Week 4 Image

So this week's image is small but relevent. The image is an old Kodak ad for the Brownie camera back in the 1900s for a magazine.  Kodak handed out cameras in 1888, and was the first camera to be handled by everyone. Normally cameras would be difficult because you had to work the camera and develop the film and such. The main topic we learned of this week was photography from chapter 9 so I thought an image from Kodak's history would be very relevent since it's one of the most popular photographic companies. I picked this piece in particular because it shows what the camera would look like, in essence and how much (only $1.00). The font is a bold trajan pro type.

Before Class, Chapter 9

It's said that the Industrial Revolution first occurred in England between 1760-1840. The author believes the revolution is much more than the simple dates though, he says the revolution was a major social and economic process of change. In typography, the English alphabet became more than just letters to represent sounds; it became actual solid forms for advertising and such. The letters had to stand out more to catch people's attention and so it did in the Industrial Revolution.It's said William Caslon (from chapter 8) is the grandfather of the industrial revolution since his two heirs, Joseph Jackson and Thomas Cotterell became great type designers.
As type grew bolder the fat typefaces became huge. When Joseph Jackson died his apprentice, Vincent Figgins, tried to take over but failed when William Caslon III outbid him. (That Caslon family keeps coming back >.<). Figgins, however, didn't give up and started his own type business which was very successful. By 1815 he created a full range of modern, antiques and jobbing faces including some 3 dimensional types. He even started the Tsucan style letters.
When Caslon IV made his appearance as a type designer, he started the sans-serif in 1816.

After Class Chapter 8

We learned we will not be taking tests, but instead a full book of graphic notes based on what we talk about in class and was shown several examples. Personally I like it because I think i will retain more.

We reviewed the chapter 7 and went over chapter 8. Talked about the Rococo Era started in France between 1720-1770. Fournier le Jeune created first font family and wrote the Manuel Typographic. There's 72 points per inch.Rococo is an engraved looking thing. We went over script vs. transitional, vs. modern type. The types went from a handwritten look to a modern look because people liked the machine looking print. Carlson was a very legible type that came out and used on the Declaration of Independence by Benjamin Franklin. Baskerville improved books via woven paper and his press which gave the paper a much more glossy look. Baskerville was influenced by Serifs of Romain du Roi, the more narrower and condensed letter forms for a more geometric appearance and light strokes of characters thinner to increase contrast. William Blake's "songs of Innocense" was the first piece of illustration with type combined.

My question:
Why is Rococo era so popular?

Week 3 Image

I saw this and thought it was great! The flat imagery of the art of stained glass with a modern 20th century twist. It's from Halo and I thought it was awesome! We talk about the medieval ages and how in some cases it was a flat image. Stained glass were popular for the illuminated feel of when the sun would shine through, much like illuminated manuscripts. Apparently this artist felt Halo ought to be held in as high regard as a religious image often seen in churches.

After Class Chapter 7

Started today with the usual review of previous chapters until now.
Renaissance was inspired by the greek and romans and means "rebirth" and revival.

We started with Geoffroy Troy. He was one of the first renaissance men as doing nearly everything he could.

Next was Aldus Manutius. Manutius was said to have achieved an elegant harmony of graphics and words that is equal to today. He was a founder of the prototype pocketbook.

We Ratdolt people went last. Afterwards was a logo contest. Our group made individual logos and chose one. I dropped immediately. Geoffroy Troy won the debate.

I got pictoral Modernism for my presentation.

Question of the day:
Why do I design? (going through some things)

Before Class, Chapter 7 / 8

The person we are talking about is Erhard Ratdolt. Ratdolt was a master printer from Augsburg, Germany, who worked in Venice from 1476 - 1486. Thanks to Ratdolt, was the first to make a complete title page to identify a book. He also started using woodcut borders and initials as design elements. Benhard Maier was assumingly the designer for Ratdolt's borders. Three-sided borders used on the title age became Ratdolt's trademark. He was also the first to issue a printer's type specimen sheet. He was an active printer until he died at age 81.

In france, from 1720-1770, the Rococo style was huge. C and S curves were a really big part of it. In 1737 Fournier le Jeunne finally standardized type sizes since each type had its own size and nomenclature. Jeunne's pounce was divided twelve lines, each were divided into six points. It is said Jeunne "stocked the arsenals with a complete desin system". Later Jeunne planned four volumes of a typography manual but only got to see two of them published.

