Congratulations on your accomplishments this semester!
Take a moment to look back at all the work you’ve completed this semester in this course (and others). Even if there were things you wish you could have changed or improved upon, I hope you will feel good about your accomplishments and learn from your disappointments.
In this course, we looked at the formative theories that help us better understand the “how” of visual communication and explored the critical theories that may explain the “why” within historical, cultural, and social contexts. When we look at philosophical, ethical, political, and aesthetic questions in the field of design, our ability to think creatively and critically expands.
Through this critical practice, my goal for you by the end of this course was to start to include the question “why” within your own design practice and begin to see how your own aesthetic influences connect to historical lineages in the field of design. And also to see how important your voice is to the future of the communication design field.
I hope you will be able to apply some of the practices we covered in this course in your design projects here at City Tech and in your future creative career.
Best wishes for a safe, relaxing break, and a productive Spring semester. Please stay in touch!
Activities
Below find the information covered in this session.
1. Knowing Your Design History is Crucial to Aesthetic Innovation
Here is one last optional reading which underscores one of the aims of this course: to be an innovative designer, learn how your own aesthetic influences connect to historical lineages in the field of design.
Cerulean blue pigment is an expensive pure blue pigment. It is opaque and bright due to its highly refractive particles. It was quickly adopted by artists, including the Impressionists, because of its hue, permanence and opaqueness. It was particularly useful for skyscapes and can be found in the sky of Monet’s 1877 La Gare Saint-Lazare, the pointillism of Paul Signac, and in Édouard Manet’s 1878 Corner of a Café-Concert.
The color has earned widespread popularity. In 1999 it was nominated by Pantone as the color of the millennium. According to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, “Psychologically, gazing at a blue sky brings a sense of peace and tranquillity to the human spirit.
Surrounding yourself with cerulean blue could bring a certain peace because it reminds you of time spent outdoors, on a beach, near the water – associations with restful, peaceful, relaxing times.”
It’s a helpful reminder for designers and design students today: if you borrow from a certain style, it’s important to know where that style came from, as well as the social and cultural contexts that gave that style its rise.
This Week’s Agenda is brief. This week you will be completing your final coursework and reflecting on your learning experience.
Your Research Project & Presentation post is due on Tuesday, Dec. 14th by 11:59pm.
Your Research Journal is due by Sunday, December 19th, at 11:59 pm.
Comments on your your classmates’ presentations are due by Sunday, December 19th, at 11:59 pm.
Any additional work that you’d like to revise or that you’ve missed can be submitted up until the last class, Sunday, December 19th, at 11:59 pm.
Your Grade Survey is due by Dec. 19th, at 11:59 pm. Your learning reflection and the grade you believe you have earned for this course will be factored into your final grade.
If you want to schedule any last-minute meetings about your research project, contact me to meet on Monday or Tuesday or email with any questions or concerns: jspevack@citytech.cuny.edu.
Are you missing any assignments or discussion posts? Take a look all of the agendas for this semester on the Schedule page. Submit any remaining work in before Sunday, December 19th!
Activities
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities and assignments.
Some students had issues with copyright when uploading their videos to YouTube. If that happens to you, you can upload your video to Google Drive or Dropbox and link to it in your post. See the Research Project & Presentation > Tools & Tips.
By today you should have completed the first four milestones. Your final milestone is May 24.
Submit Presentation to OpenLab site – follow the guideslines
Submit at least one comment on each of your classmates’ presentations
2. Research Journal Due
Your Research Journal is a place for collecting ideas, freewriting, images, links, videos, and other media to help you develop your ideas and formulate your research topic. It can be organized or sloppy or anywhere in between, but it should demonstrate who you are as a creative, curious individual and your research process in this course.
May 17 is the last day to contribute any work other than the Final project. If you have notes and ideas in other places, take photos and/or copy them over to your Research Journal. These could be photos of your sketchbook, other notebooks, etc. Show your work and your creative/research process.
No need to create a new post, simply make sure the link in your Midterm post is still working.
3. Give Research Project Presentation Comments
Begin adding comments to your classmates’ Research Project Presentations posts. View all the posts by navigating to Student Posts > Research Project.
Give at least 1 comment per presentation. Your comment should be supportive AND helpful!
This is NOT a helpful comment:
“Great presentation, I like it”
A helpful comment is one that offers support, a critique of the content, and delivery of the research material, as well as suggestions for improvement:
“Great presentation, NAME. I enjoyed your exploration of XXXX and XXXX. I was especially excited to learn about XXXX and XXXX. I was intrigued by your discussion of XXXX because you presented it by exploring XXXX and contrasted it with XXXX. However, I would have liked to have learned more about XXXXX. Have you considered expanding on XXXX and XXXX? Here are some links about XXXX that I think would be helpful for your future research.”
Do you now look at advertisements, social media, or your favorite video games with a critical eye for connotated or denoted meaning? Do you see the types of signs used in the world around you? Can you pick out the signifiers and signified? Are you able to identify influences from design history like Constructivism, the International Style, and Post-Modernism in subways ads? Do you think more about the photographic, illustrative, color, or typographic choices in your work, and consider how they will be received, what meaning they might convey to your audience, or how they might persuade your audience to think or feel a certain way? Do you feel like your reading and writing skills have improved? Have the skills of close-reading and annotation given you the confidence to read more challenging texts, if you choose to in the future? Will you apply the research and analysis skills used in this course to your creative practice?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, hey, that’s good news!
What grade do you think you have earned in this course?
Use the Grade Survey to submit the grade you believe you have earned in this course. This may not be the final grade you receive but your evaluation of your own learning experience and effort is extremely important and will be considered.
If you’d like an overview of all of the topics we’ve covered this semester, take a look at the Schedule page.
Each week is listed with the topic and readings we completed each week. We’ve covered a lot and you’ve produced some great written work!
Reminder
Final Assignment: The design work that you address should be “a project completed in the past 40 years, with a definite form and scope.”
Your research should explore the relationship between
1: specific theories
2: and the contemporary design that puts these theories into practice.
You do not need to limit your research to a singular work, but it is not an examination of a designer’s full career.
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
New Paradigms
In this section, let’s look at a few different areas that are have surfaced in recent years and are positioned to (possibly?) alter the future of design.
AI Designed Products
The impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning is being felt in all areas of the creative industry. We have robots reporting the news, computers generating songs, and paintings by AI machines. Our creative roles are changing once again.
One designer discusses the potential implications of AI in our design processes and provides an example of a shoe designed with AI tools.
VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) are working their way into a range of disciplines, but these are still emerging technologies. Many people predict VR/AR/XR will be bigger than the internet. We have seen how technology can be a driving force in the changes in society and in the field of design, but it may take time for real adoption to occur.
Recently Facebook announced it is evolving into Meta: “3D spaces in the metaverse will let you socialize, learn, collaborate and play in ways that go beyond what we can imagine.”
Check out some examples below and imagine what VR and AR will look like in five to ten years.
Here are just a couple of the product apps that use AR technology:
As we’ve discussed throughout this course, the mainstream history of design is historically narrow ie: white, and male. While change is glacially slow, a current trend in design is the awareness of a need for diversity of voices in the field of communication design. This is and has been one of the primary goals of the COMD Department at City Tech.
This year, Cheryl D. Miller is the 2021 Design Visionary National Design Award winner. I encourage you to watch one of her many talks on diversity in design, such as White Default. In the following video, she talks about her personal history as a designer and also a writer. Graphic authorship is a thread that we’ve touched on in this class and it is critical that we have a variety of voices authoring the history of design and contributing to theoretical discussions in the field.
Presented each year by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, the National Design Awards honor innovation and impact and recognize the power of design to change the world. Learn more at CooperHewitt.org/Awards
Last week we looked at the Social Responsibility Movement and prior to that, we explored how the Ethical Design Movement has grown out of the impacts of social media and the internet. This movement which is often connected to technology takes many forms: accessibility, inclusion, open culture, social equity…
Here is an interactive video that takes you through some of these questions of ethics and design. Below are related links.
