Modernism p.3 Piet Mondrian p.4 Wassily Kandinsky p.5 PostModernism p.6 Salvador Dali p.7 Andy Warhol p.8 Street Graphics p.9-12 Cabinet of Curiosity p.13-15 Earth Artifact p.16-17 Typography p.18 Designers are like superheroes p.19-20
Modernism
Modernism was first acknowledged in art and design in the 19th century. From Bold Block Serif and Sans Serif typography to furniture by Bauhaus the modernist era is certainly one that stands out to people. Its bold simple colours and perfectly dimensioned shapes make it an extremely sophisticated era. I personally love modernism however feel my work has more of a post modern look about it. As Helvetica is one of my favourite typefaces I will forever be acknowleging the great work produced in the modernist era.
Piet Mondrian
Born as Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan, Piet Mondrian was a dutch painter born in 1872. To me his work is simple yet says so much about Modernism and what people wanted to achieve at the time. The perfect straight lines of Mondrian’s work show the straight to the point attitude that everyone wanted to portray at this time. His use of bold primary colours just shows how much people wanted things to be without fuss, everything was sleek and defined. Even modernist architecture has similar traits to that of Mondrian’s paintings.
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky was born in 1866 and since this time has become one of the most famous abstract artists to ever live. Kandinsky’s work, particularly his later works such as Composition VI are a fine example of Modernist artwork. Like that of Mondrian Kandinsky uses alot of black lines in his work, a key feature of Modernist art and design. Kandinksy also however uses many different shapes in his paintings, these geometric shapes are what I find so appealing about Kandinsky’s work and Modernism in general.
Postmodernism Postmodernism came about in the late 20th century in all fields of art,design and architecture. Postmodernism was a critism of modernism. Modernism stuck to the rules and Postmodernism set to break all the rules. Key features of Postmodernism are the bold bright shades of colours not used in Modernism, many artists and designers chose to use every shade of colour they could. Things were no longer linear and symetrical but instead undefined and unique. Postmodern furnature and buildings are seen as quirky and art became unrestricted with many pieces of work deemed to be shocking and sexual. Postmodernism really did tear down all boundries!
SALVADOR DALI Salvador Dali was born in Spain in 1904. Dali is best known for his surrealist paintings.
Dali’s work is extremely in keeping with Postmodernism. Surrealism uses bright colours and realistic shapes which is reminiscent of Postmodernist features. Dali’s placement of unsual object and figuers in his paintings is something that was done more and more by Postmodern Artists. This was particularly rule breaking to Modernists.
Andy Warhol Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburg in the United States in 1928. Best know for his pop art work such as this Marlyn Monroe piece Andy Warhol is one of the most famous artists related to Postmodernism.
Warhol’s use of colour, particularly contrasting colours is one of the defining traits of Postmodernism. Its this use of colour that really appeals to me and that I feel has inspired my own work.
Street Graphics
The Brief: “You are required to research into the graphic language of the street, how imagery, artifacts and ephemera of all kinds bombards the senses with visual messages and experiences.�
Street Graphics to me was not just a brief about literal street graphics for example road signs and signals but more about the beauty of our environment. Night time is my favourite part of the day, it is when alot of things come alive. We literally look at things in a different light. Animals that we don’t see often fill our streets and roam our towns. Foxes, Rabbits and Owls help make the night time environment seem more mysterious.
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On a journey to Huddersfield from home in Manchester I was in awe of the bright lights and peaceful nature of one of the countries busiest motorways. I decided to take some pictures and the previous picture was my favourite of all. I then made my collage of the image using teared up paper and oil pastels. Myself and one of my tutors really liked the effects so I slightly edited my collage and made a series of images into a stop motion animation with the motorway lights flashing and the cars moving by. I think this in itself says alot about our environment and perception of it as many people see the motorway as a man made busy traffic filled route to work where as I saw it as a beautiful and neccessary addition to our landscape.