In 1720, William Carlson took up typography and was an almost immediate sucess. Even though his types weren't fancy, they were legible and had a sturdy texture. They were said to be "comfortable and friendly to the eye". His operation continued with his heirs until the 1960s. John Baskerville continued also worked in similar typography as Carlson. Baskerville earned a fortune in manufacturing japanned ware. Baskerville eventually returned to type though and was able to make type that bridged a gap between old and modern type design. Baskerville was always trying to improve his press machines, and eventually he achieved a paper so glossy and smooth that no one had ever seen before. Baskerville published 56 books and his type became important influences on the continent.

Bodoni and Didot familes are big printing people who lasted through the years. (their section was boring).

William Blake started printing illuminated as etched relief printings.

The most interesting things from these things was that France was huge for printing. A lot of things came from Germany but I always thought France did their things via hand because it was so script-ish. It was nice to hear that France had such a huge part in this.

After Class Chapter 5

After two periods of no after class blogs we start one again today. Today we started the class by going through people's weekly images. There were some good ones, the nike logo one was my favorite cause it was a spoof, i think. It was cool that my image was one of the ones shown.

Today was a review of chapter 5, printing in Europe. Relief printing and Xylography are the same and I learned the ancient mermaid watermark from the French is the new modern Starbucks logo. We went through the Gutenberg drama around 1450. He borrowed money from Fust, Fust sued Gutenberg and Schoeffer took off and married Fust's daughter. The punches that Gutenberg used are what make the letters. We discussed the different jobs of the type process and found computers do nearly all the processes these days. Textura was used until about the 1970s in Germany. Gutenberg.org was introduced. I checked it out, doesn't seem that interesting.

In chapter 6, there was the German Illustrated Book. Ludites were peoples against the press, because the scribes and calligraphers were afraid they'd lose their jobs. We went through what we thought was interesting from the chapter. I thought the fact that a lot of typography comes from Germany was interesting.

Finally we went over the upcoming debate and the first test, and presentations and paper. I think I want to do the International Typographic style.

My question for the class period is this: Why do you think Fust decided to loan out that much money to Gutenberg and suddenly decide to turn and sue him for it all back when he did? It seemed a little soon to me, was he really just not getting results soon enough for was he getting desperate for money?

Before Class Chapter 5

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs. Do not copy straight from the book, or you will receive a zero for your first grade.
This was a boring reading for me, I'm not huge in European history. Paper making started in China, was spread to Arab lands through forced captured chinese paper-makers. From Arab it went to Damascus, and to Egypt. There it was from Africa to Sicily, to Spain, to Italy and than to France. Around 1415 mass playing cards were produced. The printing cards were the first for illiterates to play that royalties also played. The first prints were mostly of saints, and nearly all from wood. Common subjects for the first block books were religious texts, often talking about death or the apocolypse, corresponding to the recent Black Plague that had been killing of people. Most of the block books made were with about 30 to 35 leafs, with some being hand colored and some with stencils to apply color to flat areas. This was how playing cards were made.

Since paper was made so available, more books were demanded and therefore relief printing from woodbloocks.

In september 1428 Gutenberg was exiled from Mainz, Germany and moved to Strasbourg where he became a successful gem cutter and metal worker. In 1438 he formed a contract with Andreas Dritzenhen and Andrewas Hellmann. He taught them mirror making and other things. When Dritzehen died in 1438 brother Georg and Claus sued Gutenberg for the partnership or a refun In 1439 the court ruled for Gutenberg since the contract said only 100 florins would be paid to the partner's heirs. In 1440 Gutenberg moved back to Mainz where he worked for ten years to make the first typographic book called the 42-line Bibe.

Typographic printing is different from woodblock printing since the wood is too fragile.

Unfortunately the process is very expensive and he has to borrow 800 guilders from Johan Fust, a wealthy merchant in Mainz. In 1452 he borrowed another 800 guilders from Fust to make a whole bible. In 1455 Fust suddenly sued Guttenberg for 2026 guilders for the loans plus the interest. In Nov. 1455 the courts ruled for Fust, and while Fust showed up and took a vow before God, Gutenberg sent two friends to ask for more time. Fust took gutenberg's pritning equipment as colateral and all the world in progress. Fust made a deal with Peter Schoeffer (Gutenberg's assistant) who later married Schoeffer's daughter. In 1466 Fust died while Schoeffer and his associate Conrad Henkis continued the succesful printing business. For a few years printint was established in Mainz but due to the blood wars that ensued many eventually fled and setting up shop as far away as France and Italy.

Around the same time as Gutenberg, someone called the Master of the Playing Cards created the earliest copperplate engravings.


2. Name the fact you found most interesting from the reading.
The watermark started around 1282 by the Italians. I often think of watermarks being a much more recent invention due to its complexity in opacity but it's cool how long ago it was able to be produced.

