Recently, I designed a 12-page booklet studying the work of Klim Type Foundry. This was done for an assessment at uni. The brief was that we must design and layout a booklet showcasing the work of a type designer. I thoroughly enjoyed this project. After my initial research of Klim Type Foundry I knew that I wanted to design a classy, elegant and minimalistic booklet. I felt that this would strongly resonate with Klim’s style.
Klim type foundry is a New Zealand based type foundry, operated by Kris Sowersby. They have designed many fabulous typefaces, however I chose to focus mainly on the Domaine font foundry. (I would highly recommend checking out the rest of their work on their website: https://klim.co.nz ) They have also done some work designing typefaces for tourism companies where representing the culture of the country through the typeface was highly important. The fonts have been designed for New Zealand, Fiji and the Chatham Islands.
Overall, I really enjoyed designing this booklet. I hadn’t tested out this type of elegant style to this extent and it’s definitely been my favourite design so far because of the theme.
We needed to a fair amount of copy throughout the booklet. I wrote the article Who Is Klim? and Designing National Typefaces. I was able to use an interview with Kris Sowersby from the Design Conference in Brisbane in 2018 which I found on Klim’s website. Through these articles I felt I was able to accurately tell the story of Klim’s work and process.
Below I have attached an image which shows the full layout, as well as plenty of annotations explaining the diffferent design decisions I made throughout the project and why I made them.
This gallery shows mock-ups of each of the spreads from the booklet, I hope you enjoy.
This semester I have surprisingly found the Contexts 1002 course to be very interesting. I’ve found that I have previously had a fairly strong interest in modern history, but never in a design sense. It has been extremely interesting this semester relating design history with modern history and learning more about both.
Some things I have found particularly interesting have included how international design has had an effect on the design industry worldwide. I enjoyed learning about how designers have found visual solutions to problems, such as the isotypes as a way of communicating despite language barriers.
I think that learning about problems that designer’s were able to fix that had a significant effect on society has been the most interesting things I have learnt this semester. It has also inspired me to look for problems and consider solutions.
I feel as though I have a much stronger knowledge and understanding of the history of design and this excites me for the future of my design career as I want to continue to learn from the past in order to create a better future.
Seventy-nine Short Essay's on Design – Michael Bierut
Pecha Kucha – classmate reviews
Week 5 – The History of Photography and Design
SEVENTY-NINE SHORT ESSAY’S ON DESIGN – MICHAEL BIERUT
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During this semester I went wandering down darby street during one of my breaks at uni. I was planning to go to a cafe but I saw a small bookshop down a side street that intrigued me. I’m not usually one to read many books (something I know needs to change) but for some reason I decided to go in and see what was inside.
It turns out that the bookstore has a fairly strong art and design section. I could have easily spent ages in there looking at all the different design books. I found one in particular that caught my interest, Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut.
Pentagram (n.d.). Seventy-nine short essays on design. [image] Available at: https://www.pentagram.com [Accessed 20 Oct. 2019].
I surprised myself in buying, let alone having read four of the essays within a couple of hours. I honestly felt as though I had been let into a whole other world within design. (also, for the first time I was reading essays that were actually interesting). Something that has resonated with me, (and even weeks after having read the essay it came from) the quote, ‘Not everything is about design, but design is about everything’ has stuck with me. This was a concept that I hadn’t really considered before, but it makes so much sense. I’ve always found that I like to learn about how things work, I don’t really mind what the subject is, but if someone starts explaining how something works I’m all ears and will probably go home and continue to research a particular topic.
For example, I wouldn’t say I am a revhead or anything, but I’ve put myself in a position to learn about how cars work enough times that I feel I have a fairly good idea about how they work. When my car blew a head gasket and dad decided that it was worth trying to fix it ourselves I took every opportunity to watch, help and ask questions about how different parts of the engine work. Whilst I’m definitely no expert I do have a stronger understanding than before. I’d never really though about how this could help me as a designer, but that keeness to learn about different subjects can help a designer to produce some of their best work. As Bierut says in Warning: May Contain Non-Design Content (essay 1) ‘the more things your interested in, the better your work will be.’ (Bierut, 2007) Therefore, as a designer if you can build an interest in topics more easily, you are more likely to design better work.
