I will be giving a talk on April 19 at American River College. Covered will be the history of the Bauhaus (1919-33).
And as an add-on, I’ll be subtly previewing how the Bauhaus, Futurism and early Modern Art has inspired my new educational project, FLomm: THE BATTLE For MODeRN 1923 (which already has a tumblr presence here and twitter here).
For additional information, please visit the Art New Media at American River College Facebook page here.
‘David A. Smith is a traditional sign-writer/designer specialising in high-quality ornamental hand-crafted reverse glass signs and decorative silvered and gilded mirrors. David recently produced a wonderful turn-of-the-century, trade-card styled album cover for popular American singer/songwriter John Mayer.’
More on David A. Smith here.
‘The whole point of animation to me is to tell a story, make a joke, express an idea. The technique itself doesn’t really matter. Whatever works is the thing to use.’
Terry Gilliam on animation. From 1974.
Found via Cartoon Brew
‘Voiced by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her, Pillars Of The Earth) Typesetter Blues is written in the nonsense poetry tradition of Edward Lear and Shel Silverstein’
Crafted by Toronto-based TOGETHER – part of their silly rhymes series Beastly Bards.
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years. –Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Years ago I knew a head general counsel who worked for a legal department for a rather large corporation.
When it came to lawsuits, he explained to me that their approach was they ‘never settled’ and ‘would use all of our resources – millions of dollars at our disposal’ to fight any suit that came in. Whether they were right or wrong. “If they’re going to go up against us, that’s what they’re going to get.’
Years later I sat in on a ‘business ethics’ class where this ethic was explained in detail: ‘it is okay to destroy the competition. That’s good business ethics.’ And throw in that businesses today operate to ‘keep shareholders happy’ over everything else – we live in a very frightening world. One that squashes innovation and creativity in favor of ‘good competition.’
Good competition is fantastic – when the tables are ‘fair and balanced,’ a term – even today – that’s not used for what it actually means. There’s a lot we CAN be doing as a race – in terms of social, political and humanitarian causes – but we don’t. There’s a great scene in An Inconvenient Truth where Al Gore points to an illustration of a pot of gold. It’s our motivation. It’s what we live for. A pot of gold. A shiny pot of gold we can hide from others, shower with, rub on our bodies if it makes us feel better.
the battle
Right now there’s a David v. Goliath lawsuit going on. It seems simple open and shut: Large corporations profit from stolen artwork. So artists who created artwork get a lawyer and take on the corporations.
In this situation, the corporations are our darlings: The fantastically wonderful Disney and the ‘god I love what they do for design’ Target. And I spent an afternoon recently going thru the case files – which are posted at Friends of Modern Dog – and to me it seems it’s another bury the little guy response.
You’d think it would be Urban Outfitters doing this – it IS their modis operandi – but no. It appeares Disney and Target are poised to destroy Seattle’s very own Modern Dog.
Ashamed is not a word I use much. Though I think it applies here: BOTH Disney and Target should be ashamed. They are BOTH corporations that benefit from creative innovation. BOTH should be working WITH Modern Dog, not – as this lawsuit seems to be doing – putting them out of business . . . [Read more →]
‘Cieślewicz always compared himself to a journalist; but he referred to himself as a visual journalist. So Graphic designer, as a profession, is very close to that of journalism; except that it is about articulating clear ideas through the justaposition of imagery and layout – it’s a question of wanting to say something.’ –Professor Andrezej Klimowski, Royal College of Art
Above, a BBC overview of the work of Roman Cieślewicz (1930–96), which was part of a retrospective this summer at the Royal College of Art in London.
Click image to view video/jump.
Found via BBC News
Still from Ingre Druckrey: Teaching to See
As an educator, I’ve broken graphic design into three components: Message, Typography, Layout.
