Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 7)

According to Heller the concept of mainstream vs underground is relevant in Contemporary design. He speaks on the concept of design being mainstream and that marketers steal ideas from undiscovered or underground artists and bring them to the mainstream media as new media. Heller also speaks on how Underground bands led the way to commercialized mainstream culture. He continues to speak on how there are rarely any underground art that was not introduced into the mainstream culture.

The designer I have chosen is Micheal Beirut. He ties into this dichotomy because he also believes that there are barely any underground art or designs that are not introduced into the mainstream culture. In his writing “Designing under the influence “, he speaks on the mainstream culture. He talks of how his intern created a design that reminded him of Barbara Kruger ‘s designs. He speaks on the similarities between the design in the typeface used, the color palette and combination of the aspects. He then asked his intern if she was inspired by Barbara Kruger and she said that she never heard of her.

He continues on to to speak of how that Kruger’s work, had just become apart of the design atmosphere and become a template for people everywhere. He also speaks on the debate of whether people can “own” a graphic style. Beirut then says legally no. He then speaks on experience in the past where he saw the similarities between the American eagle apparel logo and very logo that Chermayeff and
Geismar’s Bruce Blackburn had designed for the American bicentennial back in 1976. He states that the logo design has hanged but was questioning whether it was due to a lawsuit or due to legal issues.

Cassegard, Carl. “Activism Beyond the Pleasure Principle? Homelessness and Art in the Shinjuku Underground”. Third Text. Sep2013, Vol. 27 Issue 5, p620-633. 14p. 5 Color Photographs. DOI: 10.1080/09528822.2013.830446.\

DI SIA, PAOLO. “DESCRIBING THE CONCEPT OF INFINITE AMONG ART, LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE: A PEDAGOGICAL-DIDACTIC OVERVIEW”. Journal of Education, Culture & Society.
2014, Issue 1, p9-19. 11p.

By: Knoblauch, Ann-Marie. “The Mainstream Media and the “Shocking Bad Art” from Cyprus: 1870s New York Reacts to the Cesnola Collections.” Near Eastern Archaeology. Jun2019, Vol. 82 Issue 2, p67-74. 8p. 1 Color Photograph, 5 Black and White Photographs, 2 Diagrams. DOI: 10.1086/703746.

According to “The Underground Mainstream” by Steven Heller said “Commercial culture depends on the theft of intellectual property for its livelihood. Mass marketers steal ideas from visionaries, alter them slightly if at all, then reissue them to the public as new products”. In a certain way, it is true. I think that most the trendings or cultural movements have like a cycle, a person or a small group of people create or form the movement, and then they started to gain followers until in some way explote as a boom that became popular or commercial. It must be said that not every underground movement experiments with the boom however in the last years we experienced how the underground culture explote and started to be mainstream. For example, electronic music in the early ’90s and 2000s was considered an experimental music genre and was very underground. Listening to electronic music at this time was considered a friki or weird kid. I remember listening to Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Claptone, Carl Cox, and others not popular DJs at this period until David Guetta appears and breaks the music scene. I considered David Guetta as the most important mainstream DJ that popularize this genre around the world. I don’t go to say that his songs are bad but, in my personal opinion when an underground culture became commercial and mainstream the own movement lost its identity. In 2011 with the song “Titanium” with Sia, he mixed the pop and the electronic sounds and create something spectacular. However, since this song has been released the electronic music begins to lose that grace, that rhythm that makes them unique from other music genres. After that song, many DJs released more hits but the identity of the electronic genres start to be lost and then became a mixture of modern pop with monotonous and boring rhythms. And these happened with others music genres and artist like the rock (that some bands evolved to a kind of pop also), indie or hip-hop. And also, is not happening only in music, it is happend in almost everything. The sneakerheads, bloggers, YouTubers, streamers, design movements, ideas, internet subculture, etc.

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

In Steven Heller’s article titled “The underground mainstream”, the idea of design is depicted not only as a means of creating and sharing ideas, but also for commercial and business uses that may have a negative effect on the art itself or possibly build more awareness around it. Some companies see art as a means to promote products even if the original art is stolen or altered to better fit their demographic, while others have intentions to shock or change people in a manner that would capture their attentions. In a way it can gain attention and followings even if it fails to shock or frighten viewers with a different perspective shown. “Design Studies Theory and Research in Graphic Design” by Audrey Bennett does mention that images and designs have their own goals and specific communities one works a process towards, though not all images are seen just for appearances but rather the culture in visual context.

There are other sources that could be relevant to the article at hand. In one of sources titled “Graphic Design Discourse: Evolving Theories, Ideologies, & Process of Visual communication” by Henry Hongmin, many points regarding how designs represents the economy of form and function. How a designer’s work should not only be functional, but also aesthetically pleasing, hence how the attention of businesses and even viewers are drawn in.

“Graphic Design as Communication” by Malcolm Barnard also mentions how a design meant to shock viewers can have different effects. One of their examples being a poster of a black and white man handcuffed together, which gained many negative receptions but also gain other attention with what the poster’s message could mean to them.

According to Heller, Description of What Is the Approach of Underground Vs. Mainstream Relevant in Contemporary Design
According to Heller, the concept of Underground Vs. Mainstream is important in contemporary design since it involves the application of ideas on issues associated with issues of intellectual property within livelihoods. In particular, Heller describes how mass marketers illegally obtain ideas and information from visionaries where they make changes and then reuse them as new products for the public (Bowie, 2020). As a result, these end up making the materials and commodities previously in the market null and void.
Explanation of Where the Designer or Design That I Will Be Addressing for My Final Fit to Dichotomy
My choice of research design that I will be addressing for my final Dichotomy ought to ensure that the evidence obtained enables me to efficiently and effectively put up the challenge logically and unambiguously as much as possible. Several factors influenced the choice since I needed to establish a cause-and-effect interaction and relationship between experimental methods and variables (Greene, M. T., Gonzalez, R., & Papalambros, 2019). For final fit to Dichotomy involves creating and analyzing the approaches that ensure engagement of individuals in several chances to gather feedback, create, redesign, and experiment.
Discussion of What Underground Designs Impacted the Questioned Work
Underground designs influenced the mainstream culture since the dominance was associated with values, ways, and language of behaving imposed on the economic and political power. The impact resulted in political and legal suppression of patterns and values through monopolized media communication. There, conclusions can be made that traditional societies are attributed to increased customs and cultural traits often conglomerated through various cultures and subcultures.
The Work in Question Shaped the Mainstream in Several Ways
The underground involved a social group and movement whose values and ways of life were opposed to the mainstream of society to some extent (Guerra, 2021). The cultural values promoted and expressed actual opposition towards the existing and dominating culture. Hence, it was clear that the underground showed a contradiction and opposition to the mainstream.

References

Bowie, A. (2020). A Burkean dialectical-rhetorical perspective on shifting design trends. Southern Communication Journal, 85(2), 125-138.
Greene, M. T., Gonzalez, R., & Papalambros, P. Y. (2019, July). Measuring systems engineering and design thinking attitudes. In Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 3939-3948). Cambridge University Press.
Guerra, P. (2021). So close yet so far: DIY cultures in Portugal and Brazil. Cultural Trends, 30(2), 122-138.