Helvetica, 2007

Anna's lecture this afternoon gave us, learning graphic designers, a chance to watch the Helvetica film, produced and directed by Gary Huswitt. Gary Hustwit is an independent filmmaker and photographer based in New York. 'I like the idea of taking a look at the things we take for granted and changing the way people think about them, whether its type or objects' - Gary Huswitt.

The film is feature-length independent, all about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks into one typeface, which celebrated its 50th birthday in 2007, as part of a larger conversation about how type affects our lives. Helvetica is used in the world of design, advertising, psychology and communication, and the film discusses work with renowned designers including the creative process, and the choices behind their use of type. Typography is important in every aspect. It is seen as a pinnacle, end goal of the sans serif. Vernacular typography.

"The real achievement of the film is the way it sharpens your eye in general and makes connections between form and content, and between art and life."

— CHICAGO TRIBUNE -News reporter

Interesting contradictions: acid test, how it reads.

Helvetica is very neutral, invites interpretation.

Helvetica appeared very quickly in corporate logos, signage for transportation systems, fine art prints, and myriad other uses world wide. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984 only further cemented its ubiquity. It is a widely used sans serif typeface, and over the years, variants have been released in different weights, widths and sizes, as well as matching designs for a range of non-Latin alphabets.The termination of all strokes on horizontal or vertical lines and unusually tight letter spacing, giving it a dense, compact appearance are all notable features of Helvetica as originally designed. 

Helvetica

David Carson:

Anna also looked briefly at David Carson, an american graphic designer and art director, known for his use of experimental type. The screenshot below shows a range of work on google images created by Carson, all including typography. I researched David Carson again in my own time, I found two posters he designed for the Helvetica film, again, focusing on type with imagery behind. He uses layering techniques, overlapping elements on the poster, including pieces of type to create a distinctive layout with an interesting understand of how all the features work together. I like the idea of using a font like this to be able to interpret a personal design style. 

Seminar activity: Deconstructing Helvetica

This seminar was one of my favourite so far. The session after this mornings lecture, also focused on Helvetica. We used sheets of existing typogaphy, ranging different weights, and opposing colours, to create a new type design. I do believe that David Carson creates a new way of looking at a font, so I was exploring a practice that he had produced. We explored different shapes and letter forms, whether it was using a letter from each style, or using more than one style for one letter, which is what I did throughout putting my type together. I personlised the original word and enjoyed the task, however I did not finish the piece of work. 

Once I was home, I decided to create a few more pieces using the same typeface. I used Illustrator to invite my own interpretation to three pieces, using the same word - hand gloves. I was able to use all the font family, and create contrasts between the black and white features. I used an overlapping technique, all the italic type faces, and adjusted each of the letters to become distinctive and unique.

Motion of Charaters

Below are two animations I created, the top being my first hand in, the second being my finalised piece. In today's After Effects with Sara, our aim was to create a video using the vector character we had made previously in our own time. Unfortunately, I did not save my original character, so during the beginning of the lesson, I recreated the elephant I had chosen to use. The shapes were simple and the colours were not realistic, however the aim of the session was to move the character in a ten second video, so using a detailed illustration would of been too hard for me as a beginner to the programme. 

As you can see in my first attempt, I have placed the character on the right hand side of the animation, and used a block colour for the background as I fell behind due to the recreation of the elephant. I designed the elephant in illustrator, and made sure that parts of the body such as the tail, ears and trunk, were on different layers to the main body - this was so I could move them separately once imported onto my timeline in After Effects. Once imported into the composition on the left side, I dragged them down to the timeline at the bottom, I could then adjust placement, movement, and timing using the tools given. Below is a screenshot of the tools and setting I could use for each part of the elephant. These settings were all new to me so it took me a while to go through each tool and learn how to use each one to the best of its ability. 

Once I had adjusted the movement of a few parts of the elephants body, the session was over and I rendered my animation. The finished product is shown below, a piece I am not so happy with, however in my own time I could improve upon. 

Elephant Animation not finalised from Emily-Beth Phillips on Vimeo.

Below is the finished video that is also uploaded onto Vimeo. As you can see I designed a new background in illustrator, imported the illustration in and placed it behind the elephant in the timeline. I have also included an audio in this animation. I imported the track once downloading it from Free Music Archive, and dragged it into the timeline also. I didn't quite like how the track cut off at the end of the ten seconds. I researched how to add in a 'fade in' and 'fade out', to use for my own video. Below is a screenshot of the audio, as I changed the levels and added key frames for the changes to appear. I am quite happy with my finishing video, as this is the first time I have created a motion attraction and also added an audio using the sound levels for the fading effects.

Elephant Animation from Emily-Beth Phillips on Vimeo.

Rewriting

At the beginning of this mornings seminar with James, we looked into concise writing, writing that is well considered and has precise content. There must always be a clear purpose and direction, and starting the sentence with the subject is always a good start. Explaining one idea at a time, and not using extraneous ideas is also classed as concise writing, as well as using the shortest form of phrases and words. When writing my essay, I must ask the correct questions for the reader, such as why am I writing about the subject I am, who else has had a say on the topic I am looking into etc. 