Every year you see lists of current design trends. These often look at visual trends, such as Vintage Design, Minimalism, Maximalism, Metamodernism, etc. Take a look at an example below of one designer’s observations of current trends. Using your Design Theorist skills, I encourage you to look deeper and ask WHY we are seeing these visual trends.
As you continue your academic career and your career as a designer (in whatever form that takes), keep an eye out for what is happening right now in the broad field(s) of design. Here are a few suggestions. If you have channels that you follow to keep up with what’s happening in the field, add them with this form.
AIGA Eye on Design – Published by AIGA an editorial platform covers the issues important to the global design world + elevates the voices of contemporary designers as a way to build a more engaged design community.
The Observatory– Michael Bierut and Jessica Helfand on design, current events, and current enthusiasms.
Design Matters – Debbie Millman features interviews with designers, artists and cultural leaders.
The design work that you address should be “a project completed in the past 40 years, with a definite form and scope.” You do not need to limit your research to a singular work, but it is not an examination of a designer’s full career.
Your research should explore the relationship between
1: specific theories
2: and the contemporary design that puts these theories into practice.
Use Zoom, Vimeo Record, Prezi, Screencast-o-matic, or any screen capture app to record your slide deck presentation with voiceover. Remember to save your recording to your desktop to edit or upload directly to YouTube or Vimeo (depending on the which app you are using.)
Make sure your slide deck is set to FULL SCREEN when your record.
Follow these guidelines to upload your finished Research Presentation video to YouTube. Set your video as Unlisted and copy the Video Link to paste into your OpenLab Post.
If you have questions about putting together your presentation, don’t wait until the last minute.
Create one sentence that summarizes how this reading supports your paper
You can use text from your Reading Responses
Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you’re forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information.
Your Research Project will culminate in a 10-15 slideshow with your voiceover narration. The presentations should be no more than 10 minutes long. You may use any method you prefer to construct your slideshow (Powerpoint, Google Slides, Adobe Presenter, Preview slideshow, Presi, etc.) and any method for recording your voiceover and saving your video file (Zoom Recording, Screencast-o-matic, Yuja, etc). Your finished presentation should be uploaded (unlisted) to YouTube.
Your presentation and corresponding visuals should start with a title slide and an introduction that includes the main points of your presentation. And it should end with a conclusion that ties together all of the ideas presented.
You thesis questions, the main idea you wish to communicate, should weave throughout your presenation.
Visuals should present clear, coherent information, in a logically organized manner.
Viewers should be able to readily identify your research questions, your method of inquiry, the literature employed, and your overarching thesis.
It should be clear that original research has led to a synthesis unique to your subject.
Your visuals should be neat and professional, utilizing design standards consistent with the topic at hand.
Relevant images should be carefully selected and placed within your layout, with considerations made for reproduction quality.
Organization and care in assembly will be taken into consideration.
Presentations should be equally clear, with ideas confidently articulated.
Presentations should be rehearsed, and should adhere to a planned narrative or script
Pace and diction should be stimulating for your peers, offering information in a manner that can be grasped and processed in a thought-provoking manner.
Your presentation slideshow should be designed to reflect the style, designer, movement, or theory you are presenting. Be creative and have fun!
Presentation Tips & Tools
Below find some helpful links for tips and tools you can use to assemble and record your Research Presentation.
Use Zoom, Vimeo Record, Prezi, Screencast-o-matic, or any screencapture app to record your slidedeck presentation with voiceover. Remember to save your recording to your desktop to edit or upload direclty to YouTube or Vimeo (depending on the which app you are using.)
Make sure your slide deck is set to FULL SCREEN when your record.
TITLE: Research Project Presentation – Your Initials
CATEGORY: Research Project
TAG: Your Name
Add the title of your Research Project as a heading.
Write a brief introduction to your Research Project.
Embed your presentation in the post by pasting the YouTube link below the introduction.
Use text to indicate the link to your Annotated Bibliography (ie: Annotated Bibliography), select this text, and make it a link to your Google doc. (Do not paste the entire Google Doc link in the post). Make sure the Google Doc link is set to “Anyone with the link.”
Below find the information covered in this session.
1. The Digital Revolution & Social Responsibility (90+ minutes)
As one millennium ended and another began, digital technology fundamentally transformed graphic design. Old avant-garde issues of authorship, universality, and social responsibility were reborn within society’s newly decentralized networked structure.
HELEN ARMSTRONG
The Digital Revolution – 1980s-1990s Design History (3 min)
In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh computer. It would revolutionize the entire industry. I was in art school in the early 1990s and we used the first release of Photoshop 1.0. It was slow, clunky, and honestly painful to use (we would run a filter and go out for coffee!) but the results were nothing like we had ever seen before.
Let’s watch this video from Graphic Design History on LinkedIn Learning to gain an overview of the time period, the advent of the personal computer, and its effects on the design industry. Watch from 1:57:58 – 2:01:49 on LinkedIn Learning via your Library Card or the YouTube video below.
Activity:As you watch, take note of the dates and designers who experimented with these new tools. Also, note how once again changes in technology radically altered the field of design and the role of a designer.
At the turn of the 20th Century, photography and printing revolutionalized communications. At the turn of the 21st Century, the new digital technologies of the computer and the internet change the field of communication design again.
In the early years of the internet, graphics were limited and the design standards that we know and use today were often ignored. It was the wild west. After many years, designers began to see the importance of user experience. A focus on universality, the grid, visual/information hierarchy, and minimalism drove much of the design aesthetic in web design because it allowed designers to put content and the user experience first. Today anyone anywhere can make a website and this has changed the role of the designer once again.
Activity:As you watch this video, note that it’s from 2012. What has happened to mobile/app development in the few short years since this video was produced? And looking back at our exploration of the effects of social media on society, how has the optimistic utopian vision of the internet changed?
The Digital Design Revolution – THE LONG VIEW (44 min)
For a detailed background on the history of the digital age in design take a look at this video that takes you from the early 50s room-size computers to the present day.
Activity:Again, as you watch, take note of the dates and designers mentioned. Consider your own experience as a consumer and a creator. Many of you grew up with the internet. How has your use of the computer and the web changed in your lifetime? Do you have nostalgia for the “old days”?
Authorship & the Social Responsibility Movement of the New Millennium
…Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.
There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help…
FIRST THINGS FIRST MANIFESTO 2000
In a 1994 essay in Eye magazine, Andrew Howard reminded designers about the 1964 manifesto entitled ‘First Things First’ signed by British designer Ken Garland and a group of 21 colleagues. The manifesto’s aim was to “reject the ‘high pitched scream of consumer selling’ and omnipotent lure of the advertising industry in favour of what was defined as socially useful graphic design work.”
Several years later, thirty-three designers renewed the original call for a change of priorities and published ‘First Things First Manifesto 2000‘ in Adbusters, Emigre, Eye, Blueprint, Items in the Netherlands, and Form in Germany.
In 2014 – on the 50th anniversary of the manifesto – over 1600 designers across the world renewed their commitment to the manifesto.
In 2020 an updated version, FTF 2020, was published online and included a focus on the climate crisis and racial justice. “Our time and energy are increasingly used to manufacture demand, to exploit populations, to extract resources, to fill landfills, to pollute the air, to promote colonization, and to propel our planet’s sixth mass extinction.”
Check out this short 2:30 min video of David Berman, author of Do Good Design. Berman’s main thesis is: “Rather than sharing our cycles of style, consumption, and chemical addictions, designers can use their professional power, persuasive skills, and wisdom to help distribute ideas that the world really needs: health information, conflict resolution, tolerance, technology, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, human rights, democracy …”
David Berman on Design And Social Responsibility – 2 mins 30 secs
2. Evaluating Online Sources
When searching for sources for your Research Project, it’s important not to take all sources at face value. Think critically about the sources your find online, the context in which the sources are created, and the context in which you are using the source.
