Early Writing

                Around 3000 B.C., the first form of writing emerged. Cuneiform, as it is called, started by pressing blunt reeds into wet clay. Written left to right, Cuneiform allowed right handers to see what they were scribing, and it was comprised of basic illustrative forms. From 2613 B.C. to 2160 B.C., Hieroglyphics appeared as the Egyptian way of written communication. Hieroglyphics, or “sacred carvings”, were carved into stone or clay. They could be read as ideograms, pictures that tell an entire idea, or as phonograms, sounds that make a word. The next form of writing was Early Greek, which evolved in 5^th century B.C. Early Greek could be written left to right or right to left, but was printed in similar to Early Greek, was drawn into stone and was sanserif. Classical Roman Lapidary, 1^st century B.C., may have possibly had a sort of stamping system, because letters were carved from stone and painted on with a brush.  Roman Capitals, in 1^st century A.D., were an attempt at copying the carved out stones of Classical Roman Lapidary. They were scribed on vellum.  In 5^th century A.D., the Romans adapted the Greeks’ uncial letter and created the Roman Uncials, which was named because they were a “Roman inch in height”.  Following these Roman scripts, most systems of writing were written on forms of paper, such as Roman Half Uncials in the 5^th century, the Irish Half Uncials in the 8^th century, and the Carolingian Minuscule & Majuscule in the 9^th to 10^th century. After these, the father of modern day printing, Johann Gutenberg, created the printing press and written documentation was changed.

http://www.designhistory.org/

Symbols

     Symbols, throughout history, have been diverse and significant in our culture. There are countless symbols and icons, which are especially rampant in today’s society. Symbols can be broken down into categories, such as pictograms, phonograms, ideograms, logos, and trademarks. Pictograms are images that characterize an object, and most symbols can be placed in this category. The Chinese written language completely consists of pictograms, or drawn images. It has 80,000 characters, but only 3,500 are used regularly. A phonogram can be either an image or a particular letter that reads as a spoken sound. One of the most well know symbols, that is a phonogram is the “I Love New York “signage created by Milton Glaser. This particular symbol has been used from the 1970s to present day to elevate New York’s tourism. It has, also, been transformed for many other cities and activities.  An ideogram represents an entire idea by way of images. An example of ideograms would be road-warning signs, such as “falling rocks” which entails a graphic that show rocks falling onto a car from the side of a cliff or mountain.  Another example of an ideogram is the “no smoking” sign, which provide the whole idea of “please, no smoking in this particular area”.  Logos represent brands, while trademarks give authority to the brand. Logotype is a commonly used word for a logo that has nothing but typography to represent it. Some logotypes are the Subway logo, Kool-aid, and Google.  In today’s society logos are seen everywhere, and symbols have become an extremely important element to our civilization.

http://www.designhistory.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_New_York

Saul Bass

    

      Saul Bass was a famous graphic designer and award- winning filmmaker. Bass went to school at the Art Students league and continued his education at Brooklyn College. His movie titles, how he started in films, are the most well known of his work. He started in films by helping Otto Preminger with the poster for Preminger’s film Carmen Jones in 1954.  After this, Saul Bass created the movie titles for The Shining, Psycho, The Man with the Golden Arm, and many others. He also developed title sequences for Spartacus, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World, Cape Fear, and The Age of Innocence. He worked with several big Hollywood names, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, and Stanley Kubrick on films. Saul Bass’ movie titles’ duration lasted for five decades. Bass also updated the bell logo for AT&T back in 1969 and created the new and improved globe logo in 1984. The bell logo was efficient and effective, but because the company was separated in to seven smaller pieces by the government, the company, AT&T, wanted a new logo, which symbolized the connectivity they had across the world. Bass and associates prepared dozens of logos to present to AT&T, and the globe was the logo that was chosen to represent the company. Saul Bass created logos for other companies as well. He designed the Continental Airlines logo in 1968, the United Way logo in 1972, and Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. in 1978. One of Bass’ quotes is “Design is thinking made visual.” There is quite a bit of depth to that and it is depicted in the art Bass produced.

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2005/id20051212_770492.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Bass

Shepard Fairey and "Andre the Giant Has a Posse"