Week 1 Image

Describe what it is
This is a list of the different pictographs one can make on the computer which can often be turned into ideograms. the one that's highlighted is the ♥ which is done by pressing alt + 3 on the number pad. The heart is an ideogram used for valentines day for love, heart, a cute decoration or anything related. This was found on the Yahoo Answers pages.

I was attracted to this because I like making more than a basic <3 heart and learning new ways to express my ideas on the computer is always fun. This relates to our readings because we were once limited to how we could relate on the computer. The computer languages have evolved similarly to the basics of written communication. While they already had a written way to express what meant what, and the human speech was already developed, the basics of the computer language was through binary. The display of 0's and 1's would indicate different things for the computer to understand. Eventually the programing language could be shorthanded, making it easier to display text and images. Alt + 3 is a shorthand so that the ♥ is displayed.

This is, not exact but, similar to the long pictographic images that get short handed to just a few scratches that have become the modern alphabet.
Describe its function

After Class Chapter 4, presentations

1. We reviewed the past chapters, and moved on to illuminated manuscripts. They implemented jewels and gold and silver into the books and the monks were often killed for it. We talked about the job as a scriptor monk must suck since you're on a deserted island with other monks with no sex and are getting killed for the gold and silver you're working with. Also one book could take a whole decade. We talked about the Dark Ages a.k.a. the medieval times, to be full of death and despair. Low employment rate, high death, high illiteracy rate. From all this, people wanted something good in their lives and art reflected the hope of the good to come. We went through each section, giving presentations. There was classic, celtic, caroline, spanish, romanesque and gothic, Judaic and Islamic, and finally late medieval.

2. What in the world did that duke need 14 bibles and 15 books of hours for??? 155 books are awesome though!

Presentation: Caroline and Late Medieval

Caroline
1) summarizing the look of the style
Caroline uses both large and smaller (not lower case) letterings. There's puncuation and very simplistic but decorative letters. The words are more inward/centered with a large margin on the outside. The roman capitals aren't necessarily drawn but they do take several strokes.

2) describe the history, influence of the style
This style was started during the rule of King Charlemagne. Manuscripts were apparently too difficult to read and the scribes were too poorly trained, so the king ordered for there to be change. A whole group of scribes was gathered at the court of Aachen and told to make master copies of the important religious texts and then they were all sent across the country. The old manuscripts of the Byzantine empire were brought to to be studied and so the scriptors tried to copy its beauty. They seemed to get "uneven results" a.k.a. they failed.

3) describe key designers within the style
The book doesn't name anyone specific. It talks about King Charlemagne and how he had scribes from all over gather at the court of Aachen for the purpose of rewriting books. I suppose the scribes who went to Aachen are the key designers of the Caroline style.
4) describe the typography of the style
When I look at the typography, the first letters of each paragraph are very stylistic and artistic. the second letters are also styled but not as grandeur as the first letters and are much smaller. The rest of the type is fairly evened and long lines at the end of a row of words have a small decoration at the end. There are also serifs on the roman formed letters.
 

Late Medieval

1) summarizing the look of the style
Apparently the perspective pushed the planes and volumes back in space and linear perspective was achieved. With the Limbourg's design highlights and shadows are coming from one lightsource.

2) describe the history, influence of the style
The Duke de Berry owned 155 book already, including 14 bibles and 15 books of Hours. He hired Paul Limbourg, with his brothers and they made him a fake book of Hours. Apparently it was simply ahead of its time because it was called the Les tres riches heures du duc de Berry. It's a pictorial book and the illustrations dominate the page layouts.

3) describe key designers within the style
Paul, Herman, and Jean Limbourg are the three main designers of the book with Paul being credited as the one responsible for layout and design.

4) describe the typography of the style
The typography is bold and long. The first letter of each paragraph is decorated along with the surrounding margins like any other illuminated script. The difference is how this script was made and its pictures were styled just a little different.

Before Class, Chapter 4 (pages 42-43)

This short section talked about the beginning of manuscripts. The gold leaf luminosity made the book look illuminated with the right light, thus its name. They were started in the Roman Empire until about 1450 when printed books took over. The manuscripts were very costly and time consuming. Black ink was made from soot or lampblack, red ink from gum and water mixed with red chalk, brown was from iron sulfate and oak apples, and even a vibrant blue was mixed from lapis lazuli, which is found in Afghanistan and sent all the way to Ireland. Gold was often applied by hammering it into a fine sheet of gold leaf and applyied with metalworking tooks. The books were bound with leather and had precious jewels on it, or gold or silver. Nearly all books were made in a monstary's scriptorium by a copisti. The colophon is an inscription at the end that contains facts about its production and would help identify the scriptor. It was during this time the monks also invented musical notation.

