Author: Calvin Garcia (Page 1 of 2)
Citations
Plagens, Peter, and Ray Sawhill. “The Font of Youth.” Newsweek, vol. 127, no. 9, Feb. 1996, p. 64. EBSCOhost, citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/login?url=https://https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=9602207799&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
“Typeout!: They may love him or hate him but graphic designers are rarely indifferent on the subject of David Carson. A former surfer and sociology teacher, Carson is best known for his work on the American music magazine Ray Gun, where he tore up the rulebook, followed his instincts and kicked design into the future.” Observer [London, England] 12 Nov. 1995: 46. Business Insights: Global. Web. 23 Apr. 2022.
URL
http://bi.gale.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/global/article/GALE%7CA171367299/8574315b18632bc0b53bbc6abb397cf2?u=cuny_nytc
Partly explains Carson’s process.
Laurel Harper Hyper Critical Review of Carson’s Fotografiks.
According to Heller, today’s underground works are the mainstream works of tomorrow. Sub-cultures are inevitably reduced to a few defining characteristics, and those characteristics are then appropriated by large corporations in order to market and sell goods back to members of the aforementioned sub-cultures.
One of the greatest examples of this is in the work of Graphic Designer David Carson. Carson, made his career ebbing and flowing back between these two worlds. His design work on Transworld Skateboarding, Beach Culture and Ray Gun garnered him attention from major brands such as Nike, and Pepsi.
Unlike other designers, Carson, is not the descendant of any particular design philosophy. “Carson, a 40-year-old former professional surfer, stumbled into graphic design when he was 24 and teaching high school on the West Coast. He came across an advertisement for a two-week design course for high-school seniors and decided to catch that wave.” Carson, embodies the spirit of the sub-cultures he is working with at a given moment. The unique set of circumstances for which a designer such as Carson springs from enables him to be the perfect person to synthesize the core values and spirit of Surfing, Skateboarding, and alternative Rock music.“Transworld Skateboarding wasn’t the most mainstream publication, and neither were the two magazines Carson completely designed himself –Beach Culture and Ray Gun. But they appeared when such companies as Nike and Levi Strauss were looking for ways to make their ads appeal to the generation who squirrel into 7-Elevens on skateboards and say, ‘Make that two Big Gulps, dude.’”The erratic, in your face style of Carson’s design is what made him highly sought after by brands which sought to market to Gen X in the 1990s.
One of the weirdest things about this class is seeing how things that spoke to you in your youth were eventually commodified and sold back to you. Or even better yet, the perception of being in on the ground floor of a sub-culture only to find out that you were actually a part of its commodified phase is super weird.
Citations
Plagens, Peter, and Ray Sawhill. “The Font of Youth.” Newsweek, vol. 127, no. 9, Feb. 1996, p. 64. EBSCOhost, citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/login?url=https://https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=9602207799&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Plagens, Peter, and Ray Sawhill. “The Font of Youth.” Newsweek, vol. 127, no. 9, Feb. 1996, p. 64. EBSCOhost, citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu:2048/login?url=https://https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mth&AN=9602207799&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
“Typeout!: They may love him or hate him but graphic designers are rarely indifferent on the subject of David Carson. A former surfer and sociology teacher, Carson is best known for his work on the American music magazine Ray Gun, where he tore up the rulebook, followed his instincts and kicked design into the future.” Observer [London, England] 12 Nov. 1995: 46. Business Insights: Global. Web. 23 Apr. 2022.
URL
http://bi.gale.com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/global/article/GALE%7CA171367299/8574315b18632bc0b53bbc6abb397cf2?u=cuny_nytc
Terms
Tautological
Syntagm
conotation means to point toward something
denotation is its literal meaning.
Analysis
Barthes explains that when words accompany an image the image loses its freedom to be interpreted. the image is a slave to the text that accompanies limiting the interpreters ability to ascribe meaning where there may be none, or to ascribe a separate meaning altogether.
When an image contains words, it requires you at the very least to know how to read the words within the image to understand its meaning.
Advertising contains no literal images as it’s advertising’s job to point at greater meaning.
At its barest state the meaning of an image is exactly what it is. Meaning at its very core an image has at least one meaning.
Photograph representing the here and now and the there and then is interesting.