Use Zoom, Vimeo Record, Prezi, Screencast-o-matic, or any screencapture app to record your slidedeck presentation with voiceover. Remember to save your recording to your desktop to edit or upload direclty to YouTube or Vimeo (depending on the which app you are using.)
Make sure your slide deck is set to FULL SCREEN when your record.
Follow these guidelines to upload your finished Research Presentation video to YouTube. Set your video as Unlisted and copy the Video Link to paste into your OpenLab Post.
5. Reading & Discussion: Week 12 (2 hours)
For this week’s reading and discussion be sure to review the section above on Graphic Authorship & the Social Responsibility Movement of the New Millennium. We will take a look at Rick Poynor’s essay The Evolving Legacy of Ken Garland’s First Things First Manifesto, examine the updated FTF 2020, and consider how technology and graphic authorship have influenced social responsibility in design.
This week we will take a look at Post Modernism. What is it?! Well, that’s always up for debate. We’ve already touched on this movement/theory/era over the last two weeks without actually identifying it. See if you can recognize some of the postmodernist approaches and theories from the last two classes in our studies this week.
Activities
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
From about 1970 to 1990, Postmodernism shattered established ideas about design and art. A brilliant mix of theatrical and theoretical, Postmodernism ranges from the colourful to the ruinous, the luxurious to the ludicrous. It is a visually thrilling multifaceted style which so famously defies definition.
V&A EXHIBITION ‘POSTMODERNISM: STYLE AND SUBVERSION 1970 – 1990’
What the *&%!# is Postmodernism? Even celebrated design leaders of the Postmodernist era have a hard time describing what the term Postmodernism means. And as we shall see, that’s kind of the point. Last week we used Barthes and Hall’s Postmodern lens’ of Structuralism and Cultural Studies respectively to discover that meaning is subjective. It can change depending on the viewer and each individual’s life/cultural experience.
Activity:Get a scrap piece of paper and pen/pencil. Take a moment to write down the qualities of Modernism that you can think of. Think back to the early avant-garde (De Stijl, Constructivists, Bauhaus, New Typography) in the early 20th Century. What were their goals and ideology with regard to Universality in form, truth, and meaning? What were they rebelling against? Consider that some of their goals were realized by the mid-1960s when the Swiss/International Style went mainstream.
By the late ’60s and early 1970s, the rebellion begins again. The Postmodernism avant-garde was a direct reaction to mainstream Modernism.
What is Postmodernism? (12 min)
Let’s watch this video before we go any further. Here we look at some of the design styles seen and heard in the Postmodern era.
Activity:As you watch, write down the words that the designers use to describe this style/era and the work they produced during the 1970s-1990s.
Graphic Design History – Rejection of Modernism in late 60s-1990s (20 min)
In our reading of Steven Heller’s “Underground Mainstream”, we learned how in the late 1960s, mainstream Modernism (universality, simplicity, minimalist, structured, grid-based, corporate, design for all) was rejected in favor of the opposite (complexity, ambiguity, subjectivity, cultural pluralism, personal, experimental). This was the very beginning of Postmodernism in design. Let’s take a look back starting with the hippy counter-culture posters coming out of San Francisco in the late 60s, all the way through the 1990s anti-consumerist grunge movement in Seattle. In this broad time period with its range of styles, anything goes. The rejection of Modernist minimalism and functionalism and the embrace of personal expression, experimentation, mixed media, and styles from other time periods are the hallmarks of Postmodernism. Pay close attention to the sections on Punk and New Wave, Low-tech Seattle, and Postmodernism. These sections will be important to the Reading Response and Discussion.
Punk Pop & Post Modern – Graphics of the Big 80s (38 min)
This video looks at the 1980s, “the decade of shredding, remixing, tagging, overdubbing and deconstructing” and the Postmodern lineage from the late 1960s and 1970s.
Watch the following video from our Week 11 Agenda and respond to the prompts below.
Which elements of Modernism continued within the Postmodern era of the 1970s-1990s?
Which elements of Postmodernism continue today?
Are we still in the Postmodern era? If not what era are we living now?
Add your ideas in a comment in this Discussion post by Friday, November 19th at 6 pm to allow time for responses. Add at least 4 follow-up responses to your classmates’ comments by Sunday, November 21st, at 11:59 pm.
Punk Pop & Post Modern – Graphics of the Big 80s (38 min)
At this point, you should have collected a large number of sources to support your Research Project topic. You will also want to include at least 3-4 sources from the Library Databases.
This 5-minute video tutorial goes over the basics of using the City Tech Library databases.
At the top of the search form click the link Choose Databases to select the databases to include in your seach. Then click Save. Depending on your topic, you may need to experiment with the databases you include in your search, but generally the following are a good starting place. These databases include a wide variety of newpapers, journals, magazine and other media.
Business Source Complete
Communications & MassMedia Complete
Regional Business News
MasterFile Complete
MAS Ultra – School Edition
Use the form to execute a keyword search.
Enter your keywords in the first text box.
Select TX All Text from the Select a Field dropdown.
If relevant, restrict the search to specific dates using the Publish Date fields.
Navigate the results to find sources in HTML and PDF or links to sources in related databases.
Last week we learned about how the design of persuasive social media “massages” us and how that change/manipulation has lasting effects on society. As current consumers and future design leaders, your opinion and actions matter.
The topics we will be covering this week will build on our reading of Roland Barthes’ essay “Rhetoric of the Image.” We will explore representation, context, and the use of rhetoric in advertising, specifically concerning the perpetuation of ethnic and gender biases. The work we engage in today will inform your second and last research paper and hopefully also your Research Project/Presentation.
Activities
1. Representation and Context (90+ minutes)
Last week we examined Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media. We learned that the medium is integral to the message and how we receive it. This week we will look at representation and context by exploring the use of stereotypes in media (print, radio, television, and online advertisements). In your second Research Paper, you will use the terminology and approaches that we cover this week to deconstruct a historical or contemporary advertisement that uses coded cultural message(s) of racial, ethnic, and/or gender stereotypes.
We will return to Saussure (sign, signifier, signified) and Peirce (symbol, icon, index) to refresh our understanding of early semiotics. We will incorporate the terms we learned in the last reading of Barthes (connoted, denoted, iconic messages, linguistic messages) and explore additional terms such as encoding, decoding, polysemic, myth, and naturalization. Lastly, we will look at Jamaican-born cultural studies scholar and activist Stuart Hall who explored how the dynamics of media representation reinforce societal power structures.
Terminology
Before we go any further, let’s make sure we all understand the semiotic terms we will need to deconstruct an advertisement.
Ferdinand de Saussure
Sign: A sign is anything that creates meaning composed of a signifier and a signified.
Signifier: A word, an image, a sound, anything we see, speak or hear to refer to the sign.
Signified: The concept that our mind conjures in relation to the sign.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Icon: signifier resembles the signified
Symbol: arbitrary learned relationship between the signifier and signified
Index: signifier is caused by or linked to the signified
Building on Saussure and Peirce, Barthes argued that when we construct a sign (encoding), its reception (decoding) does not take place in a vacuum. Our individual experience, society, and culture impact its meaning and how it is interpreted. In our reading last week, we looked at Barthes’ close-reading of the Panzani advertisement. Take a look at this breakdown of “Rhetoric of the Image” by Lesley Lanir where he covers some of the following terms.
Encoding: creating a message for transmission (i.e., creation and distribution of an advertisement)
Decoding: the process of interpreting a message (i.e., watching and interpreting an advertisement)
Connotation: symbolic or cultural meaning (a coded message)
Denotation: Literal meaning (a message without code)
Linguisticmessage: words used to convey meaning
Non-coded iconic message: an image with literal meaning
Coded iconic message: an image with a coded message
Polysemic: a sign that has multiple meanings
Myth: a widely accepted meaning of a sign
Naturalization: in a society, the repeated use of signs shapes its meaning
Here’s a 9+ minute video that takes us through some of these semiotic terms from a film perspective. Advertising takes a similar approach.
Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-born British sociologist, cultural theorist and political activist. He looked at the power of mainstream media (advertising, TV, film, etc) to understand the representation of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and religion. Here are some of the theories and terms associated with his work.
ReceptionTheory: This theory asserts that advertising and media are encoded and decoded. The creator encodes messages and values into media which are then decoded by the audience. Audiences will decode the media in different ways and not always in the way the creator intended.
Dominant, or Preferred Reading: how the creator wants the audience to view the advertisment or media.
Oppositional Reading: when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning. This can happen when content is controversial or when the audience holds different beliefs or is of a different age or culture.
Negotiated Reading: a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings. The audience accepts some of the creator’s view, but also has their own views.
RepresentationTheory: There is not a true representation of people or events in media. Designers/creators try to ‘fix’ a ‘preferred meaning’ through ideology or stereotyping. Historically, this is driven by people in power.
This 6+ minute video explains Hall’s Reception Theory:
In this 55 minute documentary from 1997, Stuart Hall offers an extended meditation on representation. Take a close look at 36:00 he speaks about representation in advertising. Note that this video was created is prior to social media and the internet era that we live in now. Consider if the power structure has changed and why/why not? Make sure you are logged into CUNY SSO (single sign-on) to view.
The use of stereotypes to communicate meaning and sell products has a long history in advertising media and visual communications.
As we observed in our readings on the lack of diversity in design, leadership in the field of advertising media and design was (and still is) dominated by white, heterosexual men. And as we see from our recent study of media and the message, and representation above, mainstream media is a powerful force for intentionally or unintentionally reinforcing biases in society. It’s changing, but women and BIPOC designers in advertising are historically limited. That lack of diversity in creative leadership has allowed widely-held biases to continue to flourish.
Here are some sources to get you started in your research for Research Paper 2. If you have already chosen a historical 19th or 20th-century print advertisement that uses obvious and/or documented racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes to sell the product, review the sources below to support your research. If you haven’t yet chosen an advertisement, browse the references below to find some.
History of racial, gender, ethnic, cultural stereotypes in advertisements
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
An understanding of the prophetic and influential ideas presented by Marshall McLuhan in the late 1960s, specifically the theories in his book “Understanding Media” and his quote “The Media is the Message.”
Why these ideas relate to the persuasive technology that we interact with on social media platforms and how they are affecting human society.
Submit your Research Journal for mid-semester review
Each week you should be adding to your online Research Journal, documenting and critically reflecting on your influences, history, culture, likes, and dislikes.
This practice of being curious about your own design aesthetic is a way to gain experience engaging with critical design theory and preparing for your research project.
Twice during the semester, you will share your Research Journal with your professor (and your classmates only if you wish). If there is anything in your journal you don’t wish to share, you may duplicate the journal, remove the parts you want to keep private and submit it for review.
If you haven’t already*, create a post with the following metadata:
TITLE: Research Journal – Your Initials
CATEGORY: Research Journals
TAG: Your Name
Write a brief reflection about your experience keeping this Research Journal.
Below the reflection, create text link called: My Research Journal
Select the text, click on the link icon, paste the sharable link into the link box and press return. Your text link should look like this: My Research Journal
If you’d like to keep your post private, so only the professor can see your Research Journal, choose Visibility > Private when you post.
Set your post visibility to Private if you wish.
NOTE: if you have created your journal post previously, make any updates to your post to conform to these guidelines.
Activities
1. The Medium is the Message
Last class we looked at the American version of Modernism as corporate identity design and advertising in the 1950s-1960s began to take shape. This week we will move closer to the Postmodern era and examine Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media as television was becoming the dominant medium. His theories were radical at the time and have been influential in the study and practice of design and media theory. They are especially important now with regard to the persuasive advertising model used by social media.
McLuhan died before the birth of the internet, but many believe that his theories about electronic media were prophetic; that he envisioned the internet decades before its arrival. He spoke about communication technologies as having the ability to create a “global village” and the increasing loss of privacy as a result.
McLuhan argued that we should focus on the medium of communication itself and he defined media as a technological extension of the body. He used the term “media” in a very broad sense including the spoken word, the written word, the printed word, telephone, films, radio, television, etc.
There are many excellent interpretations and critiques of McLuhan’s ideas. Let’s watch a few videos to help us to understand his ideas in the context of today’s contemporary media.\
The media has the power to transform human nature and furthermore, no matter how powerful or persuasive the message, it’s the media that has changed our thought patterns and behavior. What does this mean for the “electronic environment” we inhabit? How do we decipher what media is fact and which is fiction? Discerning the difference is crucial now, more than ever.
“The idea is that the mediums have a far greater impact on the fundamental shape and nature of society than any message that is delivered through that medium. What has had a greater impact on society and the way that we interact with one another, all the content of every Youtube video ever made or the existence of Youtube itself? All the conversations that you’ve ever had, the existence of your cell phone?… How do the mediums that you use help shape the world?”
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE EXPLAINED BY DAN OLSON
This Is Marshall McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (1967)
Created in 1967, this video could be describing the new mediums of today: the internet, social media, online video, video games, virtual reality, etc. Watch from start to 08:23 (or longer if you have time.)
“The electric age is changing you, it’s changing your family, it’s changing your neighborhood, it’s changing your education, your job, it’s changing your government, it’s changing your relationship to others. These little circuits are making our world go. The electric age is having a profound effect on us. We are in a period of fantastic change that’s coming about at fantastic speed. Your life is changing dramatically, and you are numb to it.”
Social Media is the Message
McLuhan believed that media (in the broadest sense) is an extension of humanity, of the human body, and mind. How does media affect us? Our bodies? Our relationships? Our understanding of the world? Are we being changed right now?
Tristan Harris, the founder of the Center for Humane Technology, believes social media as it exists now “is a simultaneous utopia and dystopia.” The utopia the user experiences is the dopamine hits and efficiency of on-demand everything, and the dystopia of the giant manipulative matrix that we are living in. How do we recognize the Matrix if we don’t know that we’re in the Matrix?
The Social Dilemma
In the documentary, The Social Dilemma, early leaders in social media, like Tristan Harris, have revealed that the medium of the internet, specifically social media, is becoming an existential threat to human society.
While he didn’t foresee the negative effect on society, consider Marshall McLuhan’s prophetic theories about electronic media in the late 1960’s, specifically how technology is an extension of humanity. Think about the current design of social media and the consequences of our growing dependence on it.
What will become of society if the persuasive technology used for for-profit social media advertising is allowed to continue as it is now? We will respond to this and other questions in our Discussion this week.
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
1. Representation and Context (90+ minutes)
Last week we examined Marshall McLuhan’s ideas about media. We learned that the medium is integral to the message and how we receive it. This week we will look at representation and context by exploring the use of stereotypes in media (print, radio, television, and online advertisements). In your second Research Paper, you will use the terminology and approaches that we cover this week to deconstruct a historical or contemporary advertisement that uses coded cultural message(s) of racial, ethnic, and/or gender stereotypes.
We will return to Saussure (sign, signifier, signified) and Peirce (symbol, icon, index) to refresh our understanding of early semiotics. We will incorporate the terms we learned in the last reading of Barthes (connoted, denoted, iconic messages, linguistic messages) and explore additional terms such as encoding, decoding, polysemic, myth, and naturalization. Lastly, we will look at Jamaican-born cultural studies scholar and activist Stuart Hall who explored how the dynamics of media representation reinforce societal power structures.
Terminology
Before we go any further, let’s make sure we all understand the semiotic terms we will need to deconstruct an advertisement.
Ferdinand de Saussure
Sign: A sign is anything that creates meaning composed of a signifier and a signified.
Signifier: A word, an image, a sound, anything we see, speak or hear to refer to the sign.
Signified: The concept that our mind conjures in relation to the sign.