The most interesting thing I learned was that musical notation was invented in this time by the monks. I would have thought the bards would have begun musical notation.

After Class Chapters 2-3

1. We reviewed chapter 1 and what we did in class on Friday. Laura answered a few questions people asked, assuring us she'd answer more next time. We went over Alphabets (Alpha and Beta from Greeks), went over logograms. We started with the Cretan Phaistos Disk and talked about the Phoneticians and how they spread their alphabet (via boats), thus allowing them to spread the alphabet, giving them the main credit. The Greek alphabet was talked about next and how they gave us the vowels and had very geometric shapes. Everything was very mathematical, including the shapes. They had no spacing or punctuation. They read their words back and forth in a snake like manner. We talked about Latin next, coming from the Romans. They took a lot of their things from Greece, and introduced the serifs. We talked about the the theories of the serifs and how the letterforms were made and had a type of punctuation. We finished the chapter with the Hangul Korean alphabet.

We moved on to the 'Asian Contribution chapter' where people shared what they wrote about in their blogs.  Calligraphy, Oracle Bones and about the evolution of the calligraphic characters. We talked about the invention of paper and the chop. The Chinese were given credit for printing and fireworks and gunpowder and the compass and movable type but movable type was too inconvenient to really catch on.

Afterward we were introduced to the next project on illuminated manuscripts. My group is a group of three with Caroline and Late Medieval. I'm with Robert and Evan.

2. The most interesting thing we talked about today was the evolution of the alphabet in the second chapter.  It was really cool to see the animation on the one Evolution of Alphabets site. Also the debate as to whether the Cretan disk was the first printing or the Chinese was an interesting case to listen about.

3. How did people choose what their symbols would be for their identification stamps/cylinders/blocks

Before Class, Chapter 2-3

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs. Do not copy straight from the book, or you will receive a zero for your first grade.


Chapter 2 is about the beginning of alphabets. They started with the Cretan's pictographs which were only behind Mesopotamia and Egypt in their civilization's development, and continued with the Phoneticians who created their alphabet off the Mesopotamia's writing system. Then they talked about the Aramaic alphabet which talked about how the horizontal lines sometimes depicted in the script started merely as lines to write on but eventually became a part of the script. The next section was on the Greek Alphabet which talked about how the history seemed to meld with mythology a little. The ability to use the script led to the Oddesy, the Illiad, the great Library in Alexandria and started what it sounds like a form of cursive script. the unicales are said to be rounded and written more quickly which sounds like our modern cursive english script vs. our printed script. Apparently the Greeks also started the voting tokens. Afterwards, it starts the Latin alphabet section, which started when the Greeks passed their script to the Romans. The Romans extended the Greek alphabet, which made several types of fonts we're familiar with today. A lot of types are named but the one I remember most is the book mentioning how one of them is comparable to our capital letters, only the whole font is all capital letters. In my mind, I see it similar to the type: Trajan Pro. Lastly, the book talks about the Korean Alphabet, and how its make up is based on the position of the tongue in a pictographic form.

Chapter 3 is about the Asian Contributions. It talks about the beginning of oracle bones and how Chinese wrote on the bones of animals first for fortune telling, supposing that the messages read are from the ancient Spirits. This section was slightly more interesting for me, but not by much. It talked about how the Chinese scripts are pictographic, making each character representing a word, instead of a sound like the previously mentioned scripts. The Chinese writing was originally written on bamboo shoots but as paper was invented, it was used for everything. When silk came around, it was also written on but was very expensive, so it wasn't as popular as regular paper for writing. The Chinese "chop" was also talked about, used as a Chinese identification piece. Basically a really old stamp carved of stone. It's said the Chinesewere the first to invent printing because they were able to make movable type and the first to start ink rubbings.

2. Name the fact you found most interesting from the reading.

I think the most interesting thing from the reading was that VWXYZ were all added at the very  end, with no origin to the original Cretan pictographs. The basics of the alphabet were able to be met by the essential characters used by the Sumerians and Phoneticians. However something made the Greeks and Romans believe they needed more characters to express the extra syllables humans could make.

After Class, Chapter 1

1. Summarize in 1-2 paragraphs the class discuss of the day.

In class today we talked about chapter one. Each person went through what they thought would be the most interesting. We reviewed the ancient world's images, going over the difference between pictographs, petroglyphs and ideographs. Petroglyphs are any image carved into clay or stone. We saw the caves of Lascaux and told the site to visit. They are awesome and flash based. We went over the Hammurabi code basics and how it was pillars of these codes in the town square and you had to pay a scribe to read it to you if you couldn't read it. We saw visually how the original pictographs and ideographs became a shorthanded beginning of script. We also learned the difference between the hieroglyphs and the demotic hieroglyphs. The original hieroglyphs were more for priests to read while the demotic version was more able to be read by the populace. We saw an image of the Rosetta Stone on display and saw it was huge!

