NewVisual

LanguageIssue 1 . Spring 2014 . £3.75

Form Follows Function

CONTENTS

CONTENTSStreet Graphic I

Street Graphic II

Cabinet of Curiosity I

Cabinet of Curiosity II

Earth Artefact I

Earth Artefact II

Modernism Vs Post-Modernism

Manifesto

El Lissitzky

Typeface

GraphicsStreet Graphics was a project that we were presented with and the aim was to produce a response to ‘The Street’ in graphic form wether that be as a physical piece of artwork or graphically represented idea.To begin the project I decided to collect some primary research in the form of photography and personal witness, this allowed me to create a mind map of what the street meant to me and some ideas on how best to present it in a graphical sense.Some of the things that I observed were the amazing contrasts between the different areas of a town, it appeared to me that there were multiple layers the each and every place that I visited there was the side that was what the people wanted the public to view the area as and a much more sinister side which housed the waste, memories and broken unused buildings and spaces.This reflects very well the social classes of the current economical climate and gave me lots of inspiration for how I could represent the street using the photography I had taken.

StreetGraphics

After completing some primary research of my own I then had the oppurtunity to look at some artists and how they responded to many of the same contextual issues that I was personally looking at. One that I looked at was James Jean, he is a designer that uses a very fluent style to his imagery and in a particular few some work with geographical shapes to constarin his work into a more compatible format for a current day consumer.I particularly like his work because it emmits a unique perspective, almost as if tunnel vision but of more than one aspect of an image or idea.To recreate some work inspired by his vision I took my primary research in the form of photography, edited it so that it encapsulated 2 versions of each image and produced some very strong visuals.With these visuals I was able to produce a poster and some flyers

JamesJean

reflecting the Graphics of the Street. Although I am happy with the graphics that I have produced in this project I feel that I could have pushed further and made a more meaningful project which would have been a stronger final outcome. While I was putting my graphics in to a consumer friendly format I looked at other artists and designers such as Brody and Carson and their almost haphazard appearance in their work.

CabinetOf

A cabinet of Curiosity was a concept that many designers approached as a way to externally represent ideas

about either themselves or a specific subject that was close to them.

One that I chose to look into was Joseph Cornell, his work has a

large range of object, design and movements, they usually appear very

random and disjointed This is the style that I wanted to base

my personal cabinet of curiosity around, the concoction of items i

chose to include in my work all have a significance to me, either they

represent aspects of my personality or areas of my past.

A large aspect of the Cabinet of Curiosity theory is that they might not

make sense to someone who is an outside observer

Cabinet

Curiosity

Joseph Cornells work often encapsulated certain characteristics that stemmed from his own beliefs and ideas for example, he believed that the world was a birdcage so to reflect that in his work he would often place birds such as parrots and doves into his boxes, this gave the illusion of being trapped.What I like most about his work is that the amalgamation of onjects that he chose to include are exceedingly varied , this gives his work lots of intrigue and therefore would work even as a consumerable piece of art either for sale or view.

In my particular Cabinet of Curiosity I have included a series of charms that I have collected as I have grown up, they show the

different places that I have visited such as the Houses of Parliament, the Champs Elyses, Tower Bridge and the Golden Gate bridge. These show not only an aspect of my life where

I travelled but part of my personality which thirsts for

new experiences. I have also included as a large aspect playing

cards, this is because I do have a strong belief in

luck and making your own luck in life, playing cards

are a good symbol for this because not only do

they directly represent the superstitions but Playing

card games is a traditional activity in my family.

Some of my religious pendants have also been

included, this is another aspect of me that means a lot and I believe builds

more up of the picture that I am trying to create. You may notice that there are many different hearts

included in my cabinet, this is to try and show

the different aspects of love thtat I feel for differnt

people,places and things. I am happy with how my Cabinet’s have

turned out and I think that the influences are well

constructed and inform my work, I do look back and

wish I had focussed on a more pressing issue or

subject matter rather than myself, I feel that I would

have far more succesful in creating a worthwhile piece

had I done so.

MyCabinet

ArtefactFor the Earth Artefact project we were first shown the Golden Record from the Voyager satellite launch this disc contained everything that the people of the time believed aliens or other intelligent life would either want or need to know about Earth or the human race. Some of the things that were included in the disc were scientific breakthrough from the time, what we knew about how the world around us works and our knowledge and ideas about the past of the planet we inhabit. One of the things that the pioneers of time struggled with was how to get all of this information across to a completely unaware audience while still being able to access the detail that they had wanted to include,I had some differnt ideas of how to approach this project, I could either break it down into its key components like the idea of a time capsule that would work in any language, or I could choose to take the current information and redesign that to a much more universal ly readable format, and also to make them into a more graphical sense. However the aspect that I chose to look at first was what I believed the original makers of the Golden Disc had either left out important details or had not correctly representd the full menaing or emphasis a particular piece of information such as how family and relations form on planet earth, or the expanse of emotions.

EarthArtefact

MyInfluences

What I decided to focus on with my project was what I thought would be the hardest

thing to explain to someone who had never heard of human culture and that was the emotional response that we all naturally have towards those things that we care

about and lose. This led me to think about certain aspects of our life experiences such as love and loss and came to the

conclusion i wanted to include animals and plants that would be lost should the Earth ever be lost, that was what the initial disc

was missing it was too focussed on the human aspect of the planet that they almost

forgot we arent the sole inhabitants and being the most intelligent life form i feel we have a responsability to preserve the other

inhabitants that we share the planet with and make sure that their memory is preserved in an equal fashion to our own.I started by

looking in to how others had marked out important information to preserve it and this

lead me to look into cave paintings from early human history and the way that their

simplistic shapes and linework are making the infographics still legible today. I chose

to adopt a simular style in my own work also influenced by artists such as, Raphael Vicenzi andLinn Olofsdotter. Their work has

a unique way of creating movement using imagery and I think that it will work very well

for the aspects that I would like to include.