Charles Sanders Peirce
Icon: signifier resembles the signified
Symbol: arbitrary learned relationship between the signifier and signified
Index: signifier is caused by or linked to the signified
Building on Saussure and Peirce, Barthes argued that when we construct a sign (encoding), its reception (decoding) does not take place in a vacuum. Our individual experience, society, and culture impact its meaning and how it is interpreted. In our reading last week, we looked at Barthes’ close-reading of the Panzani advertisement. Take a look at this breakdown of “Rhetoric of the Image” by Lesley Lanir where he covers some of the following terms.
Encoding: creating a message for transmission (i.e., creation and distribution of an advertisement)
Decoding: the process of interpreting a message (i.e., watching and interpreting an advertisement)
Connotation: symbolic or cultural meaning (a coded message)
Denotation: Literal meaning (a message without code)
Linguisticmessage: words used to convey meaning
Non-coded iconic message: an image with literal meaning
Coded iconic message: an image with a coded message
Polysemic: a sign that has multiple meanings
Myth: a widely accepted meaning of a sign
Naturalization: in a society, the repeated use of signs shapes its meaning
Here’s a 9+ minute video that takes us through some of these semiotic terms from a film perspective. Advertising takes a similar approach.
Stuart Hall was a Jamaican-born British sociologist, cultural theorist and political activist. He looked at the power of mainstream media (advertising, TV, film, etc) to understand the representation of race, gender, class, ethnicity, and religion. Here are some of the theories and terms associated with his work.
ReceptionTheory: This theory asserts that advertising and media are encoded and decoded. The creator encodes messages and values into media which are then decoded by the audience. Audiences will decode the media in different ways and not always in the way the creator intended.
Dominant, or Preferred Reading: how the creator wants the audience to view the advertisment or media.
Oppositional Reading: when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own meaning. This can happen when content is controversial or when the audience holds different beliefs or is of a different age or culture.
Negotiated Reading: a compromise between the dominant and oppositional readings. The audience accepts some of the creator’s view, but also has their own views.
RepresentationTheory: There is not a true representation of people or events in media. Designers/creators try to ‘fix’ a ‘preferred meaning’ through ideology or stereotyping. Historically, this is driven by people in power.
This 6+ minute video explains Hall’s Reception Theory:
In this 55 minute documentary from 1997, Stuart Hall offers an extended meditation on representation. Take a close look at 36:00 he speaks about representation in advertising. Note that this video was created is prior to social media and the internet era that we live in now. Consider if the power structure has changed and why/why not? Make sure you are logged into CUNY SSO (single sign-on) to view.
The use of stereotypes to communicate meaning and sell products has a long history in advertising media and visual communications.
As we observed in our readings on the lack of diversity in design, leadership in the field of advertising media and design was (and still is) dominated by white, heterosexual men. And as we see from our recent study of media and the message, and representation above, mainstream media is a powerful force for intentionally or unintentionally reinforcing biases in society. It’s changing, but women and BIPOC designers in advertising are historically limited. That lack of diversity in creative leadership has allowed widely-held biases to continue to flourish.
Here are some sources to get you started in your research for Research Paper 2. If you have already chosen a historical 19th or 20th-century print advertisement that uses obvious and/or documented racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes to sell the product, review the sources below to support your research. If you haven’t yet chosen an advertisement, browse the references below to find some.
History of racial, gender, ethnic, cultural stereotypes in advertisements
Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Research Paper 2 – DUE Sunday, November 14th, at 11:59 pm
Working off of your reading response and research from last week on Roland Barthes’ 1977 essay, “Rhetoric of the Image,” select a historical 19th or 20th-century advertisement that uses obvious and/or documented racial, ethnic, or gender stereotypes to sell the product.
In your paper, you’ll critically examine and deconstruct your historical advertising image in a manner similar to Barthes’ approach and include references to Saussure, Peirce, and Hall’s theories covered in today’s agenda.
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
How the Avant-Garde movements of rebellion and rejection of the past (Futurism, Construcivism, Desjil, etc), culminated in the Bauhaus and were further refined in Swiss Typography/International Style found the mainstream in the capitalist version of Modernism in the American corporate identity design.
How advertising has influenced society and culture.
Activities
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
1. Mainstream Modernism + American Corporate Identity (approx. 60 min)
Last class, we saw the evolution of influences from the Constructivists, De Stijl, New Typography, and the Bauhaus that led to the mainstream adoption of the modernist International Typographic Style/Swiss Style in the mid 20th Century. This week we look at the American version of Modernism as corporate identity design and advertising in the 1950s-1960s began to take shape.
Modernism in the United States showed a commitment to “less is more” and a strong reliance on images and geometric forms. The approach was impartial and direct. Corporate identity design came into being during this time and favored a simplification in visual approach. Simple, sharp, and clean, designers developed cohesive brand identities. Commonplace today, designers like Paul Rand, started to used acronyms for logos and corporate brand identity. The identity manuals used today for fully branded company identities came into being.
Below are a series of videos that take you through the history of advertising, corporate identity design, and mainstream designers that influenced the field.
The New York School
Watch the Graphic Design History section on The New York School on LinkedIn Learning (this is the best option to view the work clearly!).
Or, if you must, watch the YouTube video below. NOTE: In the following video, watch from 1:18:14 to 1:18:55
If branding is how we designate meaning through language, symbols, and words, how do the brands (in the broadest sense) that you affiliate with connect you others and what is the meaning behind them?
3. Assignment: Reading Response 7 (2+ Hours)
Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts for Reading Response 7 – DUE Monday, April 4th, at 6pm
You will be reading and annotating essays written by Paul Rand “Good Design Is Good Will” 1987 in our main text Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field by Helen Armstrong and “Underground Mainstream” by Steven Heller, Design Observer, 2008.
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
How the Avant-Garde movements of rebellion and rejection of the past (Futurism, Construcivism, Desjil, etc), culminated in the Bauhaus and were further refined in Swiss Typography/International Style found the mainstream in the capitalist version of Modernism in the American corporate identity design.
How advertising has influenced society and culture.
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
How the Avant-Garde movements of rebellion and rejection of the past (Futurism, Construcivism, Desjil, etc), culminated in the Bauhaus and were further refined in Swiss Typography/International Style found the mainstream in the capitalist version of Modernism in the American corporate identity design.
How advertising has influenced society and culture.
1. Mainstream Modernism + American Corporate Identity
Last class, we saw the evolution of influences from the Constructivists, De Stijl, New Typography, and the Bauhaus that led to the mainstream adoption of the modernist International Typographic Style/Swiss Style in the mid 20th Century. This week we look at the American version of Modernism as corporate identity design and advertising in the 1950s-1960s began to take shape.
Modernism in the United States showed a commitment to “less is more” and a strong reliance on images and geometric forms. The approach was impartial and direct. Corporate identity design came into being during this time and favored a simplification in visual approach. Simple, sharp, and clean, designers developed cohesive brand identities. Commonplace today, designers like Paul Rand, started to used acronyms for logos and corporate brand identity. The identity manuals used today for fully branded company identities came into being.
Below are a series of videos that take you through the history of advertising, corporate identity design, and mainstream designers that influenced the field.
The New York School
Watch the Graphic Design History section on The New York School on LinkedIn Learning (this is the best option to view the work clearly!).
Or, if you must, watch the YouTube video below. NOTE: In the following video, watch from 1:18:14 to 1:18:55
If branding is how we designate meaning through language, symbols, and words, how do the brands (in the broadest sense) that you affiliate with connect you others and what is the meaning behind them?
Branding turned into belonging: belonging to a tribe, to a religion, to a family. Branding demonstrated that sense of belonging both for people that were part of the same group and also for those who did not belong.”