I would defintely recommend that every designer read this book as it provides valuable insights into the design world and even broader than that.
Bierut, M. (2007). Seventy-nine short essays on design. 1st ed. New York: Princeton.
I presented my pecha Kucha (a presentation style where 20 slides are presented for 20 seconds each, generally on an automatic timer). I researched and presented about Giorgia Lupi, a current partner at Pentagram in New York and who specialises in data and information design. What I find to be most interesting about her work within data design is her work with data humanism. She reasons that, ultimately, all data exists because of humanity, and each dot on a graph represents an individual with a story to tell. Lupi brings empathy into the data she designs.
One of my favourite examples of how she uses empathy within information design, is within the piece ‘The Bruises we don’t see.’ For this piece, Lupi worked closely with her friend Kaki King (a musician) when King’s daughter was diagnosed with Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), King struggled with significant anxiety about her daughter’s condition. ‘The Bruises we don’t see’ represents data beyond what clinical records showed to help King understand her daughter’s daily condition.
What appears to be an aesthetic floral artwork becomes a much deeper representation of an individuals daily life when you begin to understand it. Each ‘petal’ represents a day in the four month period that this project followed. Each cluster of petal’s represented the time between lab tests. The density of the red dot’s on the petals represented the intensity of bleeding on each day, whilst the larger red dots near each cluster represents the platelet levels for a particular lab test. The more one looks into the artwork, the more symbols are found. Whilst from a data analysis peerspective this may not have best way to represent the data for readability, this was not it’s primary purpose. The purpose of the piece was to help Kaki understand her daughter’s illness and it’s progression in a comforting way that medical charts and standard graphs cannot do.
Ultimately, Lupi combines data design with empathy in order to bring a fresh perspective to the field of information design in order to convey data in ways that more people can relate to.
Meir, D. (2019). How Information Designer Giorgia Lupi Breathes Life into Data. [online] High On Design. Available at: https://www.wix.com [Accessed 11 Sep. 2019].
Last week we each had to present a Pecha Kucha to the class about aa topic that has influenced or been influenced by design.
I presented my Pecha Kucha about Giorgia Lupi and her work with humanising data and information design, (I’ll probably write a post about my research about her and her work.)
In this post I’m going to be reviewing two of my classmates Pecha Kucha presentations.
Elissa’s Pecha Kucha – Memphis Design
Elissa presented her Pecha Kucha about Memphis design. Memphis design was a big thing in the 1980’s, following on from the Art Deco movement. Memphis products were not meant to be mainstream designs, rather as a rebellion against what was considered to be the ‘good taste’ of the understated and neutral designs at the time.
Memphis designs followed an obvious style, consisting of mainly geometric shapes and bold flat colours. The signature of the style is generally accepted to be bold black and white stripes.
Elissa’s presentation was visually interesting with some reference to the design style within many of her slides, however, I thought that some of the slides were a bit too plain, especially when considering the style she was discussing. However, this didn’t really affect the quality of her presentation. Verbally, it was obvious that Elissa was quite passionate about the topic of Memphis design, and had spent significant time researching and understanding her topic so that she could present passionately about it. Her research was also clear as she had a full bibliography, demonstrating that she had spent time understanding her topic.
Daisy’s Pecha Kucha – Planned Obscelesence
Daisy presented about planned obscelesence for her Pecha Kucha. Planned obsolescence has been around since about the 1920’s, when corporations started realising that they could make more money, not by spending more money, but rather making products that would only last a certain amount of time before the customer would need to replace it.
Stevens, B. (2019). QUOTES BY BROOKS STEVENS | A-Z Quotes. [online] A-Z Quotes. Available at: https://www.azquotes.com [Accessed 23 Sep. 2019].
Company’s wanted to generate long term customer’s but they found that those who bought their products did not need to buy more of this product for a long time, meaning that the creation of long-term customer’s was difficult. A common example of this is nylon stockings, whereas before about the 1920’s these would last for a long time, now these stockings don’t last for long at all before they tear and women have to buy new ones.
The prevalence of planned obsolescence has contributed to our circular economy and throwaway culture. In order to prevent this we need to understand how technology, fashion, and other products are made so that we can choose to contribute to those who work within an ethical practice so that we can redefine the design process so as not to create so much waste.
Stevens, B. (2019). QUOTES BY BROOKS STEVENS | A-Z Quotes. [online] A-Z Quotes. Available at: https://www.azquotes.com [Accessed 23 Sep. 2019].
Carson, N. (2019). 10 iconic examples of Memphis design. [online] Creative Bloq. Available at: https://www.creativebloq.com [Accessed 23 Sep. 2019].Res.cloudinary.com. (2019). [online] Available at: https://res.cloudinary.com [Accessed 23 Sep. 2019].
Smartt, D. (2019). Planned Obsolescence
Reid, E. (2019). Memphis Design.
WEEK 8 – POST-DIGITAL
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This weeks topic is where history seems to catch up with us. We are currently living in the Post-digital era, where we are not amazed by the fact that many technologies exist, but are interested in how these technologies can take us into the future. We are not amazed by the technology, engineering and design that had to go into the flat-screen TV in our living room, or our mobile phone. We just accept that these items exist and are essential to our daily lives, often failing to consider how recent these inventions are. That is Post-Digital. We have passed the initial digital age when we were astonished by these digital technologies.
What we are now impressed by is the merging of the digital world with our own, in a way that changes our perspective. The popularity of Augmented reality demonstrates how individuals want to be able to have control over their own environment throughout he use of digital technologies. Whilst, Virtual Reality (VR) has caught the attention of many people around the globe as the idea of being transformed into a completely different environment attracts many individuals.
It could be said, that, whilst we are no longer in the original digital age, our own yearning for the next big thing has not decreased, but possibly increased. Even though we often take the technologies we use daily for granted, we still have a need to innovate to find ways that we can communicate better, or the truth we may not want to admit, is that we want to find more ways to disconnect from the world around us through the use of the next big thing as an excuse. Are we really just looking for ways to escape this place? Our current technological revolution is driven by the longing for an escape to a better place, and we want to make that place the best it can possibly be.
This can be seen through the post-digital art forms. Up until recently most art was viewed or experienced without escaping from the individual’s actual surroundings. Now, many artists are taking advantage of new technologies which allow them to provide an immersive art experience for their viewers. Artists such as Rachael Rossin are at the forefront of the merging of art and VR technology. Rossin creates digital artworks that are displayed through VR so that the viewer can fully immerse themselves in the viewing of the art.
Rossi, R. (2017). Scrubbing 1, Macquette. [image] Available at: https://www.artsy.net [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
We will continue to search for new digital solutions to problems we face, but because humans are forever amazed by the thought of escaping, there will always be new technologies that are created purely to entertain and transform our realities.
Cramer, F. (n.d.). What is ‘Post-digital’? | a peer-reviewed journal about_. [online] Aprja.net. Available at: http://www.aprja.net [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
Rossin, R. (2019). RACHEL ROSSIN:. [online] Rossin.co. Available at: http://rossin.co [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
Rossi, R. (2017). Scrubbing 1, Macquette. [image] Available at: https://www.artsy.net [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
Sharma, S. (2017). The 10 Virtual Reality artists you need to see to believe. [online] Medium. Available at: https://blog.dextra.art [Accessed 22 Sep. 2019].
Computer’s have been around since the 1950’s, but not with any resemblance to the computer’s we know today. The first computer’s were used by scientists to store data from experiments. It wasn’t until the 1990’s that computer’s as a tool for sharing data became a reality. Before this, groups of computer’s had been connected to networks which meant that they could communicate with other computer’s on their network, however the concept of the World Wide Web or Internet had not been invented yet.
No one person invented the internet, but eventually all the technologies that were necessary for the invention of the World Wide Web had been invented and Tim Berners-Lee (World Wide Web Foundation, n.d.)had used these technologies in order to create the World Wide Web. This represented a turning point in communication as individuals were able to connect with individuals from anywhere in the World. This meant that a rapid increase in technology began as more people could collaborate on projects in order to reach new and different conclusions.
Now, we are still in a technological revolution as individuals are constantly creating new ways of working with computer technologies and the web.
