Livingwith(post) modernism

Povilas Vilutis

Content

London underground

Jan Tschichold and Avant-Garde Typography in the 1920s

Charles and Ray Eames

The growth of graphic design

Semiotics

Can you live without technology?

My fi rst cartoon

Postmodernism

On Photography

2011

London underground was opened in 1863. the firs line was called Metropolitan. We still have the same line in our days. In 1890’s electricity became the power source of metro and changed the steam engine, which was used before.

London underground

Technical things were not everything that happened for metro. Stations, station buildings, trains didn’t used to look like they look now. At first you couldn’t even say that it is a metro station your passing in a street. It looked more like entrance of theatre or the cinema. It had a lot of poster and adverts all over the walls (just as all the other buildings). But in 1898 Frank Pick started creating London undergrounds visualisation. Just after some time Edward Johnston started making all ads and posters in same size and font types. Around 1913-16 everything which was connected to London underground was typed in font which was based on Gill sans made by Eric gill. This font is still used now.

As in years London underground grew quiet fast, after some time people needed something just to understand where they were going. So in 1931 Harry Beck came up with a fantastic idea of a tube map. The map didn’t have any surface details, you could see just an abstract shape of the river. The scale was totally broken, he did that just to make it easier for people to understand and to make it easier tu put on one sheet of paper. In 1933 first pamphlet released for public use. During the years Harry Beck’s map have changed but just slightly. Mainly because of new lines and stations opening. Now we are using the version of the map which was made in 1987. who knows, maybe someone will come up with even better idea and we will all be using something different someday.

What is Avant-Garde? From French it means in front. Avant-Garde is more or less the kind of art, which pushes the baunderyes of understanding of art and makes people think about what can be called art.

Jan Tschichold and Avant-Garde Typography in the 1920s

In 1898 arthitect, designer Peter Behners came up with an idea of kiss – keep it simple, stupid. Art and design starts to get more simple. Ten years later Peter Behners was working for electronic companny called AEG which came up with an idea that in case you want to make something good you have to research and have a look to the past.

In 1902 Jan Tschichold was born. His father was a signwriter and this was a reason, why he was really well trained as a calligrapher. This made him one of the best typographers of the time, as other were usually trained as architects or fi ne artists. Some of the Jan Tschinhold’s best known designs are early covers of ”penguin” books. He was an English designer, but as he had a lot of problems with German authorities he spent most of his later life in Switzerland.At about 1919 Bauhaus started their activity in Germany and it made a really big infl uence on future art design and architecture.The artists, which probably the best describes Avant-Garde are probably the following: Kasimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, Jan Tschichold.

As a result of all Avant-Garde activityes in 1927 the manifesto called ”Elementary Typography” was released, and on 1928 the new typography prospectus. These stated about how the typography works should look like and how they have to be made. Typographer has to make white space speak, every job needs a grid, there

One of the lectures with Alan Powers was about Ray (1912-1988) and Charles (1907-1978) Eames. They were working before, during and after the World War 2.They are also said to be two of the most important designers of 20th century’s America. They, as well as the majority of the other artists of their generation, wanted to make a world of their days a better place to live in. What made them exceptional from other designers was their originality and the pursuit of perfection. In one book I even found that they made a difference between “Good”, “Very good” and “Eames”. They wanted their products to be original and of a high quality. What is more, Eames reached their products to be reasonable for as many people as possible. This aspiration encouraged them to look for new materials to work with.

In 1941 “Kazam!” was created. It is a special machine for moulding plywood. Plywood is

Charles and Ray Eames

light and flexible, these characteristic allowed Eames to make their first product – leg splint. This was a wanted thing, because of the war. Later designers were making sculptures from this material, checking its abilities and limits. Eames wanted to create a chair which would fit shapes of body perfectly, so they decided that it is possible to make a single shell chair out of plywood. After many attempts, different shapes of chairs designers realized that plywood is not strong enough to carry the pressure from the back, so in 1945 seat-backs were created. Ray and Charles did not stop there, they continued their research of light materials. In 1948 a minimum chair was created, 1950 is famous for making a single shell plastic chair which became popular in all the world, they also created aluminum chairs. In 1958 Eames designed a Lounge chair and the attoman which became classics.

These artists were not just famous because of their chairs, their short films brought them awards, including the Emmy award, from all around the world. They created short films and multi-screen slideshows for lectures, presentations, corporate events. Eames had an amazing ability to show casual, every day life things from different angle, in new light. My favorite Eameses film, from what I have seen so far, is the film “Tops”. It is a several minutes’ long film, which shows nothing but tops. At first

spinning, later stopping. It looks simple, but the way these toys are presented makes the film very eye catching.

I think that Ray and Charles Eames were very creative people, who had their own way of seeing and showing things and that made them exceptional. I believe that their works had a strong influence on the further development of design.

