1. something about characters
2. make data
3. broadside
4. something about teaching english
5. something about travel
6. daily record
7. teacher brand
8. history related something
9.
10.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
problems.
I was reading a book that someone recommended — not exactly my taste but I'll read just about anything to see what it's about. It's a book on spirituality and awareness. I was a little turned off because so far it has seemed a little simple-minded. One thing that bothered me is the tone of ridicule it had in suggesting a person would deny "eternal happiness" if it meant they would have to never see or speak to someone they love. If I had to make the decision, me personally be the person making it, to give up someone I love just for full awareness and happiness, I would feel destroyed and unhappy. I guess I value love over happiness. And this statement doesn't mean that I am a generally unhappy person. I would say I'm more often happy, but I sometimes I have sad moments. I'm okay with having sad moments. Those moments are just as important as the sad, and they help a person appreciate being happy.
So, the book I'm reading talks about how people are never pleased or at peace. We're always displeased about something and wanting things to be better. The author was criticizing this tendency, and I was thinking that maybe this is a good thing. I think I'm okay with it. I think it is what has allowed us to achieve so much in a short amount of time here. Of course, we've done some horrible things and a person could hold the belief that the horrible things we've done out-weigh the good. I tend to take the more optimistic look and believe the opposite it true.
Sometimes I feel like we are centuries ahead of what we can actually achieve. Our desires are so far ahead of what we'd actually want out of the world. I would like to see a clean healthy world without war and poverty and evil. I wonder if it will ever happen but I doubt it will in our life time, and I guess we just continue to pass these ideas down to future generations and hope, have faith even, that something positive will be done with this strong human desire. But I'm only here for another 80 years or so. I doubt I'll see all the change too much in my time probably just baby steps. But that's why I like about humanity. We don't give up hope for the most part. We keep trying.
So, the book I'm reading talks about how people are never pleased or at peace. We're always displeased about something and wanting things to be better. The author was criticizing this tendency, and I was thinking that maybe this is a good thing. I think I'm okay with it. I think it is what has allowed us to achieve so much in a short amount of time here. Of course, we've done some horrible things and a person could hold the belief that the horrible things we've done out-weigh the good. I tend to take the more optimistic look and believe the opposite it true.
Sometimes I feel like we are centuries ahead of what we can actually achieve. Our desires are so far ahead of what we'd actually want out of the world. I would like to see a clean healthy world without war and poverty and evil. I wonder if it will ever happen but I doubt it will in our life time, and I guess we just continue to pass these ideas down to future generations and hope, have faith even, that something positive will be done with this strong human desire. But I'm only here for another 80 years or so. I doubt I'll see all the change too much in my time probably just baby steps. But that's why I like about humanity. We don't give up hope for the most part. We keep trying.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
it always starts at the beginning.
On Radiolab, the joked once that "it always comes back to our days on the savannah." It really does. It seems like whenever you study something is goes back to those days, and especially when studying visual communication. It all started when we decided to form a spoken language. The spoken language led to a coding system that allowed us to write the language down and preserve it.
Meggs talks about limitations of speech being the fallibility human memory. Although written records aren't perfect, they are a much better way of preserving information and the earliest human attempts are date back to 200,000 years ago. The very famous Lascaux cave paintings are from 15,000-10,000 BC. These are thought to be visual communication rather than fine art with their presence thought to be "utilitarian or and ritualistic."
pictographs: elementary sketches to represent things
petroglyphs: carved of scratched simple pictures on rocks
ideographs: symbols to represent ideas or concepts
These pictographs are images that evolved into writing.
ziggurat: temple that dominated life in the Mesopotamian city-state
Uruk: city where the earliest written records were found - written on clay tablets.
Interesting development: we write left to right, top to bottom to avoid smearing the writing. This would have been a bigger deal with written on clay than even years later when we wrote with ink.
Another development that most likely influenced speed and even letterforms would have been moving from a sharp stylus to a triangular one. Pushing to clay rather than dragging through it. This increased speed of writing. This speed led to the evolution of pictographs to abstract signs of cuneiform.
cuneiform developed into rebus writing. picture symbols started to represent sounds which instead of the objects themselves. They became phonograms — graphic symbols for sounds.
