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Experimental Jetset writes that “modernism has everything to do with the notion of breaking spells, and the ambition to go beyond the chains of illusion… We believe that even in its most harsh and rigid form, modernism still offers a way out.” Honestly, this may just be my ignorance but I seriously have no idea what this even means. But then they write, “It provides a person something to chew on, to work with, to bounce off of. It always demands an active position. Therefore, we even believe that the more corporate outgrowths of late modernism possess a subversive potential.” Do they mean that Modernism is sort of a tool, which can be used to make social change? And so, is Modernism more of a state of mind since Modernism effects more than just the graphic design world, but fashion and architecture – all design really. I’m not really sure who I sympathize with more, I think I understood more what Metahaven was saying but then I’m entirely sure what Experimental Jetset was trying to say. I kind of felt like I was decoding what both of them were saying, but more so Experimental Jetset. 

“What makes a Hitchcock film a Hitchcock film is not the story but a consistency of style the winds intact through different technologies, plots, actors and time periods like a substance of its own… The meaning of his work is not in the story but in the storytelling.” I really like this analogy that Michael Rock wrote into Fuck Content, he also elaborates by explaining how designing is another form of storytelling, the elements we master for our craft is not the content but the devices we use to story tell; typography, line, weight, form, color, contrast, scale, etc. I think critical design is meant to make us think and question the design we are looking at, it’s usually thought out to be designed in an unorthodox fashion to evoke emotion and questions. I think Rock Pony would agree as he writes in his article Observer: Critical Omissions. “Design that lacks critical awareness of the situations in which it operates can only be a compromised activity. Critical design suggests aims and methods that are different in some fundamental ways from the norm.” I think that concept of content is related to critical design, but the content only becomes considered a part of critical design after the form has been altered with the tools and devices of design. I think the choices you make with designing the content you have either can convey critical design or not. For example two different people could address the same “content” in different forms of design and they both might not read as critical because of the choices they made within their designs. “Critical design, or design that asks carefully crafted questions and makes us think, is just as difficult and just as important as design that solves problems or finds answers,” write Dunne and Raby. “Its purpose is to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry, and the public. … Critical design takes as its medium social, psychological, cultural, technical, and economic values in an effort to push the limits of lived experience, not the medium.” I think that the Forms of Inquiry exhibit website is a good example of what Dunne and Raby have written and the content interacts with critical design only by the direction of the designer in their choices when designing because it’s not about literally reading a message but emotionally understanding what the artist is trying to make their audience understand, 

 “Since the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, the machine has seemed to threaten the work of artisan-craftsmen” (Sennett). The modern machine’s has put the fear into all craftsmen even up until modern times when desktop publishing scared the life out of graphic designers. They felt that their ability to thoroughly design would be like in the dust as Defaulted text was introduced. Stuart Bailey was quoted in Lorraine Wild’s essay Unraveling as saying, …the default camp decried the self-indulgence of indecipherable typographic experimentation, the austere formal flatness of Default was hardly an exercise in generosity toward and audience, either.” I use Illustrator all the time when creating vector images and a program like this, is like CAD, it's made up of Math and so I have totally used this as the quick and easy way but so far I haven’t used it in a way in which I have endured the fatality of a design like Sennett speaks of. However I use InDesign all the time and looking at a screen and seeing a physical print is 100% different. In the beginning of designing I did make the mistake once or twice of doing a project that was going to be printed out and what I thought the design looked like on screen is not what it looked like when you printed it out. Trust me, lessoned learned. I also had a professor that wanted us, as students of design to physical understand when designing for type, so he had us all purchase Shaedler rulers and we’d measure leading and points/picas. He wanted to show us how to physically understand letters as best as we could before we began designing with them and this way you understood them enough to troubleshoot problems with leading and point sizes just by looking at your papers, even before you tried another printed out another 3 pages until you got it right.

Some didn't end up exactly like my sketches but having sketches gave me allowed me not to stray too far from my initial ideas and to problem solve when I was finalizing my book jacket series. 

For some reason my first thought was an exacto knife because I feel like use them a lot not just for trimming things down but for creating – I really love collages. However instead I decided to go with the pencil, because it’s so invisible to the forefront of my mind because I don’t even have to think about using it since I use a pencil ALL. THE. TIME. (notice my emphasis there lol). Before I get started on a design or even writing a paper, which I will be typing, I use a pencil to sketch and outline my thoughts and ideas. The construction of the pencil is made of graphite mixed with a clay binder, leaving grey or black marks so that it can be easily erased. Pencils are used for writing and drawing so it made to be durable although gentle enough that it can be erased. You can use a light or heavy hand to emphasize the darkness of something in a sketch.  With a pencil things are only ever going to be gray, if I’m hoping to convey that something is colored I’m going to need another tool instead of a standard pencil.  Ballet writes “Drawings, pasted up layouts, instructional overlays, coordinated color systems, standardized ink formulation and paper sizes, prototypes, models and reprographic proofs were just some of the instrument invented to ensure that the faithfulness of a designer’s vision was executed according to plan.” When designing it always helps to have a plan and with a pencil you can sketch/draw out an idea so you can produce your vision exactly as it was in your mind and going into production it’ll help to show people who can’t read your mind as to what you want your design to look like. I think a pencil (at least for me) is the first tool I grab before I get down to work.

Masking Tape