Some of the most notable recent technologies are virtual reality and augmented reality. With these technologies the real and the fake become intertwined. Using the augmented reality app, Ink Hunter, I took the image below and shared it with some of my friends as though I had got a tattoo. My goal was to see if I could trick them into thinking I got a tattoo even though I haven’t. (I’ve never siad anything about wanting to get a tattoo so understandably they weren’t immediately convinced, but they were shocked and asked if I had actually got a tattoo.)
Image taken by Chalyse Fowler using ‘Ink Hunter’ app
I was surprised at how well the app placed the tattoo on my skin and it could definitely be useful if someone wanted to see how a tattoo would look on their skin. It was also cool to see how reality could be augmented with these technologies.
The evolution of the computer is extremely interesting and helps humans to create in more ways than ever before. However, it is important to realise, that no matter how technology increases, it is still up to us as human beings to create, technology will never be able to do this as effectively as we can.
World Wide Web Foundation. (n.d.). History of the Web. [online] Available at: https://webfoundation.org [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019].
Publicity is something that no one can escape. Whether we want to accept it or not, we have all been influenced by publicity. Even if we don’t think that we’ve purchased anything as a direct result of a commercial, there is a high chance that we may have become more accepting of a product after being exposed to the product more often.
As humans, we can’t escape the influence that visual images have on us. Whilst it may not be glaringly obvious at first, each of these advertisements have been formed in a way that will have the biggest influence on us. Take Coca-Cola for example, without publicity, it would have just been a drink a chemist made in a lab, not the far-spread symbol of happiness that it is today. Through publicity, the team was able to present Coca-Cola as a drink that represented happiness for all those who drank it. This went further than just tv commercials smiling people drinking Coke. From slogans, to even the distinctive shape of the bottle, Coca-Cola made it’s way into the hands of millions. This would have been almost impossible without the publicity work done by many in presenting Coca-Cola in this way from the very beginning.
Semiotics plays a massive role in identity design. In order for people to buy a product, they must first understand why they need it. This is where the role of the publicist is, they must present images in a way that subconsiously teach the consumer how the product will help them and why they need it.
Vos, L. (2019). Semiotics in Marketing: For Your Brand and Your Messaging | CXL. [online] CXL. Available at: https://conversionxl.com [Accessed 5 Sep. 2019].
WEEK 5 – THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND DESIGN
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Photography has an interesting place in history. Somewhere between the painters and the designers it finds it’s place. A source of fear for many, a source of inspiration for others. All whilst still finding it’s own way in this complicated world.
Until the late 19th century, oil paint reigned. It represented prestige and power. It was an expensive task to have a painting done. Only those with riches and power could afford a likeness of themselves. Something that was not accessible to those below them. These likenesses also represented wealth for the artists. Most painters in the 19th century earnt a living through the painting of portraiture for the rich.
Until, photography. with photography came the accessibility of images to a wider class. No longer did the rich feel a sense of dominance through an image of themselves. It was now a medium that so many others could access.
Same too for painters, who were highly concerned that their profession was about to become useless with the invention of the camera. No longer did the rich need a talented painter to complete a likeness, rather they just needed someone who could afford the camera. This caused a sense of fear amongst many painters, and they began to look for ways to differentiate their work from that of the camera.
This is, arguably, one of the times of greatest growth within the art of the paintbrush. Surrealism was largely grown from the need to thrive within a seemingly unthriveable environment. The works of John Baldessari in the 1960’s show how photography became a medium for painters to further develop their ideas, in a way that went beyond what painting had previously been able to do.
Martin Heiferman describes how ‘Photography, one might argue, didn’t murder painting; it shook things up by creating new options and opportunities.’ (Heiferman, 2010)
Photography was not initially considered to be an art form. It was seen as too mechanical and didn’t require enough creativity from the artist. As photography progressed and photographers found ways to express their creativity through the mechanics of the camera, it is now recognised more often to be an art form.
Duggan, B. (2013). How Photography Changed Painting (and Vice Versa). [online] Big Think. Available at: https://bigthink.com [Accessed 3 Sep. 2019].
