Kate's journal

Well, I guess that’s the end. How am I going to fit everything within 200 words…

During this semester, this course has allowed me to learn and develop so many things! From our various lectures, we found ourselves moving through the history of design, filled with art movements, along with the development of type and technology. Ultimately, I have gained knowledge on how our ways of communicating through design has been influenced by past rebellious mentalities.

It was insightful to see how our ways of communicating through type had also been developed as new technology came about. From stone tablets, to mathematical and technical letterforms. Along with the printing press, developing new typefaces such as Blackletter. I find it funny how even our form of expression has gone from simplified symbols, to now emojis that we use on the daily. It is truly fascinating that technology is continually evolving.

Overall, this course has been fun! It has given me the chance to look and experiment with things in so many different ways. It has definitely pushed me out of the comfort zone and in a direction where I can continue to build my skills. I’m more than ever excited to develop as a designer!

Thank you to Bailey, Andy and Karen for the guidance! Along with all my classmates who have also given feedback and support, helping me to improve c:

I admit, I am a quite late to Week 11's lecture... let's just say May was very chaotic with the abundance of assignments due early June.

But! here I am, still going to touch on some of the points in this lecture, where Andy and Karen talk about emerging technology in which designers can utilize. One of which was the EyeWriter.

This new device, was a low-cost eyetracking system designed for a graffiti artist who was paralyzed. This device ultimately allowed him to use his eyes to create art despite not being able to move, whilst it projected onto an actual building. I find it truly amazing that this type of technology exists, and does not limit design to only those who are mobile.

Its even crazier that with the use of algorithms, such realistic faces are able to be generated. Similar to Deep Fakes, where it uses a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning to create fake events.

On the topic of designers using emerging technology, this reminded me of the VR video game called Tilt Brush. Tilt Brush is essentially a virtual reality application where it puts you in a room where you can paint in 3D.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TckqNdrdbgk

Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0XYxQE

Here we are, on the day of submission! We are now near the end of our Tumblr posts. For my Ask Me Anything project, I decided to do an animation interviewing Yayoi Kusama’s pumpkin from her installation, ‘all the eternal love I have for the pumpkins’. As I can’t really show my whole animation on here, I decided to take you through my ideas, and what I was inspired by.

Ultimately, with Kusama’s obsession with pumpkins and polka dots, I wanted to showcase those elements by using dots to transition into the title screen; immediately referencing her love for polka dots. Additionally, I wanted to have the letters transform into those twirling lines in order to indicate the ways that vines on pumpkins grow. I thought that it would also enable an almost uplifting or magical feel, similar to the atmosphere of Kusama’s ‘all the eternal love I have for pumpkins’.

One of my favourite parts of my animation is probably this... ‘question slide’? I’m not sure what to call it. I wanted these parts to ultimately relate to the question or reference one of Yayoi Kusama’s other installations. 

Source: https://www.victoria-miro.com/news/953

In taking a look at Kusama’s  ‘Life is the Heart of a Rainbow’, I wanted to replicate its colours, and almost bokeh like elements within my animation. I liked the way the use of mirrors allowed the dots to get lost in the distance, and I attempted to do the same with the letters of my question forming into dots and disappearing as they shrink.

Furthermore, this question related to an incident between Andy Warhol and Yayoi Kusama, where she felt that he copied her ‘One Thousand Boats’ with his ‘Cow Wallpaper’. With both artists being involved with pop art, I wanted to demonstrate the movements constant use of repetition, bright and bold colours, along with its involvement with comics. Creating the exploding, almost sun ray effect, to transition into the next frame. 

Overall, after countless hours of animating, I’m glad I was able to finish it on time! Although I am quite new to animating, I hope my work was still insightful and interesting. I will definitely try to improve in animating in the future :) Its been tough trying to think of creative ideas on how to keep the animation engaging, whilst playing around with the questions and answers. But I guess I got there in the end! 

The lecture of week 10 took on the the idea of conceptualism in the 21st century. Ultimately, this idea of conceptualising something, made ordinary objects into artwork. For example, Marcel Duchamp did something atypical as he took a male urinal, and claimed it to be art.

