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In this week’s article by Stuart Hall, the ideologies of how statements and concepts are created using different elements of individuals is explored, from mindsets to appearances. It can range from different intentions and range through varying meanings, something that can be seen with many advertisements in the modern era.
One of the many advertisements I feel can relate to the article’s idea comes from The New York Times’ website, with one of their pop out ads displaying the New York City Center Dance Festival. What makes this ad stand out is the different racial, gender, and cultural representation that its embracement ads to the ad’s call to action. It depicts the gatherings of these different identities in a positive manner not only for an entertainment event, but also to emphasize the event’s idea of a gathering of different groups.
Another advertisement that can also relate to the article comes from The Economist, with a unique design which the call to action may not be as immediate as others. The idea of this ad is to share with consumers the importance of different women’s identities and their history, but instead of using photos, silhouettes and overlapping colors are used to show how diverse these women are. While seemingly done in a more artistic manner, the call to action of showing women of different appearances and background can be examined. Some ads may be explicitly with their ideology of representation, but this one uses the concept in a unique manner.
An advertisement from GAP displays a large groups of individuals varying of age, shape, colors, gender, and backgrounds. Some of them do not appear to be in the same location of each photograph however which does have the focus placed onto each individual exclusively in each of them. It still follows the article’s idea of elements of these individuals being explores and how diverse they can be. It may not emphasize them all as together as a group, but still shows how unique they are all.
I found an interesting ad for Toyota Camry 2017. They created different ads for the same car for different races: Black, Asian, White, and Hispanic.
www.nytimes.com
www.gaytimes.co.uk
Assignment 7
The technologies humans have developed have improved our life in so many ways, this can go back to way back in history such as when agriculture started to be raised and factories ran with machines. Mcluhan believed that as well he mentioned light being used. It is an invention that helped our life during nighttime, thanks to Thomas Edison, but everything has two side effects, whether positive or negative.
Technology is being portrayed as an extension to our civilization, and extension is a very common word, like McLuhan mentioned in Understanding Media, he mentioned that clothes are extensions for our human body, book as an extension of the eye, wheel as an extension of wheel. We are indeed in a world where we need extension to make our life more advanced in different ways, and so are the negative such as ocean wastes and a lot many other environmental harms, or it could just be hard for people to find a job because they’re getting replaced by machines. Nonetheless technology definitely made our life better and every changes we get from them there is definitely a downside for it.
Assignment 6
After reading these articles I’ve come to a conclusion that designers are people who use design to express who they are and what they do, it is a method to to stand out from the crowd and everyone has their very unique style of art. On the other hand, a good designer designs things not just in whatever style he wants but also clarifies his intention of the objectives and makes people understand easily.
Tschichold believed that a design shouldn’t always follow rules, thus why he wrote this article “the new typography.” In the traditional old typography the arrangement of every unit has its own place to be placed on a certain axis, sacrificing additional imagination, work and creativity.
Gerstner stated that creative decisions are made by feeling but with intellectual criteria, and he came up with the morphological box of the typogram to run designs like a program, Gerstner in today’s world will be known as a programmer who wrote this morphological box program that runs elements of designs in a grid. It is a system that goes through components, typeface, colors, and decides which would go with each other the best.
Brockmann also believes that using a grid can demonstrate how much a design cares about his work, like Gerstner, Brockmann used a grid to clarify the laws of universal validity. Brockmann thinks that following the system of design is a way to express how professional one is, and also to demonstrate one’s intelligence in mathematical thinking and the quality of the work.
When I think of how media extends humanity, the thing that springs to my mind is social media. And social media springs to my mind quickly and forcefully when I think of answering this question, because social media has connected, and therefore amplified and extended humanity pretty drastically. It is mind boggling to me that people in let’s say Tokyo can see what people in New York City post to their social media channels, and therefore sort of have surveillance on what those people are doing, from halfway across the world. It’s easy to understand based on that example alone how ideas are so very rapidly spreading across the world now thanks to social media.
And then when it comes to the hazards of technological progress on individuals and society, social media is also the first thing I think of. And within that topic, the first thing I think of is online bullying. Youth are the main victims of this phenomenon, and it’s such a problem because it affects young people’s self esteem, and therefore ability to contribute to society.
I don’t think the work of a designer is subordinate to the media they use to create, because I think the content of the work is what people really respond to. For example, I don’t think people really focus on the fact that the Mona Lisa is a painting. I think they focus on the mysteriousness of her expression and the mythology surrounding the artwork. However, I do think some ideas work better in some forms of media more so than others.
I think form follows function is really powerful, and it’s interesting to me that Tschichold rejected anything outside of form follows function as ineffective. A part of me loves that, but a bigger part of me loves highly decorative, less functional typography and design in general. Tschichold seems to champion sober, highly functional, rather plain typography, but I must admit I love the other side of the coin. Why can’t typography and other types of design be decorative and frivolous, with pleasure being the sort of ‘function’ of the design?
I find Gerstner’s programme for designing to be mathematical, clinical, and devoid of emotion. I suppose it is one way of designing, and most definitely a unique one and probably a powerful and effective one I will admit. However, for me, it defeats the purpose of design. I try to design with emotion, and I express my personal point of view in my designs. For me it is so much more enjoyable that way.
Muller-Brockmann’s design ethos is again, for me, far too mathematical, objective, and cold. There is one element of his design ethos that I agree with, that is the technique of systemizing processes. Systemizing is something I do in my design work and life in general, because I find it makes every process easier, since once I design the system, all I have to do is execute that system over and over again to get to my desired outcome.
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