And the Gold Goes To...

I love this photograph.  As a runner, I know that the first moment of the race is one of the most tense, wondering who will have a good start, who will be in front , what will happen next.  That is the reason I love this photograph, taken by Osamu Hayasaki.  The lighting is really amazing in  how it shows the people from first place to last place, at the time, in lightest to darkest lighting.  The Tokyo 1964 across the bottom, designed by Yusaku Kamekura, seem to point out what the olympics are all about, saying that the competition will all be this tense, always.  This seems to be the way that all designers and photographers for the Olympics have worked since the use of works like this.

"Music" Television

When Pat Gorman, Frank Olinsky, and Patti Rogoff created the MTV logo with the idea that a logo did not have to be one set design, with no changes, the world of design could then be changed, and now companies could continually change their identity, while maintaining the same basic design.  

Recently, after the station became solely "MTV," the logo has slightly changed, or "refreshed," with a more rectilinear, wide design:

Really it has not changed much, only a little of the bottom has been trimmed, making it look a little bit more streamlined.  This opens the station to some new design changes like these:

Which make the characters within seem to say "I am MTV" saying what the station has now become.

Once Upon A TIme

This the opening scene to the Nicki Minaj video for "4 life" 

This is the opening scene to the movie Shrek 2 (clearly)

This is the opening scene to Disney's Sleeping Beauty, just one of the many times that they would use this (also in Cinderella, Snow White, and Enchanted)

Similarities? Yes. Coincidences? No way.  These opening books have been used for years in cinema to tell a background story before moving into the movie or music video.  I understand that it looks more sophisticated and all, and it's every little girl's dream to be a princess, but why would the designers set the scene at this particular time period? Because the world at this time was kind of a mess with the tyrant kings and the Plague, I don't get it.  The design may look better, but if dragons are running around, I do not want to live at that time.

Too Loose Lautrec

In the episode of Spongebob Squarepants entitled "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost," an episode where Spongebob and Patrick accidentally melt a wax sculpture of Squidward, therefor thinking they killed him, there is a scene when Patrick and SpongeBob are carrying Squidward around in servitude to him, with Squidward complaining it is "too hot" or "too wet", they stumble onto an aquatic version of the painting La Troupe de Mlle. Eglantine. Squidward quips that it is "Too loose, Lautrec", a pun on the name of the painting's artist, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, with an accompanying sting.

I think it is hilarious that this was added to this episode, because unless you were in a class like this where you learned about Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec once in your life, you may never understand this quick joke.  I know that as a child i never understood the reference, and did not until just this year.  I also love that they added this in for any artists who were watching, for it shows that the people are thinking about all audiences when creating the episode.  

FONTS!

Be careful watching this please, its like watching epilepsy.

Enough fonts in here? I think so.  It seems like there is this movement in music videos to have many words flashing on the screen to explain the emotion of the music, also shown in this video

I kind of like it.  It's different than people dancing around, because it's like the words are doing the dancing this time, which is kind of cool to see since it forces us to think of ourselves, and what we might do in the situation, and the words show just what we may expect to.

Shapely Things

When we read about Guillaume Apoillinare, I was really quite intrigued by his work.  I feel that because the words actually create the shape of what they are explaining, it also gives off the feeling of the object it creates, therefore making the poem make more sense to the reader.  It takes illustration to a different level, where you are not reading the words then looking at the illustration, but looking at both at the same time, having more of an impact.  I like this better, and feel that it was too short lived, and it should be used in books today too.  Maybe I'm just living in the past, but I feel it's a little more interesting to look at a vase of flowers when I read than a brick of words. 

Boats and..

While searching for another picture, I came across this 1929 poster.

It's nothing super special, it just happened to catch my eye at the time, because wile looking throught the book, I cam across multiple boat posters, like this:

which emphasize the great height of the boat.  Now, which you see the ships for cruise lines, the boats are shown from the side, to show how long it is.  I do not know which is better, but I do know that when I went onto one of these ships, I saw the ship from this angle, and feel it is more interesting than what is shown now, so maybe commercials should try a few angles from in front to show the great feat that engineers have made in getting a behemoth like this to float. 

Peter Max

Peter Max has seemed to define what vibrancy in art is.  His pieces are wildly colorful, often with much abstraction, making it fun to look at for people of all ages.  He has done illustrations for children's books, cover art, as well as many poster designs.  One noteworthy poster was "Love."

The poster above is just one of Max's many psychedelic posters with fading backgrounds and colorful graphics. It seems to have inspired British artist Mika, who's show in 2007 based many of the ideas exhibited from Peter Max's work, shown below.

The work has a feel of optimism due to it's bright candy striped colors, a feel Peter Max always brought through in all of his pieces.

Ohh the Irony

Recently in class, we visited the Three Faiths Exhibit in order to see the Gutenberg 42 lined Bible, as well as all of the other beautiful illuminated manuscripts on display.  As I was looking at these holy books, I was wondering what the stories connected to the illuminations were.  I know that these were illuminated because most people at the time of their publication were illiterate, and therefore needed the illustrations to tell them what was happening in the book, but at the same time, knew what would be happening if they looked at these often.  I, however, do not know the stories of the Bible, Torah, or Koran, and even though the books were open to look at, I would have no ability to see the story as it goes.  I find slightly ironic that the books, that were meant to serve both the literate as well as the illiterate of the time, cannot continue to serve the purpose they once did, due to my inability to decipher the illuminations.

