Module #5

Reading Assignment: Chapters 11 & 12

Art Nouveau & The Genesis of Twentieth Century Design

When I think of Art Nouveau I immediately think of Jimi Hendrix and the 1960s. My parents grew up in the era of rock and roll and even as teens in third world countries they remember listening to American and British rock. My dad was obsessed with the Beatles (and still is) and my mom would always talk about her love for the Doors. She even joked that my future husband couldn't marry me unless he knew who the Doors were. Yes, my parents were huge fans of this era and it was the concert/music posters of this era that exposed me to art nouveau.
I've always heard the term art nouveau but I never knew exactly what it was. I remember liking the art but if you would have asked me for an artist or an example I honestly wouldn't remember. When looking through the images in Chapter 11 I started to recognize the style and thought of the 1960s and their crazy colorful concerts posters. Very similar to art nouveau they carried the same style yet used a little more color. They had women figures as the main focus with some crazy typefaces to go along with the image.
Art nouveau had a revival in the 1960s when artists started to draw inspiration for concert posters. Some of the first posters created were seen in San Francisco in 1966 for psychedelic rock (Musée D'Orsay). Psychedelic rock was a style of music hat was influenced by psychedelic culture and used to enhance the experiences of psychedelic drugs. Notable musicians include the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Cream to name a few. Concert promoter, Bill Graham, commissioned artists to create posters for his events and was influential in the musical renaissance of the 1960s in San Francisco.  "These psychedelic graphic designers (Hapshash and the Coloured Coat group, Wes Wilson, Victor Moscoso, etc), with dazzling bravura, introduced everything that Art Nouveau had invented into the domain of signs and images, and appropriated certain themes like hair, the peacock, the androgynous figure or, in contrast, highly sexual figures," (Musée D'Orsay). Posters and album covers were becoming a popular medium for this expression and the use of psychedelic drugs enhanced the visuals (Musée D'Orsay). This blend of art and text reflected the changing times of art. Like Jugend, the artists were allowed to create their own typeface, in this case they just chose what typeface they wanted, that would match their illustration. Their typefaces did try to mimic the movement of sound waves from rock and roll concerts in their illustrations typefont. Music posters would soon lose ground to television and radio.

Famous Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha's 1896 ad for Job cigarettes (left) was used to to promote a 1966 rock concert (right) by Alton Kelly and Stanley Mouse.

A famous artist from this era was Bob Masse.

Grateful Dead 1967

The Doors 1967

The Jimi Hendrix Experience 1967 with photographer Karl Ferris

Jefferson Airplane 1967

Sources:

• "A Brief Bio of Bob Masse, Rock and Roll Concert Poster Artist." A Brief Bio of Bob Masse, Rock and Roll Concert Poster Artist. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2014. <http://www.bmasse.com/who.html>.
• "Art Nouveau Revival 1900 . 1933 . 1966 . 1974." Musée D'Orsay. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2014. <http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/in-the-musee-dorsay/exhibitions-in-the-musee-dorsay-more/article/art-nouveau-revival-23208.html?S=1&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=649&cHash=20c8b95acc&print=1&no_cache=1&>.
• Bob Masse Rock Postershttp://www.bmasse.com/60s.html
• "Focus Features | Videos & Extras | Slideshow | Painting Woodstock: A Slide Show of Psychedelic Art." Focus Features. N.p., n.d. Web. 89 Oct. 2014. <http://www.focusfeatures.com/slideshow/painting_woodstock__a_slide_show_of_psychedelic_art/embed/977>.