In doing so, his act was significant, and art did not have to coincide with the traditional forms such as paintings or sculptures. Rather they were defined by their context and how they were framed. I guess this is what many people make fun of; the fact that anything could be art. Who dares to say that even I, a design student hadn’t thought so also... whoops, I guess I’m guilty. Anyways! 

This new concept of art straying away from its traditional forms, lead to collages. Andy touched on an artist known as Mimmo Rotella, in which they had done an opposite collage, where they would not glue, but tear away. Tearing glued posters to see what was underneath, which I found to be quite charming.

On the topic of collages, I decided to explore and do a little research on some contemporary collage artists. This lead me to come across, Marcelo Monreal’s pop culture collages.

Sources:  https://www.itsliquid.com/faces-unbonded-by-marcelo-monreal.html https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/493284965418218955/ https://www.photographize.co/interviews/marcelomonreal/ http://missmsartistdatabase.blogspot.com/2018/08/marcelo-monreal.html I was immediately drawn by its vibrant and incredible use of disfigured faces, along with its reference to inner beauty. Personally, I’ve never taken a look at different types of collages, other than the typical stacking of different images. What I mean by this, is that I find it fascinating how artists such as Monreal have cut out parts of the same image, distorting it into something unique. I feel like I have always been drawn to these types of work where faces are distorted or almost pulled apart.  Furthermore, the lecture continues on to the idea of creating artwork for a reason. One example that I found extremely clever, was a design by Tibor Kalman. This design ultimately commented on how the human body is used an object, like a piece of meat. In poking fun at the serious nature of how fashion labels would advertise, Kalman had created a packaging design appropriating the Calvin Klein logo. This especially being due to Calvin Klein being known for selling apparel while promoting the objectification of the human body.

During this lecture, we were now exploring what had come after the utopian idealism of modernism.

We first looked at symbols of the end of modernism, acting as metaphors to its failures. One design which had shown this, was the modernist buildings designed by Minoru Yamasaki in 1956, and demolished in 1972. Its extinction was ultimately due to its failures in responding to the social needs of the families who lived within them. This showing a lack of keeping up with a rapidly evolving society.

Another metaphor of the modernist ideals falling, includes the Twin Towers which was also designed by Yamasaki. Something that I found quite interesting was what Karen said about the skyscrapers, literally reaching for the future with its height. As a symbol of capitalism, it was a target of terrorist attacks. Again, this was an indicator of the end of the modernist ideals.

Andy ultimately explained that, while modernism committed to the idea of working hard to achieve capitalism promises and leisure time, post modernism embodied skepticism towards those ideals. Therefore, post modernism was chaotic and unstructured.

In abandoning the modernist ideals, there came the Punk Movement. The Punk movement was counter-cultural, disturbing and disrupting the happy complacency of the wider society. Ultimately, it was characterised by its anti-establishment views and its promotion of individual freedom.

The example of the Sex Pistols poster from the Europunk Visual Punk Culture, directly attacks the idea of established order. With a portrait of the queen, collaged over with type over her eyes and mouth, she is ultimately muted.

A similar destructive and rebellious behavior is demonstrated in the album cover for Sex Pistols by Jamie Reid. Showing the lack of respect in harmony with no grid, and no balance in type. This being a total disregard, of the Bauhaus and modernist design.

Ultimately, many of the works within the Punk Movement, immediately disregarded modernist ideals. Reacting to the culture of society, they gave identities to people in smaller communities where many faced unemployment. Moving on, a similar movement which also opted out on Bauhaus ideology, involved the Memphis Group.

The Memphis Group had intense disregard of the aesthetic and minimalist aspects of design, and would rather collage physical things together. They were playful and bizarre, experimental with pattern, material and form. Unlike modernism, where material was highly involved, the Memphis collection made it difficult to tell what materials as an emphasis was put on surface and pattern with lamination. 

So, here I was trying to figure out who I wanted my interview subject to be. First thing that came to mind was the Pop Art movement which was something that I found fascinating when I learnt about it in highschool. I loved the bold and high contrast artworks with strong correlations to Pop Culture. I personally like when a design relates to something that I can recognise.