Some Things Never Change

Looking at the text book, I came across a page ad for Volkswagen which reads "Think small." These two words perfectly represent the small Beetle. The words are also in the Futura font, which, when I looked, I realized that even though it has been 50 years since the ad ran, the font used has not changed.  

Above is the 1960 ad by Helmut Krone and Julian Koenig.

The font is not the only thing that has changed, however.  The slogan "Think small" has just been modified slightly to fit the new clean technology Volkswagens are being powered with.  This shows that even though an idea may be old, it may not be played out.

Simple, Yet Perfect

Target, a store who attempts to get the market away from Wal Mart, uses a simple design as their logo, but at the same time an effective one.  The Wal Mart identity has changed two times since it's rise to the top, while Target has always retained the same, simple, design.  

The first, Target's logo, which illustrates the company's name, while also subliminally telling people this is where they want to go, by making it a target, as if this is their set destination.

Wal Mart, on the other hand, has used the name of the company with a star in both versions of the name, which is clearly ineffective, if the design has changed already in it's short existence.

To me, Target has a much more effective design due to it's simplicity and way of making people think that it is where they will be able to find a better price there.

Writing? or Symbolism

The cave paintings at Lascaux show, that even no form of writing at all, through pictures, everybody has the ability to know what may lie ahead.

The signs above, which have been used everywhere from roads, to airplane terminals, take the same idea as a language barrier, and use it so that people who may not know the area very well, or may not speak the language, may figure out what may lie ahead.

Abstraction

In the 1912 Lucian Bernhard poster for Stiller shoes above, we see that the poster is mainly to show the product.  All other elements that may have been in the poster, possibly a woman to wear the shoes, have been stripped away so to simply show what the company is there to sell.  This idea would then be taken a few steps further, shown below by the J.P. Morgan Chase symbol, which takes the idea that the bank is  the shapes which form an octagon around a square, you, protecting you from theft, the main thing people look for in a bank.  The idea takes simplicity and pushes it forward to total abstraction of an idea.

Down Below

The map shown above, created by Henry C. Beck, is a schematic concept of the subway lines, as opposed to a conventional map.  This, therefore simplified the information, making the process quicker for a rider.

The New York/New Jersey subway map above takes the same concept of a schematic design, and overlays it onto an abstracted version of the five boroughs and the North Jersey.  This design is more practical for the the city, since the land is separated, and can clearly show someone which area they will be in when they get off of the train.

Over the Pond

One can see by the London Underground signs that there was a shift in the look of signage towards more abstract symbols for companies.  This let's people know where the public transportation lies for them to travel through the city.

Even in American subways, like this particular New York subway sign, there are simple symbols used to represent transportation locations.  The simple sign helps people see where they need to go by telling the subway lines running through the location, and where on the line you currently are.

Recruitment

This was a British military poster from 1915 by Alfred Leete.  It shows an officer pointing at the viewer of the poster provoking the viewer to join the army and fight for "your" country, as if the viewer is doing nothing for the country if they do not join in the actual physical fight.

Above is a current U.S. army poster.  Though it does not directly say that the army "wants you" to join, but it does, however, ask if the viewer is "army strong" which sends a very similar message, provoking the viewer to see if they are tough enough to be in the army.  Though the words are not the same, the points made are: the posters are created to get people to help their country in whatever war they happened to be in, or may soon be in.

The Use of Photo Then, and Now.

Before it was developed as an artform, earlier photographs were often used as reference material for other woodprints or drawings to be made.  The first picture, attributed to Mathew Brady, was later recreated as a wood engraving by John Macdonald.  The original provided the illustrator the evidence needed to reinvent the image with the wood-engraved line, as well as document the event.

Similar to the illustration above, in Chuck Close's paintings, he uses a photograph, which he then creates into a grid so he can create photorealistic paintings, as well as his newest paintings, which from afar, the blotchy shapes create one cohesive image. 

 This shows that though, now, photography has become an art form in it's own, it is still used as reference material for a more traditional medium.

The Old and the New

When we were talking in class on 3/16, one of the things that grabbed me was the left poster shown above, the first poster for a Vienna Secession exhibition.  One of the points mentioned was that it would be unrealistic to add such a large area of white without any type or picture in the blank area, for someone would most likely draw or write somewhere in the space.  

The right picture, a poster for the 2008 Whitney Museum Biennial, is very similar to that of the Vienna Secession, because of the layout, how there is something along the top, a figure set to the side, and a bar of information along the bottom.  The difference, that the space to the right of the figure is filled with the the most important information.  Is this because the bottom of the poster would be too low, or that the designer would know that someone would most likely come along and draw something in the space?  It could be either, or both, but either way, no one has drawn on this poster, as they may have if the space was blank.

