Process – Incognito Craftsman

November 23, 2019

Graphic Design So Far Reflection

Last lesson on the whole of History of Design, last lesson on visual communication history. Graphic design so far reflection. Personally I felt that this chapters paves the current designs that we are all witnessing right now in today’s perspective.

In no particular order, I will be pointing out some of the interesting designs that I want to talk about.

Firstly, George Lois Esquire cover on Richard Nixon. During class, we were told by Desmond that Richard Nixon, did not win his first president election as he was deemed to look “evil” by the american citizens. During his second election, George Lois actually made use of graphic design to create a sleek message to infer a message that stated “this time he’d better look right!” with Nixon face being applied with make up as an inference that if he has the bravery to fight in the election the second time, he must have done something with his face to look less evil in order to garner votes. This humorous piece of artwork shows the genuine and creativity of Photoshop in the early days

Pang, D. 2019. Esquire covers, George Lois. Graphic Design So Far. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1df5gvzuoT_upgN67lyTWITMTQvSkMxAM/view

Next, MTV logo. Graphic design has came a long way from what we had known for since the first lesson as symbols into logos. Here, for the MTV logo, I personally like how the designers, Pat Gorman and Frank Olinsky actually create the negative space design, using patterns within space and also using line works, which were all what we had learnt from earlier lessons.

Pang, D. 2019. MTV logo, Pat Gorman & Frank Olinsk of Manhattan Design. Graphic Design So Far. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1df5gvzuoT_upgN67lyTWITMTQvSkMxAM/view

What I have garnered so far from this four weeks of lecture is that the idea of today’s graphic design is are largely derived from past components and theories, as the title suggest, Graphic Design So Far… we wont be sure of what is the next movement that will arise and change the graphic scene, since we are all so comfortable with what our fore fathers had created for us. But nevertheless, I will be looking forward to see the next wave of design and what is the new style of movement.

November 17, 2019

History of Design Essay

iv What ideals, principles, motto and design qualities might you use to describe and define the next emergent design trend valid over the next 5 years, current to your practices? What name would you give to the design movement?

The principles that I will use to describe the next emergent trend over the next 5 years would be “Portable, