Class 3.31

Key points from tonight's lecture:

• Design for Information 1930’s and 1940’s..... The ISOTYPE Movement- A pictorial language to help pubic understanding of social issues related to housing, health, and economics after WWI
• Otto Neurath- founder introduced in 1936 continued into the 1940’s
• Pictorial languages– or“lexicons “for communicating information are engineered rather than illustrated.
• The ISOTYPE Movement- Led to the extensive use of pictographs in signage, identities and information graphics later in the century.
• Rudolph Modley, the most distinguished of the pupils of Otto Neurath, is know for his large and comprehensive dictionaries/handbooks of symbols.
• Designers align with the notion of engineering- objective, rational, systematic, and programmatic.
• Visual “unit” becomes the double page spread defined for function, flow, and form.
• Design for Information: data integration from multiple sources
• Watched Helvetica the movie

In tonight's lecture, we began the third unit of the course. We began by learning about the isotype, where it came from, how it came to be, and what it is. The isotype is a visual language that led to the use of pictographs in signage, identities, and information graphics that came later in the century. The lecture tonight also touched upon how designers became more like engineers in that they used rational and systematic thinking to design for function, flow, and form.

During the second half of the lecture, we watched the movie Helvetica. I have never seen this documentary, but I have always wanted to, so it was interesting to watch. I learned a lot about why it is one of the best, if not the best, designed typeface. It was really interesting to see how one would go about designing a typeface as well, as one of the people in the movie talked about. He said that he would start with an "h" because it has a straight line and a curve and then follow that with an "o". After that, he said he would design a "p" because it has a straight line, curve, and a descender. Then, from that, a kind of DNA is produced and you can get the letters "u, n, d, q, etc."

Class 3.17

McLuhan's Four Laws of Media applied to: modern cell phone

1. The cell phone enhances the human ear and voice by making the voice audible to someone far away and in return, someone else's voice can be heard from a far distance. It also enhances face to face conversations by making it possible to call or text someone who is in a different location. It also enhances the instantaneous informational era in which we live by making contact with another person instantaneous and possible at any time.
2. The modern cell phone makes pay phones obsolescent. There is no longer a need to pay money to use a pay phone because everyone has their own personal cell phone on their body at all times. Pay phones are no longer on the side of every road and less and less frequently seen. The cell phone also short-cuts or bypasses the need to have face to face conversations with people. Instead, they can just send a text or make a quick phone call.
3. The modern cell phone retrieves old fashioned letter writing and postcard sending. It makes it possible, in a more time efficient manner, to reach people who are far away and contact them at any time.
4. The cell phone reverses into personal isolation due to lack of face to face conversation with other people. Because of this, people can become technologically dependent on their cell phones and may develop societal crutches because they have become so used to a technological buffer in their communication with people.

The creator or inventor of the cell phone probably assumed that it was the first step to an instantaneous informational society. Perhaps they did not, however, anticipate the use of text messaging for cheating on tests or image messaging for exploitation. Both of these events would probably still have taken place in some way, but cell phones make it much easier.

These laws apply to the way and reasoning behind the creation of anything. The most important parts of these laws are laws one and two. Whenever something is created or designed, it is made to enhance some part of people's traits or functions. Also, it always renders something obsolete and it is important to take this into consideration when exposing some new feature or designed object to the world.

Class 3.3

Key points from tonight's lecture:

• Tschichold: By the late 40’s he was credited with leading an international revival of traditional typography
• The New Typography
  
• Designers in Holland demonstrated the implications of the New Typography as playful expressive forms
• A synthesis between playful DADA, Constructivism tectonic strategies, and de Stijl’s structured organization for clear communication
• Paul Shoetema - Typography and photography was integrated in a total structure using
  overprinting
• Hendrick N Werkman- Exploratory techniques- small presses to produce one of a kind compositions he called “druksels”
• Hendrick N Werkman- Represented a new look at methods inspired by Modernism and
  “art of construction”
• Werkman was executed by the Nazi's for being too modern with his work and his type
• Piet Zwart- DADA inspired, masterful control
• Piet Zwart- Found balance between the playful and the functional
• Designers applied reductive compositional principles of Plakatstil with synthetic Cubism inventions and the purity of De Stijl
• Art Deco Moderne - Expressed the desires of a modern era and a passion for geometric decoration for a machine age
• Art Deco Moderne - mastered the graphic representation of industry and commerce
• Their work prefigured branding in advertising
• Joseph Binder - A uniquely Viennese approach to Art Deco- “Moderne”
• Olympic games become propaganda event for Nazi Germany

Much of tonight's lecture focused on the New Typography, especially in Germany. We discussed many different designers and artists such as Paul Shoetema, Hendrick N Werkman, Piet Zwart, Joseph Binder and more. We also talked about the Nazi propaganda for the Olympics and the whole war effort. Destruction of national symbols or flags was a strong propaganda device. We ended our lecture with Herbert Matter who made some of the milestones of 20th century Graphic Design through Swiss travel magazines. He pioneered the integration of black and white phogography with signs and color areas which became a model for later practitioners of the International Typographic Style.