Heiferman, M. (2010). Photography Murdered Painting, Right?. [online] Smithsonian Institution Archives. Available at: https://siarchives.si.edu [Accessed 3 Sep. 2019].Duggan, B. (2013). How Photography Changed Painting (and Vice Versa). [online] Big Think. Available at: https://bigthink.com [Accessed 3 Sep. 2019].
WEEK 4 – ISOTYPES AND THE LEGACY OF INTERNATIONAL DESIGN
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Isotypes were initially designed by Otto Neurath (1882-1945) as he realised the need for a systematic way of conveying information to the General Public. At the time (1920’s, following WWI) many members of the public did not know how to read, and in Vienna (where Neurath and his team were based) there was a lot of significant change for the socialist government. Neurath saw the importance of working with the government to ensure that the people were well in-formed about how they would be involved and affected by these changes. The nature of the socialist system was also that the people were very involved with the decision making of the country, so it was in the governments best interest to make sure that the people were well informed about these decisions.
Common Isotypes today include the seatbelt and smoking signs on aircraft.
The Isotypes that Neurath and his team designed are still common today, wether in their original form or updated to fit a new context. Isotypes are still being created by many designers in order to fit new contexts. Some of the most recognisable isotopes are toilet signs, where almost everyone knows that if the man and woman standing next to each other are on a sign, that there will be a bathroom.
In Neurath’s research before he created the first isotypes, he found how Semiotics would need to influence the designs. This is because, to design a ‘language’ for anyone to understand, he needed to understand how people would learn the language. It is important to understand how people are initially taught what a symbol meant and how they would respond when they saw it. This was crucial to the creation of isotypes, as the team had to understand what types of symbols most individuals would already be used to seeing that could be used as a basis for the some of the symbol so that the ease of learning these new symbols would be minimal. After all, the ‘language’ was designed to be understood by all with ease.
Designhistory.org. (2019). The History of Symbols : Isotype. [online] Available at: http://www.designhistory.org [Accessed 22 Aug. 2019].
Burke, C. (2009). Isotype – representing facts pictorically. In: Data Designed for Decisions.
WEEK 3 – MODERNISM
Modernism
Modernism is a design movement that was popularised in the twentieth century. The Modern movement came as response to many world events that were happening at the time, as well as in response to the industrial revolution. Whereas design in the nineteenth century had been in direct response to the industrial revolution, Modernism was seen as a design movement to move past the industrial age.
World War 1
During the beginning of the twentieth century the First World War had a large impact on the nature of design as well as design becoming a major part of communicating information.
Because governments needed to convey important information to a mass majority on both sides of the war effort, propaganda posters were one of the first forms of visual communication design. Many of these posters started to make use of visual metaphor and symbolism in order to effectively convey information. The subjects of these posters included everything from how to stay safe during an air raid, how to identify a plane flying overhead, to helping the government encourage civilians to give to the war effort through war bonds. The image featured below shows a recruitment poster where the aim is to guilt an individual into signing up to the war effort.
Propaganda posters were one of the first times that illustration was seen as more than just to be displayed in galleries. It was now realised to be a tool that could reach the masses in a way that couldn’t be done in many other forms at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Modern Movement
The Modern Movement saw designers trying to move from the ornamental aesthetic that was common at the end of the nineteenth century. Many designer’s saw this as a way of disguising problems in production of goods. They wanted to move to a more simplistic design style, often called a ‘machine age’ aesthetic. The modern movement was especially prominent in architecture.
Aspects of the Modern Movement are still prominent today as it is one of the longest lasting movements. There are many reasons for this including political, production and availability. (Woodner, Twentieth Century Design)
The moral and political connotations of Modernism contributed to it’s longevity in the Western World especially as its major opponents were the leaders of repressive regimes in Germany and Russia. Both Hitler and Stalin were vocal opponents of many of the features of Modernism which helped contribute to the depiction of them by Western leaders.
It is also important to note that during the twentieth century art and design became much more readily available to the public. Museums such as MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York which opened in 1929 allowed the public to enjoy art and design like never before. This therefore contributed to many peoples association of Modernism as the start of art and design as something they could enjoy.
Many of the artistic features of the Modern Movement, such as neatness, cleanliness and purity were linked with healthiness (Woodner, Twentieth Century Design, p. 33) which many people linked with the promotion of these actions in society. This helped further the movement as people saw it in this wholesome light.
