Two of the images that I found to be the most interesting from http://www.minitature gigantic.com/ gallery1.html# were the map of the world saying "Safe At Last" and the one with "Connect the pictures with the corresponding words". Both of these posters made me laugh a little bit because it makes you realize that United States mentality towards war and democracy is crazy. I mean its ridiculous how our government views our war policy and
how we "spread" democracy. The "Safe At Last" poster is absolutely insane because it's like Battle Ship combined with Risk. And the "Connect the pictures with the corresponding words" has no right answers. None of them can actually be put with the correct word, proving again that our governments idea of spreading democracy and war is way off.
Describe what it is: This is a logo for Windex with a Victorian style to it. I chose just to do the logo name for this style and I added a decorative seal/border around it to make it feel more Victorian.
Describe your concept behind the design: The concept behind this Victorian logo for Windex was to use a decorative border to enclose the product name, which is in a very loopy, fancy writing. I didn't go with the super cramped style, because I liked this more. I think the frills and fanciness of it fits really well with the Victorian style.
Discuss the style of the design & typography, how it relates to history: The style is very fancy and kind of feminine looking. The typography is the same way, very feminine, fancy, loopy, but isn't the easiest to read (the SC in SC Johnson is harder to read). This relates to history because it is using an older style with a modern product. I am using close to the same typography that was used during that era and the border looks like it could have came straight from the time period.
Describe what it is: This is a Windex bottle that I created that has a Art Nouveau feel to it. The bottle is meant to look like a female form and also has the "spaghetti" looking hair.
Describe your concept behind the design: I wanted to make a Windex bottle look like a woman. I also wanted to tie in the hair, because hair seemed to be a big thing with Art Nouveau. Even though the woman doesn't have a face or any real features, you can still tell it's a woman. I kept the same colors that Windex uses, but I did change the font to look more handwritten and organic looking.
Discuss the style of the design & typography, how it relates to history: This relates to what we have learned in class because it emphasizes the female form, has wispy, "spaghetti" hair, and uses close to the same typography used during the Art Nouveau era. I took a modern object and made it show off the female form.
1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph. The Kitsch reading from UrbanDictionary.com was quite interesting. It basically said that kitsch design is tacky, pleasingly distasteful, gaudy, sentimental, and folksy. Some people find kitsch to be collectible while most find it to be junk that you find at a rummage sale. Decorative items that fall under kitsch style are usually seen as ugly and you're not quite sure to take it serious or not, but are always amusing. At some point a kitsch item was mass produced and then later grew in sentimental value and rose in monetary value. "Kitsch-it is a type of art based on love for the human expression and must have some form of talent and technical skill." WWII posters were created to promote production of materials and food for our troops and Allie troops, including eggs (Herbert Bayer's poster). Intense feeling towards the attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler seemed to increase powerful communications from graphic designers, artists, and illustrators. They were creating propaganda posters, support your troops posters, informational posters, and powerful graphic symbols. 2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading. From the kitsch reading on UrbanDictionary.com I thought it was really interesting to see all the definitions that are given to kitsch, even though they basically say the same thing. I also liked how some people find kitsch items to be beautiful and priceless while others find them to be complete junk, tacky, and ugly.
One thing from the reading on WWII posters that I found to be interesting was the section on Herbert Bayer. His involvement with the WWII posters, his style/design change from when he first started with Bauhaus to his final style/design during the war.
3. State at least one question you have after the reading or from last class.
Why is it that there are two completely different sides to the liking of kitsch? I mean they are complete polar opposites, I would think that more people would fall in the middle, not on the extreme outliers.
Why did Herbert Bayer's poster on egg production have a burning city in the background? Was is meant to show the causes of war? Or something else?
1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph.This chapter focuses on the Art Deco style that emerged after WWI that was influenced by Cubism, De Stijl, supermatism, and others. Art Deco was a geometric style that was popular between the 1920s and the 1930s. As an extension of art nouveau, art deco had a passion for decoration but sought to express the modern machine. Two major designers during this time were an American, Edward McKnight Kauffer and an Ukrainian, A.M. Cassandre. Kauffer was born in the U.S., started his art education here but then moved to Europe because he felt that the movement was more modern there. He mainly focused on poster design and he designed a series of travel posters for the Underground that were much simplier. Cassandre studied in Paris and had doen some work with posters there. He design was to reducehis subjects in his posters to iconographic symbols and to combine them with powerful geometric forms and symbolic imagery. He also worked with typefaces. He designed the Peignot, Bifur, and Acier Noir typefaces. Other influential designers during this era were Jean Carlu, Paul Colin, Austin Cooper, Joseph Binder, and Abram Games who all made great contributions to the Art Deco movement with their poster designs, their use of bright colors and simple forms.
2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading. I found Jean Carlu to be quite interesting, because of his design concept. He wanted to show his ideas with the least amount of lines and with minimal imagery. "With posters moving past spectators at varying speeds so that message legibility and impact could be assessed and documented." 3. State at least one question you have after the reading. (if you state none here, you’d better have more detail done above to offset the work.) One of my questions relates more to my own understanding of the differences between the styles and where the "breaking points" are between the styles and how to show differences. So how do you determine one designs styles from another? And my other question is why did Kauffer's "Daily Herald" get so famous when it was flawed?
1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1 paragraph. After the war ended in April 1919, the Weimar Arts and Crafts School reopened under a new name, Das Staatliche Bauhaus (The State Home for Building) and a new director, Walter Gropius. The Bauhaus at Weimer drew inspiration from expressionism and we quite visionary. Advanced ideas about color, form, and space were integrated into the design vocabulary when Der Blaue Reiter painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky joined the staff in 1920 and 1922. At Bauhaus there was no distinction between fine and applied art. Johannes Itten established the heart of the preliminary courses of Bauhaus, wanting the students to release their creative abilities, develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials, and to teach the fundamental principles of design. In 1923 Itten left Bauhaus because of a disagreement with Gropius on the conduct of his class. In 1919 De Stijl was introduced to the Bauhaus community by teacher Lyonel Feininger. In 1923 the Bauhaus slogan changed from “A Unity of Art and Handicraft” to “Art and Technology, a New Unity” because ideas of romantic medievalism and expressionism were changing into applied-design. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy was a restless experimenter who explored painting, photography, film, sculpture, and graphic design; he also played around with new materials such as acrylic resin and plastic, and with new techniques like kinetic motion, light, and transparency. In April of 1925 Bauhaus moved from Weimer to Dessau due to tension with the government. During the Dessau period the Bauhaus Corporation, a business organization, was created to handle sale of workshop prototypes to industry. The name was also changed to Hochschule fur Gestaltung (High School for Form) and the influential Bauhaus magazine began its publication. The final years of the Bauhaus school were complicated due to the Nazi party trying to close it down and then eventually succeeding. Later in the chapter there was a section talking about the changes in typography and new developments with sans-serifs.
2. Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading. I found Laszlo Moholy-Nagy to be really interesting. He was like a Renaissance man in a sense. He was involved in a lot of different things with Bauhaus and influenced the style of the school.
3. State at least one question you have after the reading. (if you state none here, you’d better have more detail done above to offset the work.) What was the big deal with Van Doesburg? What was he doing/teaching that Gropius didn't like? Why did the Nazi party close down Bauhaus?
made me laugh a little bit because it makes you realize that United States mentality towards war and democracy is crazy. I mean its ridiculous how our government views our war policy and