Influences

Modernism

Modernism

MODERNISM is a term used to describe one specific era of art, design, and architecture.

most people agree that Modernism is an amalgamation of what we as an art

community believed to be popular between the year of 1860 - 1970.

By looking through the movement we can see that it has been inspired by many other art and design genres such as,

contructuvism, cubism, realism, minimalism and even impressionism.

Some Modernists that are most well known are Pablo Picasso who innovated cubism, Salvador Dali, who was a large part of the surrealist movement. Marcel Duchamp a famoud face from DaDaism, it was these

influences that lead to the new generation of Modernists such as, Jackson Pollock, Piet

Mondrian and Willem de Kooning.

The Best description that I have been able to establish of what a true Modernist design

is, when a designer or artsist or anyone of a creative expression attempts to construct

and visualise in a way that people before them had not yet attempted.

In my personal view Modernism was a way of designers and artists to reinvent the world around them, they were allowed to break all of the pervious rules of design that exsisted and create something we now know as the

grid, keeping work inside and restraining to a grid gives the unique and trademark

set up for modernist works. I think that this innovation gives the designers a structure to work to which still prves a useful tool in

modern day design.

POST MODERNISM however was the next radical step after Modernism, in a way it had many of the same ideals in that it wanted to break the rules of the movements that came before, but this time those rules include that of the Modernist designers.Post modern design reintroduces many of the more fluent and artistic approaches that were lost during the modernist movement. This resulted in a style that was very disjointed but more playful and in my opinion more creative. The invention of collage and decollage allows for a unique combination of the past, present and future ideas. Mostly Postmodernism doesnt want to be defined but in my opinion it is parrallel to that of a rebelious new generation who refuse every rule to simply be considered consequential. Of the two I think I prefer Post Modernism for the simple reason that it is a less constrained movement, it has more creativity and takes more imagination to stand out from the crowd of design when the whole of your competition is equally as outgoing and remarkable.

to

Post

Modernism

Modernism

IamforDesign

A designer named Ken Garland wrote a manfesto which outlined his opinions and beliefs when it came to design, he was backed by over 400 other graphic designers and artists. This was done in an effort to get across the severe view that they had upon the design focusses of the time, the undersigned people belived that the whole industry had become lazy and unimaginative. This gave way for lots of other designers to do the same,. First things first was an innovation and even in years to come it would be an important aspect of design, so much so that it was re-written in the year 2000 with the new generation of designers.

I am for design that has purpose.

I am for design and that is both well balanced and subtle.

I am for design that can hold an eye from the other side of the room, even hold a

preoccupied mind.

I am for design that both asks a question while being questionable.

I am for design that has no fear.

I am for design that inspires while being inspired.

I am for design that holds emotion.

I am for design that has heart.

I am for design that is cold and clinical.

I am for design that is warm and inviting.

I am for small designs.

I am for colossal designs.

I am for design that breaks a rule for no reason other than to be scolded.

I am for design that respects the history of itself.

I am for design that goes unnoticed.

I am for design that will never be ignored.

I am for design that reflects a rainbow.

I am for design that makes a difference.

I am for design that holds a secret.

I am for design that is an open book.

I am for design of books.

I am for design of posters.

I am for design of rooms.

I am for design of buildings.

I am for design of clothes, pins, buttons and badges.

I am for design of ideas.

I am for design that understands how the imagination is infinite.

I am for design that breathes and grows.

I am for designs that build bridges.

I am for designs that are universal.

I am for design that elevates style.

I am for design that stands alone.

I am for design that completes a series.

I am for design that proves a point.

I am for design that has no reason.

I am for design.

By Kat Dunbobbin

ElLissitzky

Lissitzky

El Lissitzky’s work was inspiring to me for forming a typeface because of his range of geometric shapes that were common in the construstivist movement the broken and disjointed appearance of his work especially the lines and circles made it very easy to transcribe into lettering, you should be able to see from the imagery where certain aspects of my lettering has emerged from , such as the points within the a’s and e’s and such alike are taken from the image that contains the circle and triangles. While the mismatch lines and off camber rotation of the parrallel line in most of the ascenders and descenders were derived from the image below where each differnt line of size and shape emerge from each other.

My typography is based upon a piece El Lizitsky his use of geometric shapes and broken lines has inspired my font. I decided to start by using a standard typeface’s grid so that once transcribed each letter would be in proportion. To make sure that this was correct I looked into Type and how it was produced before ink printers, the small wood or metal blocks showed me the importance how the spacing between lettering and why changing the leading and kerning of your type can be useful because it eliminates the issues that arrise when you place problem letters together such as ‘A’ and ‘V’. To make my Font work as a whole I decided to have common characters, such as anything like an ‘n’ would have the same distortion as each other and the same with all of the ascender, descenders, and I am pleased with how my typeface has woroked out, simply because it fulfills everything that I think a Typpeface should be, it is readable, unique, and eyecatching.

NewVisual

LanguageForm Follows Function