With Alan Powers we had a lecture on growth of graphic design. In the beginning of the lecture we were watching a part of “Helvetica” directed by Gary Hustwit. I think this was a fantastic opportunity for us to learn about typeface and designers. It also said a lot about modernism and postmodernism. In my opinion modernism is very important for graphic design and designers. Works modernism doesn’t have any unnecessary details, which in graphic design helps to contact and communicate with target audience much better. When you see an advert or a poster you always want the message to be clear and and unnecessary details are just making message not clear (blur).

The main typeface in modernism was “Helvetica” because of its simplicity and perfection. You can see some of examples in works of Josef Muller Brockmann

http://designyoutrust.com/2011/04/05/

The growth of graphic design

josef-muller-brockmann-poster-design/According to www.filterfine.com Josef Muller Brockmann was born on 9 th of May 1914 in Rapperswil, Switzerland, spent his childhood in Rapperswil, Schmerikon and Uznach. According to the same site when he was 20 years old he was already a freelance designer and illustrator in Zurich. In 1951 he became a Member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale. After he left the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts in 1960, he visited a lot of lectures, published few books. Died in Zurich, 1996 August 30 when he was 82 years old.

In my opinion people like Josef Muller Brockmann gave a lot to graphic design his works are very well known in a whole world and works like his will always be a perfect example of graphic design.

Semiotics is a science about signs and hidden messages, it also analyses the relation between meaning and understanding. Greek word “semiotikos”- an interpreter of signs. The term in English was first used by Henry Stubbes.

Semiotics

To tell the truth, at the beginning everything looked too complicated for me. Things became clearer, when I red a book “Mythologies” by Roland Barthes which was recommended for me by my sister.I found this book amazing, it made me think, and look to things differently. Despite the fact, it was not an easy read for me it caught my attention from the beginning till the last word.

This book consists of two parts: Mythologies and Myth today. I have started reading it from the second part. It explains that myth is a type of speech, also a semiological system. By giving several simple examples author explains meanings of sign, signifier and the signified. They are closely related and can not exist without each other. The interesting thing for me was that a signifier can have several signifieds or one signified can have several signifiers. I understood that in this case signs have a huge power, they can make an influence to our minds. If someone uses signs deliberately and properly he gains power to control. Some signs have a constant meaning and exist on their own, they have already became a norm (traffic signs, flags of countries, emergency signs etc.), everybody knows them, they usually have one meaning, people do not interpret them in any other ways. There is also other kind of signs. They are also created purposely, but they are not so obvious, bit hidden. They are often used in commercials, advertisements, graphic design. These signs often fit some common stereotypes, but people read them more subjectively, so they can have several different meanings.

A myth is a way of communicating. It does not hide facts, it distorts them. And it is often done incidentally. It depends on how people see and look at the facts. Things can be understood completely differently if you concentrate only on signifier, or on the signified and if you concentrate on both of them and try to find the meaning in relation between them.

In conclusion, semiology is a very important and interesting science. I believe that everyone should be introduced to it, because it is part of our everyday lives. For us, as students who study graphic design it is very important to understand the meanings and power of signs, because they are the integral part of graphic design.

We all cant imagine our lives without computers, but have you ever tried to think what would you do if you wouldn’t have a USB memory drive or USB connection at all?

ezinearticles.com/?History-of-USB-Port-Explained—USB-Port-Simplified&id=2225373 says that USB started off on specification USB 1.0 in 1994, followed by USB 1.1and finally USB 2.0 in 2000. The various transfer speed of the specification is as follows: USB1.0 – 1.5Mbit/s USB1.1 – 12Mbit/s USB2.0 – 480Mbit/s

Can you live without technology?

According to wikipedia.org USB flash drives were first started to make commercially in year 2000. and were called disk on key. They had a storage capacity of 8 MB, more than five times the capacity of the then-common floppy disks. During the years technologies changed and we had bigger and bigger capacity in smaller and smaller disk. In year 2010 most of the people are using USB memory stick witch has capacity from 2 GB to 16 GB. A lot of people also uses external hard drives which are bigger by size then memory sticks, but also has mush bigger capacity of memory. Y can store more than 1 TB of information in a disc like that, and all these improvements were made less than in 10 years. just try to imagine how small by size and how bid by capacity these disks are going to be in the future.

USB connection is used not only for memory storage. We have a lot of devices which are powered by USB connection starting from computer mouse or keyboard to as http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-devices-ever/ says USB heated slippers or gloves, massage balls. You can never know what people are going to think of to make powered by USB port.

All in all, people in our days hardly can imagine life without USB port, it even helps us to do some works whitch are not connected to computer at all.

My first memory of animation comes from like 15 or even more years ago. It was one of old Russian cartoons (translated to Lithuanian). When this memory came up, I couldn’t remember a name of the cartoon or even the story. all I remembered was one scene. It was raining and insects were hiding under a mushroom. As I was a small child I was really surprised that insects and animals could talk.

