THE LECTURE SERIES: DESIGN BY EVERYONE, FOR EVERYONE

The final lecture of this course was an interesting one and really capped off this course nicely.

It began by running through everything that was covered in the lectures (all be it brief) and talked about some of the activities we did in class, at home and online. It was great to see how far we had come from the start of the year talking about clay tablets and communicating through the means of mutually agreed symbols or gestures to the creation of the printing machine and mass production of books to using digital tools to create design. 

If I were to look at all the stuff we had to cover at the start of this year I think I would have panicked and ignored all the work but looking at it now, I’m surprised we covered so much in such little time. It was great to learn things which gave me a new perspective on the world and design.

Looking at the activities we did was great as well. I can vividly recall all the sessions and activities we did in class and what we talked about. I think I still have a lot of the things we made in class, if not photos of what I did. Some of it (such as the shapeshifters activity) will probably be turned into something more during the break. 

After we had covered everything we did throughout this course, we looked into what we should do in the future and the idea of Decolonising Design. When Karen mentioned that when she asked people (specifically men) to name some female designers, she said they struggled. I am fortunate to know a few names like Paula Scher and Es Devlin (she does stage design), I still felt that I lacked a lot of great designers in my knowledge bank. I know plenty of male designers, but I felt ashamed of my lack of knowledge of female designers.

I think what Karen said about celebrating design of all genders, races, and cultures is going to be the thing I take with me for the rest of the course, especially with the current climate of things with the Black Lives Matter movements and how powerful peoples voices are now.

I took a screenshot of the slide that included all the female designers names on it and I will print it off. I will hang it on my wall and my goal is to go through that list and research into them and their work. I won’t call myself a good designer until I have completed that list of female designers.

THE LECTURE SERIES: LETS CODE THE WORLD

In this lecture, we talked about what’s next for design, which leads us into the current day and possibly the future. I found this lecture really intriguing as I am very interested in using code and digital formats to create my work. I have minimal coding knowledge but I am trying to learn so I can begin pushing my design into new territories (even if it’s just for me).

We began by looking at Parametric design and design that is variable and can form itself. We looked at open source projects such as Metapolator and Metaflop which can help either create different thicknesses for a typeface or create a new typeface entirely. I played around with Metaflop and as a result of me being ‘creative’ and putting every slider up to it’s max, I created this monstrosity.

Fig 1. My metaflop creation. Perfection.

I was also intrigued by the qr code stencils that were created to help Nomads and homeless people navigate and help them stay out of danger. When watching this, I was reminded of a video I watched about Hobo symbols on trains but then someone mentioned that they were like Hobo symbols and for a moment there I felt smart.

We also looked at visualising data through design, which can be demonstrated by the Public Face in Berlin. What this was is a face that would show the overall mood of Berlin (happy, neutral and sad) based on the analysis of tweets by people in Berlin via a computer. It’s a very interesting idea but the analysis section would probably be biased because sometimes it’s hard to determine if someone is happy, sad or neutral based on the text from a tweet. I do like the face though.

Fig 2. The Public Face in Berlin. I think this is Version 2. <SOURCE>

We then looked at generating design, which was very interesting. Using code, ai and the analysis on things to generate artwork is a very interesting concept. I liked a few of the generative things that were shown such as the Predictive art bot and the Inspiro Bot, which creates one of those inspiration graphics that is supposed to inspire you. 

Fig 3. The first inspiration picture created by Inspiro Bot. I think I’ve seen that typeface before but I don’t remember what it was.

There was also this creepy thing which was a bot that would generate an image of a person pixel by pixel that does not exist in the real world. It works incredibly well but sometimes it stuffs up and creates something even more creepy than the concept itself. The images look so real and look like someone has taken a photo of a person but they don’t exist. 

That idea really brings up some questions about how design can be used for good or evil. What if there was something that would replace your face onto a billboard to sell you something much like in the Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’? What if it was to publicly shame you for a crime you committed?

What are the implications of using technology to design something that is evil?

THE LECTURE SERIES: #DESIGNISOVERPARTY

In this lecture, we looked at conceptualism and the idea of having design being defined by their concepts. It was kind of interesting to see how design has evolved from when we started this course looking at Cuneiform to seeing a controversial advert for jeans.

We begun by discussing the ideas behind conceptual art and who inevitably decides design. Is it us as a designer? Is it the creates of the software we use? Is it the environment around us? Is it the music we listen to as we make designs? The question of who decides design probably has no correct or incorrect answer, just ideas which can be discussed and argued about.

