Posters!

I really liked the dress up poster. I thought it was pretty entertaining and ridiculous when we saw it in class and it was still the one that caught my attention the most. It's really ironic since it's using a childish game in a sense with something that is very serious, and it's humorous to me almost. 

2 Images of the week (sorry this is so late)

1.) This image I found on flickr and it is supposed to be a photo for Victoria's Secret, but it's in the Art Nouveau style! You can see the several qualities of Art Nouveau in the piece because of the noodle-like hair drawn, bright colors, use of women in the photo and most of the space was filled.  The typeface is curvy and has a handwritten quality to it. Although it is obviously a more modernized version of art nouveau, I found that it was a perfect example of the things we were talking about in class. We have been studying several different styles throughout our class time and I think it's cool that we can distinguish these styles and find people still using them today. I personally was a fan of this style and I thought it would be neat to share this.

2.) This image to right I also found when I was 

searching the internet. I thought it was interesting that this designer would be using the cubist style for one of his series of skateboard deck designs. The reason these could be considered cubist is the typeface especially, which is very geometric as well as the lines found in the corners of the deck. It is very simple, but very clever how his logo typeface is pretty much cut away from your basic geometric shapes. It relates to what we are discussing in class because like I stated above, we have been talking about how designs have changed and evolved over time and cubism happened to be one of them. These styles of design that seem to have faded and passed, style show up in the strangest places sometimes, even on skateboard decks. I like that we can pick out these styles influence easily in todays society after discussing each of the qualities throughout class.

Before class 3/25/09

1.) Summary: This chapter introduces the idea of Postcubic Pictoral Modernism. The styles at this time began pretty much after WWI had ended. The war had a big effect on the style and it was becoming to look more machine-like. These styles came from cubist ideas and focused on the geometric standpoint of shapes and space. One of the main styles of the time is called Art Deco, which was evolved from the cubist style. Some important people during this time include: Aldous Huxley, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Jean Carlu and A.M. Cassandre. Art was beginning to become more symbolic and colorful as well as, poster design was beginning to change. The use of space was more like cubism, with kind of chaos where one could use their mind to put it together as a whole.

2.) The most interesting part I found in the reading was definitely about Edward McKnight Kauffer. He was a very important designer at this time creating not only poster designs, but also used a lot of symbolic meaning behind his designs. He also established the idea that sex sells and really focused on the emotion of his pieces. I just found him very interesting.

3.) I still get really confused on how to tell all these designs apart... Since they're all evolving off eachother and have similar characteristics I think I would just need these clarified.

Chapter 14 after class

1.) Pictorial Modernism

2.) Victoria presented today and really gave us a good understanding of what Pictorial Modernism is all about. We played Pictionary as an exercise to help us understand what these posters were made for. Afterwards Laura went over questions we had about Dada especially. Then we got into groups and discussed the different styles of war posters and propaganda from our book. My group had American posters and we found that they used a lot more detail, color and children which was different than all the others we saw.

3.) I think the most important thing I learned today would have to be about the different styles of posters. It's really neat to see how each culture has a different style and way of trying to express an idea.

4.) I don't understand why the German's still keep using the Gothic type... Didn't they want to be more modernized?

Chapter 13 After Class

Today we discussed the styles such as cubism, futurism, Dada, Surrealism and Emotionalism. It was Alexis' turn to present today and basically she just described what each style consisted of and who the major influences were in modern art. At the end we got into groups and she quizzed us on the different styles by giving us a packet of different art pieces. Afterwards Laura went over questions we had about Frank Lloyd Wright especially. We also discussed how the AEG company still exists today. We also talked about Behren's work, and talked about that Tea Kettle...... The most important thing I learned today was how to distinguish all the different styles of modern art in the chapter, I thought I knew them all pretty well, but when we took that quiz I found that I was mixing a couple styles up! A question I would have is was Dada really popular at the time? Because I know it kinda faded out...

Chapter 13 before class

Summary: This reading talked about modern art that came about in the early 21st century. Many advances in technology were made, as well as many new styles of graphic design and art. The first introduced is Cubism which focused more on using shapes to make normal things abstract. Pablo Picasso and Paul Cezanne were the most influential on this style. While Cubism evolved into Analytical cubism, where different points of view were analyzed to form a picture using rhythm of geometric planes. Analytical soon became synthetic cubism which focused on the basic characteristics of an object rather than the whole thing. The next style was Futurism which came from Filippo Marinetti's works. It took different typefaces and displayed them in a colorful, non-harmonious way, contradicting past styles. This style burst into works of poetry and writing in unfamiliar, chaotic styles by writers such as Lewis Carroll, Stephane Mallarme, and Guillaume Apollinaire. The next style was called Dada, which completely rebelled against things such as war and strayed away from the normal styles of art. One of the main artists of this style was Marcel Duchamp and he created a replica of the the mona lisa with a mustache on it. The Dada soon turned into the style called Surrealism, which started with Giorgio de Chirico. The surrealist style added a dream-like quality to art. Lastly, the Expressionism style emerged, and it was a way of showing emotion through objects and colors. 

2.) The part I found the most interesting was Dada because I have never really read about this type of art and I thought it was kind of cool how they were standing up to society and for what they believed in. Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa picture really seemed to upset a lot of people, but he was just trying to make a statement.

3.)

Chapter 12 after class

Although I was absent today I got some notes from friends on what we went over. Anna presented on 2oth century design. She talked about major artists of this time such as Frank Lloyd Wright, an architect who was know for his remarkable buildings which focused on using space. She also discussed the four and the Glasgow School.

The most interesting thing I learned about from the reading and what I have heard about from in class was probably Frank Lloyd Wright. I thought his architecture was very interesting and the way he focused on designing based on the space was really awesome. 

Weekly image!

This is a picture I found on another art blog: blog.freepeople.com/art/ It is a modern computer that was actually designed to look like the Victorian style. There are many other things that can be found on www.steampunkworkshop.com/ that were also turned into the old style.  Although there is obviously no typography for me to talk about, I think the design is creative and unique. I like how it takes old and new and combines them together to create something totally different than anyone has seen before. Since we had just discussed the Victorian era I thought this would fit our discussion pretty well.