The main task of today's seminar was focusing on a piece of work we had all brought in. We brought a draft of the first paragraph to our essays, this was to be handed to the person next to us, for them to read through, make suggestions for improvement, and write down what is good and effective in the paragraph. We kept pointers in mind such as: clipped writing, factual, informed, guiding, and referencing. 

I got my piece of writing back with a range of ideas and improvements to make, such as how I could link my writing directly to graphic designers, or where, why, and who are ion the community I was talking about in my paragraph. I also need to back up my work with a quote or where I got the information from. Following the editors guidance, I was to rewrite my sentences, making sure my opening was very strong.

To help with our strong openings, we looked at a few examples:

• I am always drawn back to the places I have lived, the houses their neighbourhoods. - Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958)
• Lolita, light of my life, fire of my lions. - Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita (1955)
• Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested. - Franz Kafika, The Trial (1925)
• Mother died today. - Albert Camus, The Outsider (1942)

All strong, engaging opening sentences that make the reader carry on reading.

Order and Chaos

In this lecture we looked into different topics in art and design, comparing order and chaos. Modernism is a belief in objective knowledge. We looked at modernism such as bauhaus and form follows function, we had a quick recap from a lecture a few weeks ago.

 

Postmodernism:

In the video above, it describes postmodernism as a movement that first came apparent when people thought modernism had failed. Modernists tried to forge a better world with the quote 'Less is more', however postmodernists believed less was a 'bore', and we needed as many references as possible.
 It is quite a vague term, postmodernism, it uses elements of theory. A few weeks ago we looked at the Uncanny valley, this is a postmodern idea, it questions reality. Semiotics has a postmodern angle also - it uses codes of language. Postmodernism uses past styles and past material to collage things into something new. Graphic design comes in with including evidence of mistakes, over printing, etc. Postmodern elements.

The image below uses high and low art, combined into one image, popular culture and also proper art. Different techniques, highly political, and also hand drawn. (Postmodernism)

Postmodernism didn't really have an impact until the 80's. It didn't follow strict rules, no formal vocabularys. People didn't agree with Postmodernism because it gave a bit of freedom. More chaotic, confrontational and irregular than modern art (order). Traditionally in western art, picture making relied on using underlaying rules and structures that are seen as the bases or foundations of the image. 

Vernacular: A style that is associated with or native to a  particular moment, location, group of people. Recognisable as relating to that time, place or group, its zeitgeist (dominant set of ideals beliefs).

The vernacular in Graphic Design: Annette Lenz, 2010

Postmodern -  inspiration, referecing images from the past as history, using bits from the past to make something that is quite new. Deliver a specific message, create unique metaphors, express deeper layers of meaning. Layering of ideas in postmodernism. You have to un pick at different ideas in postmodern art. Its not copying art from the past, its a way of celebrating them. Self reference is a postmodern element. Artist is incorporated into the image.







I picked another example of postern art after the lecture, it is a piece by Andy Warhol, displaying Marilyn Monroe portraits. This piece of work expresses postmodernism in the way it uses a historical piece of art, and replaces it with bold colour and repetition. More than one method of style is used, collage, chance - challenging audiences with a more interesting piece of work.

Casablanca, 1942

Where does the dialogue take us?

What does it reveal?

developing relationships between characters.
creates intrigue to watch more.

not fast, didn't drag, full of content.

black and white film.

laslo was traveling with a lady.

bit of a threat, knows everything about his past. 

Character called Rick. 

There was a fight in Spain.

Renault says I've seen the lady, and looks at rick with raised eye brows. 

Renault, He is romantic.

Ricki, He is a sentimentalist.

Renault, In casablanca he is master of his fate.

Repetition and close reading is good. Opens new paths and new ideas. It makes you look into things differently and questions your ideas behind the clip or piece of work. 

Drawing objects in the studio

The workshop's had rotated back to John's drawing session, and today's task was to draw objects that had been placed at random throughout the studio. These objects ranged from large decorative 3D letters, to bubble wrap and ikea cardboard boxes. I started by focusing on one of the letters from the typographic photo below, I sketched a few other letters but my main drawing from this set was the 'R'. It has small type on is the style of a newspaper and I looked into shadowing, using only a pencil and a fine liner for the main shape. I was sat at an angle from the object so I didn't catch the view from straight on, so the shadowing differentiated. 

The second table I drew at contained large boxes that I mainly focused on. I took parts of type from each box, using colour in my sketches too. I really tried to maintain the style of fonts on parts of the boxes, whether it was sans serif or not. Once I had drawn out a few sections from the boxes I decided to draw the full shape of stacked cardboard boxes. I sketched the shape and angles, making sure each line was as straight and perfect as I could get without using a ruler. I added company logos and also a few shades of shadow with my pencil. I do believe that this drawing went really well using only my vision of the different placements, no guide or ruler. 

This session was different to the previous drawing lessons I have had, rather than drawing our views, I really focused on smaller objects, I think this type of perspective works better for me, rather than drawing on larger scales.