Harper's Bazaar

In these two pictures, we see the February cover for Harper's Bazaar and a July poster for Harper's Magazine in 1894.  Though the new cover is not a poster for the magazine, the idea of taking a theme from the month is obviously relevant in the overall design of the cover.  Like in the July poster, where the woman is lighting a string of firecrackers, for the Fourth of July, the February cover is completely red with a large heart in the background, and if that didn't scream Valentines Day, the word "Love" is written in bold letters across the middle of the page.  The use of the holiday themes for the month has lasted since the 1890 posters for Harper's and is still used in publications today.

Morton Salt Girl

Taking a look at the Morton Salt Labels over the past century reminded me of the art nouveau posters from the late nineteenth century.  The earliest logo for the company was from the time when these posters were being created, but as the logo changed as styles did through the years, the art nouveau essence has never left the branding.  Even through to today when everything is being simplified, the Morton Salt company continues to use the nouveau styling for the cover girl for the company.  

Source.

Sick Days

Sick days, for me usually mean multiple hours filled with different movies playing through on my television screen, this rule also applies when the "day" portion of the phrase is changed to "weekend," and therefore, I had spent basically my entire weekend laying down, watching whatever movies we had laying around my house.  

Due to the odd mishmash of movies we have in our house from today and my childhood and now, I have now watched movies like Gran Turino, The Jungle Book, Harry Potter's I, III, and V, multiple episodes of the television series Bonanza, and Friends.  While watching the movies, I noticed that the opening credits, with the overture, set the tone for the whole movie.  Credits, written in different typefaces, alone can give the general mood of the film in the first few seconds.  

Watching Harry Potter, where the credits are three dimensional in dark metallic colors that come towards you slowly, or Bonanza who's simple credits with a western typeface look like a wanted sign in the old west (or at least one would see in a western). 

This I could relate to the 19th century when there was a boom in the typeface business, and hundreds of different, creative, modern typefaces were being created for use in ads, posters, and packaging around the world.  I found similarities because now, like then, people are creating different typefaces to get a specific point across about something, in my case the mood or theme of a movie through the credits.  The creators now are exactly the same as the pioneers of the industry in that they take a base idea, or just one letterform, and create an entire alphabet from it.  Though computers have been added to the process, the ideas still remain the same.

From Childhood To Today

Looking through old cards, projects, essays, amongst other odds and ends, I had noticed something. The way I wrote back in elementary school- and even early on in high school- looks completely different from what it is today. Granted, I now have far more experience writing than when I was in 6th grade, but what I was noticing was not simply an observation in the clarity of my writing, but my penmanship as well.
Letters such as "r" were written as if they wer right triangles without the hypotenuse, while now they are written as seen in any handwriting workbook in a child's backpack. I noticed that as I was able to figure out that a certain letter would look better or be simpler to write, I would gravitate towards writing in that way as opposed to the way I had originally written them.
This, to me, is very similar to the ancient writing form cuneiform- which were originally somewhat complex drawings of each object it represented, but would become more and more simplified until the characters became a series of abstract lines somewhat similar to the originals. The way in which I had taken the writing taught to me has the same logic that those who wrote with cuneiform did: simplifying letters shortens the amount of time it takes to write. Though my letters have not deviated as far as cuneiform did, but they help me write, or feel as if I write, faster, and though I highly doubt letters will change because I write them a certain way, who knows I might start a sudden craze.

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A Need for a Throw Back

Recently, I was given a job illustrating a children's book, and looking through old books I read when I was younger made me think about the early books and how they were illustrated.

Looking at something like The Canterbury Tales, how it uses not only the small pictures on the sides to help describe all of the characters in the group, but also the designs which lined the page and the use of calligraphy which show the first signs of graphic design.

Illustrations in books now, however, seem to be separate entities from the text within, as shown in Harry By the Sea, a book from the 1950s.  Though pictures in today's books also help the reader to understand what happens throughout a story, the two parts of the story still remain separate pieces.  

I feel that publishers of today should look at where books have come from, and use old illuminated manuscripts as the exemplar for future pieces.  The use of graphic design is just as important in a children's book as it is in in any other published material, and we just need to get back to that.

Canterbury Tales picture provided by:http://courses.washington.edu/hum523/dido/dido.notes.html

Harry By the Sea picture provided by:  http://memoriesoncloverlane.blogspot.com/2010/09/hurry-hurry-hurry.html

A Small Introduction

Hi, I am Stephen Saliba, a freshman illustration major at St. John's.  I currently live in Astoria, where I have resided on and off for most of my life.

I do not a have much experience in the world of art, being only 18, other than what I have learned from classes I have taken.  Until last semester, I was not able to take a graphic design course due to my class schedule, and therefore had not been aware of the amount of trial and error that takes place throughout the process, as with any other form of art.  After taking that class, seeing the difficulty, I would like to learn more about the craft and hope that, through the history of visual communications, I will have a much clearer understanding of what graphic design is and how to become more skilled at it.  Through learning about what people have done in the past, I feel that I will be able to solve problems that come up in the future through ideas of my own.