Image sources:

• Mucha cigarettes ad
  http://focusfeaturesmedia.com/uploads/image/mediafile/1247855610-06d782906431aa3d2c25f872abfe2676/x950.jpg

• Grateful Dead 1967
  http://www.bmasse.com/Images/dead.jpg

• The Doors 1967
  http://www.bmasse.com/Images/doors1967.jpg

• Jimi Hendrix Experience 1967
  http://www.bmasse.com/Images/Hendrix2.jpg

• Jefferson Airplane 1967
  http://www.bmasse.com/Images/jeffair_colour_scan.jpg

Module #4

Reading Assignment: Chapters 9 & 10

The Industrial Revolution and the Arts & Crafts Movement

During this week's assignment I became really fascinated by Eadweard Muybridge's sequence photography. I remember flipping through the book for the first assignment and putting a post-it note on that page because I liked it so much. The different variations in the photos reminded me of one of my favorite books as a child, a flip book. I absolutely loved these books! I would always try to get my hands on one and play with it for hours. I loved the ones that had two sequences so that you just had to flip the book the other way to play the second set of images. I don't know what it was about those sequences but they made me so curious. Obviously they worked seamlessly but I could never really wrap my head around them. I would sit there for hours studying each page and each image and find the slight differences only to be dumbstruck every time I flipped through them. I must have thought there was a special secret to it or it was magical in some way but it got me every time. I knew that together they made this cool animated video in my hands but seeing them separately as solo images on printed paper made it seem impossible. 

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) and his famous horse in motion photographs

Flip books were originally introduced as folioscopes (flip book in french) by the Frenchman Pierre-Hubert Desvignes in the 1860s (Fouché). Flip books gave the illusion of movement in sequence without the use of a machine. Desvignes is credited as the inventor of the flip book but John Barned Linnett was the first to patent the idea of a flip book. Linnett, English lithograph printer, patented the flip book under the name "The Kineograph" in March 1868 (Fouché). Flip books started becoming very popular at the end of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century. In 1894, Herman Casler invented the Mutoscope, a machine that aligned images in sequence to create a moving picture. A mutoscope was essentially a flip book in a machine. Mutoscopes were considered the first machine that applied the simple principle of persistency of vision studied by Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey (Fouché). Mutoscopes became very popular in the U.S. for their success at "Penny Arcades" (Fouché). People would insert coins into the machine and turn the handle to watch the different sequences play out in animated form. Thus began the animation and birth of cinema.

An advertisement for the Mutoscope

The first GIF, graphics interchange format, was created by Compuserve in 1987 (Alfonso III). This new image format was able to use color and replaced the run-length encoding format (RLE) which only ran black and white photos. What made the GIF so special was it's compressed format that allowed faster transfer times across slow modem connections. The original version, 87a, was created by Steve Wilhite. The following year a new version was released that allowed people to create compressed animations using timed delays (Alfonso III). Wilhite credits the success of GIFs to Netscape. 

"What has made GIF hang around is the animation loop that Netscape added. If Netscape had not added GIF in their browse, GIF would have died in 1998," -Wilhite (Alfonso III).

Some of the first GIFs I remember are the rotating Earth one, the American flag in the wind and the dancing baby. Remember that baby in a diaper that rotates in a full circle like it's doing a Native American chant? Yes, that one. Seems a little creepy now but at the moment I enjoyed it. These early GIFs were always on loops and didn't have the best quality. They were usually on white backgrounds and were very basic. Now the modern versions are usually loops of videos from movies or TV like cats getting scared into boxes or creative ones like time lapses of children growing up. The New Yorker recently used a GIF as their cover for the first time last month. GIFs are so accessible now that you can download apps that will make them for you.

Early GIF of a rotating Earth

Muybridge GIF

Overall, I think Muybridge's idea was amazing! That crazy bet for $25,000 really paved the way for sequence photography and GIFs. I love how you can trace GIFs back to something like sequence photos from Muybridge. The direct connection might now be there but the horse in motion photos did lead to other ideas that eventually led to animations like GIFs that run on loops and look like virtual flip books to me. Now I'm looking at GIFs on a daily basis! It's also funny to think that as a child the internet was soooooo slow. I hated dial-up internet and connecting to the internet took forever! It's also crazy to think that internet is just as old as I am. I grew up in an internet world and yet 20 years later it has rapidly changed and there are generations being born into this normalcy of smartphones and being forever connected. I also finally learned how to pronounce GIF! While doing my research I learned that the developers used the Jif peanut butter slogan as a parody for GIF. So next time you think of how to pronounce it just think of peanut butter and you'll be correct. Also found a cool article that turned Muybridge's photos in GIFs. Click here if you'd like to check out the Buzzfeed article.