I met Heather while discussing what we found to be important. She seems nice, she found it interesting that writing was used for keeping stats for people such as inventories on livestock or crops.

2. What is the most useful or meaningful thing you learned today?

The most meaningful thing for me today was looking at the french caves of Lascaux. They were really look to look at and see how big the pictographs were. When I see the images on a slideshow or something, they don't seem very big but as I toured the site a little I got to see just how large the pictures really are in comparison to the caves.

Before Class, Chapter 1

1. Sum up the reading in your own words in 1-2 paragraphs. Do not copy straight from the book, or you will receive a zero for your first grade.


This reading was about the caveman time through the ancient Egyptians. The first part was talking about the caveman (supposedly orginating in Africa) drawings and how the rough outlines of buffalo and circles were ideographs. It wasn't until they were more refined and meant more things did they become pictographs. Mesopotamia was the cradle of civilization, and the basic pictographs became a cuniform. A more refined script that we may think of (lines and squiggles) came when the pictographic cuniform was shorthanded. Eventually over 500 characters became an official cuniform script. Because of the 500+ characters reading and writing was difficult.One started learning around age 10 and was schooled from sun up to sun down with approx. 6 vacation days per month. These scholars were held in high regard and so was the practice of literacy. Scrolls and other works of writing was associated with the gods and used for ceremonies and special occasions. Eventually manuscripts for how to conduct ceremonies came out and only those who were literate could understand. It was the Sumerians who invented the Hittite seal, a small cylinder often hung around someone's neck or wrist used as a person's trademark.

The second part was about the ancient Egyptians who invented papyrus using reeds and their adaptation of the sumerian's cuniform. The chapter talked about how Egyptian text was almost lost until the Rosetta stone tablet was found which held sacred Egyptian Text in Egyptian demotic writing, Egyptian hieroglyphics and greek. A frenchman, Jean-Francois Champollion was the translator. The book talks about scrolls being sacred and how funeral scrolls became available because of paid scribes who would sometimes publish only certain parts of the funeral scrolls to make it cheaper and mroe available. It seems to stay a little as it talks about the process of a person's death through the underworld and judgement. It ends by talking about the scarab and its written markings and how it often goes upon where a person's heart would be when they die.

2. Name the fact you found most interesting from the reading.
 
I found most interesting the fact about the Hittite cylinders used for imprinting a signature. Apparently the sumarian kind was so complicated with its printing that you couldn't possibly copy it, which could've been an early form of printing since it was used multiple times. The Egyptians also used this method when they took over but was a slightly more simple symbol, but still complex enough that you didn't copy it. Artisans would use these to show they were the craftsman of whatever they made, be it a house, a pot, tool or a temple.

After Class, Chapter 0

1. Summarize in 1-2 paragraphs the class discuss of the day.


Today was a basic introduction to the class. We learned the book we will use is/was used all over the world for all graphic designers. We also learned Professor Huaracha used this same book in her undergraduate days, possibly a different edition but the same book. We learned that the first cave drawings are essentially the first graphic design images for communication. We saw an image of a cow (or something related) with four dots on its back, which could possibly mean it's food or could have been a depiction of where to hunt such an animal. The dots are apparently a high controversial image among many but that was our idea. We learned some teachers would start history of graphic design with lithography or beginning of printing, but this class will start with cave drawings since even they are forms of communication. We learned this class is a great asset and while not required could arguably be required to help us understand different designers and how different designs came to be. We also learned that sometimes things that are very complicated weren't always so able to be described due to the limited forms of communication available.


We learned this class came a long way from what it used to be and will be very interactive (hopefully) and that Laura's taught this class for approx. 7 years now.


It was also a one sided debate in my group that Ryan Seacrest (sp?) sucks even though he's a famous person who's recently done a scope commercial. I had no idea who he was when they mentioned him, I still don't really know who he is.

2. What is the most useful or meaningful thing you learned today?
The most meaningful thing I learned today was that little unnoticeable things on cave drawings could actually be important symbols for hunting or directions.
3. State at least one question you have related to the current topic. (if you state none here, you’d better have more detail done above to offset the work.) 
Today was a very basic welcome day. I understood the syllabus and such and will be looking back at the syllabus for a basics of how to do the blogs until I have it memorized.