage artists that were discussed in class and some of their further works that I found interesting.
I really like the contrast that’s present within both Whitcomb’s and Castro’s works. In particular with the use of space in Whitcomb’s work; which effectively creates more contrast when also using complementary colours. I also adore the compositions Castro created in his collages, they’re so eye-catching to me from the way arranges his images. They seem crisp, seamless and also natural looking (?? I don’t even know how to explain it).
Before this lecture, I was unfamiliar with collages that took a figurative and minimal approach to collage, so I was drawn to Tierney’s consistent aesthetic. I found it interesting how he collected imagery from vintage magazines from the 40′s and 50′s. To me, the way he has created his compositions and subjects seem to be almost intimately surreal and vulnerable which I find fascinating.
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And here’s finally my quick collage I did for the workshop’s activity! It's a bit unfinished since I wanted to put more images and some sort of a background in it but I kinda went for a comedic composite scene I guess! Initially I was stumped on what to do, since we pretty much had all creative freedom with this. But then I saw a horoscope section in the magazine and decided it would be funny to use the scales from the 'Libra' section and find corresponding things to 'weigh' each other.
To be realistic, don't think the weight of two humans in a cup will be ever equivalent to a piano standing on some books and ice-cream and cheese. But it's fun to imagine and honestly this whole collage is gets more funnier to me the less seriously I look at it for some reason.
I was also annoyed that I wasn’t able to briefly share my collage :'( . I was trying to refresh the page because it was taking ages to upload my picture and turns out I got kicked from the room and couldn’t join into the room again; since it was passed the classes’ finishing time. So as you can tell, I was salty with my internet and technology yesterday.
(Hope we’re able to get back to physical face to face classes once its safe.)
CONSTRUCTIVISM (RUSSIAN CONSTRUCTIVISM) - Is what I’m doing my Assessment 2 on!
Rather than a singular subject, I opted choosing design movements instead. As I felt that movements encompassed a larger range to learn about within key figures, aesthetics and historical / social context. I guess I wanted to look at a subject from a broader perspective and not so much a very specific object or person.
I’m not sure how I discovered Constructivism because I’ve known about it for a long time (probably from high school art or history classes). I’ve always loved how Constructivism art was dramatic, straightforward, bold. As well as its use of photomontages, strong typography and almost always using a colour palette consisting of red, black and an off-white / yellow.
But to be honest apart from that, I haven’t taken the time to properly learn many of artists, designers and architects that contributed to this movement; as well as other forms of Constructivism and its significant political and historical context. So I thought it would be a great opportunity to do so through this assessment!
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During the week 8 workshop, Bailey gave us some pointers on how to improve our questions. She emphasised how the nature of our questions should be based on the opinion of the subject and rather an extension of our given knowledge about them/it.
So whilst she was saying that... I was immediately changing some of my hella basic questions :’ ) (which I deleted so I don’t remember what they were exactly but they weren’t great when I realised in the moment).
But at the moment, here are my questions for Constructivism, which may or may not change:
Q1: Who was your founding father/mother and others involved with you? (Probs will change this one)
Q2: You were surrounded by political movements and emerging technology, how did it contribute to your birth?
Q3: Movements like Cubism and Futurism influenced your values and looks, but what makes you different from them?
Q4: You went beyond being an artistic and architectural movement, in what other ways did people use you?
Q5: Why did people no longer use you towards your decline in popularity?
I’m glad that we were also able to share our questions with my classmates, as I think it made us realise how we need to expand on our questions more and make them more specific to our subject.
So I might experiment with different questions so it’s more open ended who knows. I also really enjoy seeing other people’s work in progress and hearing what subjects that people have chosen! Such a bummer that we won’t be able to view each other’s end products in person due to corona.
I’ll be back soon to update about researching and hopefully experimenting how to present Constructivism soon. :)
BONUS:
My other subjects were:
New Typography ~ or specifically, Jan Tschichold
Swiss Design / The International Typographic Style
This week’s lecture we look at another key movement... Futurism!
Futurism was an artistic and social Italian movement during the period of 1908 to 1944 and heavily revolved around the ideal of the ‘future’. In addition, the discovery and beginning of mass production of goods created Futurism’s value of ‘acceleration’ and praise for emerging technology and inventions during the time.
One of the key figures and the founder of Futurism was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. An Italian poet who supposedly in 1908, got into a crash with his own car and a cyclist that Marinetti missed hitting by swerving out of the way. This juxtaposition and ‘battle’ of an old bicycle and a modern car was apparently, the inspiration behind Futurism’s beginnings and origins. (Imagine if that cyclist didn’t go out on a ride that day, would Futurism be ever founded? .... Ehh probably).