Meggs talks about limitations of speech being the fallibility human memory. Although written records aren't perfect, they are a much better way of preserving information and the earliest human attempts are date back to 200,000 years ago. The very famous Lascaux cave paintings are from 15,000-10,000 BC. These are thought to be visual communication rather than fine art with their presence thought to be "utilitarian or and ritualistic."
pictographs: elementary sketches to represent things
petroglyphs: carved of scratched simple pictures on rocks
ideographs: symbols to represent ideas or concepts
These pictographs are images that evolved into writing.
ziggurat: temple that dominated life in the Mesopotamian city-state
Uruk: city where the earliest written records were found - written on clay tablets.
Interesting development: we write left to right, top to bottom to avoid smearing the writing. This would have been a bigger deal with written on clay than even years later when we wrote with ink.
Another development that most likely influenced speed and even letterforms would have been moving from a sharp stylus to a triangular one. Pushing to clay rather than dragging through it. This increased speed of writing. This speed led to the evolution of pictographs to abstract signs of cuneiform.
cuneiform developed into rebus writing. picture symbols started to represent sounds which instead of the objects themselves. They became phonograms — graphic symbols for sounds.
I have a brain crush on Meggs.
I've started reading Graphic Design A History of Graphic Design because I didn't do a good job learning it in college, and I think it might be one of the most important courses at that school. I am going to read the book at a slow pace and reflect here in this journal on important points and ideas that might help in my development as a designer. I feel these are important things to know if I want to go to grad school.
I started reading the preface to edition 3 last night, and I have become so impressed by the intentions and opinions of Philip Megg in writing this book. One idea that struck a chord was:
"Anyone who sees this book as a mere chronicle of style misunderstands graphic design. Today the word style is often used to define superficial surface characteristics, which are sometimes dictated by marketing considerations. It's original meaning – distinctive excellence of artistic expression achieved by appropriate forms and their relationships to one another in space — has been corrupted. While the visual attributes of graphic design are critical to the discipline and receive appropriate emphasis in this book, I am equally concerned about designers' underlying philosophic viewpoints, the meaning graphic design holds for its culture and audience, and the signification of forms and their syntactic relationships."
The above paragraph is why I am reading this book in such depth. I don't feel I will be a good designer until I am completely versed in this history. Emmie once talked about being a global learner — not feeling she could grasp a subject to her full ability until she new all the facts and details. I feel that way about design especially. There are lots of things I want to know about, but I have an inclination towards wanting to be an expert in knowing everything about graphic design. Once I know everything I feel I should know, I will have a better foundation in knowing what I want to study in graduate school and how the how the history of graphic design can inform what I would like to do with the discipline in my future endeavors.
I am glad to have finished my 2 years working. I got a good understanding of how the field works by experiencing it. In fact, I think that I've learned enough that it is time for me to study the field more. A concern that I have with my experience at that first job was the lack of interest in the actual philosophy of design. I think what they are doing there is valid. It works. It gets the job done, but I personally want to be on the side of design that explores in a more critical, knowledgeable way. I am less concerned with what visual form looks good and keeps our client satisfied and in the fastest alloted time. I am in the early stages of researching these ideas, so I'm not quite sure of what I'm saying. I think as I read this book and reflect, I'll be able to express myself better.
syntax: arrangement
semantics: meaning
approaches to investigating the study of graphic design:
"an exploration of the relationship between design and its audience, analysis of the evolution of formal or visual attributes, and study of the social and economic impact of design activities."
Because graphic design's link to "social, political, and economic life of its culture" and its "immediacy and ephemeral nature", it is one of the best human activities to express the Zeitgeist of a certain span of time. We've been doing this since prehistoric time.
