Redacted First Things First Manifesto

In this seminar we looked at Ken Garland's 'First Things First' Manifesto which was included in the 'A Conversation' studio brief notes. The first thing we did was, while reading through the manifesto, annotate and analyse the text and the message of the work. 
What I gathered from reading the manifesto was a critical, somewhat cynical view of the way in which a lot of design is done for the sole purpose of commercial products and an uncomfortable feeling towards designers who just design trivial things for commercial purposes as they are just endorsing consumerism and the manifesto states there are more 'worthy pursuits' that should be considered when using our design skills. The manifesto's message seems to be a move away from consumerism lead product marketing to design projects that have 'more meaning'.
After this we had to think about redacting the text to create our own manifesto, so editing out the parts we disagreed with and leaving parts that would help get across what we believe about design. At first I was unsure which bits to leave and which to keep but after rereading the text a few times it became easier to do. I have done two different redacted versions, the first one is quite short and states the purpose of a designer and what they do. I edited out quite a bit of the text to get away from the message of the original and came up with something that is kind of a straightforward statement about design. 

It reads: 

Design

We, designers, have been raised in a world

of books and publications.

Designers apply their skill and imagination to work for things.

Designers devote their efforts to changing the very way in which citizen-consumers speak, feel, respond and interact.

Pursuits demand our attention and help.

We propose exploration and production and perspectives expressed through the visual.

The second redaction of the manifesto that I did opposes the message of the original as I don't really agree with its tone and stance on designers almost 'selling out' their skills to consumerism and product branding as I find it quite patronising to assume that these things aren't 'worthy pursuits' just because they aren't necessarily changing the world drastically or furthering some charitable cause.

Here is the second redacted manifesto I created:

It reads:

A Design Manifesto

We are graphic art communicators who design and use belief,

Skill and imagination, diamonds, cards, light, always in large measure.

This is how time and energy is used best.

Uncomfortable designers devote their efforts to marketing and endorsing

a message that is to some extent harmful.

The worth of our skills and design projects and expertise challenged by the 22 visual communicators, their message we expect that no more will be taken to heart.

Although it may be hard to make sense of, due to the restrictiveness that only being allowed to take away and not add creates, I hoped to challenge the original statements in the First Things First manifesto. 

I found this task quite interesting as it made me consider the ways in which new messages can be made from already present texts and made me think about my own thoughts on design.

Claims to Expanded Practice

In this lecture we started off by looking at how the animated cinema 'spills out' in to the real world, and so too does design.

We looked at Johnny Hardstaff who creates experimental work and music videos, and also tv advertisements, one that we focused on was an advert for Honda called 'Cog'. It is cited as a landmark advert and a new genre of advertisement. It focused on small movements of everyday existence and a move towards a calmer, quieter form of advertising, making a change from the full on aggressive advertising and shifting towards synthetically natural to evoke a childlike sense of wonder.





We then considered 'What is Graphic Design for?' by Alice Twemlow. 

- a type of language - communication. 
- can be about creating nuances and also for everything graphic design is pervasive and invested n all parts of social life. 
-sustainability in graphic design
- return to immediacy
- fighting against ideas of simplicity - modernist ideas

Can Art and Design be taught?

In this lecture we looked at types of knowing, the work of James Elkins, and focused on the question 'Can art and design be taught?'. 

Covered first was the Higher Education Act introduced in 1991, which joined together universities/polytechnics/colleges to form a collective of 'visual arts'. 

The 'noise of different perspectives' was mentioned and questioned as to whether this was a good thing or not.

We looked at James Elkins' book 'Why art cannot be taught', and how Elkins thinks art is an irrational practice. One example used was 'The Crit' as a mode of assessment. Elkins says that the irrationality of crits epitomises the irrationality of art teaching (and artistic practice). Also the crit can be seen as a form of 'psychodrama' - formation and negotiation of tutor opinions - emotionally charged - options - positive mediation - less serious

                                             - silence

                                             - confrontation

Also mentioned was how art can't be taught because it is subjective, nothing rational to be taught. However other views are that art can be taught but few students become outstanding artists - 'great' artists have dropped out. Mediocre art can be taught.

What can be taught?

- Criticism/theory/philosophy

- Visual acuity (Bauhaus)

- Technique -------------------------- art teaching is actually directed                                                                       towards the reasons that we value art -

                                                          complicated questions of expression, 

                                                          control, self, knowledge, meaning

- how to get along in the world of art

Overall I found this lecture interesting as the question of whether art/design can be taught is something I have actually thought about myself, as I have often considered how some people seem to be naturally creative compared to others and have 'an eye' for design which cannot always be taught as it is almost an innate thing, and although the process of design can be quite logical, the practice of art/creative disciplines, as Elkins says, is quite irrational and subjective - which makes assessing work difficult sometimes because of the subjective element. 