Especially with Andy Warhol significant figure of Pop Art, with notable artworks being Campbell's Souop Cans and Shot Marilyns, it would have been interesting to delve deeper. However, a lot of people would have probably chose Andy Warhol or Pop Art to be their subject, so I opted to try find more interesting interviewee. This is when I came across Yayoi Kusama.

Source: http://artsatmichigan.umich.edu/ink/2019/11/01/the-mesmerizing-work-of-yayoi-kusama/

She was known as 'the princess of polka dots', with works inspired by many important artists such as Andy Warhol, which was perfect as I originally wanted to do Pop Art.

So... there I was presenting my five possible interviewees to Bailey. Ultimately, she told me that it would be difficult to interview someone that was still alive as it meant that I was restricted with voice and creativity.

Then boom! Bailey came up with the brilliant idea of interviewing one of her pumpkins. Pumpkins are significant in Yayoi Kusama's works, especially to her childhood and past traumas. With this in mind, I immediately loved the idea of interviewing a pumpkin. This interviewee would have also allowed me to form a personality based on its significance to Kusama. What had drawn me even more was that, to Kusama pumpkins had always 'felt human'.

Source: http://artsatmichigan.umich.edu/ink/2019/11/01/the-mesmerizing-work-of-yayoi-kusama/

After looking into the Bauhaus last week, we continued onto the futurists of the Futurism era.

Now, who were the futurists you say? They were a group of Italian artists who embraced emerging technology of the time, writing a manifesto which listed everything they embraced and technologies they wanted to see more of. The futurists valued the thought of acceleration and especially loved the idea of mass production and machinary.

Futurism was ultimately a reaction to the beginning of mass production. In 1909, Henry ford started to produce cars on mass, sparking the massification of goods, factories being set up, along with a factory line of workers. With new technologies, even painting as the role of a representative medium had been taken over with the photographic medium.

Capturing moments with ones eyes was ultimately different to a camera as cameras would embrace speed.

What comes to mind for me in this lecture was, Zang Tumb Tumb followed by one of Marinetti's works recounting his experiences in the Balkan War of 1912. In contrast to early print which was mathematical, harmonic and sensible, the futurists chose to break as many rules as they could with type, giving it voice and weight. In breaking away from type tradition, I could see clearly that their ways of using type was quite loud and almost chaotic.

What I found the most interesting in this lecture was The Futurist Cookbook. In producing The Futurist Cookbook, the futurists wanted to revolutionise the ways Italians ate. In doing so, they attempted to bring out more senses rather than just taste. For example, they talked about how music could accompany the food, and how perfume must be sprayed before eating so that ones palette was not distracted. Well, I'd say that this was no ordinary cookbook, and was rather absurd. But I guess that was what grabbed my interest. It was a cookbook which even had things about gunshots in expresso, ozonisers, electrolyses and vaccums in food??? WHAT ON EARTH. Well, I guess it could be explained by the cookbook being a disguise for a political agenda.

So now it was time for us to talk about the Bauhaus. In highschool I had heard about it but hadn't really gone in depth with the subject.

I originally just thought it was just a movement, but to find out that it was actually a school was pretty interesting.

Bauhaus known for its distinctive look of simple geometric shapes, was a highly influential school of design founded in Germany. In fact, the ways design was taught made it so worthy of attention, bringing together everyone from textile workers, craftworkers and end communication designers. Looking into the Bauhaus more, I found that it was actually the first school to introduce graphic design and to emphasise an importance of purpose-driven design. Ultimately, the Bauhaus expanded their influence through a variety of household item designs.

One of Bauhaus' sculptors, Josef Hartwig, was highly known for his 1923 design for a chess set. I found this design extremely fascinating, especially due to the designs of the chess pieces showing the way it moves. As someone who has stayed away from chess, mostly due to a lack of strategic thinking and forgetting what each piece does, I think this design is quite clever. I really really appreciate the way the Bauhaus focused on not only the way a design looks, but also the efficiency of form.

