Contextual Studies Research

 

 

For my research and presentation project, I decided that I would like to look at the print industry and how it has been affected by the digital world. I am interested to find out if the digital world is replacing print, especially in the area of magazine publications. I began by looking at some popular articles on the internet and realised that it is a subject that has been widely discussed, making it good area for research. I will investigate other statistical sources and academic journals. I would also like to gather, if possible, some information from those who are working directly in the print industry. 

PRESS PAUSE PLAY DOCUMENTARY

PressPausePlay focuses primarily on the music industry. In what way do the issues resonate with you as a designer?

The film highlighted the fact that these days everyone has the potential to be a film maker, photographer or producer. In the design industry, access to software such as Adobe Creative cloud, has meant that now literally anyone can afford to access professional creative software. Not only that, but now there are a wealth of online tutorials available, meaning that anyone can teach themselves how to use software which was once only known by the professionals. The secrets of the design industry are freely available to all.  Also, there is so much free software online now which make designing so much easier for the novice. ‘Picmonkey’ for example means that even for people who don’t want to spend time learning how to use the professional software can still create modern and personalised designs in minutes. Similarly, developments in technology now mean that anyone can build their own website using platforms such as ‘wix’ and ‘wordpress’.  This has massive financial implications on the graphic designer because many small businesses are opting to bypass the creative person and create logos, business cards and websites themselves. The downside of this trend is that we see a lot of bland design that lacks uniqueness. Consequently, businesses lack a sense of identity and look like every other one.  So, while the design industry may be experiencing a decline of work coming from the smaller businesses, who are looking to save money, some businesses who want to stand out above all the mediocracy will be willing to pay a professional graphic designer for something unique.

Advances in technology and software have also meant that graphic designers can produce accurate work, more quickly than in the past. The negative side of this however is that designers have become too reliant on technology and the more traditional design skills, like photography, painting, drawing, etc. are becoming rarer.  Also digital artwork can have an almost, boring, sterile precision and lacks the imperfect, vulnerably quality of handmade art. The challenge for the designer is to stand out from the rest and demonstrate originality and talent that clients will be willing to pay for.

While the evolution of the internet has removed the cap on creativity and made it accessible to all, it has also opened up new opportunities for the designer that had never existed before. Opportunities for the designer to work for themselves from the comfort of their own homes, rather than working for an agency have increased.  Clients are able to contact designers directly, cutting out the agency in the middle. This of course offers flexibility to designers, potential to specialise in their areas of interest and work on projects that they really enjoy. Designers are able to utilise the internet to network easily and create an online brand very quickly. The down side to this is a lack of regular consistent income, but the potential to earn more if the designer is able to stay ahead of the rest and to use all the right networking tools to their advantage.

Some have tried to argue that the music industry is dying out. People have also begun to question the future of the graphic design industry. I believe that if we, as designers, continually look for new and creative ways to adapt to the changes and use them to our advantage, there will always be a future in graphic design, albeit a different one than we might have expected. 

Graphic Design History- Part 2

ART DECO

The art deco style emerged around 1919 and continued until the 1920s and 1930s, although the name ‘Art Deco’ emerged much later. WWI had put an end to the previous Art Nouveau style. The romantic, optimistic style no longer appealed and people considered it to be in appropriate.  However, as the war ended, people were again looking for something fresh to mark a new era. It was about luxury and opulence and it emphasised a change in the world. The movement affected arts, fashion and had a massive influence on graphic design which still continues today.  The Art deco style was particularly popular in America.

Like Art Nouveau it was influenced by the rest of the world, for example archaeological digs (Egyptian art) and Aztec and Mexican art.  Art deco was much more geometric in design, unlike the sweeping lines of the Art Nouveau movement.  The influence of Chinese and Japanese art was also seen in the art style as it had been previously.  African influences could also be seen in the style as people wanted to portray themselves as well traveled.  The style was youthful, featuring bold, bright colours, zigzag lines and patterns.  It responded well to the requirements of mass production.  There were major cultural shifts at this time that were reflected in the style. In this period women were given the vote in many countries and there was a new era of freedom and liberation for women. Women cut their heart, shortened their skirts, went out drinking and they wanted to be seen as more masculine.  The famous ‘flapper’ style emerged on the fashion scene.

This period was also an age of machinery and as the economy flourished, so did the luxury goods market and glamorous lifestyle. There was also growth of Hollywood and the popularity of celebrities, which influenced people’s spending and lifestyle goals. Improved industrial technology also made mass production easier and design assessable to all.

