Month: April 2022 (Page 1 of 5)

In this article, Steven Heller talks about… an appropriation of other works in design. Appropriation can be found in different aspects of media. Music, art, design, advertisement. Also, Heller says about the “boom” that the underground can face and become mainstream. He remembers avant-garde and psychedelic movements that were known to low masses at the time but then became more popular and got more and more followers to the point where these trends became a real movement that people study at art or design schools. 

I can remember examples of underground becoming mainstream but in music. Thrash, punk, grunge, alternative rock–all of these sub-genres of rock music were underground, where even not every rocker would listen to or play. However, later bands such as Metallica for thrash-metal, Sex Pistols for punk, Nirvana for grunge, and Linkin Park for alternative rock and rap-core (as well as MANY others) made their music mainstream and so popular that they had and have millions of followers and successors. 

As for appropriation–this is such a thin line between plagiarism and being inspired by others. Even now in the MTA subway, you may find a poster of, if I am not mistaken, some art exhibition, and that poster is clearly made in the style of avant-garde and/or dadaism. Some may say this is an inspiration and show of respect to the movement (which I personally agree with) or pure plagiarism (maybe not for 100%) and the poster-maker could not make something more original. I think, in art, design, and music it is impossible to make something purely original. One way or another the author would be inspired by the works of other people before him or his contemporary who works in the same field. And that is ok! It would be a genius, a person who would create something original, from the concept to the implementation. Every author from every movement was inspired by something or someone one way or another. The same avant-garde and dadaism were the answer to the horrors of World War I. Punk-rock music is the rebellious answer of youth to the times and life laws they did not want to follow anymore. Grunge rock is a successor (in a way) of punk, and alternative rock is linked to grunge. Inspiration is everywhere. Even now, while writing this paper, I am listening to a playlist of a “Classical Music for Writing” (that’s the name of the video), and in this playlist is, of course, “Swan Lake” by Tchaikovsky. So I was listening to it and caught myself thinking that this music reminded me of the main theme of Harry Potter somehow. Maybe not blatantly, but the mood of the music and some notes, some portion of melody looked (or rather was heard) like the Harry Potter movie theme.

When going through the reading, it’s interesting to learn about how inspirations from designs are always being brought out differently. Of course it’s one thing to be inspired about art, however, I wouldn’t really think about how common it is to actually take someone else’s work and put it as your own. I always wonder if using a method like that is actually a good thing? Especially when you look at regular/not well known designers having there work being used without permission, I believe it’s actually pretty scary. It’s almost as if you can never do anything with your art because people would always try to work there way around your work.

As a person like myself who always follows a lot of artist on social media, I have come to witness on those several occasions where I see a work from an artist that I like that has there work stolen such as being traced over, using it to sell merchandise, etc. To me, it’s pretty sad the way these folks are treating artist. Us artist deserves to be recognize as real workers too. It’s such a weird thing to see how dedicated these folks are to going the extra step in wanting to devalue their work. Especially when it comes down to not creating anything original anymore.

To take inspiration from an artist is always a good thing. Being able to become inspired by there work is pretty much the type of drug an artist needs in order to let their creative mode start flowing. When we post art on social media, we have to factor in so much. We also have to understand that situations like this is too common which is pretty disappointing. With so many different kinds of art out there, I’m still certain that we have original arts.

This was an interesting read because it reminded me of music. In the reading, psychedelia was explored, and even terms such as grunge and etc. This reminded me of music genres that weren’t widely heard on the radio or music shows. There were musicians whose weren’t widely seen as well. Once they gain recognition, they get signed and their label starts pouring promotions for them. Listeners would usually state that the musician and their music has changed because they have become mainstream. The question then lies with, is it a hood thing or bad thing to become mainstream? 

According to the article and from my understanding, mainstream in general seems to be something that is honed in on, exploited, and reproduced. It is within the popular margins because the results encompasses the larger audience. An example could be the Dance Dance Revolution game, that use popular techno and bass songs. The songs used are targeting the youth and therefore bring the genre popularity. The concerns start rising when it gets pulled into mainstream. I feel that it has but it tries to avoid it. Another similar game that could be considered mainstream is “Just Dance.”

In terms of advertising, mainstream could signify the techniques being overused and replicated n a different manner. For example, CoCa Cola and Pepsi, and others, are all beverages and they could all have similar advertising techniques but the design would look different. The target audience could be different but it’s within the same general population. Someone is always out there trying to think out of the box for the next new thing, but in the end it seems that once it’s found, it’ll also find its way into mainstream. I don’t think it’s so bad. 

Demers, Joanna. “Dancing Machines: ‘Dance Dance Revolution’, Cybernetic Dance, and Musical Taste.” Popular Music, vol. 25, no. 3, 2006, pp. 401–14, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877663. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.

Hyman, Michael R., et al. “Research on Advertising Ethics: Past, Present, and Future.” Journal of Advertising, vol. 23, no. 3, 1994, pp. 5–15, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4188934. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.

Heller, Steven. Merz to Emigre and Beyond : Avant-Garde Magazine Design of the Twentieth Century. Reprint pbk. ed., Phaidon, 2014.

For Heller, the issue of mainstream vs. subterranean is essential in the current design because, despite the stile’s popularity, designers often duplicate or steal ideas. Heller introduces the argument in the paragraph that current design became significant because marketers were continuously looking for new methods to express themselves and relied on modern culture to do it. Heller also continues to talk about how they will alter the work slightly if even that, then they reissue them, to the world as new products.

So, sometimes the original work goes unnoticed while the copy gets a lot of credit. As an artist student I couldn’t say I didn’t know that these types of things go on. It’s understandable to get inspiration from past products but to take old ideas and copy them just isn’t right and has a bad effect on the design world. For one when doing this you’re not really being creative and before you know it everyone will all have designs that look almost the same, which gets boring and would eventually lose the attention of the audience because it doesn’t intrigue them anymore. The underground designs had no formal link with the designs that came to mind. They did, however, emerge as a byproduct in order to deter the public’s attention. It is in fact, that the underground appears to have only two options for dealing with the mainstream: join it or change it. The underground will either adhere to or disconnect from the ideology provided, depending on the individual and the ideology presented.

What gets our audiences and get people looking at what our doings are our unique styles and how we present things to them, it’s all about standing out. For instance, in Nike ad saying, when it comes to the designer, the phrase that Spike Lee used was “Just Do It”. He stole this slogan from a man named Gary Gilmore, who when on death row said, “let’s do it”. Dan Wieden then took off lets and added just and that’s how Nike came up with their famous slogan. That’s one of the only times I can think of when they stole an idea or altered one to make a new product or campaign. This is where the designs or the designer that I will be addressing for my final presentation fit into this separation.

Underground design that affects related jobs is mainstream, and corporate culture steals ideas from the underground counterculture movement. The specific posters I chose was the collaborations between Michael Jordan and Spike Lee. When reading an article on what was the inspiration for the ad campaign, I found they were trying to sell Michael Jordan sneakers, there were a bunch of Michael Jordan sneakers coming out at this time. When doing this Nike tried to tap into the “Sneaker Head Culture”. The shoe industry was growing fast, and people started to have somewhat of an addiction to shoes. Most people were fine with a couple pairs of sneakers, but some people were collecting more than a hundred pairs of shoes. I think these are ways has the work in question shaped the mainstream.

Sneaker Head is people who is collecting shoes

Citations

https://nike-justdoit.weebly.com/influence-on-pop-culture.html. (n.d.).

Barnard, Malcolm. Graphic Design As Communication, Taylor & Francis Group, 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Meggs, Philip B., and Alston W. Purvis. Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2016. ProQuest Ebook