Following similar principles, Herbet Bayer's Universal Alphabet reduced the design of letterforms. Deeming uppercase letters unnecessary, and reducing elements only to the essentials. However, I'd say that uppercase letters are quite needed overall... anyways! I guess he wanted to be bold and take on a more minimalistic approach? This design ultimately collapsed the hierarchy and merged both uppercase and lowercase letters together which I guess was pretty unique.

The Bauhaus took designs to a whole different level. Added to efficiency of form, an emphasis was on designing the empty space around the subject. For example, the Lath chair looked into the use of material colour space. Andy explained that this concept was similar to the ways we would design a page layout. Making sure that the design considered how it would fit into its surroundings.

So that was it for the lecture! I found it pretty interesting to learn about. Especially the fact that Waltar Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus had believed that women could not think in three dimensions and therefore only stuck to weaving and painting. Pretty strange...

Following the previous lecture about grids, we now continue explore the layout of words and imagery on pages. Ultimately, image and type had merged in ways that allows images to be created from type, forming expression from the words written and the ways they are placed on the page. As seen below, the example displays the word Jazz in a rhythmic pattern which reflects how the music genre sounds like.

Again, the same merging of words and imagery is seen in Andy’s work. However this piece actually plays with density rather than just placement which is pretty interesting. 

Furthermore, with this concept in mind, i became intrigued by these type of designs. So i did a bit of research and came across this designer, Daniel Carlmatz. He had decided to create typographic logos for a wordplay challenge. This ultimately meant making logos with imagery that were associated with the word. I actually find it pretty interesting how a new type was created to match the panda’s shape, adding somewhat of a symmetry in the logo. Additionally, the grill one is pretty simple and clean, and is easy to recognise and read from first glance.

source: https://www.demilked.com/word-logo-design-365-challenge-daniel-carlmatz-stockholm/

These calligrams I have found are also pretty clever. Such as the big wave as an ‘S’ in tsunami, the ‘V’ and ‘A’ to reflect going up and down the elevator, along with the small ‘O’ to represent the moon in the sky. Looking at all these designs has definitely inspired me to think about ways of implementing imagery into text, I’d say it’s pretty fascinating!

After last weeks lecture, where we found ourselves talking about the evolution of print, we have now come to the topic of losing humanistic scribal activity. First, we had a look at how in c1500, there is a strong contrast in the letterform, whereas the sanserif type has been rationalised. 

Furthermore, in exploring evidence of the loss of humanistic scribal activity, this takes us into the topic of grids. What I found fascinating was when Andy explained a system of grids, within grids. Ultimately, we find ourselves using grids to create a more efficient use of space. For example on pages and in books. This also extends to the ways houses are laid out, and even the ways houses are built with bricks, following a grid.

So here I was, trying to figure out what my question should be. I’ll be honest, unlike others, I didn’t try make a list of questions or anything like that. However, I found that i had already sparked up an option from the various lectures we’ve had. In discovering and understanding the evolution of typefaces and how we had come to have movable type, I became fascinated with the idea of how design can lead the way to many different inventions and learning. As we continue to create designs, we are always influenced by previous work, and the design we make will ultimately do the same for future designs. Furthermore, I wanted to play around with this idea in my question. So i started thinking along the lines of “Does design help lead the way?”, “How does design create our first steps?”, and in the end i chose to do “Does design form our first steps?”. I thought this allowed for a more open question as it connects to how design can lead direction, meaning that it can show us how to do things and help us start doing things. 

Now it was time for me to decide what i should make my question out of. Ultimately, I wanted my choice to be related to a baby’s first steps into learning, or our first steps into creativity. As the hoarder I am, there i was rummaging through my wardrobe shelf for all my littlest pet shop toys. As seen in the picture below, i had come up with my first compilation. Clearly... i was running out of objects. So there i was, asking my mates whether it was legible and if i should change anything. Most of them had trouble with the bathtub as a ‘d’ in design, so of course i had to try my best to find a replacement.

3/4/2020

Then came to the day of submission. By this time, I had changed the bathtub ‘d’ to something that is hopefully more legible, along with my lazy ‘our first’ writing with more items that i found after hours of trial and error.

I had a class in the morning where we were able to get feedback. By this time, i had edited the picture above into the picture below. I had upped the contrast and saturation, and removed the excess objects using the stamp tool. Ultimately, everyone in the class took turns to show off their work and understand what could be changed. When it came to my turn, many had liked the connection between first steps and toys. However, I was told that it was ‘design’ was difficult to read due to the letters being so far apart, and that the words were crooked.

So, there I was after class, trying to figure out how I should finalise my work. Ultimately, I ended up pushing the letters of ‘design’ more closely together, and followed a grid in order to align the words in a more straight and orderly manner. I had also realised that the ‘r’ and ‘s’ in first was a little to far apart so I also decided to push them closer together. Additionally, I added a grain and orange overlay in order to add a sort of nostalgic feel, connecting to ‘toys’ and ‘first steps’.

Here we are with week 4 after our last lecture, where we found books to be luxury items in medieval times, due to its labor intensive production and it being the latest technology. As we go on with the our fourth lecture, we learn that books were not the first movable type technology, but it was rather the movable clay type invented by Bi Sheng.

Ultimately, we find that new technology form new types of typefaces. With improvements to the printing press, the primary use of Carolingian script had lead to a new standard letter-form, Blackletter. As Blackletter was the most popular typeface at the time in Gutenburg, and books were able to be mass produced with the printing press, Blackletter became extremely common. The typeface became so popular, due to its representation of Germany as it was darker, with no nonsense.

Although Blackletter was associated with German propaganda, it had been approriated through designs created in North America. For example, the theme park, Disneyland uses the typeface for their logo. This ultimately being transcended from the tradition of Germany’s fairy tales. Blackletter has maintained its popularity, as shown through many modern day titles, such as Harry Potter. This again, following along with the tradition of fairy tales, as the series is filled with magic.

Following week 2′s lecture about the earliest systems of recorded language, we found that similarly to Hieroglyphics, a mix of pictograms and ideograms can be found in Chinese characters. As seen as the picture below, the letter-forms are seen to be closely related to natural elements such as the bamboo stalks.

Furthermore, Japanese letter-forms are shown to also demonstrate its relationship to natural elements. As seen in the image below of an ancient manuscript which reads, ‘the waves of the river never stop, and yet it is never the same water’ which matches the mode of inscriptions fluidity, and the ways of which the characters flow together from top to bottom, similar to a river.

Additionally, I find it interesting that the alignment of characters can be manipulated to create an image, such that is seen below. This also changing the way it is read, which in this case is from inside to out. Ultimately, i have learnt that the arrangement of letters can demonstrate or form meaning. This being shown in the Khmer manucripts, and Ancient manuscript of the Hoko-ji, Daifukuko-ji Monastery.

Taking it back to week two’s lecture, we began exploring some of the earliest systems of language.

We found that the beginnings of written language has been discovered on ancient Mesopotamian clay-tablets. Shown to feature symbols and illustrations, developed through the shapes of actual objects and entities. This can be seen in the example below, where the skull of an oryx has been simplified into a symbol.

6/3/2020 (Lecture 1)

Now to take it back to the first lecture of Communication Design Studies. First, we started with the question, “What is design?” in which in popular responses came to be aesthetic, expression, creativity and communication. Ultimately, design communicates through aesthetics a story or subject. Therefore, design holds the purpose of warranting a reaction from an audience.

In exploring the works of Karen ann Donnachi and Andy Simionato, they opened our eyes to the variations in which design can be approached. Through magazines, photography and book designs, we were shown to understand that design can be developed with combinations of methods. Particularly, these examples present photography, combined with illustration. Essentially, I found that to be quite intriguing and in ways aesthetically pleasing. These works demonstrated to me the ways type can be positioned to flow with photographs. Such as the work featured in Qvest Magazine, the words are displayed in respect to the shape of the portrait. This to me, created a calming and soothing imagery. In comparison, the placement of type displayed in the Red, Wine and Green book chapter, developed a more rhythmic and almost edgy feel to the artwork as it’s placement was more scattered and imbalanced.