Category: Communication Design

Due to the fact that I feel like I’ve reached an end of my research on the topic I’ve been dealing with last semester, I’ve decided to deal with another one this semester, with which I can relate even more. 
So I’ve selected a new topic that deals with interconnections between the pop art movement and the development and shaping of graphic design. I find this topic very interesting, and I think it has a lot of aspects to be considered – because there is only a fine line that separates graphic design from pop art. 

Pop art is one of the most famous art movements, and a significant art and design milestone, in developing and upgrading a new mindset among the people who deal with visual communication.

If we look back to the middle of the last century, we will see that some of the main principles we also follow today, when creating the design content, were established through pop art. It also created another approach which “depicted the affluence and abundance of postwar society with imagery that celebrated materialism”. That led to a form of advertising and consumerism with prominent brand names and recognizable packaging.

Principles set back then, are the ones we follow today in our daily work, but maybe the whole process goes unnoticed because we don’t know the background and the conception of the same. Simply, if we know more about the genesis of this movement, we could understand and apply it better, and understand why it is becoming more and more popular in design these days.

In my first blog, I will make a short introduction about the inception of the movement with some examples that influenced the development of graphic design, and in the next ones, I will talk about how and where it could be applied or rather where the possibility of implementation lies.

An Introduction to Pop Art: 

Pop art emerged in the mid-1950s and 60s in Britain and America when artists created works inspired by the realities of everyday life – of popular culture, hence the name. Stylish, colorful, humorous, unsettling- Pop Art is highly recognizable and visually appealing. The movement had its heyday in from the 1950s but remains influential in both fine art and design trends today. Pop Art can be broadly defined as any art which depicts images and iconography culture and mass media out of its original context with the goal of holding a mirror up to the society which created it. 

Artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Richard Hamilton questioned elitist culture and fine art traditions and instead used imagery and techniques drawn from mass media and mass culture.

With saturated colors and bold outlines, their vivid representations of everyday objects and everyday people reflected the optimism, affluence, materialism, leisure, and consumption of postwar society. Pop art is known for its bold features and can help you grab the attention of your audience instantly.

Because pop art is so bright, and it draws attention so well it matches the criteria of poster art perfectly. That is the reason why its many aspects have been absorbed into the world of design and commercial aesthetics.

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Sources:
http://cynthiachircop.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-influence-of-pop-art.html
http://drdgraphicdesigns.blogspot.com/2012/06/pop-art-movement-and-graphic-design.html
https://www.webdesigndegreecenter.org/art-influences-design-pop-art/
https://www.canva.com/learn/ways-pop-art-changed-modern-design/

Make Goods ist ein Streetwear und Accessoire Modelabel des Hamburger Designstudios Make, welches sich diesen gesellschaftlichen Themen widmet und T-shirts als kreatives Medium nutzt.

One concern many designers have is that misinterprations of their designs occur by people from other cultures. There are three common approaches to intercultural graphic design:

1) Graphic designers attempt to translate their own visual language into another culture’s visual language. This becomes more and more outdated because the same idea is often translated into multiple languages. But „many ideas do not clearly translate from one culture to another. Visual language, just like verbal language, has a specific grammatical structure. Whereas verbal language cannot be translated word for word, visual language cannot be translated image by image“ the article states.

2) Graphic designers focus on transforming their ideas rather than translating. They apply images or ideas only because of aesthetic reasons without really understanding them and copy specific styles of design. A designer should go further and rather „understand the images and ideas of different cultures, and then merge these with their own cultural knowledge to create an entirely new visual message.“ The article suggests the designer to be a chameleon and reflect local color but retain their form.

3) Graphic designers gain an understanding of the audience’s culture, because they want to avoid offending the audience. It’s important to not only avoid offending but to connect and look deeper.

New semester, new research topic. To put it short: I liked the topic logo design and was interested in it, but as we still have enough time to research in other fields, I looked for something I have a more personal connection to. Working on a master thesis is quite time-consuming and in order to keep going, being intrinsically motivated is important. 

As I really want to go abroad during my masters degree and I’m always fascinated by getting to know other cultures and becoming more and more open-minded, I thought of a cultural approach. I already wrote my bachelor thesis on the topic: „Erasmus students at the University of Salzburg. An analysis of motivation, satisfaction, communication and cultural challenges in the context of a stay abroad.“ Therefore, I conducted interviews with Erasmus students and I really enjoyed working on the topic and getting to know people with other different backgrounds. There is so much we can learn from each other. 

But now, back to my new topic: I started doing my research and came across this article:

https://www.academia.edu/29572529/Intercultural_Design_Competence_A_Guide_for_Graphic_Designers_Working_Across_Cultural_Boundaries?auto=download

Da ich letztes Semester noch nicht 100% zufrieden war mit den Ergebnissen meiner Research, aber das Thema an sich gut finde, werde ich jetzt versuchen ein bisschen tiefer zu graben und vielleicht experimenteller an die Sache heranzugehen.

Was ist “Calle Libre” und wie viel Platz gibt es in Österreich für Murals?

Im Winter 2017 haben Laura, Leonie und ich eine Dokumentation über die Stadt Aalborg in Dänemark gedreht. Zu dritt sind wir im Bachelor in den Norden geflogen, um zu zeigen, welches Ästhetik-Verständnis die Menschen dort haben und wie Street Art ihren Platz in der Stadt gefunden hat. Seitdem beschäftigt mich das Thema Murals, so werden diese “Wandbilder” genannt, sehr.

Wie prokrastinieren wir eigentlich?

