Steven Heller has spent much of his career exploring the history and culture of graphic design. In his entry from Design Observer, he explores the advertising world and takes through the relationship between the underground and mainstream design. The relationship between these is based on how underground rebellious culture becomes popular among the youth culture, but also popular and reinvented due to advertising. An example of this would be the 1960’s psychedelic movement. This movement was seen as a representation of sex and drugs, making it rejected by society. However, due to the visual arts that came from this movement it has become popular among the youth culture. With the increase in popularity in this particular culture the style of psychedelic art has increased in advertising and marketing to attract those particular people. This is what leads underground cultures to being adapted by mainstream advertisers. As Heller describes it there are certain “codes” that are associated with these underground cultures and using these codes is how they become more popular. And as they became mainstream the shock value has decreased. Especially today in our world nothing shocks us anymore since we have already seen it all. 

A lot of mainstream design includes products and one of the most common products includes clothing. The design of clothes is something that is always changing and we can see how something that is currently popular being used by the mainstream. The article Approaches to material culture: The Sociology of Fashion and Clothing,by Diana Crane and Laura Bovone describes how different cultures such as youth, gay, and metropolitan identify them selves based on the clothing they wear. This reminded me of how many brands today draw influence from other cultures such as African and use them in their clothing designs. The idea of underground and mainstream shows itself in this scenario. The cultures that might have not been so popular are used as an influence from mainstream design by being copied but in a way where it is redesigned to look similar. Sometimes this could also come off as cultural appropriation which happened to many high end brands such as Gucci. 

On the topic of culture something else that is associated with cultures are slang’s or popular phrases. These can be especially popular among the youth culture, and this is one way that mainstream advertising uses to become more popular. Many ads today especially on social media might use specific language that is related to a certain group especially teens and young adults. Jose Antonio Sanchez Fajardo explores the pragmatic and linguistics of  teen slang in his article, Exploring the shashification of teenage slang. The way that this is also always changing gives advertisers more opportunities for them to use them. Advertisements like these are also more recognizable to youth culture since it is calling out directly to them as a target audience. 

Even though the underground culture rebels against the mainstream, in this case it is what makes it popular to the mainstream. In some cases like today what makes the mainstream popular isn’t always the underground. Today sustainability is a big issue for the environment and much of the mainstream design has focused on becoming sustainable. This specific environmental problem has become popular and we can see how it affects design because now designers are designing for a different world then the past. Jeremy Lehrer discusses in his article, The Sustainability Saga the relationship between the environmental movement and graphic design. Although it is not an underground movement it still was an issue that not many people took seriously at first but now through many products, advertising, and design this issue has become popular by the mainstream. 

Sources: 

Fajardo, José Antonio Sánchez. “Exploring the ‘Shashification’ of Teenage Slang.” English Today, vol. 35, no. 3, Sept. 2019, pp. 49–54.

Lehrer, Jeremy. “The Sustainability Saga.” Print, vol. 67, no. 5, Oct. 2013, pp. 18–20. 

Crane, Diana, and Laura Bovone. “Approaches to Material Culture: The Sociology of Fashion and Clothing.” Poetics, vol. 34, no. 6, 2006, pp. 319–333., doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2006.10.002.

Steven Heller, the most prolific design writer says that underground designs have a great impact into the mainstream because it takes egotistical ideals and advertise them. As the article states, many futurists and constructivist masterworks were self advertised for their new ideas. Back in time many art related concepts were later adopted into mainstream. They come into the idea that what was old and forgotten should be remodel in a way that consumers would want to use or buy them and benefit from those ideals. Underground is just a broad term that can include many things like bands, art pieces and more. The main idea is to alter or disrupt the main message of the things like culture jamming. While mainstream are the ideas, attitudes, or activities that are normal or conventional of what is called “trendy.” The mainstream leeches’ alternative cultures but the underground takes ideas from the mainstream in a tactic to disrupt media culture and consumerist leading them into false reality. As the article says, magazines were examples of the underground where they caricatured and disrupted, the main message of things which was made it into a non-real message. Underground idealists can modify ideals altering or joining the mainstream and a significant amount will follow because people mainly go towards the things that are trendy or cool.