One major development of the era was the invention of the printing press in the 1920s, making it easy to mass produce books and magazines and this saw major growth in advertising. The advertising agency also emerged in this period. Adverts became stylised and began to reflect an ideal.  The use of imagery of beautiful women emerged in packaging design, something we still see today.  Art deco style travel posters are common because people began to have more leisure time again and began travelling abroad. The suntan became fashionable for the first time.  Because Art deco relied heavily on people having wealth, the coming of the great depression saw the beginning of the decline of the Art Deco style.  The optimism that had fueled the art deco movement began to fall apart. Also designers began to feel that what they were doing was no longer fresh.  Also with WWII looming people felt that the extravagant opulence of the movement was no longer appropriate and Art Deco died out with the outbreak of WWII in 1939.  Art Deco style still influences a lot of design today, for example geometric typography which is still widely used today. 

BAUHAUS

Bauhaus emerged at the same time as Art Deco. While Art Deco was a global global movement, it didn’t have a definitive style, unlike Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 in Germany. The objective was to be more democratic and to combine all the different fields of art. It was a revolutionary school which had an extensive curriculum where students could explore all different crafts and materials.  The workshop style of learning was revolutionary at the time. Craft skills were taught by master crafts men while design was taught by artists.  It attracted a certain kind of politically radical student.

Key events such as the German revolution (1918-1919), the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (1919), the Kapp Putsch rebellion (1920), hyperinflation (1923) and pressure on the Bauhaus school from the Nazis, are influenced the emergence and style of the Bauhaus movement. At a time when Germany was struggling, Bauhaus wanted to make design accessible and functional to all.

At this time people didn’t want decoration but functionality. The designers were influenced by Art Deco, Modernism and Deutscher Werkbund (German designers organisation). Bauhaus designs are simple in style, stripped back but still aesthetically pleasing. Primary colours were used heavily and mass production methods were utilised.  Like Art Deco, Bauhous was also about simplicity and geometric shapes. Furniture was engineered and Metals replaced wood. Photography was seen as a means to communication not just as an art form. The influence of Bauhaus is still seen today in architecture and simple functional interiors.

The Bauhaus school was eventually crushed by the Nazi regime because they disliked the ideology and ideals that were emerging from it. The persecution of the Bauhaus by the Nazis actually aided the spread of the Bauhaus style, especially in places like Chicago in USA.

COMPARISON

The Bauhaus and Art Deco movements were opposing in their theories, styles, materials and methods of design. Art deco made luxury items for a small privileged clientele, while the Bauhaus designed for the mass market. The Bauhaus sought to get rid of class divisions that existed between the craftsman and the artists, uniting them together. In its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour and exuberance, while Bauhaus focused on functionality and simplicity.  The Art Deco style was decorative and ornate, drawing inspiration from the former Art Nouveau movement, while the Bauhaus style was minimalistic, simple and design was dictated by the function of the piece.

There are however, some similarities between the two movements. Both used traditional craft skills but embraced modern production methods. There are also some similarities in design features, such as the use of bold bright colours, geometric shapes, sans serif typefaces and streamline simple forms.

I would argue that the Bauhaus movement had the biggest impact on modern design because many of the ideologies of the movement are what informs designers of today. For example, designers of today are much more aware of user experience, sustainability and innovation in the design process. Modern design is not just about aesthetics but much more about functionality and suitability of design for mass production. This revolution in design originated in the Bauhaus school. The design of road signs and furniture were heavily influenced by the Bauhaus and are still used today because of their functionality. The 'Ikea' brand is one of the biggest examples of a modern day empire that followed the Bauhaus legacy, specialising in simple, affordable flat-packed furniture. Another way that I believe that Bauhaus impacted modern design is in its revolutionary teaching methods, combining different fields of arts and crafts. In many artist establishments today, students still cover many areas of art and design before specialising in a particular one, just as in the Bauhaus school. 

Graphic Design History- Part 1

Arts and Crafts Movement

The arts and crafts movement was a British design movement that took place during the period 1860- 1910, inspired by the socialist ideas of John Ruskin. The term 'Arts and Crafts' was given in 1887 at a meeting of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society.
William Morris was one of the key designers of this movement. The movement was a reaction against the industrialisation of the time and it saw a return to traditional handicrafts and processes. It was inspired by the notion of wanting to live in the rural days again, before the times of industrialisation and hence featured a lot of natural forms and muted colours. 
William Morris looked back with admiration at the art and architecture of the middle ages.  He learned and mastered  many  different  crafts, including printing and glass blowing in order to understand the qualities of his materials. For him the pleasure of creation was as important as the beauty of the object created. He believed the artist should not copy nature, but recreate it, without losing its freshness. Morris wanted his work to be available to all,  however the traditional processes used to produce his work meant that in reality, it was mainly the wealthy that could afford his work. The arts and crafts movement also spread to America (1890-1916) where it was even more successful than in Britain, because they were able to industrialize the manufacturing process.
Arts and Crafts practitioners such as William Morris also wanted the education system of art to change and focus more on teaching of craft rather than design in the abstract.  As a result of this, inn 1884, a Royal Commission recommended that more attention should be given to the suitability of design to the material it would be made.