1. Der Saubermann: Eigentlich stapeln sich fast immer Zeitschriften, leere Kaffeetassen, Zettel oder ein riesen Kabelsalat auf seinem Schreibtisch. Normalerweise ist so ein Arbeitsumfeld auch gar kein Problem. Der Saubermann kann sehr gut in dieser Atmosphäre arbeiten. Wenn aber eine wichtige Deadline auf ihn zu kommt, muss plötzlich alles sauber und aufgeräumt sein bevor er loslegen kann.
   
2. Der Panikmacher: Am Anfang ist er noch ganz gelassen. Die Deadline liegt in weiter Ferne. Alles ist gut. Genug Zeit, um sich anderen Dingen zu widmen. Kurz vor der Deadline fällt ihm dann aber doch ein, dass da noch eine unerledigte Aufgabe wartet. Jetzt wird ihm bewusst, wie viel Zeit er verschwendet hat und bekommt Panik. Er verrennt sich so sehr in seine Panik, dass er sich selbst im Weg steht und am Ende unzufrieden mit dem Ergebnis seiner Arbeit ist.
   
3. Der Listenmacher: Bevor der Listenmacher überhaupt mit einer der vielen Aufgaben anfangen kann, muss eine To-Do-Liste erstellt werden. Ohne Liste geht gar nichts. Darauf wird detailliert aufgelistet was erledigt werden muss. Am Ende hat er eine schöne, lange Liste, die wichtigen Aufgaben darauf sind dennoch nicht erledigt.
   
4. Der Multitasker: Am liebsten arbeitet er an mehreren Aufgaben und Projekten gleichzeitig. Er fängt eine Sache an, hat dann einen Einfall zu etwas ganz anderem und widmet sich dann dieser Aufgabe. Irgendwann stapeln sich lauter angefangene Aufgaben auf seinem Schreibtisch, doch keine davon hat er beendet.
   
5. Der Internet-Junkie: Er ist immer online, wenn nicht am Laptop, dann mit dem Smartphone. Alle paar Minuten checkt er seine E-Mails, prüft, was in seinen sozialen Netzwerken los ist und schaut sich Videos an. Das macht er nebenbei, während er eigentlich mit ganz anderen Dingen beschäftigt ist. Ohne es zu merken, vertrödelt er damit Stunden seiner Zeit.

Why blackletter? I do not intend to design a of blackletter typeface, but I want to create something classic, but edgy at the same time. Doing my first sketches I realized, that my letters did kind of resemble blackletter a little. It was not at all intended, but I guess some knowledge about blackletter might be useful for me. 

Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, evolved from the Carolingian minuscule in the 12th century. There was a high demand for books at that time and material was expensive. The Carolingian minuscule was very time consuming to produce and needed a lot of space. Blackletter was kind of a reaction to this problem: it saved time and space. Characteristic for blackletter are their kinked, sharp shapes with a high degree of breaking. 

There are several forms of blackletter existing: Textualis, Rotunda, Schwabacher and Fraktur.

In the 14th – 15th century blackletter had it’s high point in Western Europe. At the same time the Renaissance started in Italy. People strived for something more elegant – the Humanist Antiqua evolved. Nevertheless, in german speaking countries, blackletter remained very important. They were heavily used by the Nazis, which was the reason for their ban in 1941. Now, 80 years later, blackletter is somehow still associated with the Third Empire. It has hardly been used since then, although I feel like it is having a little revival right now in the design scene. 

In order to understand the shapes I went back to their origin: handwriting with a broad-edged pen. Although my letters didn’t look as good as I imagined they would, I still began to understand some relations. 

DETAILS I NOTICED:

At the end and the beginning of a letterform’s stroke, there are no serifs but quadrangles. They are a consequence of writing with a broad-edged pen.

The contrast is very high. Thin, decorative lines are sometimes used to close shapes, that are commonly open (f. e.: a, g, k, s, v, w, y)

The shapes of the letters are quite narrow and stand very close to each other. They do not need a lot of space.

Most curves are completely fractionised into straight lines, but still, there are some curves and rounded edges. 

The capitals of blackletter are often eye catching and quite calligraphic. 

The first semester comes to an end in no time and that is the reason for this post. I simply wanted to state that I am surprised how much I enjoyed the education we got. 

For my part, I used the first semester to experiment with different techniques and tried mixing some of them with one another. As I wrote in my first blog post, the most interesting thing in my opinion is to have a look at the future of visual design. What I found out so far, is that the borders between the different design disciplines are disappearing more and more and it is very crucial for a designer to at least know some things about other disciplines than their specialized one too. I for example may not be the best graphic designer, web-designer oder type-designer at all, but I try to understand all of those disciplines and I always try to combine the ones I need for a specific project. 

I have not had any real experience with web design so far, but had the possibility to create a digital version of last years forward magazine and succeeded. I succeeded, although I did something I wasn’t aware I was capable of.  The fact that I allowed myself to enter a new path is the reason why I will also be able to create a digital version of next years forward magazine, what is a super cool opportunity for me to get some exposure (plus some money). Although everyone is talking about specialization, it is definitely not my way of thinking. I try to soak up as much knowledge as I can and I try to build a skillset with very diverse skills, to be able to realize my own ideas. As a matter of fact design is changing and some „specializations“ will simply get redundant.

Although topics such as animated posters, may rather be the present than the future, I tried to create some quick ones, just to get a feeling what this dynamic medium can offer me over static posters. Besides the static and animated posters, you can also visit: www.julianpresent.com/forward to get insights on what I did. 

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