Interdisciplinarity, Transdisciplinarity, Multiplicity and Pluralism

The books we looked in the lecture were Carl Disalvo's Advirsary's Design and Tony Fry's Design as Politics.

Carl Disalvo is interested in design activism " Agonist Pluralism " -> Cacophony of voices that functions as the ground of democracy -> design activism film " This is what democracy looks like "

One example of activism we looked at was The Suffragette movement lead by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1858 - 1928. 
-graphic interventions
-media spectacles
- protest displays

"Noisy Pluralism"
Million Dollar Blocks Project - Data Visualisation Heat map - a metaphor of noise- heat, social identity is driven by raw material vision of how we get to identity driven by difference.
Idea of heat map -> contemporary way of data visualisation

"Multiplicity" -> Society built on noisy foundation

Tony Fry:  makes distinctions between politics and the political. Design is in the service of politics.

Democracy is a representational idea -> takes noise of culture -> minimised through investment of people -> one voice to represent all.

All noise lost through one voice.

Listens to grass roots of noise through data visualisation maps. Design tames noise but also can reveal it again.

Multiplicity: Noise in society
Pluralism: Recognises differences between people through idea of representation

Two other books mentioned were:

Daniel Bons' Twentieth Century Multiplicity
Sanford, Kintess' Architecture of Time

Henry Adams coined 'Multiplicity' - "Vertiginous unmooring of existence"
                                                  - Talks about new way of thinking

At the level of politics multiplicity ultimately falls out of favour with the onset of WW1 (pulling together). 

Histories of Graphic Design

This lecture was like the histories of animation lecture as the focus was to look at the beginnings of graphic design. 'Histories' being used again rather than 'history' due to Tony Fry's statements that history is selective and affective and histories can be mined for new meaning.

We started off by looking at Meggs' History of Graphic Design published in 1985. This was the first time the words 'History' and 'Graphic Design' had been used together. Every history that follows on from this is like a footnote to this history. The work was continued by Alston Purvis in 2002 after Meggs died.  Work referred to as "ambitiously encompassing" but also limiting. 

Covered next was sort of a timeline of graphic design, mentioned first was Lascaux cave paintings from around 15000 - 10000 BC. Then mark making, painting and writing invention. We also looked at the Hittite cylinder seal - a precursor to print and a Greek invention from around 1650 - 1200 BC. After this came the illuminated manuscript in AD 500 - AD 1000.
We also looked at the following:

- Evolution of printing and type
- Aesthetic and technical aspects linked also a social element
- Reason for being -> commercial
- Started in mid 19th century and progressed to different styles
- Arts and crafts, Art Nouveau, Vienna Secession, New Objectivity, Modernism, New Typography, International style, William Morris
- Peter Behrens - New Objectivity 1901, start of modern form
- Jan Tschichold - New typography
- International style -> Armin Hoffman

Also we looked at how the Helvetica 'craze' is technically a retro movement and how in Gary Huswit's 2007 film 'Helvetica' when he states that the font is everywhere to think about that and think whether it actually is and to consider that by him saying it he actually creates the movement.

Meggs' history is limited because ....

When Meggs entered the 80s and 90s, the dawn of the digital age, he ran afoul of the new generation of anti-modernists that had embraced the expressive and connective potential of new techniques. It is a difficult history to manage.
Early editions of cover of the book are full of visual historical cliche - the modern versions being better:

                     

Following on from Meggs' history we looked at Stephen Eskilson - Graphic Design: A New History which was published a few decades after Meggs.

How did it attempt to be new?

The profession of graphic design was established when the task of designing printed material was separated from the task of printing it. Graphics as a function of the western industrial world.

* Stresses social context -> attempted to convey a message of cultural 'improvement' - novel form of exhibition.

* Covers period that Meggs left off - impact of new technology

* Idea of 'citizen designer'

Criticism of Eskilson:

by Alice Twemlow and Lorraine Wild - "There is a lack of interest in anything that graphic designers write"

Beatrice Warde - The Crystal Goblet ,1930, - modernist book

Malcolm McCullough -> 'digital craft' as a blend of skill and intellect accompanied by by a blend work and play -> Marian Bantjes

Analogue Communique

The objective of the first physical studio session of the year was to create hand rendered typography to communicate a message.Using characters within a specific format we were asked to be creative with our approach to typography and lettering. This was an opportunity to be experimental and playful with ideas and approach, within a prosaic structure. We were also asked to consider the individual letter forms as part of a communicated message, but also as a graphic symbol, pictorially, as a character, or as shape.

Initially we were asked to think up a quote/message that had to start with 'I am' and then we had to finish off the statement. The grids we were using only had 16 spaces so that also had to be taken in to consideration when thinking up ideas. 