“The most powerful brands we are creating today are not created by corporations, they are movements created by people for people.”
for 2 weeks:
Discussion 8a: Media as Message
1. Watch the presentation for Week 8: Media as Message
2. Leave at least one question or comment on that post. You are also encouraged to respond to your peers’ comments
3. Watch the Final Presentation Guidelines Video
4. Comment on that Post with any questions or concerns that you may have.
Assignment / Homework
5. Read the PDF attached in this week’s Assignment
6. Respond with a new Post, following the instructions on that assignment
7. Comment with any questions you may have, and feel free to comment on your peers responses
Our next reading will be from the media theorist Marshall McLuhan. For this reading, you have two options. Please read one of the following:
Chapters 1 and 7 from McLuhan’s influential 1964 book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. This is a fairly straightforward text. Here is a PDF:
Selected paged from The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effect, co-created by McLuhan and Quentin Fiore in 1967. This is an experimental text that relies heavily on image-text interactions. Here is a PDF:
Please take a look at both, to get a sense of the material, then choose one or the other to really focus on.
Please consider the following:
McLuhan describes technology and media as “extensions of man.” How do media extend human beings, or humanity in general? What hazards might technological progress bring for individuals and society? If “the medium is the message,” what role can artists and designers play in creating new messages? How is the work of a designer subordinate to the media they use to create or distribute information?
You also have two options for this response. You can write 3-4 paragraphs. Or you can create another visual or “typophoto-graphic” response, combining images and text in the style of McLuhan and Fiore’s collaboration.
3 weeks
Our next reading is from a 1981 essay by the cultural theorist, Stuart Hall. In this article, entitled The Whites of Their Eyes, Hall examines the ways in which mass media have perpetuated racist ideologies. Here is a PDF:
Your post for this reading will be a little different. Instead of writing 3-4 paragraphs, please identify and document 3-4 advertisements in recent magazines, web pages, posters, billboards, etc. where race, ethnicity, gender or cultural identity play a role in shaping a brand’s message.
Note that race, gender and identity can be used in a positive, embracing way, or in a cynical, negative manner; or it may be difficult to tell. The most interesting ads are probably the most subtle.
Post ads that you encounter this week, after completing the reading. And please note that they do not need to be racist or sexist per se. We’ve all seen some of the widely publicized missteps from companies such as H&M, Dove, Sony, etc. …These are all very obvious. They really don’t require critical examination and we really don’t need to see them again. Do not post them.
Look for nuanced ads in which it is clear that the advertising is aware of identity and representation. Try to find ads that show diversity in a productive and celebratory light.
Post phone pics, scans or screenshots of your selected ads with short captions describing the image and the source from which the image was found.
Here are three examples of ads that I have found recently, which I think are very interesting…
The above image is a spread that I came across in The New Yorker. I believe Tiffany & Co. is embracing the idea of blackness, in a positive way, through this ad, and ultimately attempting to reach a broader audience.
This image is a screenshot from a promotional email that I received from REI Co-op. I believe the choice to use two women, a man, and a woman of color as models was a very deliberate one. As a company REI seems to be making efforts to be more inclusive.
This is a screenshot from Nike’s homepage, on Tuesday, March 22. Happy Air Max Day everyone…I had no idea it was today! The left panel was an interesting video that showed people of all ages, genders and ethnicities, engaged in a wide variety of activities. For a company that has largely built its identity on urban streetwear, this seems like a mostly positive series of images.
In it, she uses a metaphor of optimal typography as a crystal goblet, beautifully built yet transparent, allowing for the clarity of words and ideas to be shared without distractions.After reading the writings from Jan Tschichold, “The Principles of the New Typography” pg35-38, Karl Gerstner, Designing Programmes pg55-61, Joseph Muller-Brockman, “Grid and Design Philosophy” pg62-63 in our main text Graphic Design Theory: Readings From the Field by Helen Armstrong. And watching the documentary “Helvetica” consider the following…Is Helvetica invisible?When answering this question, reference the theories presented by Tschichold, Gerstner, and Muller-Brockman and any of the opinions presented in the documentary that resonated with you.
1. Typography and International Style Evolution (1.5 hours)
The early European avant-garde designers like the Futurists, Dadaists, and Constructivists changed the way we use typography. Today we may use typography, not just to communicate information or data, but as a compositional element to communicate a tone, feeling, or idea.
In the readings this week we were introduced to the ideas of three designers who shared a passion for typography and layout that was clean, efficient, and structured. Influenced by the Dutch De Stijl and Bauhaus movements their work aimed to achieve a universal method for visual communication.
This evolution of influences from the Constructivists, De Stijl, New Typography, and the Bauhaus led to the mainstream adoption of the modernist International Typographic Style or Swiss Style in the mid 20th Century and beyond.
New Typography
Swiss designer, Jan Tschichold was influenced by the Dutch De Stijl movement and the Bauhaus. In his book “The Principles of the New Typography” in 1928 Tschichold promoted dynamic asymmetry, san serif fonts, and many of the tenets of the Bauhaus. He believed that typography should never distract from the goal of relaying information as efficiently as possible. Layout was based on mathematical calculations to promote visual hierarchy, but he also valued beauty and spirituality.
With the volume of information and data shared today, clarity in typography and layout is as important, if not more important as it was when Tschichold formulated his ideas.
Rewatch the Graphic Design History section on New Typography on LinkedIn Learning or in the YouTube video below to refresh your knowledge of this movement. NOTE: In the following video, watch from 44:02 to 48:09
The next generation Swiss designers and pioneers of the Swiss Style, Karl Gerstner, and Joseph Muller-Brockman created and spread their systematic approach to design across Europe and America. The typographic tools for layout and typography that we use today in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc. grow out of the structured grid and typographic methods of the Swiss Style. Web design also relies on the grid for clear communication.
Watch the Graphic Design History section on Swiss Typography on LinkedIn Learning or in the YouTube video below to refresh your knowledge of this movement. NOTE: In the following video, watch from 1:21:57 to 1:25:45
Originating from the early Avant-Garde, the Swiss Style / International Typographic Style (and the modernist aesthetic in general) reaches its height in the 1950s and 1960s. In America, it transforms corporate advertising.
In preparation for our look at corporate identity design and advertising next week, let’s look at the ultimate Swiss Style typeface “Helvetica.” Designed in 1957 it became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style and one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-20th century.
Watch this documentary “Helvetica” from 2007. Note the mention of MySpace and other dated references. Also note that the documentary, which focuses on a typeface that was intended to be a universal typeface, is lacking a diversity of voices.
Review the Research Project & Presentation guidelines again and create a formal outline of your research project due Sunday, October 17th, at 6pm
Create your Research Project Outline in Google Docs with the following content:
1. Introduction
Explain in detail the topic you are examining and why it is significant.
2. Background/Review of the Literature
Include a summary of the basic background information on the topic gleaned from your literature and sources review (you can include information from the readings and class, but the bulk should be outside sources).
3. Rationale
A description of the questions you are examining and why you are exploring this topic.
4. Method and Design
A description of how you will go about collecting resources/data and how you plan to present the information in your presentation.
5. References
List the resources and references you have found so far. Include all references in MLA style.
Create a new post following the guidelines below.
TITLE: Research Project Outline – Your Initials
CATEGORY: Research Project
TAG: Research Project Outline
TAG: Your Name
3. Assignment: Reading Response 6 (2+ Hours)
Follow the assignment guidelines and prompts:Reading Response 6 – DUE Sunday, October 17th, at 6pm
You will be reading and annotating three essays written by Madeleine Morley, Silas Munro, and Alice Rawsthorn looking at the lack of diversity in the design field and design history. Refer to Assignment: Reading Response 6 for prompts.
As before, after annotating the text, create a rough draft of your response in your Research Journal.
Your response should be about 200 words and checked for spelling and grammar errors.
Publish your finished response on the class site, using the guidelines provided.
Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.
1. Finding Your Research Topic (30 min)
“Our identity is abstract and ever-changing. The ways in which we’re shaped by our world can evolve as the world around us changes and we encounter new experiences… With diverse representation comes a wealth of experiences and perspectives that elevate the design industry.” KALEENA SALES FROM EXTRA BOLD, PRINCETON ARCHITECTURAL PRESS, 2021.