Throughout this lecture, we discussed some of Marinetti’s works and here are some of my favourites:
First off we have Zang Tumb Tumb, one of Marinetti’s poems and was part of the Parole In Libertà (Words in Liberty) collection. His poems recount his experiences during the Balkan War of 1912 and it reminds of a quote he said about art with consideration how fascism was popular during the time.
“Art can be nothing but violence, cruelty and injustice.”
Although this animation is not done by Marinetti himself, I loved the way the poem narrated especially with the onomatopoeia's (and the Italian language in general sounds so cool to me). I’m not sure if Marinetti was narrating in this video, I tried to google translate the video’s description in hopes of trying to find who to credit. But it says “The Art of Noise by Luigi Russolo” which is another futurist artist and another publication... so I’m really confused.
BUT ANYWHO - I really enjoyed watching the video itself as well! I don’t know why but I had a hard time believing this was made over 100 years ago since it was made around 1914. For something that was made such a long time ago, it looks kinda modern and feels like something that I would see in today’s time.
Ah yes The Futurist Cookbook also by Marinetti. I legitimately want to buy this book out of pure curiosity! It’s honestly so wacky to me that Futurism went this far, wanting to bring acceleration into a domestic setting but then again, it was more-so a political agenda than an actual cookbook.
Some of these recipes and rules in order to have an ‘ideal Futurist meal’ are so other worldly; making it hard to believe that people would genuinely follow this cookbook to elevate gastronomy.
The rules are too long and many for me to summarise them in a post and can be found here instead:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/21/futurist-cookbook-marinetti/
But I will say that they seem to encourage people to bring an ‘artistic’ consciousness to a daily, normal household experience. So as much of a political prank this cookbook was, I’d like to lowkey think that maybe truely and deep down, Marinetti wanted people to incorporate more art into their lives - as a way to enhance it.
But there definitely could of been better methods to do so, unlike what this cookbook describes. :’)
I think this particular quote from Marinetti inspired my thoughts; where he sums up the purpose of The Futurist Cookbook in his own words.
“ The Futurist culinary revolution … has the lofty, noble and universally expedient aim of changing radically the eating habits of our race, strengthening it, dynamizing it and spiritualizing it with brand-new food combinations in which experiment, intelligence and imagination will economically take the place of quantity, banality, repetition and expense.”
^ This picture here is taken from a Vice article where these two men actually bought the book and tried out the meals themselves to see if the Futurist ways of cooking, is truly a superior lifestyle to incorporate. (Bonus read on the bottom to read a summarised reaction cause this post be way too long already).
Overall, really enjoyed learning about Futurism. I will be honest though in saying that although Futurism aesthetically / visually does interest me a bit, the values and the social and political impacts from the movement really peaked my curiosity! Seriously might buy the cookbook one day and maybe learn more about Futurism some time in the future. (haha see what I did there 😎 ? Yes I’m lame I know)
Whilst researching for this topic, I found this Vice article that was a great read that gave insight on what the food from The Futurist Cookbook tasted like!
And surprisingly SOME meals were apparently edible and not too disgusting.
For example, The Tummy Tickler that consisted of pineapples with sardines, tuna and nuts and The Black Shirt Snack, made from a fish cutlet wedged into an apple doused in rum.
But then there was some recipes that are just beyond comprehension as if the stuff prior wasn’t already weird. Like this The Devil In Black Key which was basically a Futurist cocktail made from orange juice, grappa, liquid chocolate and a hard-boiled egg. As well as the salmonella screaming The Excited Pig, comprising of raw skinned salami sitting in a bath of coffee and sprayed with Eau-de-Cologne.
Why would you eat these? I have no idea. Plus considering how these aren’t even the ones with gunshot powder, UV rays and other weird stuff.
Well at least some of them are edible. And their meal names are kinda cool.
Which I will admit that before getting into this course, I didn’t exactly know what Bauhaus comprised of, let alone being a school! #exposingmyself
Previously I knew it was some sort of artistic / design movement. But if I was held at gunpoint and told to explain their values or aesthetic... well... let’s just say that it wouldn’t end well 😅. But now thanks to this lecture (and also from personal research for the second assignment) I can confidently say that I’ll be fine, if I some how, ever get into that situation.
So turns out the Bauhaus wasn’t just only a movement but rather a very influential design institution founded by Walter Gropius in Desseau, Germany.