As this was my first cartoon I decided to find it somewhere on the internet. And of course the best place to look for cartoons on the internet is www.youtube.com. I didn’t take me long to find that cartoon for me. It was called ”grybukas stogiukas” this is Lithuanian name of it and it wouldn’t sound good if I would translate it to English ”mushroom the roof”. Now I have found

My first cartoon

the cartoon I can say you a bit about the story. Everything starts when ant starts to suspect that it is going to rain and hides under a big mushroom. The rain starts. Other insects are looking fore a hideout. And every time someone comes ant says that there is not enough space for all of them under the mushroom, but after that invites to join and they all dance some strange dance. after some time rabbit comes but the rain is not the biggest problem for him. he is running from a fox which is trying to catch him, so they let the rabbit to hide behind the mushroom. but when the fox comes ant comes up with idea how to save a poor rabbit. ant jumps on foxes nose and pinches it really hard, so fox rans away, sun starts to shine and this is the happy anding for everyone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMCOqrqxC4c

This cartoon was created by Vladimir Suteev and Vladimir Polkovnikov in 1958. This information was found on youtube as well. You can see all the creators and animators before the animation, the only problem is that everything is written in Russian. I researched on other cartoon witch were made in the same year and I could’t say that I found what I’ve expected. I expected a bigger difference between eastern and western Europe ore especially USA. Of course the stories are quiet different, but the execution is really similar. I think that this would be a good example of animation of the same year but from the other side of the world: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaqsQFzihNM . I have chosen ”Tom and Jerry” because it is really well known cartoon and I think this kind

of cartoons are the best for comparing, as they are pretty well executed, has interesting story inside.

I cant say I like this cartoon very much, it just was my first one. But i guess it used to work much better when it was created. This is a typical old Russian cartoon, which tries to show that it is always good to cooperate, and that the bigger doesn’t always have to win. Small one just has to use his brain. In this cartoon you can see that sizes of some animals and insects are illogical. for example the ant is nearly the same size as mouse but in my opinion, these are things which makes animation special and magical.

One of our lectures with Mark Ingham was about modernism and postmodernism. These two art trends were followed by each other. As it usually happens in a history of art one art stream replace the other to continue it, to develop its ideas, or some completely opposite ideas become more acceptable for some people and they conceptualize a new art trend.

Postmodernism is a reaction to mod-ernism. The ideas they declare are opposites, they could be described as: rational vs. irrational, organized vs. chaotic, objective vs. subjective, scien-tific vs. superstitious etc. what is more, modernists believed in progress while for the postmodernists it is just a uto-pia.

When I was doing my research about postmodernism(http://socgeo.ruhost-ing.nl/html/files/geoapp/Werkstukken/PostmodernSpace.pdf ) I found that it is very hard to define it, because it has spread in all areas and involves a vari-ety of different disciplines. I found that postmodernism is not just a trend of art, literature or music, postmodernism is often described as a way of think-ing. I think, that it may also be difficult to define it as it still exists and what complicates it even more, is that some manifestations of modernism are also still alive.

Postmodernism

There will always be many discussions about modernism and postmodernism; which ideas are right. I think that es-pecially in art being right or wrong has always been a very subjective thing to do. Even though modernist and post-modernist works are very different their acceptability for people can depend on that from which point of view you are looking. Sometimes boring can be seen as formal or structural, expressive as silly or childish or in the opposite way.

For me it would be impossible to say which of them is better. I just think that postmodern works give more space for interpretations for viewers. I believe that it is one of the pros of postmod-ernism, that it involves people more than modernism. On the other hand, for postmodern artists it is more difficult to be understood right (in the way they would like to be interpreted.)

The project I am doing for a photogra-phy lecture is mostly about differences of tourists an local people in London. As I am making photos of tourists I picked central part of London, to be more accurate, Trafalgar Square and the area around Big Ben and Westmin-ster Abbey. So these are places where I spent most of the time while I was making photos for project.

One of reasons why I have chosen these areas and this topic was that I came to London just about 8 months ago and before I used to come here as a tourist. One thing I noticed is that my point of view really changed when I moved to London. All the tourist places weren’t that interesting for me.

On Photography

At first I thought that my project is was going to be mostly about tourists, mainly in situations, where they are doing things which looks funny and stupid for local people. But after I started to take all these pictures I noticed that not only tourists are acting strangely. Local people seem to ignore everything that is around them. It seems that they are walking through the imaginary tunnel which has only one destination, and they are not interested in anything else.

So I got interested in local people as well. After some time I realised that there are different local people as well. For example in one of my photos you can see a man who actually lives in Trafalgar Square. In my opin-ion these people are even more ignorant then those ”people with jackets”.

That’s how my project got from look-ing at crazy things tourists are doing to comparing them to local ”blind” people. I really hope that my project will be very successful and interesting not only for me but for others as well.

One of the biggest influences to do a project like this for me was Mar-tin Parr. He used to work on project called ”Small World” which was on very similar topic that I am doing. In this project he shown people, mostly tour-ists ironically in strange situations. One of the most inspirational photos for me, doing this project is the one which shows tourists holding a tower of ‘Pisa’ in Italy. Martin Parr made all these peo-ple look totally stupid by shooting from different angle and by that he shows a gap between people and the tower.

To come back to my project, I would like to say that I think it is quiet successful and photos shows my ideas and a point of view to this situation. I am really look-ing forward to finish this project. And see how my first book will look like.