Art Nouveau

In 1895 a gallery opened in Paris called L’Art Nouveau, where the owner Samuel Bing wanted to show case some new works.  A visitor would have difficulty in recognising a coherent style which we now call Art Nouveau. 

Art Nouveau was influenced by Japanese, Celtic, Gothic and Rococo art. It looked towards the future  and it influenced many areas of design including print design, jewelry design and architecture.

The aim of the movement was to avoid repetition of earlier styles and also to create a style which would shape the environment.  Something that distinguishes Art Nouveau from other art movements is that is uses decorative elements for pure visual appeal without necessarily having any meaning.  In almost every example of the style there are decorative elements or motifs, e.g, the popular 'Whiplash' line.

The art nouveau style first emerged in England but its influence on architecture was not as much as on the continent in places like Spain and France, where it reached a greater level of exuberance. On the continent, some designers such as Henry van de Valde, shared Morris’ socialist views, but they were not opposed to industrialisation meaning that beautiful objects could be reproduced inexpensively by industry.  However the majority were in pursuit of individualism which could only be afforded by the wealthy.  The Art Nouveau movement also took inspiration from natural forms like the previous Arts and Crafts Movement, but took a less literal form. Nature was reduced to essential lines and then twisted, elongated and curved according to the artists requirements. It was luxurious, inspirational and sensual. It often featured nude women with long flowing hair. Beardsley, Mackintosh, Klimt and Lautrec were key designers in the art Nouveau movement.

Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-century modernist styles but it is now considered as an important transition between the historic revival styles of the 19th-century and Modernism. The style was the first major artistic stylistic movement in which mass-produced graphics played a key role.

Coca Cola Group Presentation

We were put into groups for a research and presentation project. Our group decided to look at Coca Cola because it is one of the most successful brands in the world. We wanted to look at whether Coca Cola's success over Pepsi is due to the taste of the product or because of their brand. We suspected it was due to their brand and advertising. In our group we decided that there were three areas we should research.

1) Primary research - Surveying to find people's views and blind taste testing

2) Logo and packaging through the ages

3) Advertising campaigns and social media.

We divided the work out among ourselves. During our 2nd lesson, myself and John organised the blind taste testing to find out people's preferences. We also did a general survey to ask people whether they preferred Coke

or Pepsi. Interestingly the research revealed that although 85% of people claimed to prefer Coca Cola, in blind taste testing only 50% of people preferred the taste of Coca Cola over Pepsi.

I also did some research online to find out whether any similar research has been one on a larger scale. I found some interesting research done by a neuro-scientist suggesting that people respond differently in taste tests when they see the brand name Coca Cola. I put the information together in a Powerpoint presentation.
We agreed to continue working on it at home and I would put together the presentation.

Unfortunately on the day when we were to give our presentation, my group members were absent and I didn't have their research, so I just presented the parts that I worked on. For this reason, I feel that our research was a bit limited and not as thorough as I would have liked it to have been.  I enjoyed giving the presentation to the class and felt it went quite well in spite of having to do it on my own.

Contextual Studies
Objectified

In our lesson today we watched a documentary called 'Objectified' about the creativity and thought processes that go into designing everyday objects.  I wasn't particularly interested in the film because most of the examples were able product design, an area that doesn't particularly appeal to me, but some of the principles could apply to my areas of interest, perhaps packaging and branding.  

The film highlights the trend in design, away from the obvious and practical and more towards the simplistic and minimalistic. This is particularly true in the field of technology where design is becoming sleeker and more discrete. Designers are always looking for what is new and the next thing, but the problem there is that the 'new' design soon becomes 'old'. I liked what one of the designers said was that we should like and appreciate what we already have. One designer also made the interesting point that some design improves with age, for example an old briefcase that acquires a certain character through use.  The film also talks about how objects we surround ourselves with become part of us and ultimately the ones that mean most to us are the ones with a history and a story behind them.  Designers often seek to give individual character to objects created in industry.
People are looking to buy things that have character and almost human personalities.
Consumers want objects that show something of themselves to the world. For example people will often buy a car to say something about who they are or who they want to be.  

The other interesting thing I learnt from the film was how designers use mind maps to generate ideas and how one idea leads to another, which leads to another.

Another important issue raised was that of sustainability, how we keep designing and manufacturing new things and the subsequent issues of recycling. This is something that modern designers are considering more than ever before.