Design Context: February 2012

Tuesday 28 February 2012

Design Practice 1 - Communication is a virus - Tell the truth more research

In this brief we have chosen the task of persuading people to tell the truth more, after initial talks with my group we went through various options but decided to focus on lying, this way we could promote telling the truth by discrediting lying, obviously this is not the first time people have tried to make others tell the truth in this way, but as this is a short brief we wanted to get some initial ideas down and make quick decisions so we have a solid idea of the direction of the project from the start.

Also to fulfill the brief and get the message to the public, we wanted a product that would involve the public so the message would be spread, admittedly only to a small percentage.

We decided that we wanted to design some kind of letter/ deposit box where the public will be asked to write lies on a piece of paper and put it in the box, we will try and design the box in a way that discredits lying.

Truth and lies

Famous quotes found here and here

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
~Aristotle

A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity
~Baltasar Gracian

When in doubt, tell the truth.
~Mark Twain

Advertising is legalized lying.
~H. G. Wells

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.
~Emily Dickinson

The naked truth is always better than the best dressed lie
~Ann Landers

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
~George Bernard Shaw

Always tell the truth. Even if you have to make it up.
~Author Unknown

Truth is such a rare thing, it is delightful to tell it.
- Emily Dickinson

A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.
- William Blake

Truth is the only safe ground to stand on.
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

One thing that I think we will have to be careful of avoiding when designing, we don't want to make it look like we are asking people to tell the truth in a religious sense and in many situations, in circumstances where people use the words truth and lies on the street it is more often than not associated with religion.

This is why I believe it will be a good option to discredit lying as that will make it more obvious it has no religious intent.

Saturday 25 February 2012

45 Designers // History of Type

1. Aldus Manutius (1495) - Creator of some of the first Old Style Typefaces - The creator of Italic type

2. Monotype Corporation - creators of Rockwell slab serif typeface in 1934

3. Berthold Type Foundry - Creators of the first Sans Serif Typeface in 1896 - Akzidenz Grotesk

4. Chacundum - Claudio Reston ( Brazil) - http://chacundum.com/

5. Alex Trochut - (Barcelona) - http://www.alextrochut.com

Monday 20 February 2012

Design Practice 1 - Design is about doing poster brief.

For this brief we have been asked to design a series of 3 A2 posters that communicate the quote by Erik Kessels "It always rains in your country. make a poster for visitors to the UK explaining why so much rain is attractive. Don't be sarcastic. After all, rain can be romantic, useful or beautiful"

I myself am not a fan of the rain and find it difficult to find the positives of a lot of rain, however I do also understand the benefits it brings to this country and the beauty it can create.

This might also be a good opportunity to use the patterns rain creates as a basis of the design, but I will want my initial research to look at the benefits of rain and what it brings to English culture.

Design Practice 1 - Erik Kessels

Erik Kessels born (1966) is a dutch designer who has been educated as an Art Director and graphic designer. He is mostly known for his publications and his use of photography to tell visual stories in his books. he is the Creative Director of KesselsKramer publishing in 1996 and today the company consists of 38 staff.

Here is a small biography of Erik Kessels found on Format Festival

Some of his most interesting publications are the 'In Almost every Picture' series, consists of 10 editions of the book, each made up of an individual set of photographs that Kessels was inspired by, and then used to tell a story using images, more often than not these books used photos containing a constant element, for example;

'In Almost Every Picture 1'

This edition is based on a collection of photographs Kessels fell upon at a flea market in Barcelona, it is a collection consisting of over 400 photographs of a wife that were taken by her husband. The photo's had ended up at the flea market due to the husband and wife passing on, as the husband and wife had no relatives the house was emptied by dealers. Kessels felt inspired by the beauty and consistency of the photographs and used then in his first 'In Almost every Picture' edition.

You can see spreads of the other editions on KasselsKramer publishing, there is also an interesting interview with Erik Kassels by Joerg Colberg on the Conscientious EXTENDED called 'Conversations about Photobooks: Erik Kassels'. He talks about where he got the inspiration, materials and ideas for the 'In Almost Every Picture' series.

I also found this video interview of Kessels after 'Typo Berlin 2010' which is not the best interview but it makes me laugh.

'what is Comic Sans?'

I also came across this video of an Erik Kessels lecture at CCAarts which you can watch HERE, as he talks about his early work, it is obvious that he is a very idea's led designer, usually playing with a brands current identity or advertising it in a way that would ne ot normally be expected, for example, advertising a shoe company using models with only one leg, or as you can see below he uses comedy to sell a product.

24 Hour Photo installation

One of his most recent famous installation art pieces was the 24 hour photo installation (November 2011) a part of an exhibition at FOAM, Amsterdam.

The concept behind this installation was to take 1 million photographs uploaded onto social networking sites over a 24 hour period, print them about and pile them into this exhibition hall, the idea is to show the shear quantity of images that we all deal with in day to day life, he encourages the audience to walk through the mass of prints and look at the images.

It is such an interesting concept, I am not sure what genre of art and design you would class this as, it is quite contemporary and I am not sure how it would be classed as graphic design, but as he is influenced and produces graphic design, art, photography, advertising etc this is a piece that will try to help those people who may not be aware that imagery is such a huge aspect of all our lives and we should not take it's power for granted.

his style of design can't help but be inspiring, he proves that as a graphic designer there is no set way of producing good design,

Sunday 19 February 2012

Lecture 9 - Media Specificity

Definition

Media- The plural of medium - All the communication devices and channels of communication used to reach mass audiences
Medium - Material of technical means of artistic expression

Edward Tufte (author) believes that powerpoint actually makes it more difficult to present and communicate properly with an audience
Tufte argues that instead of creating a useful, informative presentation, power point encourages speakers to write in bullet points as if they were there to sell a product
this was the original purpose of powerpoint but now that is not always the case
Media shapes the way things evolve for example - The invention of the Biro pen changed hand writing.

The specificity of Homo sapiens

Early man created their tools from what they knew - the stone axe was initially created as a tool as it was based on a tooth that was known to cut and rip flesh.
it was also an extension of the arm
tools (media) that is developed is usually and extension of something for example, glasses are and extension of vision, satellites are an extension of reach etc
New technology often mimics old ones, such as the first cars mimicked the horse and carriage
Medium specificity is the view that the media associated with a given art form (both its material components and the processes by which they are exploited) entail specific possibilities for and constraints on representation and expression, and this provides a normative framework for what artists working in that art form ought to attempt.
Medium/media specificity is a term used in aesthetics and art criticism

In order for medium to have characteristics

Painters use underline geometry
This was the creation of cubism

Marshall Mcluhan 'the medium is the message' - was printed ' Medium is the massage' but mcluhan decided to keep it this way as it actually links to the topic well.

'If we are defined by our physical and mental limitations, by extending these we change the definition of ourselves.'
Socrates said ' The alphabet created forgetfulness'

Our social patterns have been shaped by media - newspapers, books, television, cinema etc, often controls our daily lives and timetables.
Television for example shapes the layout of our living rooms, where the fire used to be the focus of the room, it then changed to be the TV
The beginning of cimema altered social patterns
Social extensions - our developments in media has extended the hwhole of human society

Technology as a memory extension

Brain is effected by media

-footprints
Drawing, painting and symbol making
Writing
Printing
Photography

Photography is a perfect example of extension
Lens is an extension of sight
Film Stock - 'In The Wizard of Oz, (1939) the Kansas dust bowl appears in black-and-white and the world of Oz in technicolor'

Graphics format often rules digital or material