I would have paid good money to see this exhibtion!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
A lesson on Typography
This video was created by the Vancouver film school and explains to the viewer how much impact type can have on design work and how we can alter them to improve our work. There are many changes we can do to type to make it look more interesting, such as different typefaces, point size, line length leading and kerning, even altering the type glyphs with a variety of illustration techniques can improve your design.
The video then teaches us the characteristics of type that not many people know, such as ascenders, descenders, stem, baseline, counter, x-height and serif. The video then went to explaining that the main people who use typography are typograpgers, graphic designers and art directors. Typography is always changing and with the digital age now upon us, it has opened up typography to new generation of visual designers.
The video shows how a use of typography is the baseline for a good piece of design work. I loved the flow of the video and how the used the 1950’s style approach with the voice over and music. I personally love typography, to me typography is what sells a designers work, not use of colour or images. I think the proper use of typography is essential for a graphic designer to know, because anyone can use any font on a piece of work, but there is an art form to typography that shouldn’t be neglected.
The video then teaches us the characteristics of type that not many people know, such as ascenders, descenders, stem, baseline, counter, x-height and serif. The video then went to explaining that the main people who use typography are typograpgers, graphic designers and art directors. Typography is always changing and with the digital age now upon us, it has opened up typography to new generation of visual designers.
The video shows how a use of typography is the baseline for a good piece of design work. I loved the flow of the video and how the used the 1950’s style approach with the voice over and music. I personally love typography, to me typography is what sells a designers work, not use of colour or images. I think the proper use of typography is essential for a graphic designer to know, because anyone can use any font on a piece of work, but there is an art form to typography that shouldn’t be neglected.
Jamie Reid
Jamie Reid is a British artist and anarchist who has done some amazing designs, some of his well known work was designing albums covers for the bristish punk band the Sex Pistols. His best known works include the Sex Pistols album never Mind The Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and the singles "Anarchy in the UK", "God Save The Queen", "Pretty Vacant" and "Holidays in the Sun". His work, featuring letters cut from newspaper headlines in the style of a ransome note, came close to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK.Reid produced a series of screen prints in 1997, the twentieth anniversary of the birth of punk rock. Jamie Reid created the ransom-note look used with the Sex Pistols graphics while he was designing Suburban Press, a radical political magazine he ran for five years.
Loved and loathed, he visually epitomised the D.I.Y punk ethic with his own form of visual anarchy. Reid’s unique re-mixing of 1960’s imagery with 1970’s Punk ethic creates an unsurpassed anarchistic feel. The Swastika Eyeballs image was first submitted to A&M for the cover of the Sex Pistol’s God Save the Queen 7 & subsequently banned. Apart from a poster that was issued in Spain, this is the first publication of one of Reid’s most iconoclastic images. I am a fan of his work as I feel that his designs has preserved the views of anarchists in the 70’s and through his artwork and music by the Sex Pistols, they have become the “poster boys” Britain and really promoted the subculture of Punk to world.
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the UK
Theo Jansen: The Art of Creating Creatures
Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who builds walking kinetic sculptures that he calls a new form of life. His "Strandbeests" walk the coastline of Holland, feeding on wind and fleeing from water. He has been working for 16 years to create sculptures that move on their own in eerily lifelike ways. Each generation of his "Strandbeests" is subject to the forces of evolution, with successful forms moving forward into new designs.
He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands. He has created new forms of life with electricity tube, he eventually wants these new creatures of him to live on the beaches and should hopefully be able to survive on their own. However these creatures do have one flaw; it would be very hard for them to live through a storm as they have difficulty operating in water. A sensor on the creature has the ability to detect water so the creature knows to move in the opposite dierction. But Theo has given these creatures a hand in surviving the elements, when the creature senses there is a storm, has been built with a small hammer like tool on the nose to it can partically bury itself rather quickly as the increased wind power allows the creature to bury itself slightly faster than when it walks normally.
The amazing designs by him are completely run by the power of the wind, and the design is amazing that when their feet and when they reach dry sand of the rolling surf, it stops and walks in the opposite direction. These creatures walk sideways rather than normal, with their nose in the air to power their feet. This artwork is down to a very specific science, as the proportions of the tubing are vital to make the creature walk, only in perfection can these creatures walk.
The amount of though and mathematics gone into these creatures is amazing and I would love to see his works one day.
He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands. He has created new forms of life with electricity tube, he eventually wants these new creatures of him to live on the beaches and should hopefully be able to survive on their own. However these creatures do have one flaw; it would be very hard for them to live through a storm as they have difficulty operating in water. A sensor on the creature has the ability to detect water so the creature knows to move in the opposite dierction. But Theo has given these creatures a hand in surviving the elements, when the creature senses there is a storm, has been built with a small hammer like tool on the nose to it can partically bury itself rather quickly as the increased wind power allows the creature to bury itself slightly faster than when it walks normally.