I’m not the first educator to do this – just happened to constantly notice these three elements staring back at me in all the student pieces I evaluate. In my opinion, careful appreciation, understanding and implementation of the three can lead to beautiful work.
message
Graphic design is a communication field, so Message should always drive the project. Today we are bombarded by thousands of Messages on a daily basis, so being on Message is critical. And yes, this usually involves language and writing – which is why I love when students take their written studies seriously.
typography
I’ve seen an (often not cited/supported) statistic that graphic design is 95% typography. Scientific or not, I agree with this. Type is important. I like comparing the exploration of lettering to that of music – there’s enough complexity for it to become a lifetime endeavor. And most of what I teach is type, from multiple angles.
form
Graphic designers are taught to use grids for layout – though relying on ‘grid’ as a catch all way of handling form can be misleading. Grids provide support, a fallback position for dealing with massive amounts of information. Though important, grids have their limitations. Building structure using symmetry, asymmetry, balance, color – some elements obvious, some not – involves continuous practice, a trained eye, instinct.
These three are not formulas, can’t be added together. They need to work in tandem, like cooking a great stew where the ingredients are based on what feels just right.
Click to view/jump
On a related note, the above film – Edward Tufte’s Ingre Druckrey: Teaching to See – found its way into my Twitter feed. It’s about graphic design and beauty. And much more.
In January I’m going to be teaching my first non-type course on Form and Space. I’m starting prep now because I consider form so important – so powerful, so delicate.
And beautiful when done right.
Video found via ayana baltrip
‘As a student, live by these words, ‘Quantity rather than quality.’ The more you design the better your quality will become and you will continue to grow’ –Tony Montano
I like that quote.
Quality does come later. Being a designer becomes all about instinct – not having the best computer, not software, not measurements, not rules.
I’ve just started teaching another semester of Graphic Design History and Typography at American River College – have a whole new group of kids to introduce to my gospel of visuals.
One thought that’s been weaving its way thru my classes over the years is simply, ‘the more you do, the better you get.’ We’ve all heard this, and yeah, it’s true. The only real stumbling block is ‘the more you do, if you’re not paying attention, you probably won’t get better.’
This year the student work has been incredible – but only when tied to good, old fashioned Hard Work. Risk taking, going out on that edge, trying something one has never done before leads to fantastic creations.
I haven’t been blogging much – I also have my usual four type classes at Ai Sacramento and a rather large project that’s been taking up the rest of my time (more on that soooooon) – so something had to give. It was blogging.
I’ll be posting more as time permits; otherwise been immediately throwing finds up on my Twitter account.
I’m keeping busy. Hope you are too.
Infographic found via Ai Sacramento Graphic Design; click image to jump/view larger
Former student Alice Woodruff posted this list on my Facebook page.
It was written by writer and model Sovereign Syre, co-founder of Darling House. Syre’s ‘Things you should know’ was originally published on blogcritics.org back in 2009.
It’s good thoughts and will probably offend some. Turning off one’s ego long enough to connect with others is often difficult. I have to enact #25 before week’s end. A good, unexpected apology for something I didn’t expect to occur will make someone else’s day. Fingers crossed.
[1] Most people hide their suffering better than you think, you pass dozens of people a day on the street without any idea how well they’re wearing their tragedies.
[2] People’s names are the sweetest sounds they hear. You should make a point of being good at learning and using them.
[3] People love to spread their misery around, but not as much as they enjoy being lifted out of it.
[4] Being young is not in and of itself an achievement. Neither is being beautiful. But people often treat you as if they are.
[5] For a lot of people, music is a reflection of who they are and their relationship to life. Remember that before insulting someone’s favorite band.
[6] The Golden Age never existed. People are always trying to get back to a time when things were simpler and better. The world was a far more dangerous place fifty years ago, especially if you were black or a woman or gay or diagnosed with cancer. [Read more →]
Here’s a roundup of advice graphics.
I’m always frustrated when beginning students give up prematurely, when there are those who see being ‘creative’ as either a job or something not important and/or not realizing the more a creative works at what they’re doing, the better they will get; collaboration is great, rules get in the way, others will never understand you and that’s okay, work should be fun (especially hard work), breaks are important and a zillion other things.
Click to view larger/jump.
Found via hyenabonz
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