The literal image is the basis of the symbolic image.
The more technology we develop to view and create images the easier it is to hide the true meaning of those images under the literal image.
I want to start off by saying I enjoyed reading The Medium is the Massage. It’s always funny to me to read something from decades ago that speaks directly to problems, and topics of current society. It almost confirms the saying “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
McLuhan, speaking about how innovations brought on by humanity: the book, the car, the tv, the radio, have all fundamentally changed how we interact with our environment and one another. Media being an extension of humanity is perhaps represented in no greater way than social media.
With social media the profile exists as a representation, and extension of the person who posts to it. A collection of this person’s best moments, interests, political leanings, hobbies and closest friends, as well as far flung acquaintances all collected in one spot. Something we can look at to remind us that we know or once knew someone. A surrogate static representation of one’s life and of friendship in general.
Books, TV, Podcasts, Movies, and Music are all artifacts left behind that give us snapshots of the moments they were created in, and insight into the thoughts and feelings of the people who created them. With the internet we have greater access to these creations than ever before. Today, most thoughts aren’t even collected into these formats, with the wondrous advancements in technology we have today, instead they are more akin to messages in a bottle, tossed into the ocean of the internet at 280 characters a piece for others to find. This free and open discourse is akin to being able to shouting fire into every movie theatre in the country at the same time, and facing no repercussions for doing so. With the help of the internet we are allowed unprecedented access to the past. While this might seem like a good thing I feel like the ability to live in nostalgia detracts from the experience of today.
One of my favorite movies of the last year was “Remembrance” starring Hugh Jackaman. While it’s a standard action movie with a predictable plot the core of the story was solid. In a world greatly affected by climate change, and economic instability the greatest release people have is to submerge themselves in the Remembrance, a machine that allows them to escape the horrors of the present day by reliving their fondest memories. If such a technology as the Remembrance existed today it would be extremely problematic. It would almost certainly bring the fall of humanity as it would allow us to ignore the ills of the day and just slip into blissful ignorance, not unlike our current media landscape. On a daily basis it seems like silicon valley is trying to push us into a comically dark science fiction movie. The entire cyberpunk genre is built upon the premise that technological progress was never checked.
While it may seem all doom and gloom one of my favorite things is to see how designers learn to flourish alongside new technology. The cellphone brought us the short-lived tv platform Quibi, which catered to busy people who were commuting by offering high quality bite sized content all made to be consumed in portrait mode. Tiktok has given rise to an entire generation of people who create content that absent the context of a cellphone and an algorithm its existence barely makes any sense. The designer’s job is not just to work within the limitations of a medium but to define them.
The early days of design were filled with manifestos, people making bold proclamations about the future of society and about what design needed to be to meet the demands of the coming times. Designers are one part problem solver one part artist, and some believe in order to be effective on a consistent basis they must wrangle the multitude of solutions for a given problem. The ideologies of the authors from this week’s readings made huge contributions in shaping the field of graphic design for designers today. One of design theory’s pioneers is Jan Tschichold.
Tschichold, inspired by New Typography believed that it was the key to communication, and that alignment was its companion “Every part of a text relates to every other part by definite, logical relationship of emphasis and value, predetermined by content. It is up to the typographer to express this relationship clearly and visibly through type sizes, weight, arrangement of lines, use of color, photography etc. The typographer must take the greatest care to study how his work is read and ought to be read.” According to Tschichold mere aesthetic preference should take a back seat to design decisions that represent the content’s core message accurately, and clearly conveys ideas in accordance with how people native to that region read. Typography should not distract with Ornament or nonsensical alignment. Everything must serve the reader, and the content. Another designer who felt the same way was Josef Muller-Brockman.
Muller-Brockman, inventor of the grid, much like Tschichold and the Constructivists believed that their work served a purpose greater than mere aesthetic delight. These men sought to tackle the various problems the field offered in a clear effective manner “ This is the expression of a professional ethos: the designer’s work should have the clearly intelligible, objective, functional, and aesthetic quality of mathematical thinking.” Typically when a designer merely follows their instincts without thinking the process through they run the risk of being ineffective in their execution. Design thinking reduces the amount subjectivity one may encounter and get hung up on while designing. One tool to wrangle typography and images in this highly subjective landscape was the grid. As Muller-Brockman says the grid represents more than a tool to wrangle type “The use of the grid as an ordering system is the expression of a certain mental attitude inasmuch as it shows that the designer conceives his work in terms that are constructive and oriented to the future.” Muller-Brockman believed the grid legitimizes a designer’s decisions. I’m sure Muller-Brockman believed that by having a clearly thought out process his customers wouldn’t feel they were at the mercy of a self serving lunatic. Most interesting to me however was Karl Gerstner a wannabe chemist turned graphic designer who devised a system to solve all potential graphic design problems.