After dropping a mind blowing question, we were thrown the idea that conceptual art is ‘the art I would make if I were to make an artwork’. What does this mean. I was thinking it has something to do with the stages of designing work, meaning that you basically sketch an idea and just leave it as that. Maybe it’s not even sketching the idea but just writing the idea down on a piece of paper and claiming it as an artwork. Maybe its just a black page and a pen. 

I like to think of this like the Portrait of Iris Clert, where it’s just a telegram saying that ‘this is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so’. Is this an artwork? It claims to be so it must. What could be considered an artwork? That is a whole different debate that I’m not going to get into.

Fig 1. A portrait of Iris Clert <SOURCE>

We were then shown a manifesto called ‘First Thing First’ published by Ken Garland that talks about the idea that design should not be used just for the progression of consumerism, but for its original idea of communication. I agree with that idea and after reading the manifesto, I feel that we should try to escape this idea that design can only be used for consumerism, but as a way of communicating messages.

Fig 2. The manifesto published by Ken Garland <SOURCE>

We were then given examples of using design to communicate messages and ideas. There was an example from Greenpeace that was very simple but was opening a discussion about the inner workings of politics and the idea of the influences of oil companies on politicians. I remember the quote ‘There is no such thing as a society’ by Margaret Thatcher, which surprisingly was in the website I found Fig 2 in.

We also got told the idea of a flag as a different form of art entirely. We were shown two examples, the Rainbow Flag by Gilbert Baker (which I will probably talk about in another post) and a design of a new and inclusive Australian flag by Brendan Jones, also called the Reconciliation flag. Both these flags respectively began different ideas of design, either by queering it or decolonising it.

We also looked at COLORS Magazine which was funded by Benetton, a clothing brand. It included images and ideas that we very controversial, causing uproar and discussion about the magazine. Benetton also had advertisements which included very graphic images, including one which included a family around someone who was in the last stages of life, dying from AIDS. This kind of created this idea that they were gonna be there from the start of life to the end of it, which is bold of them. Their publicity kind of perpetuated the idea that there is no such thing as bad publicity and their approach to their magazines surely got them publicity.

It was kind of a combination of activism and advertising, which is still perpetuated today with things like ‘Make America Great Again’ hats and face masks to the IKEA instructions to the border wall. The last thing I will write is the idea of art imitating life and life imitating art, which is a perpetual circle that I drew in my book that I think is very true today. You take your life and create art and your art influences the lives we live.

THE LECTURE SERIES: LSD + IKEA

In this lecture, we discussed what happened to modernism and post-modernism and how it transitioned between the two.

Modernism was supposed to respond to the needs of the people and reaching for the future. This was evident through the design of the Twin Towers in New York and how it was supposed to help the peoples with their needs. Safe to say what happened to the Twin Towers also represented the death of modernism and the rise of post-modernism and the idea of going against the rules and conventions laid out in previous design methods.

Modernism was following a straight, coherent line but people didn’t like this and decided to diverge and split from modern conventions, breaking the rules and responding to the failures of the modernist movement. This was also evident in the Punk movement and their violent attacks on the established order set in stone by the government and the media. 

A clear example shown to us was the Sex Pistols, which went against the media and disrupted society. The music reflected these ideas (I’m not a big fan of punk music but it’s on my list of things to listen to when I have time) and so did the designs of album covers and gig poster. These disobeyed the rules set in place by the Bauhaus and modernism, favouring a mix of case with their words and haphazard placement of type.

Fig 1: The album cover the ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ by the Sex Pistols.

Another example of the punk movement was Memphis in Italy. When looking at it, I found it very hard to compare Memphis to the post-modernism movement at the start. I then became more aware of what post-modernism meant and how it was against the rules set in place. I understood why they refused to obey the materials traditional conventions and used laminated surfaces to cover the materials of objects. This was all to rebel against the ideas of Bauhaus .It was more playful that what was conventionally known from the punk movement but I can see the similarities.

THE LECTURE SERIES (W8) - SEASON WITH GUNPOWDER FOR EXTRA FLAVOUR

I’m gonna update the cover later. UPDATE 3/5: still haven’t done it. UPDATE 5/5: still haven’t done it. i would leave it but i have created a theme and i have to stick to it. UPDATE 7/5: A week later and I finally fixed up the cover photo.

In this lecture, we looked at another design movement that was taking shape during and after the first world war and the idea of embracing the future. We looked at what it meant to be a futurist and how that effected design. 