                Frank Shepard Fairey, a well known graphic designer, created the OBEY campaign.  The main image of this campaign is a simplified image of Andre the Giant’s face. This basic graphic appeared from Fairey’s initial design “Andre the Giant Has a Posse”, which has more text, is more detailed, and originated in 1989. During this time, Shepard Fairey was attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, RI.  That summer, Fairey offered to help a friend with stenciling. After finding an advertisement for wrestling with Andre the Giant, Fairey suggested to his fellow student that he should stencil the large man. When the friend rejected Fairey’s idea, Fairey decided to attempt it himself. What resulted was an “experiment in phenomenology”, according to Fairey. He, along with friends Ryan Lesser, Blaize Blouin, Alfred Hawkins, and Mike Mongo, had put the image on vinyl or paper stickers and posted them around town. The stickers that poked fun at the word posse (inspired by the group who created the image) and hip hop subculture was almost instantly a success. But in 1994, Fairey was threatened with a law suit by Titan Sports, Inc. for using the title “Andre the Giant”, which was trademarked by them.  Because of this law suit, Fairey changed the image somewhat, removing all text and then added the slogan “OBEY” which came from a film entitled “They Live”.  The OBEY campaign was ironically against authority and the sheep-like following of consumers, and has been a highly regarded example of clever, conceptual graphic design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_Fairey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_the_Giant_Has_a_Posse

Helvetica

Helvetica is a sans-serif font that is extremely well known and widely used in today’s society. It gives off a non-threatening feel, and many major corporations use Helvetica for this reason.  Helvetica was created in Münchenstein, Switzerland. In 1957, Max Miedinger along with Eduard Hoffmann of Haas'sche Schriftgiesserei set out to design a new version of font for Switzerland that could contend with Akzidenz-Grotesk, a recognizable Swiss font. Helvetica was called Neue Haas Grotesk but renamed when Linotype took ownership of the font. Helvetica was produced to be clear, simple, and used in many different ways for numerous things.  Helvetica is used for American Airlines, BMW, Jeep, JCPenny, Microsoft, Target, Toyota, Motorola, Panasonic, Verizon Wireless and Apple has used it for the iPod. Even the government uses it, for example NASA has used Helvetica. Canada’s federal government uses Helvetica as its official font and encourages its use in national websites and such. There are also numerous types of font that have come from Helvetica, including Helvetica Light, Helvetica Compressed, Helvetica Textbook, Helvetica Inserat, Helvetica Rounded, Helvetica Narrow, Neue Helvetica (created in 1983), Neue Helvetica WIG (created in 2009), and Helvetica World. Some comparable fonts that derived from Helvetica are Monotype Imaging, Paratype, Bitstream, and URW. Helvetica has been changed to fit many languages, such as Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, and Vietnamese. Everywhere you go Helvetica can be seen, whether on billboards or street signs. Helvetica has an incredible range of uses, and therefore is used around the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica

Merchants of Cool

After viewing Merchants of Cool, I realized how much teenagers affect the culture, economy, and society of today’s world. One of the more important factors of the consumption of teenagers today is their apparel. Why do they wear certain styles or brands? How does having or not having the trendy, clothing help or hinder a teenager’s self-confidence? It is commonly known, in all age categories, that clothing can be a status symbol. However, teens can be almost obsessive about this. From the need to be accepted comes the inevitable question, for with the answer is always changing: what kind of clothing do teenagers need to “fit in”? Due to teenagers’ uncertainty, they collect tangible possessions to fill voids.  And because of the same uncertainty, teens are always searching for new fads and trends, which adapt and change constantly. Teens see clothing as symbolic. These cotton representations say, “This is me. This is how I want you to see me”.  Seeking the right style can be difficult for them, because they are always changing their minds on what they like while still trying to conform to their peers’ views. Companies are continuously attempting to create bring out the “new thing”, the focus being on the teens. Since teens are the majority group of spenders, these same companies know they can appeal to the teens and affect the way they view cool.  Therefore, teenagers have a huge impact on what is produced in today’s society whilst affecting the economy by how much they spend, because clothes are important to them.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cb.138/pdf

Gutenberg, His Printing Press, and Bible

Johannes Gutenberg, who was born sometime around 1400 in Mainz, Germany, was the inventor of the Gutenberg printing press. He worked as a goldsmith, traded cloth, and was a printer. Gutenberg’s original last name was Gänsfleisch. His mother was the daughter of a shopkeeper, and his father was a high-end merchant who taught Johannes the job of goldsmith. His father dealt with church money and made it. The printing press was created in 1439 in the town of Strasbourg and was released in 1950. The printing press basically used removable plates formed and molded by previous written pages, which were pressed into ink and then, either by hand or later mechanically, pressed onto other blank pages. It was an extraordinary invention, and it gave the world the ability to mass-produce literature. Having this ability, created completely new opportunities for the world of writings and even art. Soon after the invention of the printing press, Gutenberg created the Gutenberg Bible, also known as the 42-lin Bible. This project of his started in 1452, and Gutenberg borrowed 800 guilders from Johann Fust, his business partner. Gutenberg went bankrupt, and he could not pay Fust back his money. A court case ensued between Gutenberg and Fust, which Fust won. This entitled Fust to the Bible printing store and half of the money made from the already sold Gutenberg Bibles. Today, out of one hundred and eighty Gutenberg Bibles printed, a mere twenty-one survived and are intact. Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press has since allowed many other versions to come to completion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg