Design.

HERBERT MATTER RESEARCH. I have come up with my 5 questions. 

1. New york is where your Photography career took off, Can you tell me about the journey?  

A. I came to Paris to study study Painting at the L’École des Beaux Arts. When I first moved into my student apartment, I discovered a camera left by the previous tenant. I began experimenting and teaching myself how to shoot pictures with that camera and that’s when I started developing a passion for Photography. I moved to New York in 1936, and started working as a freelance photographer. One of my first clients were the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and the publisher Condé Nast. I also photographed for numerous  magazines including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Along the years, I worked with other clients including the Guggenheim Museum, Knoll Furniture and the New Haven Railroad. In 1952, I was asked by Alvin Eisenman, head of the design department at Yale, to join the Yale faculty as a professor of photography and graphic design, from then I helped  shaped the university’s photography and graphic design program. In 1980, I received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Photography. I was named Honorary Royal Designer for Industry from the members of the Royal Designers in England in 1982. In addition, I was awarded the Gold Metal from The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) in 1983. These are some of my greatest achievements.

2. I heard about your run in with authoroties in paris, Do you mind explaining what happened?

A. So, as you know, I was studying painting at the L’École des Beaux Arts, there I was mentored and guided by THE Fernand Léger. During my time in Paris, I had the opportunity to work with A. M. Cassandre on posters, with Le Corbusier on architecture and displays, and was honoured to be hired to be apart of team at the legendary Deberny and Peignot. In 1929, as the photographer, typographer and layout man.In 1932, It was law that foreign students renew their visas, but I, neglected to do. My Paris stay ended one night after attending a Dietrich film at an art theater. Thee theater was raided by French authorities and I was found without mine, so let’s say I was put on a long train ride home to Switzerland.

3. What did you do after returning home from paris?

A. After returning home, I started my freelance career, i was hired by  the Swiss tourism department, to design promotional travel posters. It was a hard time for  us designers, and we were forced to turn to government projects for work due to lack of commercial work. And due to to the devastating depression, Switzerland was eager to stimulate their economy by attracting tourist dollars.This was also the time I started experimenting with photomontage. The art of photomontage had its roots in Berlin after the First World War whereas a group known as Dada lead by John Heartfeld and George Grosz were experimenting with new art forms without using paint for art.

4. One of your work, the New Haven Logo is one the most of identifiable symbols in America today, can you run through your processes? A. In 1954, while teaching at Yale, I started exploring theories on logo form. I was commissioned to create the corporate identity for the New Haven Railroad. After losing money on its freight and rail service for years, they decided to pursue new branding to help restore shareholders’ and passengers’ faith in the rail company.The process didn’t come easy. It took about 100 drawings before I came up with the final piece. I explored experimented with the idea of displaying minimal amount of information necessary to communicate. The new identity needed fresh and have lasting impacts. After much experimentation, the stacked ”NH” logo was finalised in a red and black.

5. How did you measure the success?

A. The new logo design definitely had an immediate and lasting impact, it appeared on new locomotives, lighters, pocket watches, and playing cards.

Materials for collage making class this morning. These are collectables I took from a Spicers Print award show. The booklets contain many the different type of stock that the Spicers offer. It’s probably not clear, but some pages are textured papers, I love the images used to make you feel the textures!

REAL Silk, REAL Comfort. Luxury to me is comfort. Being at a state of physical ease and freedom from pain or constraint. Being happy and able to feel good mentally, physically and spiritually.

This introduction brief aims to challenge our perspective on Luxury, in context of a global climate emergency. Thinking beyond the traditional definition of the term ‘luxury’. Traditionally, luxury defines as expensive and exclusive, a want rather than a need. Something that’s out of reach for the average working class individual. I now understand luxury as a term that has endless possible definition and everyone can determine what is and what is not luxury to them. 

Luxury can come in different forms - an experience, an object or emotions. Comfort to me is a luxury, it is key factor in Luxury. It is no luxury if it’s missing comfort. This can be placed in any context. As for my story, it’s more of an experience. Driving my car means I have my personal space, room I can put my personal belongings. I have the row to myself, I can listen to music on speaker, no need for earphones that are irritating and I can sing out-loud if I want - all of these make a comfortable journey, which is what define a luxurious experience. As for my packaging, I based the majority of the design aspects on the comfort. I want to show that comfort does not have to equal a splurge. Luxury is not limited to money or size and as we’re in a global climate crisis, it has little damage on resources we have today. It’s a sustainable product that can provide comfort to all. 

MOTION DESIGN - To recreate the title sequence for a film of our choice. I chose The Shining. I’ve been meaning to watch the movie for a while, so this brief gave me the perfect reason to do. These are the style frames.  This was my first time using After Effects and all I can say is that it was confusing. I started off with 100GB on my laptop and after exporting the final, my storage went down to 50GB.... how? I don’t know. It was also fun, I liked getting frustrated and meanwhile learning new skills. 

Publication: The brief is to re-design covers for 2 books to make them appear as a set/series. I chose Breath and Eucalyptus. Both books are based in Australia and based on the Aussie culture, Breath is about the Aussie surf culture and Eucalyptus is set in the rural NSW and features of Australia’s native plants. I think that’s something important to note the setting of the book - something I could reference when I’m designing. The main theme that the book is about pushing everything in life to the extreme to see how far one can go,  so basically about testing the limit. The two developed a desire to be extraordinary. Breath in the title symbolises the themes in a number of ways throughout the book: holding it, playing with it, losing it, regaining it, working with it to create music, giving it to save lives. 

So because of the Global Pandemic we are currently facing, all classes were moved to online. Different classes used different platforms, which was quite hard to managed. For this class, we used Collaborative Ultra on Canvas. Classes are scheduled same time as face to face classes. One thing I really like is that I don’t have to wake up early in the morning to get ready and make the journey from Geelong to Melbourne City.