I also decided to go down a different route with this brief. I wanted to create a typographic landscape based on Craig Ward’s type portraits, like above. The reason behind this was the fact that I wanted to show that sometimes nature gets forgotten amongst the hustle and bustle of modern life and our newer man made surroundings.
This piece was part of my development for this Idea. Many people complimented me on the aesthetics of this piece. I created this piece using different coloured fineliners. I was really pleased with the outcome of this and I feel it was successful as many people agreed with the idea behind this illustration and felt that nature is being forgotten.
Cabinet of Curiosity
Brief:
“In the same way that certain artists attempt to capture experiences, or ephemeral moments of time in their work, as in the boxes of Joseph Cornell and animations of the Brother Quay, you are required to use your personal experiences to build a cabinet of curiosity or shrine. This does not have to be a literal physical cabinet but can be virtual, physical or static. In the first instance you should collect written and visual information based around your personal experiences and interests. “
Instantly I found a quick connection with this brief., I quickly thought outside the box, (no pun intended!) I didn’t want to be too literal with my outcome. I explored what curiosity meant to different people and also looked at types of cabinets. I then took key words from the brief like “Idol” and “shrine” and researched what they meant especially in different cultures and religions. I then started looking at the things that define me., my hobbies and interests, my personality traits and my talents. I furthered this then by thinking about stereotypes and what others think about you. I did a poll on a social media site to see what close friends and family thought of me. I could easily think of times I had been stereotyped, like the fact I’m really feminine and some may say girly, yet my biggest passions are cars and football.
Then I thought about how unfair stereotypes are as people don’t choose what their personalities and interests are. Nine times out of ten they are inate from birth I believe. I then thought about the traits friends and family said I had; kind, caring, confident and how I actually thought about myself, insecure, troubled, depressed. People don’t see what’s on the inside of others. Also when people stereotype they don’t think about the fact that we don’t really choose to be who we are. This sparked my idea for my final outcome. I decided I wanted a visual piece that would attract people aswell as inform them of my meaning behind it. I decided to create my own “Old fashioned sweet jars”: Edible Emotions and Heavenly Hobbies. These included “sweets with emotions like a pic ‘n’ mix therefore no one would know which emotion they would pick. Thus this meant people could pick anything and hopefully would realise that stereotypes should be broken.
Earth Artifact Brief: Over the next few weeks you are required to submit visual and written proposals for a new version of the ‘Golden Record’ entitled, ‘Earth Artifact’. This should not be a slavish reproduction of the original golden record, but should be a more contemporary version, which should be reflected in the content and the format/media channel of your choice. Before I was given this brief I knew very little about the Voyager Golden Record. I have never been overly interested in the idea of outerspace until now. This brief intreagued me and I researched alot into the original golden record. The original was extensive which may have seemed neccessary at the time but I feel that it is now extremely outdated. Rather than the content I decided to look more indepth at ways of informing someone or something through information graphics. Aswell as reading online I read Information Graphics by Taschen. This inspired me to create a fun, aesthetically pleasing yet informative modern poster as an alternative to the Golden Record. A series of these posters could be made to replace each section of the record, For example one could provide facts about music, one with facts about animals and so on. I feel these would be far more successful and would bring the Golden Record up to date.
Typography
I created this type based on Mondrian’s Paintings Featured earlier in this Issue. I wanted to keep This type face simple yet bold exactly like mondrian’s original works. I hand Rendered this type using the typical straight line and bold #colours that are reminiscent of Mondrian’s work. I then Re-created the type on adobe photoshop in order to give it a clean cut finish.
My Manifesto: Designers are like superheroes
I wrote my manifesto as a light hearted and cheeky yet informative message for people world wide as a reminder of the hard work that designers put in each day. I tooK inspiration from Bob Gill's manifesto "Otherwise forget it" as I feel this gave a strong message and was empowering for designers and this is also what I wanted to achieve. As I am passionate about working with print I decided to shorten my manifesto and make it into a poster. I feel the bigger my poster is displayed the better and would love for my manifesto to be displayed on billboards worldwide.