Who are you? What do you care about?:
What is your manifesto?
This week we will take a look at the Research Project guidelines and begin in earnest to define our project topic and proposal.
Use your Research Project to bring awareness to the issues that matter to you as an individual, as a global citizen, as a designer.
Use your own manifesto to define what today’s designer should be thinking about, rebelling against, and acting on.
Take another look at what you wrote.
In your Research Journal, you should be collecting your influences, the “stuff” that informs your design aesthetic, and what you believe in. As communication designers, we are always collecting and sampling from the world in which we live.
Nothing is truly original. This video below uses music as its subject to show that we are constantly “sampling” from and influenced by past and present cultures. If you were to collect all your visual, musical, and cultural, “samples” what would your collection look like? Use your influences to help direct your research project topic ideas.
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch Abstract: The Art of Design > Paula Scher to learn how a designer’s 40-year career was influenced by her life, her culture, her city, her passion.
Your research should explore the relationship between specific theories that we cover in class and a specific contemporary design project, aesthetic, or approach within the last 40 years that puts these theories into practice. Begin with a particular writing, concept, or design project that you find compelling and draw connections between it and the theories we’ve discussed.
Start broad and then focus in.
You might start broadly with a general area of interest.
Design + Gender
Design + Diversity
Design + Protest
Design + Gaming
Design + Health
Design + Politics
Design + Identity
Design + Technology
Design + Music
Design + Social Justice
Design + Film
Design + ?
Check out AIGA’s Eye On Design for numerous examples that would make interesting design theory research topics. You will need to define your own topic, but these should give you some ideas.
Embrace the past
It’s difficult to look at our current time to clearly see what will be influential to the next generation (which styles or trends or political or cultural influences will have a lasting impact), but we can look to the past to see what, how, and why those influences are visible today, whether as reaction/rebellion or as influence/nostalgia. We are always asking WHY? Here are two examples where a designer, design movement, or graphic style was influenced by the past (pop culture, politics, technologies, social conflicts). When exploring these types of topics, historical sources should play a big role.
We can also look at current social-political movements to look deeply at our design field and our culture to consider how these events are influencing the present design field. In these examples, current social-political changes are informing/changing our approach to language, communication, design, and how we relate to each other. When exploring these topics the theories of communication, meaning, psychology, signs & symbols, etc. play a big role. Again we are always asking WHY?
Once you have narrowed down your research topic. Start to ask some questions in order to define your research question or thesis statement. Here are some tips.
Review the Research Project and Presentation guidelines and start to define your research topic following the suggestions.
The Research Project is designed to facilitate independent research in contemporary design and design theory.
Your goal will be to consider the ideas and theories we discuss in this course, and the contexts in which they emerged, and identify a design project, designer, or style that puts these ideas into practice.
Your findings from this research will be shared with the class through a 10-15 minute audio-visual presentation (ie: a video slideshow with narration) at the end of the semester.
The focus of these texts is the evolution of the International Style from the New Typography movement and the Bauhaus of the 1920-1940s to Swiss Typography and the embrace of European modernism of the 1950’s. Read Jan Tschichold, “The Principles of the New Typography” pg35-38, Karl Gerstner, Designing Programmes pg55-61, Joseph Muller-Brockman, “Grid and Design Philosophy” pg62-63 in our Hypothesis group.
As before, after annotating the text, create a rough draft of your response in your Research Journal. Your response should be about 200 words and checked for spelling and grammar errors. Publish your finished response on the class site, using the guidelines provided.
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
Overview of the Bauhaus and its influence on the field of design.
Guidelines and due date for the first Research Paper
Activities
1. The Bauhaus: Form and Function (30 min)
In our fourth reading, we looked at writings from designers affiliated with the Bauhaus. The Bauhaus assimilated many of the ideas we’ve discussed, such as the utopian idea that design will make the world a better place; that it will transform society for a better way of life for all citizens; and that artists and craftspeople will work together through the use of technology and industrialization.
Some of the main tenents of the Bauhaus are still followed today in the field and in design schools across the globe.
1. A designer should strive for the highest quality and craftmanship modeled by order, geometry, and clear, refined typography.
2. Less is more. Excess ornament or information is unnecessary to communicate a message or to function.
3. Form follows function. Design should be functional. It should be organized and follow a clear hierarchy for clear communication.
4. The use of technology and mass production of good design supports equality. If something is designed with simple forms can be accessible to everyone.
Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy, and Herbert Bayer all contributed to the Bauhaus legacy. Below find some additional background to reinforce these ideas and some follow up questions to connect these principles our
The Bauhaus Principles and Influence
Rewatch Graphic Design History sections Bauhaus 1 & Bauhaus 2 on LinkedIn Learning or in the YouTube video below to refresh your knowledge of the Bauhaus. NOTE: In the following video, watch from 36:42 to 44:02
“Designing is not a profession but an attitude. Design has many connotations. It is the organization of materials and processes in the most productive way, in a harmonious balance of all elements necessary for a certain function. It is the integration of technological, social, and economical requirements, biological necessities, and the psychological effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space. Thinking in relationships.”
Moholy-Nagy’s work spanned all types of media, especially light as a medium. Of special interest to our discussion today is Moholy-Nagy’s interest in photography and typography and his vision of Typophoto, which he describes as “visually most exact rendering of communication.” The following video about his work was created in 1990. At the end is an animation in honor of Moholy-Nagy imagining what he might have created if he had been alive during the digital age. Can you imagine what he might create if he had access to today’s technology?
“Bayer’s universal alphabet became a symbol of ‘Bauhaus typography,’ even though it was not strictly speaking a typeface… Fixed in memory through a few endlessly repeated reproductions, the universal alphabet was a philosophical idea that reverberated throughout the promotional activities of the Bauhaus and beyond … they gave form to prevalent avant-garde thinking about function, modularity, industrial standards, and machine production.” – Design Is Storytelling, Ellen Lupton.
The avant-garde designers were looking for universal methods of communication, often searching for ideal ways to reach the masses using new technologies and modalities.
Photography and film were the new techologies in the age of the Bauhaus. Combined with typography László Moholy-Nagy stated that Typophoto was the “visually most exact rendering of communication.”
Herbert Bayer is often credited with modernizing typography in the Bauhaus with his creation of the Universal alphabet. He also speaks of “text-picture integration” and the use of “square span,” short grouping of words for universal communication.
Today we have multiple modes and methods of instant, mass communication. Consider the rise of “deep fakes“, the short, concise messages we send via Twitter, or the lack of subtlety and tone in email, text, or emojis. Is the ability to communicate truthfully, accurately, and effectively helped and/or hindered by technology today?
3. Research Paper
The first 750-1000 word paper will be due Monday, March 15, at 9 pm. Last week you should have started thinking about your Research Paper by selecting a design or design object created after 1971 in which the influence of the theories we’ve studied so far can be observed. In your Research Journal, you may have started to examine the ways in which the creator was responding, directly or indirectly, to theories we’ve covered so far. This week you will spend most of your time for this class researching and fully developing this paper. Guidelines for this paper can be found under Assignment: Research Paper 1
Marinetti, along with a group of young Italian artists, declared their ambitions in opposition to the traditional values dominating Italian art and culture of the time and focused on the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life. Key ideas:
Motion, movement, technology, speed, dynamisim, unification of culture, industrialization, war, violence, machismo, extreme, distruction of the past, revolution.
Political leanings, initially fascism, anti-feminist, anti-democratic, but years later rejected those ideas to focus more on technological advancement, specifically aviation.