Sources:

• Alfonso III, Fernando. "The Animated History of the GIF." The Daily Dot. The Daily Dot, 03 May 2012. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/gif-history-steve-wilhite-olia-lialina-interview/>.
• Fouché, Pascal. "Flipbook.info." Flipbook.info. N.p., 2014. Web. 20 Oct. 2014. <http://www.flipbook.info/index_en.php>.

Image Sources:

• Eadweard Muybridge
  http://www.artesmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Eadweard-Muybridge-horse-post.jpg
• Mutoscope
  https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiP7jySKUtjUOvMI_3z3RecIiLEMEfsio0cSi56lcYyE69chbB3emyN5ixYpEVCkQ3YA6BxhFY6VUggrSdXZMM_MpQ72noqXbNZPZ_dD9bhXHAST7YzE6qf18Y8hn93Ya5ZFDbIDEFJbvA/s1600/MutoscopeAd.jpg
• Rotating Earth GIF
  http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm250/AnalystRealist/rotating_globe.gif
• Muybridge GIF
  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Eadweard_Muybridge_Gehender_Strau%C3%9F_Animation_001.gif

Module #3

Reading assignment: Chapters 5-8

It's crazy to think that the Declaration of Independence was printed using Caslon font. Such a significant piece of U.S. history and it can be traced back to Benjamin Franklin and its European roots. It never really occurred to me how books or even the font we use in everyday writing got to this point in time. In order to write this blog post there were people creating these fonts and letters in wood blocks or metal at some point. It was printed on paper and then transferred to books in mass production. Then somewhere along the line it was transferred to the internet for everyone to use.

Declaration of Independence

Back then block printing was just getting started and books were rare and only for the rich. Most early books were of religious significance too. Now, eBooks are the next big thing. Yes, an electronic book is the latest version. Books were only available in paperback and now they are available online to download in minutes! Incredible! Imagine telling a scribe that one day he could download an entire books in minutes. Don't forget to mention babies are reading on iPads too. Completely insane and unheard of. The only big difference would be the internet. We would still be carrying around printed books just like the Italians in the Renaissance. Ours would be more modern but essentially they are the same thing. Now you can find people reading Kindles on airplanes. Don't forget audio books too! The Kindle is still so odd to me. How can you sit there and read a digital book? Don't your eyes hurt after a couple of hours? I already have glasses and reading a printed books hurts my eyes after a couple hours. Yet Amazon keeps coming out with new versions of the Kindle and it seems moderately popular in the U.S. My favorite part about this is not the current technology but the path it came to get here. Literacy was a small privilege in the 1300s saved only for scribes and priests. While they eventually lost their power to printing literacy still managed to rise and continues rising. The only people left who are illiterate mostly remain in third world countries that lack the money and technology or people who can't afford to get an education.

Books vs. Kindles

I went to a presentation at UC Berkeley yesterday and one of the professors was talking about books and how 10% of all books in use right now were published in 2012. That's ridiculous! Of all the books in circulation around the world 10% were made in 2012. I also looked up the statistic to double check. The rough estimate for the current number of books in the world is 210 million. The last official number was 129,864,880 million in 2010 (Skipworth). Google actually counted all the books in the world and created an algorithm to do so. Here's the link for the Google books blog. In 2012 the estimated total of books printed were 2.2 million so yes it's a little more than 10%. I couldn't find a credible source for these numbers though. I do believe these books are getting printed in high volumes. A couple million sounds about right. Whoever said print was dead was clearly mistaken. And yes I googled that too. Apparently it was said in Ghostbusters (1984). As a product of the 90s I should know this but I have no desire to watch the movie. Nor do I believe the actual quote is from a fictionalized movie. 

Front page of the NYT in 1912

Overall, I am amazed how far books have come. From woodblock printing to paperbacks to eBooks and kindles. Crazy stuff and the last part has only happened thanks to the internet! Oh internet you managed to change everything in such a little bit of time and you'll never stop. I never imagined getting electronic books as a kid. The idea almost seems as ridiculous as the idea of flying cars (still waiting for that to happen). There's just something about them that I can't handle. Maybe it's because I can't physically see them. HA! As a journalist I love print. I love newspapers. I love reading paperback books but I also love reading all my news online on my iPhone. It's a twist of modern world with old school methods. I've always enjoyed the fact that books and newspapers are portable but now eBooks and mobile phones can do it too so there's no excuse. Until then I'll keep waiting with a newspaper in hand for what the internet revolutionizes next.