Modernism directly links with World events and has been one of the art movements with the most longevity for the reasons above. Modernism greatly influences many of today’s designs.
The Museum of Modern Art. (2019). The Museum of Modern Art history | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org [Accessed 15 Aug. 2019].
Encyclopedia.com. (2019). Modern Movement | Encyclopedia.com. [online] Available at: https://www.encyclopedia.com [Accessed 15 Aug. 2019].The Museum of Modern Art. (2019). The Museum of Modern Art history | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org [Accessed 15 Aug. 2019].
WEEK 2 – DESIGN IN THE 19TH CENTURY
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Graphic Design, A History – Steven J. Eskilon
Thoughts before / during the introduction
Eskilon’s view of 19th century design is extremely negative. He justifies this by the cluttered styling and the ‘more is more’ design style.
I don’t agree with Eskilon that the 19th century graphic design is a disgrace to graphic design. Yes, they had (and we still do have) a lot to learn, but from a historical perspective we can see that many designer’s and printer’s were experimenting with the many new typographic styles that the invention of the printing press allowed. It is also important to remember that at that point in time, designers were limited in terms of resources other than the printing press, so therefore the designs had to rely mostly on type.
It is important that we don’t just look at the designs in a positive light because of the limitations of the designers, or the fact that graphic design was only just beginning. It is important to realise how these designs have lasted throughout history. The specifically victorian styling has had a place throughout history, and still today. Originally many people would have seen poster’s with the 19th century styling and probably would have felt excitement through seeing the results of the printing press in a new way than just the small words on the page, but in a more exciting context.
Nowadays, many people see poster’s in a similar styling to above and immediately emotions of joy, excitement and comfort are invoked. This is advertising for an event or more specifically, an experience, designer’s will still use many elements of 19th century design, such as the poster for Disneyland’s splash mountain ride below.
During the 19th century, Europe was a place full of hardship during the industrial revolution. Mass production was a massive part of life for most Europeans. Along with the mass production of machinery and products came the ability for mass print runs, having a large impact in the way designers produced their work.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel’s wrote the Manifesto of the communist party in 1847. They acknowledged the ‘hardships of urban life for the poor’ (Eskilon, 2012, pg. 30). This caused many designers to see their role in society as to bring joy in an otherwise difficult and ugly social context.
Graphic design soon became for catalysing force for social change which has continued throughout history and is still the case today.
Technology
The invention of new technologies which allowed design to spread far further than it ever had allowed designer’s to have a far bigger impact on social change than they ever had before. Technologies such as the Lithograph allowed illustrations to be shared to a much wider audience, this was common in newspapers and was loved by audiences.
The ‘undisciplined electism’ (Eskilon, 2012, pg. 33) of 19th century design, shouldn’t be seen negatively, but rather as a response by designers of freedom, despite the hardships felt by society as a whole.
After Reading
After finishing the excerpt from Eskilon’s, graphic design a history, I think that the 19th century was an important turning point for design. Before the 19th century, the field of design almost didn’t exist. Any design was extremely niche as artisans were more prevalent due to the nature of distribution. With the industrial revolutions, the ability for mass production and distribution was possible. This allowed designer’s to design for audiences in order to spread information (through newspaper’s, posters, lithography) as well as to campaign for social change through these means.
The style of 19th century design is heavily typographic and electic as a representation of both the machinery they had available to them as well as a means of escaping the negative factory environments.
I think 19th century design is heavily romanticised in the 21st century as it represents the sense of excitement that would have been invoked by the audience of the new and different design style in the Victorian era. For that reason, current designers may choose to use the Victorian era as inspiration for their designs when they appeal to an individuals excitement and want for an out of this world experience.
The 19th century design styles represent many influential factors of the time period and whilst not necessarily pleasing to the eye trained to 21st century design, it is influential on the design periods that followed and still has its place in the present day.
HELLO, IT’S ME!
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Hi, I’m Chalyse. I’m a graphic designer in training and I will be posting to this blog about my thoughts on different theories and histories of design relating to the coursework completed for DESN1002 at the University of Newcastle.