A futurist would be someone who was embracing the upcoming technologies of the time, such as cars and the increase in manufacturing speeds and efficiency. They also wanted to break as many conventional rules as possible, defying basic logic to embrace the idea of the future. Basically the hipsters of the 20th Century.

The increase in the use of photography changed the way paintings were perceived. As a photo, this is a still image of a moment in time taken by a lens. Paintings changed to be the lived experience of the viewer, the idea that it was the perspective of one person and, if someone else were to observe the same object, it would be a different perspective.

I like this idea about the difference between photography and paintings. I’ve noticed that I have had conversations at length with friends about the meanings and ideas behind painting. With photography there’s less of a focus on what the image means but the context around the image.

For most futurists, breaking the conventional rules of design was a key ideology. Examples of work that break such rules are the Bolted Book and the Futurist Cookbook as well as using type in a specific way to give it a voice.

Let’s start with the Bolted Book, which was a set of loose sheets of paper bolted together with nuts and bolts. This is a very interesting idea, using something so unconventional in an unexpected way. Why would anyone think of using nuts and bolts to bound a book together? It also discusses the idea of what an object wanted to be, not what it is. The book wanted to be bound with bolts, not glue.

Fig 1. The Bolted Book reprint on Kickstarter SOURCE>

The next thing I will talk about was the Futurist Cookbook. This book is not your conventional cookbook. A couple of things stood out at me when Andy and Karen were discussing the cookbook. That there were recipes with absurd ingredients such as gunpowder and processes used such as UV light to ‘cook’ food. You had to play specific music before your meal but not during, as to make sure the palette was clean for the food. They also were against pasta, even though they were based in Italy.

The food in this book wasn’t meant to be eaten (it’ll probably make you very sick), but to be admired and express this idea of the unconventional. Why would a cookbook tell you to not eat the food? It was because they wanted to provoke action and embrace the future.

Fig 2. The Futurist Cookbook book cover. SOURCE>

The final idea was to give typography a voice. They used typography in a very violent way, defying conventional rules and conventions such as page space and a common base line. This is a dramatic shift between what we were talking about in previous lectures about a specific set of rules in place for design. I kind of like this idea of unconventional typography because it can help to tell stories through the position of type.

The final thing in the lecture was a clip from the film ‘Metropolis’. I was very excited to see this because I had to use this film in my research for VCE Drama. This was because we were studying German Expressionism. So, much like my previous post about perspective, I will see this from two different perspective; A design and a performance perspective. I like the film and will probably look more into it again for research. From what I saw, I could see this idea of the future in this film and from the shapes and action within the scene, I can see the influence of different movements, but especially the Futurist movement.

I’ll leave this post with the Metropolis poster.

THE LECTURE SERIES (W7) - BAUHAUS PARTY

Today we looked at the Bauhaus movement, something that I have some familiarity with as I did some work in High School about Bauhaus. 

I made a coffee cup based on some conventions of Bauhaus. This was in year 11 so I wasn’t as knowledgeable as I am now and I only looked at the aesthetics, not the history.

Fig 1: The coffee cup I was talking about. There’s some clever design in this but overall, I would probably re-do it when I have the chance.

Anyway, we looked at some history about the design school and learn’t about why it was so influential in the art of design and the way we think about design now. PLEASE NOTE: This was written a couple of days after the lecture so it’ll be very disjointed and messy as I am reading from my notes. Should be OK though.

When looking at the works of Bauhaus, people often mistake them for minimalism. I have fallen for that trap as well, thinking the design was minimalist and cool but there is a lot of work that goes into. Everything is considered, the idea of a grid around an object or shape, the space that is/isn’t take up by the design is considered and sophisticated.

There’s the idea of the truth to materials and the fact that the materials want to be a certain form. There is a decision to either stick to that form or to break it and make something nice.

The Bauhaus School of Design also generalised the idea of using primary shapes and applying a certain colour theory. You can kind of see this colour theory and use of basic shapes in the coffee cup design but they went more into detail about it. There’s probably books about it so I might look into them.

One of the things that intrigued me was the gender demographic of Bauhaus and how it was male dominate. Women were teaching at Bauhaus, but the common idea within the school that ‘women could not think in 3 dimensions’ which is an odd idea. To think that that was the mindset amongst designers not to long ago and the demographic of designers now. I’ve noticed that there is a mixture of genders, cultures, ideas and backgrounds in our classes. This is great because design has evolved so much recently and it might be because of this openness in design.

