Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Before Class 2/17

The reading for today's class opened up a brand new section of the book with a bang. And when I mean bang, I mean a wonderful chapter about the Gutenberg Press and moveable type.

The beginnings of movable type spanned back to Europe and early wood block printing. These types of printing would be carved into wood (the image and or letters would be either cut into the wood or cut away from the wood), then would be lathered in ink, then pressed onto the parchment or paper. Early creations made with this method were the first playing cards (originally outlawed due to gambling in nature) and religious image prints. From there, the religious prints soon turned into large block books that little text. Oddly enough, the main focus on the block books were about the Apocalypse. As time went on, the wooden blocks began to be trumped by the innovation of movable text. Oddly enough, Johann Gensfleisch zum Gutenberg was NOT the inventor of movable type. In 1444 The Dutchman Laurens Janszoon Coster of Harlem tinkered with the idea of movable type by carving reusable letters out of wood. Because of this, many believe that the Dutch could rightfully claim that they were the earliest users of moveable type.

When it comes to Gutenberg, he had some drama when dealing with his movable type machine. From partners backstabbing Gutenberg, to lawsuits to lay claim to his invention, Gutenberg's life's work was truly a life altering device, not only for himself, but also the world.


Fact of the reading: The largest book that was created (that I read in the reading) was the Latin Gutenberg Bible that had 12x17 inch pages. That was huge!!!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

2/14- Weekly Image


This week's weekly image comes from an advertisement for a brand of whiskey called "Scot's Honor". The whiskey is primarily sold in Taiwan of all places because the people of Taiwan use whiskey as the drink of choice for celebrations, parties, and achievements.






Describe what it is: Scot's Honor whiskey advertisement.

Describe its function: To convince the consumer that the whiskey is the best whiskey to buy and drink.

Describe where you saw it: unfortunately, I googled for Celtic typography and this came up.


Discuss the style of the design & typography: The overall design is a label design. This means that it is short, sweet, and to the point on what the brand is. In this case, the company is trying to convey the idea that Scot's Honor is a whiskey that has been around since the time of the Scot's, during the medieval times. The type used is based off of the Celtic typography that was used when it first was created. Finally, there are nice flourishes in the corners of the label to give it a regal look, as if it was hand crafted and drank by royals.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: I feel that the label itself is pretty nicely done. I do not foresee and other way they could have created it.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece
(use adjectives): The use of typography gave it a "home-land" feel as if it was created by hand and sold the old-fashioned way by open air markets. Also, the rustic feel of the iron gloves clasping together in a bond gives me the feeling that this a true, working hard, whiskey.

Describe how it relates to what we have discussed or read
: It relates to our reading by the use of Celtic style typography. By using it in today's world, it is different than the normal bland Helvitica and Times New Roman. It almost gives the brand, the whiskey, and the label itself a personality all its own.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

After Class 2/10

Yesterday's class was a very cool one at that. Not only did we go over what we had learned from the past two classes, but we also dived into the world of Illuminated texts. Illuminated text were texts that were so detailed with gold and sliver leafing, that the page seemed to light up every time one turned the page. Along with beautiful colors and designs, Illuminated texts were stunning works of art that would take days, months, and even years to complete by hand. We went over the major periods of Illuminated texts.
Beginning with the Classical period, the major aspects of the time were lots of reddish color, along with a comic book style of pictures and text. But most of all, it was the beginning of the use of lower letters, later evolving into lower case. They called it miniscules a.k.a. lower uncials. Next on the list was the Celtic period, which is one of my personal favorites, along with my topic of Spanish Illuminated texts. Celtic originated from Ireland. Very geometric in design, the text of the pages were very well done and elegant. So elegant that sometimes words were misspelled due to the concentration on the beauty of the page, rather than the spelling. The main aspect of this text/designs were that they were always intertwining. Almost like a never-ending line to signify life. Moving on to the Caroline period This period brought more text gearing towards lower case and using more punctuation. Most of all, it was very artistic and very beautiful in design of the lettering. Next up is the Romanesque/Gothic period. This was a major period of text because many of the font styles (which was Textura or Litera Moderna) are still used today in art and design. It brought big, bold, black text to the scene along with eliminating round lettering. Next is the Islamic/

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Spanish Illuminated Manuscript

Before I begin about the Spanish Illuminated Manuscripts, let me give you some backstory to what Illuminated manuscripts were. Illuminated manuscripts were hand written and hand drawn pages that were brightly colored, had terrific scenes, and were pressed with gold leafing, giving the page a bright feeling. This feeling helped give the manuscript its name due to the gold leaf "illuminating" the page, making it glow in the light. It was used from the beginning of the Roman Empire and spanned to the beginning of moveable type around 1450 A.D.

Now onto Spanish Illuminated Manuscripts. Spanish Illuminated Manuscripts began around 711 A.D. when the Morrish Army under the Arab governor of Tangier attacked the Straights of Gibraltar, destroying the Spanish Army. From there, the newly settled Morrish people took Islamic design and combined it with Christians traditions. The combination created a new design that could and would stand alone as one of the great periods in text and design.


File:B Facundus 191v.jpg

When it came to the actual design itself, the Spanish Illuminated Manuscripts had a unique design all its own. It used bold, intense color married to the use of geometrical design. It also used random shapes such as stars, rosettes, polygons, and garlands. The two major designers of the time were Florentius and Facundus. They both incorporated bold color along with textural designs that made their texts and pictures stand out.



Tuesday, February 9, 2010

After Class 2/8

Today's class brought a boat load worth of information. beginning with the origins of the alphabet. So far in my college career, this chapter has been the most stimulating and eye-opening chapter of reading I have read. To read how the words and the letters of our world were derived, beginning from the early Cretan, through Greek, onward to Latin, and arriving at our current English language, was just so interesting and unforgettable. We discussed how intricate each letter system was, being derived from either geometrical or mathematical reasoning.



Question of the day: In the Greek Alphabet, how and why the circles used to create certain letters. What is the importance of using circles and squares to create the letter?

Monday, February 8, 2010

Ch. 2 and 3 Summary

" Alphabetic writing became the mortar binding whole communities against limitations imposed by memory, time, and place"(Meggs 30).

The quote above truly stuck out in my head once I was done with the chapter 2. It is true in every single word written. Without the truly amazing invention that is the alphabet, the world would not be able to function today. Onward to the chapter. Chapter 2 covered the basis of how, why, when, and where the beginnings of the present-day alphabet began; starting with Cretan pictograms. The Cretan pictograms were formed to represent ideas and history that occurred during their time. These symbols represented different every-day things that were important to Cretan culture. Soon, these symbols slowly evolved into forms of the symbols' vocal words. For example, the ox, which was Aleph in cretan, slowly but sure evolved into the resemblance of the letter A. From there, the North Semitic alphabet


Fact of the post: Greek writers developed a style of writing called "boustrophedon" standing for "to plow a field with an ox". The writing style would begin from right to left, but once one had ended the line, they would begin reading from left to right on the very next line. This allowed the reader to continue all the way down the page without having to reset their eyes to read right to left. How cool is that?!?!? I wish it was still around. I bet reading books would become a lot faster.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

After Class 2/5

As I sat down in class today, still having the reading fresh in my mind, I was somewhat excited to go over what we all had read in the first chapter. I blew through that practice quiz like it was nothing, yet only got a 71% on it. Looks like I should highlight more. We started the actual discussion by creating a timeline on the board, trying to map out the beginning of both written and spoken language. Not only did we accomplish that, but we also learned something new from Laura about a new discovery that could set the beginning of symbols and ideographs back to about 3 million B.C. I sat there pondering about what the man/woman/it was trying to convey after looking at that picture. Possibly some kind of ritual? Or it very well could be something that deals with early math? Only time will tell what it could have possibly meant. I'm excited to find out. From there, we went over the beginnings of spoken language, then delving into the history of written text from very early to well known hieroglyphics from Egypt. Towards the end, the main focus was on the Rosetta Stone and cuneiform.

In my eyes, the most intriguing part about today's class was at the very end, under the subject of cuneiform. Cuneiform is the type of writing where symbols slowly but surely formed into more abstract symbols, and ultimately turning into letters. It was mind blowing to me that the symbol for and ox slowly but surely turned into the letter A. To see that list of the genealogy of symbols to letters really opened my eyes to how far written language has come. It is truly, in my eyes, the greatest invention to ever have occurred on this earth. Without it, almost every day tasks would be difficult, if not impossible.

Food for thought: Certain objects can be looked and drawn in certain ways, i.e. the ox. If it were depicted/drawn differently, then could the alphabet have changed totally? Would we have the same letters we have today? Ponder that one for a bit...

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Ch. 1 Summary

Chapter 1 brought the beginnings of writing to forefront of the beginning of graphic design. From the beginning of man evolving from a hunched over creature, to a free-standing man, adaptation to the time at hand was crucial to the survival of man. Soon, extremely early forms of speech and writing had begun to be used to convey feelings, hunts, and ways to continue to survive in the vast world. A great quote was used that stuck out to me. "Until the electronic age, spoken words vanished without a trace, while written words remained"(Meggs 4). When you stop to think about it, words that are not written down almost disappear with every new breath. But thankfully for writing, some of those spoken words would never be forgotten. Once writing had begun to take form, civilizations soon began to record everything from crops to money, and whatever else occurred during their lifetime. Because of writing, those civilizations will be remembered for years to come.

When it came to actual visual communication, many drew back to the times of cave drawings, predominately in Africa and Europe. Most notably, (that also appeared in our first presentation) the Lascaux Cave in France seemed to depict a type of hunt in some way, possibly giving those who saw it valuable information about how to hunt and/or how to kill certain prey. But those were not the only interesting details of those cave drawings. The way that these prehistoric men/women created the cave drawings were an advancement in its own. The fact that they figured out how to create the pigments by using animal fat and different colors around them. From there, they were able to develop a type of communication that was pretty self explanatory. Pictographs were created from combining pictures and the earliest forms of words and sounds to try to create a readable language. From there, an explosion of writing occurred that spanned all over the world. Soon, a style of labeling and writing popped up in Mesopotamia. Their earliest form of labeling certain pots, crops, etc...was based on a number system that rooted from using a ten finger system. Because of this, life was made easier for the Mesopotamians. From there, other civilizations began to create their own style of writing. Most notably, the Egyptians. They created a picture-symbol type of writing that was given the name "hieroglyphics"(Greek for "sacred carving"). These hieroglyphics helped depict every day life in Egypt, ranging from God worship to yearly crop reports. The system could be read in any way, provided that they author gives a starting point to being reading from. Soon, rebus, a style of depiction that used the sounds of different objects to convey a sentence was widely used along with the hieroglyphics. Because of these advancements in writing, history was not only being made, but also made possible for future people like us to read, interpret, and learn.

Yes, there are words. There are spoken words between person to person. There are also written words to read. But how did they get there? Did they just magically appear on the page, clay pot, or stone? No way in hell. But that would be cool though. There were advancements in writing utensils and writing mediums. Early writing utensils were in the forms of stylus like reeds that were sharpened at the end to be able to carve deep impressions into the medium. Early mediums would differ from civilizations but the most popular early medium was clay. When wet, it was easily impressionable and permanent when the pieces of clay were dried/fired in a kiln. These were the most favored pair of writing utensils until the Egyptians came along and revolutionized writing in a way that could almost never be paralleled. They figured out that by taking strips from the Cyperus papyrus plant and laying them horizontally, then laying another layer on top perpendicular to the original layer, and pressing them together until they formed on unified sheet, they created one of the most important inventions every created; paper. After the creation of paper, not only did the medium of writing expand, but also the types of utensils expanded along with different types of inks, along with new, bold colors from the world around them. Because of their advancements in writing, communication between people all around the world has almost become an after thought. Without the beginnings of language and writing, the world would not be the world we live in today.


Fact of the reading: The Rosetta Stone, discovered in August of 1799, was one of the greatest archilogical finds ever. It had hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek lettering, giving the history of Egypt and other civilizations.


After Class, 2/3

Today was a day full of introductions, play-doh, syllabus rambling, and the early beginnings of what should be a fun class. We started out with a different way of introducing ourselves. Rather than sit in a circle, sing camp fire songs, and roasting marshmallows (would be a fun way to spend my afternoon though), we fully immersed ourselves by just walking up to each other, saying our names, and arguing which state looks more like a hand, Wisconsin or Michigan. It was a nice change of pace from the normal, "Hi, my name is..., "My Major is...", etc...

From there, we went onto go over the syllabus and what to expect this semester. As I was sitting there listening to what we would be experiencing this semester, I was thinking about a quote that was said earlier in the class. The aspect that if I did not have a passion to learn in this class, then I might as well not be a graphic designer. I would have to say that I would agree with that statement. If you don't really have a passion to learn in this field, then you aren't made for this. I really can't wait to learn about the history that is graphic design, especially the Art Nouveau and Art Deco. This semester should not only be interesting and fun, but also eye-openeing. It's gonnnaaa beee fuuunnnn!!!!


Question of the post: What if there wasn't a history of GD. Would it just be like American or World history in the aspect that if none of us knew where we were, then would we all make the same mistakes/art styles in GD? Hmmmmmm... Chew on that one for a bit.