Author: Yiqiang Wang (Page 1 of 3)
Bibliography
- http://www.mubranding.com/teach/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Meggs_History_of_Graphic_Design_Fourth_E.pdf
- https://www.atutoficyna.pl/uploads/images/41/The_Polish_School_of_Poster.pdf
- https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/seymour-chwast-on-milton-glaser-the-importance-of-illustration-the-condition-of-contemporary-design/
- https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/the-legacy-of-polish-poster-design/
- http://www.pushpininc.com/about/pushpin/
- http://seymourchwastarchive.com/about/seymour/
The trend I want to describe is Yoga. Yoga has a history of more than 100 years in the United States. With people’s attention to health and fitness, yoga has gradually become a popular fitness project. Although yoga is popular with many fitness people in the United States, yoga is only a minority sport at the beginning. Yoga originated in ancient India thousands of years ago. Its purpose is to achieve the effect of cultivating the body and mind through various movements, so yoga is very popular among religious people in India.
Yoga Culture in the United States is much later. In the early 19th century, Indian culture was introduced into the United States and welcomed by Americans. With the deepening of exchanges between Americans and Indians, yoga was also introduced into the United States in the early 20th century. Later, yoga became popular due to a large number of Indian immigrants coming to the United States.
Yoga has become a popular fitness program for a reason, because it has been scientifically proved that yoga is of great help to people. It can not only make people lose weight, exercise muscles and increase flexibility, but also solve some psychological problems. And yoga doesn’t need too expensive equipment, just a Yoga mat.
I think yoga has become popular because with the development of society, many people are sitting in offices and the stress of work combined with keeping similar movements for a long time has caused them a lot of physical and mental problems, it just so happens that yoga can help them.
In the beginning, the originator of yoga may just want to better the Cultivation of body and mind and never thought that Yoga would have so much influence. However, in addition to helping people solve physical and psychological problems, yoga has also created a lot of economic value, so that many people can make a living by teaching yoga. I think this is positive, because it also indirectly lets more people know about the Yoga culture.
Heller mentioned in his article “the underground mainstream” that the concept of mainstream and underground is relevant in contemporary design, because most of the mainstream culture comes from the modified underground culture. I believe that there is no distinction between mainstream culture and underground culture at the beginning, but for some reason, one culture is liked by more people and gradually forms the mainstream culture. However, this culture cannot remain unchanged all the time, because people’s favorite things will change after experiencing different things, so the mainstream culture needs to be updated, from the initial self-renewal to the later absorption of “underground culture”. Therefore, there is no essential difference between the concept of mainstream and underground. It is only different culture in itself, but the influence of mainstream culture is still greater than that of underground culture. That is because mainstream culture is more accessible, so some artists and followers of underground culture will also make a lot of efforts to expand their influence. In the article “Music Of Comparison Mainstream And Underground Music Essay” it is written that there are plenty of underground artists who have gone mainstream. …. Artists choose to leave and go mainstream for their own individual, personal reasons. It’s possible; the underground had done all it could for an artist, and mainstream was the only way to satisfy their personal desires as a musician. “With the efforts of many underground culture artists, the influence of underground culture they support may gradually become larger until into a new mainstream culture.
My final presentation will introduce Seymour Chwast’s works. Seymour Chwast is a famous graphic designer in the United States. He is famous for his diversified works. He shows many social phenomena and personal ideas through rich colors and humorous cartoon style, which belongs to one of Expressionism. Expressionism has been popular for a long time, but at the end of World War II, with the rise of the international Typographic Style, expressionism began to become underground. However, with the rise of the postmodern art movement, modernism has become the mainstream culture again. Seymour Chwast created many excellent works with cartoon-style expressionism.
“Music Of Comparison Mainstream And Underground Music Essay.” UKEssays. ukessays.com, November 2018. Web. 21 April 2022. <https://www.ukessays.com/essays/music/music-of-comparison-mainstream-and-underground-music-essay.php?vref=1>.
- The designer I’m interested in is Seymour Chwast
- Seymour Chwast’s works have strong colors and humorous cartoon style. Although his works are relatively simple in form, if you look carefully, you will find that there are many deep meanings and personal ideas. It is these characteristics of Seymour Chwast’s works that attract me.
- Seymour Chwast founded push pin studios with several other designers in 1954. Seymour Chwast created many unique illustration styles and unconventional works during his studio.
- Seymour Chwast’s works have many deep meanings, so it is very helpful for me to read about semiotics and analyze the information in images.