From my phrase ideas the ones I thought worked the best were 'I am only human' and 'I am many things'. With these phrases now chosen I began to experiment with different letter forms:

This was the first design I created which I don't think works too well as I tried to fit the last word in the phrase in too small a space and also some of the letters don't look right together.

This is my second design which I like better than the first because I gave each letter it's own box, but liked the other phrase 'I am many things' better so went on to create more designs using that one.

Again, I felt this worked better than the last and I used letter designs I had previously used but decided to keep the letter types the same for each word which I think works better visually.

Out of all my message designs I think the last two are the best and my development from the start of the session to the end through experimentation is obvious. Fro these designs I will be able to experiment further with scale and refining.

Umberto Eco's - The Poetics of the Open Work

From the first theory seminar we were instructed to read Umberto Eco's 'The Poetics of the Open Work' and write an overview of what we thought the messages of the text were in a short paragraph without quoting Eco's words. It was quite a difficult read but got easier as I went on. Whilst reading I saw some of the same words cropping up again and again and so to help me with my summary I listed key words that I felt got across the themes of the work.

Keywords

> Perspective
> Unfinished/incomplete
> Freedom
> Interpretation
> Symbolism
> Suggestiveness
> Inexhaustible 
> Indefinite
> Ambiguity
> Mobile
> Perception
> Unlimited

My view is that Eco's theory of 'Open Works' refers to works , whether that be a piece of art, design, writing, that are open in a sense that they are open to different perceptions and interpretations and allow freedom in this way, but also they are open because they are incomplete and indefinite, and mobile. Works that are not restricted in their meaning and are 'poetic' in a way that they can be analysed differently and hold different meanings for different people and also they are poetic in the sense that they include symbolism.

This/these idea(s) can be applied to our current Conversation studio brief I think, as it is an 'open' brief, we have been given guidance on things to look at but there is a freedom and ambiguity about the brief and it is open to many different perspectives as everyone will interpret it differently, also there is no 'fixed' outcome channel, so in this way the brief is also 'mobile' which relates back to Eco's theory. 

Character Development

The focus of this process and production session was character development. The session introduced us to production techniques and workflows as they relate to character design. The character we created will be used on cereal packaging which we will also design and eventually produce prototypes for. The focus was on character design as it relates to brand & pack design.

In the first instance we created rough pencil sketches of a variety of character designs keeping in mind the dynamic qualities that make characters appealing and interesting, so considering different stances and positions/ facial expression for the characters. Here are mine: 

Once we had done this we had to pick which character design we wanted to develop on with to feature on our cereal box. I chose the owl character as I felt it looked the most interesting and dynamic which would work well on a cereal for children, and also fit with the current trend of owls and woodland creatures featuring on all sorts of products. 

we then sketched out layout ideas for the front of the cereal box which had to feature our character, a bowl of cereal and the name of the cereal. Firstly I just quickly thought of a few names for a cereal and came up with some owl- themed ones to relate to the character.

Here are my design variations:

I think the ones that work best are the ones where the bowl is coming in from the side, I tried the bowl in the centre but a risk is dead space either side of the bowl which would not make for a good packaging design aesthetically. 

Overall I am quite pleased with the designs I created and enjoyed thinking about the layout of the different elements on the packaging and am looking forward to developing my packaging further.

Histories of Animation

This lecture as the title suggests was looking in to the histor(ies) of animation. The word 'histories' being used and not 'history' due to the plurality and complexity of history. Tony Fry refers to histories as 'an affront to personal memory'.

The 'motif' for the lecture was an animation called 'The Wolfman' by Tim Hope, made in 1999 it went against the realism of its time. 

We then went through a sort of timeline of animation in terms of the different processes and technology that were used to animate over time.

Zeotrope - invented in 1834 by a mathmetician

Rotoscope - invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer

Cell Animation - invented in 1915

Rotoscoping was used as a way to trace live action and introduced slow life like animation. Two examples are Koko the Clown and Gertie the Dinosaur, 1914 which show an interesting perspective of technique/fluid animation 'world building' and creating of the fantastic -> Nemo in Slumberland.

We then looked at Realism vs Anti-realism.

Realism being everything that is stable - ordered world - linear consistencies - character, predict behaviour, cause and effect, regularities, story with predictable pattern.

Anti- realism is the opposite. Chaotic scenario (examples: Bruce Bickerford, Prometheus' Garden, 1988 + Emile Cohl - Fantasmagorie, 1908 - often positioned as very first animation -> no constant narrative) Inversion of social order.

Early animation was abstract and experimental. Influence of Kandinsky and the Bauhaus in terms of relationship between colour and shape. 'The Critic' is a parody of abstract animation.

Even though my course area is Graphic Design I did find this lecture quite engaging, learning about the early animation techniques.