The amazing designs by him are completely run by the power of the wind, and the design is amazing that when their feet and when they reach dry sand of the rolling surf, it stops and walks in the opposite direction. These creatures walk sideways rather than normal, with their nose in the air to power their feet. This artwork is down to a very specific science, as the proportions of the tubing are vital to make the creature walk, only in perfection can these creatures walk.
The amount of though and mathematics gone into these creatures is amazing and I would love to see his works one day.
Monash Design
The last excursion for our class was to view the exhibition the 250 graduating students from the Design and Fine Arts undergraduate and honours students from Monash University's Faculty of Art and Design. It was a very interesting set up and due to the large amount of space they had to showcase their work was a bit intimidating and certainly put our exhibition at the Drum Theatre to shame, but upon closer inspection it really wasn’t all that impressive.
The first part of the exhibition I saw was the work of the architecture students. They had done designs for buildings outside as well as complete and to scale floor plans. These were supported with small mock ups of their designs which again put our exhibition designs to shame, however I am sure they have had more training than we have in creating models. I wasn’t a big fan of their designs, I found them to be plain, boring and have a bit of the “ post modern wank” feel to them, but I will give kudos to the students for the effort in their mock ups.
The next room that I really like was the room designated for the multimedia students. It was a dark room, with strobe lights and graffiti style stencils of space invaders, to me this resembled an illegal club/party in an alley way in the city. They displayed their final works which included filmmaking, interactive flash work, including a touch screen created in flash, and a film that was based on hoons, it was painfully stereotypical with crappy rap “music”, I am not too sure if they were being serious or just mocking them but it was funny wither way.
I was a bit disappointed in the design student’s exhibition. They were given the theme “Time, Space, Action System” and I feel that this was never properly explained, or the students were unsuccessful in portraying this in their work so it was plain for people to realize. I was also a bit disappointed in the students work, it was all very plain and minimalistic and there wasn’t an awful lot of colour, mainly black and white work. Seeing this exhibition has definitely made me proud that I chose TAFE over university, the designs were all pretty much the same and there was no diversity amongst the designs. It’s almost like they were told that one style was good and they have repeated it to death.
The first part of the exhibition I saw was the work of the architecture students. They had done designs for buildings outside as well as complete and to scale floor plans. These were supported with small mock ups of their designs which again put our exhibition designs to shame, however I am sure they have had more training than we have in creating models. I wasn’t a big fan of their designs, I found them to be plain, boring and have a bit of the “ post modern wank” feel to them, but I will give kudos to the students for the effort in their mock ups.
The next room that I really like was the room designated for the multimedia students. It was a dark room, with strobe lights and graffiti style stencils of space invaders, to me this resembled an illegal club/party in an alley way in the city. They displayed their final works which included filmmaking, interactive flash work, including a touch screen created in flash, and a film that was based on hoons, it was painfully stereotypical with crappy rap “music”, I am not too sure if they were being serious or just mocking them but it was funny wither way.
I was a bit disappointed in the design student’s exhibition. They were given the theme “Time, Space, Action System” and I feel that this was never properly explained, or the students were unsuccessful in portraying this in their work so it was plain for people to realize. I was also a bit disappointed in the students work, it was all very plain and minimalistic and there wasn’t an awful lot of colour, mainly black and white work. Seeing this exhibition has definitely made me proud that I chose TAFE over university, the designs were all pretty much the same and there was no diversity amongst the designs. It’s almost like they were told that one style was good and they have repeated it to death.
Top 10 Australian Icons
1) Woolworths, a well known logo for the popular Australian supermarket which is a recent makeover from the old "safeway" logo, although it is a recent change it has grown in populaity very quickly. 
2) Vegemite, a popular yeast based spread that is a favourite amongst a vast majority of people across Australia. I personally think that without vegemite I wouldn't have survived past 8years old, I could live off the stuff.
3) VB Bitter, a popular beer sold worldwide brewed in Victoria
4) Qantas, one of the most popular and well known airlines in Australia with the iconic kangaroo in the logo.
5) Holden. A logo for one of Australia's most popular car companies, particually amongst the "rev heads" who have no personality or mind, so they have to have a done up car so they have something to talk about.
6) Foxtel. The logo for Australia's most popular pay TV companies.
7) Channel 7. The logo for this poular TV channel has had many changes over the years to keep up with changing fashions and appeal to the the younger generations.
8) Commonwealth Bank. One of Australia'a well know banks that have had the same logo for many years but seems to never be out dated.
9) ABC. A logo for the oldest TV station in Australia, an acronym for "The Australian Broadcasting Channel" I would prefer to watch this station over any of the more popular channels, they report real news and try to improve our minds by showing documentaries and foreign films, rather than paying to have putrid shows such as " Australian Idol " for endless seasons just to bring ratings up.
10) AFL, this is the logo for Australia's most popular sport, Australian rules football.
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