Megg's mentions a constraint in the activity of a historian which is that he or she is limited by the vantage point of his or her own time. An example that immediately comes to my mind is a book that we found during college that is from the 1800s. It's a school book for younger children and in the book it describes people from Africa as being genetically inferior to caucasians. When we found this book, we were in shock knowing now, in the year 2005 or so that this was completely inaccurate. However, that inaccuracy was recorded and believed as fact because of the limitation of the period of time in which the conclusion was made. I can only wonder what I am thinking now in my current place in time that presents a similarly flawed conclusion of my observation of the world. Actually, I would guess that our treatment of the environment shows a flawed understanding of the world that future generations will have trouble understanding.
The last idea of Megg's that I'd like to reflect on is as follows:
"This chronicle of graphic design is written in the belief that if we understand the past, we will be better able to continue a culture legacy of beautiful form and effective communication. If we ignore this legacy, we run the risk of becoming buried in a mindless morass of a commercialism whole mole-like vision ignores human values and needs as it burrows forward into darkness."
I started reading the preface to edition 3 last night, and I have become so impressed by the intentions and opinions of Philip Megg in writing this book. One idea that struck a chord was:
"Anyone who sees this book as a mere chronicle of style misunderstands graphic design. Today the word style is often used to define superficial surface characteristics, which are sometimes dictated by marketing considerations. It's original meaning – distinctive excellence of artistic expression achieved by appropriate forms and their relationships to one another in space — has been corrupted. While the visual attributes of graphic design are critical to the discipline and receive appropriate emphasis in this book, I am equally concerned about designers' underlying philosophic viewpoints, the meaning graphic design holds for its culture and audience, and the signification of forms and their syntactic relationships."
The above paragraph is why I am reading this book in such depth. I don't feel I will be a good designer until I am completely versed in this history. Emmie once talked about being a global learner — not feeling she could grasp a subject to her full ability until she new all the facts and details. I feel that way about design especially. There are lots of things I want to know about, but I have an inclination towards wanting to be an expert in knowing everything about graphic design. Once I know everything I feel I should know, I will have a better foundation in knowing what I want to study in graduate school and how the how the history of graphic design can inform what I would like to do with the discipline in my future endeavors.
I am glad to have finished my 2 years working. I got a good understanding of how the field works by experiencing it. In fact, I think that I've learned enough that it is time for me to study the field more. A concern that I have with my experience at that first job was the lack of interest in the actual philosophy of design. I think what they are doing there is valid. It works. It gets the job done, but I personally want to be on the side of design that explores in a more critical, knowledgeable way. I am less concerned with what visual form looks good and keeps our client satisfied and in the fastest alloted time. I am in the early stages of researching these ideas, so I'm not quite sure of what I'm saying. I think as I read this book and reflect, I'll be able to express myself better.
syntax: arrangement
semantics: meaning
approaches to investigating the study of graphic design:
"an exploration of the relationship between design and its audience, analysis of the evolution of formal or visual attributes, and study of the social and economic impact of design activities."
Because graphic design's link to "social, political, and economic life of its culture" and its "immediacy and ephemeral nature", it is one of the best human activities to express the Zeitgeist of a certain span of time. We've been doing this since prehistoric time.
Megg's mentions a constraint in the activity of a historian which is that he or she is limited by the vantage point of his or her own time. An example that immediately comes to my mind is a book that we found during college that is from the 1800s. It's a school book for younger children and in the book it describes people from Africa as being genetically inferior to caucasians. When we found this book, we were in shock knowing now, in the year 2005 or so that this was completely inaccurate. However, that inaccuracy was recorded and believed as fact because of the limitation of the period of time in which the conclusion was made. I can only wonder what I am thinking now in my current place in time that presents a similarly flawed conclusion of my observation of the world. Actually, I would guess that our treatment of the environment shows a flawed understanding of the world that future generations will have trouble understanding.
The last idea of Megg's that I'd like to reflect on is as follows:
"This chronicle of graphic design is written in the belief that if we understand the past, we will be better able to continue a culture legacy of beautiful form and effective communication. If we ignore this legacy, we run the risk of becoming buried in a mindless morass of a commercialism whole mole-like vision ignores human values and needs as it burrows forward into darkness."
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