Screening Notes for "Helvetica"

I'm still in the intro but wow I love the background score.

Helvetica is the most common typeface, it's used everywhere and on anything. It's the most versatile typeface in the world, if it's widespread use is any indication.

I honestly haven't thought much of typefaces. My favorite is Garamond, but that is purely a personal attraction to the way it looks - it reminds me of old books without being illegible. I never took typography so I don't know what types are related and which aren't. I guess I never noticed Helvetica because I never noticed it, never saw how often it was used. I'm aware of Times and Ariel and Calibri due to their default statuses in my computer programs. Comic Sans is infamous as a terrible font. I think I remember someone saying that you can tell if a font is successful, because it works so well with the work that you don't even notice it.

1950s Swiss Style is where Helvetica emerges. The style of the posters they used as examples in this video really appeal to me in their simplicity and clarity of message.
Oh, I love this! This quote, about how a computer does not improve your design, it only speeds up the process.

Helvetica is a bit of a mystery. Mostly it was a generation to generation perfection of an old sans serif font, tweaks made in spurts that lead the modern font. "Helvetica" came about when the longer name ending in Grotesk was said it would not sell well in America. Helvetica is the altered latin name of Switzerland. Helvetica was extremely successful almost as soon as it was introduced.

Advertising went from being flowery and people-focused to being decisive and product-focused. Everything from advertisements to government forms and documents to business logos to street signs is in helvetica. It's simple and easy to understand, it reads as trustworthy and efficient. The context controls the interpretation of Helvetica.

Confusingly for me, I went to my font list on WordPad to see if I could play with the font and experience it myself, and it's not there. If it's such a standard and widely-used font, why would it not be in every word processor ever made?

Aw yeah we're getting into media. Music, TV shows, Movies, Branding - they all use variations of Helvetica. Some designers avoid it because of an abhorance of conformity. "Don't use Helvetica" is a rule that some artists adopt in order to avoid being stagnant. Using Helvetica is seen as agreeing with the ideas of the people who used it before, and when those ideas didn't match up, the typist rebelled.

The grunge typography aesthetic kind of stemmed from this, from people who wanted to rebel against the boring way of doing things at the time. After grunge had broken it all down, then they could return to the classics with a new mindset and really make it work in a different way than it did before.

I love that typography and graphic design is available to more people in the modern day, anybody altering their own blog or social network profile and choosing fonts and colors and spacing is practicing these aspects. I think over time I'm learning that graphic design isn't just about advertising or sending me subliminal messages. It's about communication. And sometimes communication becomes beautiful.

Screening Notes for "Bauhaus: The Face of the 20th Century"

I'm almost positive this is the same video I watched this past spring in Western Survey II - we will find out!

The Bauhaus was born out of war, with a soldier dreaming of a utopia, an art school that would improve everyone's lives. When the war was over his dream became a reality. The Bauhaus' bohemian atmosphere attracted many brilliant contemporary artists of all mediums and many bright young minds who also wanted to help make the world a better place by injecting art into everything.

The students' education was less focused on specific mediums and conformist ideals, instead giving the students plenty of freedom to play with texture and material. The Bauhaus invented the way that most schools teach art in the modern day.

The women of the day responded almost immediately to the open call for students. While progressive, Bauhaus was not yet completely modern and due to the number of women that applied they had to be segregated into more womenlike areas of study such as textiles and bookbinding, with only a few exceptions. Regardless, the women flourished and proved that they were just as capable at being creative designers as men were.

The Bauhaus did not reject the idea of mass production. Some pieces remained unique but some were both well-designed as well as functional and could be produced in bulk in order to be sold to the public. Furniture, kitchen tools, and children's toys are all examples of things the Bauhaus produced.

I still don't get the dancing thing with the sphere arms and weird mask. To be honest it kind of freaks me out.

Maholy-nagy was the Hungarian artist that took over the foundation art course and replaced the previous teacher's curriculum with one that embraced the power of the machine when paired with a creative human.

In 1923 the government wanted proof of what the Bauhaus was producing since it was recieving taxpayer dollars, so it arranged an exhibition. For the exhibition the Bauhaus collaberated by building a house that was completely fabricated and imagined by teachers and students. It was economical and easy to build, and filled with examples of work by the Bauhaus like art and furniture and appliances.

But the Bauhaus was not immune to the economic depression of the times, so the house was never mass produced. The Bauhaus became a place that was distrusted and frowned upon due to the unrestful political and economic climates.

The original Bauhaus closed and moved to a new city, where the politics were friendlier and the neighborhood beneficial for Bauhaus, since it was an industrial hub that had copious factories and resources. The focus of the school became very industrial and functional but also retained an intense interest in things being aesthetic, simple, and beautiful.

With a change in leadership the politics of Bauhaus once again shifted in a new direction, and after only two years Ludwig took the man's place. He became disturbed by the focus on functionality and the active politicalism, and involvement in politics was banned. Just when the Bauhaus was back on the right track towards having art as the main focus again, it was blosed by the Nazi's who saw it as a cesspool of communist ideals. What the Bauhaus could do after that was controlled tightly by the Nazi's. Most of what the Haus made was fine with them, but the reputation of the Bauhaus and the views and freedom of the teachers and students scared them. When they were forced into a depressing factory building, the members of the Bauhaus decided to close completely.

These teachers and students spread out across the world, most notably in America's Chicago, and the Bauhaus ideas lived on and sprouted all over the industrialized world.

Also yes, this is the same video I saw this past summer in another class.

I know I'm behind on my blog posts!

The group project I'm in will be focusing on comics, but we're not sure on much beyond that. Will keep this posted as we research and come up with ideas for our graphic.

Responses to Helvetica and Bauhaus coming soon!

Notes on Henri Toulouse-Lautrec

Henri was a short-legged artist who lived in Paris and while not actively participating in the naming and defining of artistic trends like Art Nouveau and poster design, was a huge influence on them nevertheless.

I'm starting to think that Tyrion in Game of Thrones may have been based a little bit on Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec was born into an affluent and aristocratic family that could afford to give him medical attention when he was a child and support him with an allowance during his artistic career, and even attempt to get him help and therapy when alcoholism took over. Henri mostly pursued the arts because his disabilities left him unable to do many of the hobbies men enjoyed doing in that age.

He was a superb painter and later a great poster designer. He is a famous post-impressionist artist, alongside names like Van Gogh. His art was often not taken seriously but the art community but due to his family's standings, he was able to make a career out of it anyway and successfully show his work.

uh yeah I'm boring so here are some awesome paintings and sketches by him:

Notes on Bing

I'll be honest, I didn't pay much attention in the class about Bing. That's unfortunate because that was the start of the talks about Art Nouveau, which is probably my favorite period in graphic design history. And to imagine that the name of the style came about due to one art dealer's shop-name.

From what I've gathered, Bing was a German man who had an appreciation for the arts, including Japanese woodcuts. His passion and urge to collect and his location (Paris) all added to to this man becoming a true trendsetter and setting into motion the entire Art Nouveau style.