ZIKAI CHEN-September 9

Communication is an indispensable part of the evolution of human civilization. From ancient Mesopotamian‘s clay tablets writing to the modern English alphabet, we can find how our communication has evolved throughout time. We can all agree that the rudimentary communication methods relevant to contemporary information systems, language evolve, through our communication also evolves, we can see a trace of ancient communication methods in our modern communication methods, therefore, ancient rudimentary communication methods are relevant to our contemporary information systems.

 

There are also some writing, counting, or printing techniques that have been very popular in the past, but now it seems surprisingly obsoleted, advertisements, trademarks and illustrations from the late eighteenth century to the 1920s were all focused on the details. But various phenomena The indicate that this trend has been, or is being, replaced by more rigorous and simple typesetting. These obsoleted techniques have laid down a solid foundation for the development of modern world design, It has important enlightenment and reference significance to contemporary designers, therefore, we should be very concerned with it.

Assignment for December 2

Our final reading assignment for the semester will be two short articles, both from Graphic Design Theory. Here are the PDFs:

Jessica Helfand, Dematerialization of Screen Space (2001): Helfand_ScreenSpace

Lev Manovich, Import/Export, or Design Workflow and Contemporary Aesthetics (2008): Manovich_ImportExport

This week’s writing will not be a direct response to the readings. Instead, the written portion of this week’s assignment will be to post (1) sketches of your poster and (2) a working bibliography.

You can interpret “sketches” literally and/or loosely; include actual drawings, outlines of material, or brainstorm clouds of related ideas. The bibliography can include relevant assigned readings, but it must also include at least a few outside sources.

Please also feel free to email me with any project-related questions that might come up through the week.