But ironically:
“...Bauhaus was not an institution... it was an idea.”
~ Mies van der rohe
Bauhaus proved to be internationally recognized as a design school for not only their holistic approach towards design but what they represented.
Except how Gropius represented women. 🙄
Gropius only permitted women to work with 2D art-forms because absurdly according to him, women could only think in that respective, two dimension-ally. Which shocked me to hear but thank god it’s not like that in current times.
I found it fascinating that designs in Bauhaus weren’t just minimal for the aesthetics alone, but also for efficiency. My favourite examples in the lecture that embodied this Bauhaus principle were the ‘chess set’ by Joost Schmidt and the ‘Universal Alphabet’ by Herbet Bayer.
At first I was confused at design decisions of the chess pieces and assumed it was a very abstract interpretation of the original pieces (also the fact that I don’t know to play chess). But once they were elaborated on, I realised how the design was so effective and straightforward. They purely expressed the movement of the respective chess piece (eg. Bishops can move diagonally and therefore designed as a cross; Knights can move in an ‘L’ shape and hence designed as a ‘L’). Even the packaging was thoroughly planned - where it was “reduced to the most minimal amount of space” to prevent wastage.
Similarly, with the ‘Universal Alphabet’, Bayer’s threw capital letters out of the window, as well as the hierarchy between lower and upper case and joining them together instead. He thought the different and upper case letters were useless which was a bold and radical decision in my eyes! But I guess it was with a good intention since he focused on demonstrating the core of the alphabet, the individual letter-forms.
There is also this Bauhaus value of authenticity, “truth to materials” that I enjoyed learning about as well. Designers would respect the nature of their materials - such as this chair here, where the Mies van der rohe allowed these tubes to be curved as it is their nature to do so.
I also found it interesting how with other furniture design, there was even emphasis on designing the space around the piece than more-so manipulating the materials solely to create furniture.
~
Overall, I’m really glad that this subject went over Bauhaus. Based on the assumptions I had before, I didn’t understand the method and reasoning of Bauhaus designers. But now I feel much more enlightened and can appreciate their perspective and thought processes. I learnt how although Bauhaus designs can be viewed as minimal, their designs were far from simplistic. There was a lot of calculation involved in order to create a design that visually looks simple yet so effective, efficient and honest. There’s even a rebellious nature to Bauhaus where at times, designers determine what is unnecessary and manipulate or reduce things of conventional, traditional nature to their true essence.
It’s all ingenious to me now. Within my own work progress’, I hope that I can incorporate some of these values of Bauhaus, especially the efficiency aspect!
This week I’ve had my mid-semester break so had no classes for Comm. Design but I did catch up on the lecture.
There were some things that I found interesting whilst watching Andy and Karen further discuss the history about typography, grids and those that drove modern movements.
1. Type was smuggled in during the 20th century.
What the hell I didn’t realise how exclusive typeface was at some point in history! So turns out typeface was limited in the 20th century with what type you could own and even the amount of copies of that font. There was even regulations on importing fonts! So imagining a designer / typographer smuggling type is kinda badass (would totally watch if there was a doco or series on type smuggling).
2. Works by Andy and Karen
On the topic of showing Emil Ruder’s and how image / expression can be create from type, Andy and Karen displayed their own works relating to the topic; which were covers for Magazzini Generali.
I love how densely packed the type is within the composition but also how the density varies to create a range of tones and even details.
3. Jan Tschichold
Jan was one of the three people discussed within the topic of grids and how he took charge on the modernist movement and approach towards type design. I thought he was interesting to further look into because of how hardcore he was with design principals’ that he’d created in his books.
Specifically, Die Neue Typgraphie (The New Typography) in which standard practices for modern type were created through his rules. These included standardisations of paper sizes, typographic hierarchy rules and even disowning all typefaces apart from san-serif ones!
Furthermore, Jan was responsible for designing the covers of Penguin book and even continue to overlook the next 500 Penguin books made from 1947 to 49. During this period, Jan also developed the Penguin Composition Rules that entailed (very descriptive and methodical) guidelines on how to compose pages and typography in Penguin books. Within these guidelines, there are categories including:
Test Composition
Indenting of Paragraphs
Punctuation Marks and Spelling
Capitals, Small capitals and Italics
Figures
References and Footnotes
Folios
The Printing of Plays
The Printing of Poetry
Make-up
The Penguin Composition Rules that I looked through can be found here: https://www.courses.psu.edu/art/art101_jxm22/tschichold.html
Despite how he pretty much proclaimed that he was the most influential figure in the world of typography during the 20th century, there’s no doubt that the man played a role in revolutionising modern design and developed standards that can still be applied today.