Gerstner with the belief that design posed an infinite number of questions to which there were an infinite number of answers, wanted to create a way to find the proper answer for the question being asked at the moment “The creative process is to be reduced to an act of selection. Designing means: to pick out determining elements and combine them. Seen in those terms design calls for method.” Designing his “Morphological box of the typogram” Gerstner was able to pick specific elements of a design and combine them creating new works. The Morphological Box of Typogram reminds me of the current typography settings in indesign. The filter capabilities on inDesign allow you to choose from sans serif, serif decorative, and display typefaces, wide letters, tall letters, thick letters, thin letters, square letters and list goes on and on. While a bit extreme I understand what Gerstner is saying. How does one fit into a machine and remain productive if they has no systems to maintain their productivity. It is impossible to be creative everyday, but with tool such as the Morphological box of typogram the guessing is taken out of the process.
The authors of these writings are seeking to utilize scientific methods in pursuit of streamlining and legitimizing their work in the eyes of would be patrons, onlookers, and future designers. According to these men an eye to the future, striving for clarity of message and content, legibility, and logical order are paramount. A designer must be able to create, and innovate in a timely manner using more than just their instincts. To do that he needs process they can rely on.
According to the texts, particularly the Gropius text, what was missing in art education of the past was a practicality that aligned with the real world. As the text says the type of art produced at ateliers and universities of the past was strictly about teaching people how to paint and draw with little forethought given to where these skills might actually be applied to better society, or to ensure the artist can earn money. By distancing themselves from society artists were no longer suited to be the facilitators of communication. It is not until designers come along and consider the practical application of these skills to their societies that the artist begins to reconnect with society. One such artist who imagined the how to facilitate communication was Laszlow Maholy-Nagy.
Maholy-Nagy creator of Typophoto envisioned a world where all forms of communication crossed to create the most true form of communication. The result of his vision was Typophoto, a marriage of typography and photography which was capable of communicating better than either one could alone. While Typophoto was the result of his vision Maholy-Nagy fully expected for this to evolve as technology and time marched forward. He envisioned film and audio also merging, and even getting beyond their necessity for linearity.
Communication is one of the most important goals of art and design. Aside from aesthetically delighting, design in particular is art with a greater purpose( not metaphysically, but functionally). As Herbert Bayer pointed out, it is the responsibility of the designer to not just deliver what people expect but to be pushing for more and better, and not just arbitrarily so. The designer must challenge society to see things in a new light so we as a whole can move forward. As Gropius said we cannot move forward without a full understanding of what role the artist, and designer play in society.
As Gropius pointed out in his writing the atelier has failed its students. It has done nothing but create artists who are incapable of being useful in today’s society. The artist must be able to do more than just visually conceptualize a lamp or a pair of boots, but must understand their construction so that he is doing more than speculating. It is here the role of the academy is to be defined.
The role of the academy is to prepare creatives to be able to think, conceptualize and to produce work that is useful. That is not to say that it also shouldn’t be teaching creatives to look inward and produce work from their souls but the soul will be in turmoil if the artist cannot feed themself. While sitting in some of my classes and listening to some of the lectures I can understand why creatives get the short end of the stick in their careers. Even though the general public understands the importance of design, designers still make a poor case for themselves as to why you should pay them for their services. The academy should teach beyond the practice of design, but should also teach the business of design. Imagine graduating after 10 years of medical school and the only way to ply your trade as a doctor is to diagnose family and friends for $25 dollars a visit.
While enrolled here at City Tech I can see some of the Bauhaus ideology apparent in the way the COMD program is structured. Classes focused on the fundamentals of design, leading to more specified study, and finally a rounding out of projects to give one a portfolio they can show in the real world, that could get them work.
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