Week 5 Agenda

Tasks Due from Week 4

• Schedule a meeting with the Professor
• Bauhaus Form and Function
• Reading Response #4
• Week 4 Agenda Checklist

This Week’s Topics

• Checkin & Share
• Meetings & Feedback
• Research Project Presentation Prep (work in class)
• Research Paper 1
• Week 5 Agenda Checklist

Check-In & Share

Meetings

If you haven’t yet, please sign up for a remote meeting next week. If you are not available during the meeting slots, please contact me to find another time.

Schedule A Meeting

Use the Zoom Link to join the meeting.

Feedback

Feedback for the third week's assignments has been posted. Check your post to see the comment and some inline feedback via Hypothesis. If you submitted your work late it may take me another week to catch up. Feel free to reach out if you have specific questions.

The Writing Center, now located in G608 inside the iTec student computer lab, has appointments available for students to book.

Share

A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled

ChatGPT

Does anyone have anything to share?

If not, let's look again at your Manifestos again.

Activities

Below find the information covered in this session. Complete all of the following activities, videos, and assignments.

1. Universal Typography and International Style Evolution (1 hour)

The early European avant-garde designers like the Futurists, Dadaists, and Constructivists changed the way we use typography. Today we may use typography, not just to communicate information or data, but as a compositional element to communicate a tone, feeling, or idea.

In the readings this week we were introduced to the ideas of two designers who shared a passion for typography and layout that was clean, efficient, and structured. Influenced by the Dutch De Stijl and Bauhaus movements their work aimed to achieve a universal method for visual communication.

This evolution of influences from the Constructivists, De Stijl, New Typography, and the Bauhaus led to the mainstream adoption of the modernist International Typographic Style or Swiss Style in the mid-20th Century and beyond.

Swiss Style / International Typographic Style

The next generation of designers and pioneers of the Swiss Style, Karl Gerstner, and Joseph Muller-Brockman created and spread their systematic approach to design across Europe and America. The typographic tools for layout and typography that we use today in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc. grow out of the structured grid and typographic methods of the Swiss Style. Web and interface design also rely on the grid for clear communication. Margaret Rhodes highlights The Swiss Designers Breaking Tradition in her review of a 2016 exhibition featuring young Swiss designers. She notes that "The Swiss Style created a sea change in design, and helped earn designers a kind of professional status separate from artists."

Watch the Graphic Design History section on Swiss Typography on LinkedIn Learning or in the YouTube video (1:21:57 to 1:25:45) to refresh your knowledge of this movement.

Confoederatio Helvetica  = Switzerland (in Latin)

Originating from the early Avant-Garde, the Swiss Style / International Typographic Style (and the modernist aesthetic in general) reaches its height in the 1950s and 1960s. In America, it transforms corporate advertising.

In preparation for our look at corporate identity design and advertising, let's look at the ultimate Swiss Style typeface "Helvetica." Designed in 1957 it became a hallmark of the International Typographic Style and one of the most popular typefaces of the mid-20th century.

Watch the documentary "Helvetica" from 2007. Sign in to City Tech Kanopy first and then navigate to the video link.

Questions/notes:

• Note the mention of MySpace and other dated references.
• Also note that the documentary, which focuses on a typeface that was intended to be a universal typeface, is lacking a diversity of voices.
• Throughout the video, notice all the places Helvetica is used.
• As a typeface, what feeling does Helvetica "express" or communicate to the reader/viewer?
• Reflect back on the readings from Karl Gerstner, Joseph Muller-Brockman, and Margaret Rhodes

2. Discussion: Universality through Technology

"What is typophoto? Typography is communication composed in type.
Photography is the visual presentation of what can be optically apprehended. Typophoto is the visually most exact rendering of communication.... a precise form of representation so objective as to permit of no individual interpretation."

László Moholy-Nagy

"Universal Communication... exploration of the potentialities of the book of true text-picture integration has only begun and will, by itself, become of utmost importance to universal understanding."

"'square span' is putting words into thought groups of two or three
short lines... the advantages of grouping words support the theory that we do not read individual letters, but words or phrases."

Herbert Bayer

Early avant-garde designers were looking for universal methods of communication, often searching for ideal ways to reach the masses using new technologies and modalities.

• Photography and film were the new technologies in the age of the Bauhaus. Combined with typography László Moholy-Nagy stated that Typophoto was the "visually most exact rendering of communication."
• Herbert Bayer is often credited with modernizing typography in the Bauhaus with his creation of the Universal alphabet. He also speaks of "text-picture integration" and the use of "square span," short grouping of words for universal communication.
• Karl Gerstner in "Designing Programmes," Gerstner describes the quasi-scientific technique of establishing a program to address design problems where ‘the creative process is to be reduced to an act of selection.’
•  Joseph Muller-Brockman in “Grid and Design Philosophy” defines a strict rule-based methodology that anticipates the digital workspaces that know today. There he states that design should be ‘objective, committed to the common weal… the basis of democratic behavior,' and the grid represents a ‘will to systematize, to clarify.’

Today we have multiple modes, methods, and technologies for instant and mass communication. Consider the rise of "deep fakes", the short, concise messages we send via Twitter, or the lack of subtlety and tone in email, text, or emojis. Is the ability to communicate truthfully, accurately, and effectively helped and/or hindered by technology today? Are we any closer to the utopia idea of universal communication?

3. Research Project Prep (1 hour)

If you haven't been actively contributing to your Research Journal each week, now is the time to really engage. Your Research Journal is a low-stakes, relaxed place for documenting and critically reflecting on your influences, history, culture, likes, and dislikes. Here you can collect ideas, freewriting, images, links, videos, and other media to help you develop your ideas and formulate your research topics.

Research Project & Presentation Prep

The initial outline for your Research Project will be due Week 7. We will be going over the details next week, but start thinking and really formulating some ideas in your Research Journal this week.

You don't have to lock yourself into a topic yet, but your should by now have started to define your aesthetic and theoretical interests based on the ideas we discussed so far. If nothing has piqued your interest yet, ask you self "What do I feel passionate about?" "What do I love to talk about?" "What graphic style, design movement, decade, or typeface is my favorite?" "What makes me feel angry, sad, depressed?" "If I could be doing anything right now, what would it be?" "How could I use my skills as a designer to change the world?"

3. Research Paper 1

Guidelines:

• Assignment: Research Paper 1

Due Dates:

• Your first draft should be posted by the next class. Bring a printed copy of your first draft and the Rough Draft Peer-Review Checklist.
• Your final version will be due the following week.

Resources

• Assignment: Research Paper 1
• Rough Draft Peer-Review Checklist
• Grammarly
• Research Paper Example Post

Week 5 Agenda Checklist

Below are all of the tasks, big and small, for this week. The due date is Wednesday, 11:59 pm before our next class meeting. Timely completion of these tasks will contribute to your success in this course.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

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