I would love to look into his freelance work as well; especially with his use of balance and what early modern design looked like during its newly emerging phase. So Jan Tschichold is a key historical figure that I might do my Project 3 on considering what he done for design and his radical thinking and personality.
REFERENCES.
Flask, D., 2020. Jan Tschichold : Design Is History. [online] Designishistory.com. Available at: <http://www.designishistory.com/1920/jan-tschichold/> [Accessed 13 April 2020].
Penney, M., 2020. Designer Focus: Jan Tschichold - Notes On Design. [online] Sessions College. Available at: <https://www.sessions.edu/notes-on-design/designer-focus-jan-tschichold/> [Accessed 13 April 2020].
Courses.psu.edu. 2020. Jan Tschichold: Penguin Composition Rules. [online] Available at: <https://www.courses.psu.edu/art/art101_jxm22/tschichold.html> [Accessed 13 April 2020]
ASSESSMENT 1 - ‘HELLO MY QUESTION IS...’ PROGRESS, FEEDBACK (WORKSHOP 5) AND REFLECTION.
Get ready for a long ass post (sorry in advance to anyone who reads this lol) but here’s my final outcome for Comm. Design’s first assignment with my question...
WHY DO WE LET DESIGN INFLUENCE US?
Just like my previous post for Week 3 - March 21st, I wanted to ask why humans allow ourselves to have different perceptions about something, due to the way its presented aka designed. This concept that design and designers are ’manipulative’ stemmed from my first lecture of Comm. Design (if my memory serves me right). One of the lecturers presenting (I think it was Andy ??) told everyone in the room that “designers are manipulators”; which to me, was a take on design that I hadn’t heard before. But it made sense because now thinking about it... good designers know how to create an effective and visual experience, to change the target audience’s behavior towards a narrative.
Therefore, my final materials included every-day items throughout my life where I know their design has influenced me to use or buy them. Hence why I chose packaged drink and snacks, my skincare and beauty products, childhood books and DVD’s as well as magazines and catalogs.
I arranged and photographed my letters one by one and took them on four A3 paper sheets that I tape together because I did not have any large white fabric to use as a background. After that phase, I would Photoshop my letters together, colour corrected the grey-ness of my paper and abused all the healing tools and stamp tool to get any lines and creases out of the way.
WORKSHOP 5 FEEDBACK:
By the time it was the day of my week 5 workshop (same day as due date!), our class shared each other’s WIP or final outcomes and gave feedback. I presented my WIP with the screenshot below, where I was in the middle of just slapping all my letters down and beginning to play with spacing between letters and words. Within my smaller group that we were randomised in, my classmates said that they liked what I had so far but agreed with me that I should further work on my spacing as words/letters, specifically how ‘WE LET’ looked like one word at that moment.
Bailey also commented on my work, where she said that my ‘W’s in my ‘WHY’ and ‘WE’ were a bit repetitive in terms of positioning which I actually didn’t notice-ish. I knew something looked strange whenever I looked at the entire composition but couldn’t figure out why, so that criticism was really helpful! She also suggested for me think about the structure of my words and liked how the white background gives the composition a ‘punchy’ feeling.
REFLECTION:
Overall, I think I did a decent effort for this assessment and liked how the end product looked; the simplicity of it and especially really drastic contract between the colours of my materials and the white background.
However, there are some things that I wished I changed or tried.
I fixed the ‘W’ repetition problem, but I only realised I had accidentally made repetition again with the ‘N’s in ‘DESIGN’ and ‘NCE’ from ‘INFLUENCE’ after I had submitted my assignment so that annoyed me :/ Especially since I had this other layout with all the words aligned to the left, where there isn’t ‘noticeable’ repetition as shown below. The only reason I didn’t choose this layout instead was because I felt that the alignment in the center had more of an impact (?).
Kinda wished I experimented with background colours (I chose white because I wanted a strong focus on the colours and packaging of my items). Although I like the contrast the white background gives off, I feel as if it’s too strong on the eyes maybe?? I also wished I had used stronger lightning to create more cast shadows on my objects which some of them had and gave off more depth to the composition.
I also think it would of been more playful if I had more decorative elements to this poster or took advantage of my materials more. Like maybe letting the liquid from the bottles leaking out onto the page as well or even similarly with smearing the food or skincare stuff to emphasise the product.
But in saying all of this, this was a fun project to do since I hadn’t done anything like this before and I actually learnt some useful things along the way. :)