- The rhetoric of the image by Roland Barthes and the course in general linguistics by Ferdinand de sausurre are my favorite readings in this class
- Now it is still difficult for me to design my own theory, but I will do more research and try my best to formulate my own theory.
The ad I chose came from a post posted by Sadman Hafiz last week. The United States is a country of immigrants. There are many people of different races living here, especially in big cities. Therefore, many company advertisements will hire people of different races to shoot advertisements, so as to express the concept of equality for people of different races.
MTA is a company that manages public transportation in New York City. The difference between MTA and other companies is that it is equivalent to a “public place” and serves a large number of people of different races every day. Therefore, it is very important to establish an image of equality and respect for different races. In this advertisement shot by MTA company, people of different genders, races and occupations laugh together, expressing that different people can coexist peacefully in MTA vehicles.
In addition to this poster from Sadman Hafiz, I also found another poster of the same series, which shows that MTA has always attached great importance to the issue of equality.
This week’s reading is Rhetoric Of The Image by Roland Barthes. In the article, Roland Barthes uses semiotics to analyze all kinds of information contained in Panzani advertisements.
Roland Barthes divides the information in Panzani advertisements into three types
1, The linguistic message； The linguistic message refers to the text in the advertisement, which is used to guide the audience to understand the image because the image contains many meanings. If there is no text to expand a specific meaning on the image (or product), the advertisement will not be easy to be understood by the audience. In addition to guiding the audience, the text can also add meaning to the image. An excellent text can echo with the image, so as to add meaning to the image through the text. In the advertisement of Panzani, the linguistic message mainly comes from the label on Panzani products and the slogan in the lower right corner. This information let the audience know that this is an advertisement for Panzani products. Roland Barthes also mentioned that the word ‘Panzani’ connotes italianicity in his article. At first, I didn’t understand why the word is italianicity, but after I heard the pronunciation of “Panzani” and “Italy” in French after Google translation, I found that the pronunciation of these two words in French is very similar, That’s why Roland Barthes (he is French) wrote the word ‘Panzani’ is connotes italianicity in his article. From this point, we can see that the linguistic message has certain limitations because it requires the audience to understand this language and text that the linguistic message can play a role. If you don’t know French you probably don’t understand why the author said the word ‘Panzani’ is connotes Italianicity
2, The literal message; The literal message refers to the surface information in the advertisement that the audience sees without deep thinking. When the audience sees an image or advertisement, in fact, the human brain has analyzed and understood the image, because human beings will see all kinds of things when they grow up, and then give them a meaning or name. For example, in the advertisement, we see tomatoes, which is the result of the brain’s thinking, because if there is no thinking at all, it is just a red sphere. This primary thinking is hard to stop because it happens automatically unless it’s an infant or someone with amnesia. So the literal message refers to the information you see without deep thinking, such as tomatoes, onions, spaghetti, cans, and so on. Although we know what these things are, they still belong to information without its meaning. There are actually many kinds of media about the literal message, such as painting and photography. I think the literal message can even be text or sound. However, Roland Barthes believes that photography is the only medium that can not add other information to things, but I don’t fully agree, because I think the artificially set light and the photographer’s photography method will still add other information to the thing. I think the media that can see the most “pure” information may be that people see things directly through their eyes, but this is still not the most “pure” information, Because people are sometimes changeable, different physical conditions and moods may also add additional information to things.
3, The symbolic message; The symbolic message refers to the audience’s deep thinking through the surface information in the advertisement, so as to obtain the deep information in the advertisement. In Panzani’s advertisement, Roland Barthes analyzed four signs. For example, the half-open net bag symbolizes the return of the market; Tomatoes and peppers represent Italy; All kinds of food represent a complete cooking process; The composition in the advertisement is reminiscent of still life. Although Roland Barthes only analyzed four signs, there may not be only four or less than four in this advertisement, which is related to the thinking of the audience. I think there are many hidden meanings in an image, but it’s not entirely up to the author who created the image, but rather how the audience thinks about the image. For example, a person randomly takes a photo, but the person who looking at the photo may read information from the photo that even the author did not expect, or a poster carefully designed by a designer with many deep meanings fails to It is possible for the audience to read the meaning that the designer wants to express, but I think the images produced by an experienced designer plus detailed planning and investigation will definitely make the audience understand it better deep meaning contained.
After reading this article, I learned to analyze advertisements or design works through the linguistic message, the literal message, and the symbolic message, so as to get more information.
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