Gesamtkunstwerk (could not think of a way to fit it into this post)

The final thing we looked at was ‘Das Triadische Ballet’ or the Triadic Ballet. This was a ballet that was made by Oskar Schlemmer and a couple of people from Bauhaus based around Bauhaus design and the ideas I explained in this post. I’m gonna make another post about this soon but my one sentence thought is that it’s crazy yet beautiful.

I think that’s everything.

Oh

Weaving is important.

OK, that’s it.

THE LECTURE SERIES (W6): HANDS OF A TYPEWRITER

This lecture began with a discussion of page space. I found it interesting that the space used or not used can make something appealing. We also looked at how empty space can be included in a design. This is interesting because the principles shown to us through the lecture are things that I’ve been doing my entire life. I remember being picky at my schools newsletters or letters because of their unappealing use of page space. I also have a zine that sits on my desk that has some of my favourite uses of space (and just overall aesthetic).

Fig 1: Some pages from my favourite zine. I love the amount of unused space on the page of the left. Kind of shows emphasis on the phrase ‘Can you show me a miracle?’. I love the alignment as well.

Fig 2: Another page from that zine. I love how simple yet appealing these pages are. The white, with the black contrast. The small text that says ‘only there you may find it hard to breathe’ with a wide leading has a massive impact. The focus of the page being on that text with nothing else distracting from it.

I also noted down about how imagery and type can be used to create designs. I kind of like this kind of design and love trying to integrate type into design. One of my pieces has a background of the america flag but it has all the deaths and injuries of America mass shootings since Sandy Hook (December 14 2014). I like how we can use words and type to convey meaning and create design, and that would probably be one of the things I will try to do in the future.

Fig 3: The background text of one of my works titled ‘Thoughts and Prayers’

I found it interesting that during the times of print pressing and using metal type, there were restriction on how many typefaces a person could own. This resulted in people smuggling typefaces with them, which is a weird concept but would ultimately lead to better and better designs. Now a days I can google places to download an infinite collection of typefaces. My computer probably has over 100 typefaces (and I only use like 5 or 6 of them). 

We ended the lecture with the idea of typography and the tools to communicate as an extension of the human body and that typography is a meaning machine. This is very interesting and just made me think of the implied meanings of typefaces and communications (such as in movie posters which I talked about previously). I also like the idea of going beyond the meaning of the word and using typeface to make the meaning of a word change. I like the example that if someone was to write something in uppercase changes the delivery of the phrase to that of one written in all lowercase. What about emoji? What does the appearance (or lack thereof) of an emoji mean? 

THE LECTURE SERIES (W5) : CTRL + P

For today’s lecture, we looked into the transition between humanistic scribal activity in which books were hand-written by scribes into a more mechanical form of printing, which helped in the mass production of books. We also looked at the transition to mechanical type and using maths to create typefaces. Also grids.

It was interesting to see how far printing and communication has come ever since cuneiform. I could not imagine how slow it would be to hand draw every single letter of a book over and over again. If we had to hand write some of the books we have today it would take months, if not years to write a single book. That was probably why books were a luxury.

Then Gutenberg’s invention changed the perception of books and typefaces. Now books weren’t perceived as a luxury and could be mass produced. It also just dawned on me how insane it is that everything we do today and take advantage of was the result of years of work.

For the mass production of books to occur, there would have been print shops where people would use Gutenberg print press to make pages for books. You would think that since everyone would probably have a printer in their homes that print shops don’t exist, but they still do, they’ve just evolved. I still need to go to Office works to print out my works and only print shops have the materials I need for my work. Much like everything else, stuff doesn’t disappear, it just evolves.

Fig 1: My crappy home printer, which has a little Gutenberg in it.

Another thing we talked about was the use of mathematical proportions and grids to generalise type. Mathematicians would also compare typefaces to the human form, which at first I found very odd. What would be the connection between the human body and a letter? This might relate to our previous project in which we had to create letters from objects. Maybe you can create a typeface with different parts of you body. What letters can you make with your hands? 

The grids mathematicians used to balance type and ensure that all the letter forms were the same or equal is very similar to why we use grids in our works and in society in general. Their mathematics and drawings correlate with come of the practices and programs we use today and I found it very fascinating the similarities between Academie Royale and Adobe’s postscript. The use of grids and lines to determine the placement of type.

Fig 2: The comparison between Academie Royale and Adobe Post Script, which were 300 years apart.