Small side note

If you've ever wanted to purchase a new or used book I would recommend BetterWorldBooks.com. I'm not promoting them out of profit or monetary gain but for the work they do. They donate books and help raise money for literacy funding and libraries. Amazing if you ask me but it's all for a good cause!

Sources:

Skipworth, Hunter. "Google Counts Total Number of Books in the World." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 6 Aug. 2010. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7930273/Google-counts-total-number-of-books-in-the-world.html>.

Image sources:

Declaration of Independence

http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Declaration_Engrav_crop_1.jpg

Book vs Kindle

http://cache.thephoenix.com/secure/uploadedImages/The_Phoenix/Arts/Books/main_kindle_480.jpg

2nd Book/Kindle image

http://kuwaitreads.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/kindlebook1.jpg

NYT front page

http://drama.imaginise.net/wp-content/uploads/NYT.jpg

Module #2

Reading assignment: Chapters 1-4

I absolutely loved Chapter 3: The Asian Contribution. There's always so much history when it comes to China. They created paper, they built the Great Wall and they invented fireworks! All American children should thank the Chinese for endless sparklers and lighting things on fire. The Chinese may be the world's first pyromaniacs, just kidding. But jokes aside the Chinese were always about new innovations and changing the world. Yet the most creative aspect in my opinion is their calligraphy. It's so intricate and beautiful! I can only imagine people spending countless hours dreaming of all the different ways you could draw or create a new character. With over 44,000 characters it's hard to believe that skilled calligraphers knew them all.

One of my favorite parts about calligraphy is the beauty in the strokes. They look effortless. There's so much precision yet it almost looks like a lazy person was just making things up. I love that in the early stages of chinese writing the characters are pictographic. Just like the early cave paintings these inscriptions are simple sketches created to tell a story. You can spot out a couple that look like stick figure people. I liked the idea that calligraphy was more personal and used feelings to tell a story. Looking at the photos of all the early examples of Chinese writing I tended to go towards the pictographs. It might just be the child in me but the images are easy to relate to since they have the child like quality. You can imagine children drawing these images because they don't know how to spell yet so they use images to explain themselves. Compared to later examples of Chinese writing the characters are not as easy to read and if you don't read Chinese then they're just strokes of ink.

Example of chin-wen inscriptions

I was able to connect my learning to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The logo for the Olympics has a calligraphic feel with its pictographic image. The image is a person or a stick figure to makes things simple. They use block printing techniques to make it look like a chop was used for imprinting the image. The font selection looks like modern calligraphy with it's clean strokes but also making it readable. The font has the stroke appearance and looks like a real calligraphy pen was used to write it. For the posters below the logo you can see in the background the simple image mimicking the body of the athlete. They're essentially pictographs of the sport. The one in the middle is doing martial arts and the pictograph behind them is also doing a high kick motion. In my opinion it looks like a modern take on ancient Chinese writing with modern images.

Posters from the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Overall the techniques used for ancient Chinese writing are relevant today. All these ancient pictographs are used in modern texting. Take emoticons/emojis for example. They use images as symbols of different emotions to tell a story. Instead of writing about your emotion you can just pick a face that explains how you feel. Even simple tasks like texting can be attributed to the earliest form of writing. I feel really appreciative of the innovations from the Chinese. The more I read and learn about the origins of graphic design and writing the more I notice things. Little things like paper don't seem so simple anymore.

Image sources:

Chin-wen inscription

http://classconnection.s3.amazonaws.com/968/flashcards/27968/jpg/01081327555229237.jpg

2008 Beijing Olympics logo

http://digitalpostercollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/2008-Beijing-Summer-Olympic-Games-Logo1.png

2008 Beijing Olympics posters

http://en.visionunion.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/olympic-games-posters3.jpg