Watch the three videos below to learn more about the key ideas that define Futurism and the lasting visual elements that resulted. Does anything in the visual or ideological aspects of this movement inspire or repulse you? Why?NOTE: In the following video, watch from 29:38 to 31:33
Italian Futurism Jeffrey Hoover – 00:00 to 16:10 NOTE: There is a disturbing scene in the next video at 17:35. You only need to watch up to 16:10.https://youtu.be/YFPIP9NxU30
2. Constructivism
The Russian Revolution of 1917 offered hope for a new society in which workers would replace the aristocracy as the ruling class. The Constructivists, led by Aleksandr Rodchenko envisioned a new form of art that would replace traditional painting and sculpture with new forms of mass-produced graphics and engineered objects for the common citizen. Key Ideas:
NOTE: In the video below, watch from 24:42 to 29:19
The Soviet Revolution – Graphic Design History (Watch from 24:42 to 29:19): https://youtu.be/OS8rZ8iwcJM
3 Influence on Contemporary Design
Futurism, Constructivism, and the avant-garde in general, as we shall continue to explore, had a profound impact on the evolution of graphic design, advertising, fashion, industrial design, architecture, theater, and more.
Born from the political and societal influences of the time, we can see how the concepts of universality, authorship, and social responsibility are present in manifestos we’ve read and most importantly WHY!
By now you can start to see how some of the graphic styles of these two movements that we’ve explored still linger in the design we see today.
As we explore the next step in our design lineage in writings from the Bauhaus, see if you can find the influences from the Futurist and Constructivist movements.
Please note: your first 2-3 page paper is due on March 15. Start thinking about this assignment.
First Paper – Due March 15
Question and requirements:
Select a design or design object created after 1972 in which the influence of the theories considered thus far can be seen.
Begin with a brief description of the object, the designer who created it, and the historical circumstances under which it was made.
Considering these factors: examine the ways in which the creator was responding, directly or indirectly, to theories related to linguistics or semiology, avant-garde art movements or the psychological perception of forms (ie. any of the ideas that we’ve covered).
Discuss the manner in which the design you’ve chosen embodies these theories. Provide direct references to relevant passages from our readings. Locate additional writings using library resources to substantiate your comparisons.
Your goal is ultimately to provide a critical examination, not an account of historical details.
Criteria:
Submit a 750-1000 word typewritten paper, double-spaced in 12 pt. Times New Roman.
Include images of the work under consideration and any other relevant illustrations.
Cite all materials researched for historical context, any related writings, and image sources.
All sources, references and quotations should be cited in MLA format.
Research Paper 1 Prep
Select a design or design object created after 1971 in which the influence of the theories we’ve studied so far can be seen. In your Research Journal, add an image and begin with a brief description of the work, the designer who created it, and the historical circumstances under which it was made. Considering these factors, examine the ways in which the creator was responding, directly or indirectly, to theories related to semiotics & signs, ways of meaning, models of communication, avant-garde art movements (ie. any of the ideas that we’ve covered). Discuss how the design you’ve chosen embodies these ideas. Provide direct references to relevant passages from our readings and locate additional writings using library resources and other sources to support your comparisons.
You will be providing a critical examination of the object and its relationship to the theories we’ve discussed, not an account of historical details. These should be your observations, your ideas supported by published sources.
Use the links provided under Help > Course Resources > Design Collections to find your design source (advertising, graphic design, industrial design objects, motion graphics, etc.) for your paper.
Research Project Prep
The first paper is a jumping-off point for your research project. You don’t have to lock yourself into a topic yet, but your should by now have started to define your aesthetic and theoretical interests based on the ideas we discussed so far. If nothing has piqued your interest yet, ask you self “What do I feel passionate about?” “What do I love to talk about?” “What makes me feel angry, sad, depressed?” “If I could be doing anything right now that would make an impact on the world, what would it be?” “How could I use my skills as a designer to change the world?” “What graphic style, design movement, decade, or typeface is my favorite?”
Visit the Grading Policy page for an overview of the Research Project.
Manifestos, Movements, and the Avant-Garde
At the end of this session, students should have an understanding of the following:
Overview of Futurist and Constructivist manifestos and movements, and their influence on the field of design.
Expectations for the Research Journal, the first paper, and the research project
Guidelines and expectations for this week’s discussion.
The guidelines and due date for Reading Response 4.
Activities
Today’s group discussion will build from last week’s discussion (What is design?), and from the readings for this week. The objective for this discussion is to compose your Design Manifesto.
Use short declarative statements to define the philosophy, intentions and requirements for the designer of today.
State the social, political and ethical questions that are necessary for a designer to consider.
Identify the technological concerns that designers must embrace or reject.
Don’t shy away from poetics or abstraction.
Feel free to re-write passages from the Futurist and Constructivist manifestos that we’ve read.
Manifestos, Movements, and the Avant-Garde (45 min)
In our third reading, we looked at Manifestos from Italian Futurists and Russian Constructivists.
These two movements have left an indelible mark on the lineage of our communication design field by influencing other movements at the time and afterward. The work of these artists/designers can still feel relevant today. The political turmoil, societal shifts, and radical ideologies they experienced are mirrored in our lives today, abet with different a set of challenges.
While we are unlikely to share many of the beliefs and ideologies that initially inspired these artists/designers, the distinct graphic style (clear lines, abstracted shapes, bold palettes, and photomontages) have become part of our visual vocabulary.
As we take a deeper look into these two movements, consider the politics, technology, social challenges of the time, and the urgency and passion from which these movements grew. Here is a collection of images from this time period.
Think back to our previous review of universality, authorship, social responsibility. And more recently, signs, meaning, and modes of communication.
What are your observations?
Vanessa asks “Why should designers concern themselves with unsolvable theoretical questions?”
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Les mots en liberté futuristes 1919
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Zang Tumb Tumb 1914
Aleksandr Rodchenko Book Cover “Pro eto” by Vladimir Mayakovsky 1923
Aleksandr Rodchenko Cover design for Journal of the Left Front of the Arts, 1928
Aleksandr Rodchenko, Poster for Lengiz, 1924
El Lissitzky.Proun.1922-23
ElLissitzky. Figures3D Design Electro Mechan Show 1923
El Lissitzky The Announcer 1923
Varvara Stepanova Unisex Sport Clothes 1923
Varvara Stepanova Gosizdat Textbooks Poster c. 1925
Red Army Poster
Nikolai Suetin Teapot c. 1923
Gustav Klutsis Archtectural Study 1920-21
Gustav Klutsis Memorial to Fallen Leaders 1927
ElLissitzky TheNewMan 1923
Alexandra Exter “Guardian of Energy” (costume design for the film “Aelita” by Yakov Protozanov) 1924
Varvara Stepanova, Textile Design, 1924
1. The Futurism Manifesto and Movement
Marinetti, along with a group of young Italian artists, declared their ambitions in opposition to the traditional values dominating Italian art and culture of the time and focused on the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life.
Key ideas:
Motion, movement, technology, speed, dynamisim, unification of culture, industrialization, war, violence, machismo, extreme, distruction of the past, revolution.
Political leanings, initially fascism, anti-feminist, anti-democratic, but years later rejected those ideas to focus more on technological advancement, specifically aviation.
Watch the three videos below to learn more about the key ideas that define Futurism and the lasting visual elements that resulted. Does anything in the visual or ideological aspects of this movement inspire or repulse you? Why?NOTE: In the following video, watch from 29:38 to 31:33
Italian Futurism Jeffrey Hoover – 00:00 to 16:10 NOTE: There is a disturbing scene in the next video at 17:35. You only need to watch up to 16:10.https://youtu.be/YFPIP9NxU30
Futurism, Constructivism, and the avant-garde in general, as we shall continue to explore, had a profound impact on the evolution of graphic design, advertising, fashion, industrial design, architecture, theater, and more.
Born from the political and societal influences of the time, we can see how the concepts of universality, authorship, and social responsibility are present in manifestos we’ve read and most importantly WHY!
By now you can start to see how some of the graphic styles of these two movements that we’ve explored still linger in the design we see today.
As we explore the next step in our design lineage in writings from the Bauhaus, see if you can find the influences from the Futurist and Constructivist movements.
Recent Comments