Paula Scher, the designer as well as the designs made for The Public Theater were all influenced by the constructivism which in this article is touch as Heller said that they self-advertised for their new ideas, their main point was to remodel and create the new. In “Carnival Modern,” Heller says that the underground that can be anything which was known before produced effective advertising into the mainstream, he stated that Scher’s campaign for the public theater was influenced by some artists,“ Like a work of Russian Constructivism, they embodied the design attributes of balance, harmony, and proportion, demonstrating that flat colors and sans-serif typefaces resulted in eye-catching designs.” This quote demonstrates that the underground alter or disrupt the main message from the old constructivism to the new constructivism that Scher implement in her work for the public. She got influenced by constructivists to advertise her work, but in her work she tries to implement something new by including a variation of flat colors such as red or yellow or even green or other colors, also a variation of sans serif type in which Scher plays with its boldness and thickness, location and position, which eventually contributes to the eye catching to the public theater audience.

Scher wanted to create a new message for the theater, so the best way for her to do that was with type usage. In the article named, “Street Theater,” Heller said “Scher believes that the best way to communicate to New Yorkers is to SHOUT. “What better way to get a message across than for someone to yell something like ‘I’m pregnant!’ down a corridor; it’s better than the Internet,” she says. And this is exactly how she designs for The Public: She SHOUTS with type.” In this quote, she illustrates the main message and point of her designs as well as the identity that the theater will have which is to Shout out the normal. But, as she said it was made for New York, which is a city that contains millions of people, but what if people from other countries or cities wanted to go there, maybe one has to be a New Yorker to truly appreciate the impact of The Public’s language on the public. It is not a hidden idea to the society that Scher made for the Public Theater, Montgomery talked about the latest release from the design publishing powerhouse Unit Editions that looks at the niche but rewarding subject of combining typography and images. In “Type and Image”, Montgomery said “Type Plus looks at how designers use graphics and type together to Cyturbo-charge meaning and impact’. This is demonstrated through examples such as Paula Scher’s striking 1990s posters for the Public Theater.” This quote tells that another idea from this designer was to have a combination of image and type in her posters to get into the mainstream of what public would not avoid seeing, she wanted to be more innovative, to put the theater to trendy standards. Scher mainly contain the message to shout out from the normal, but at the having the mainstream from what was normal seeing and implementing some type of ornament into her designs that were influenced by constructivism.

Heller, Steven. “Carnival Modern.” Print, vol. 51, no. 6, Nov. 1997, p. 112. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=498617&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Heller, Steve. “Street Theater.” Print, vol. 50, no. 3, May 1996, p. 29. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=9609220725&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Montgomery, Angus. “Type and image.” Design Week Online, 18 July 2014. Gale General OneFile, https://link-gale-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A375443429/ITOF?u=cuny_nytc&sid=ITOF&xid=147ad268. Accessed 26 Apr. 2020.

The concept of mainstream vs. underground relevant in contemporary design is that Kindred visual artists, musicians, and designers developed means of expression that helped define the culture’s distinct characteristics. But for Underground bands they led the way in a commercial whirlpool.  The establishment still disapproved of the aesthetics. It was difficult to be terrified of something that had become so integrated into the mass marketplace. Very little emerging from the underground fails to turn up in the mainstream. 

 I’ll be addressing Stephen Treffinger, it regards to THE VICTORIAN naturalist that inveterate collector of specimens, cataloguer of species, and keeper of sketch filled notebooks is back. In the pictures of the article “Field guide: contemporary design with a naturalist’s bent” it represents the Moving through the shop’s appealing jumble of antique lab equipment and furniture, taxidermied birds and beasts, and other curiosities provides a palpable sense of what it was like to live in an era when our understanding of the natural world was dramatically expanding. 

   The recent growth of festivals, media, and events associated with the design industry has had a major impact on the way we conceive, produce, distribute and consume design. However, the network of actors involved has changed, as has the trade of expertise and services they offer. It includes photographers, commissioning agents, curators, patrons, journalists, and PR personnel amongst others.  In the article, “The Commodity of Trade in Contemporary Design” it mentions that the authors have developed two tools for analyzing contemporary design processes and the trade occurring in commissioned design projects that will be presented in the paper. The two authors Giovanni Innella and Paul Anthony Rodgers expand the notion of conventional design process, and highlight the key roles that media and event organizers now play in contemporary design.  

However, the conceptual posts exist in most areas in design. Wether it’s  in a pure state, usually for exhibitions, or fused with more commerical goals and able to buy.

                                                 Work cities that I used

The Commodity of Trade in Contemporary Design by Giovanni Innella & Paul Anthony Rodgers 

Field guide: Contemporary design with a naturalist’s bent by Stephen Treffinger

Speculative Everything – Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming by Dunne, Anthony ; Raby, Fiona

 

art papper two

Communication Design Theory paper 2

Anthony Delbrun’s April 21st (Part 1)

CDT-Essay_Steele_v3

Alaa rhetorical

Comd 3401 paper 2 – Summer Solano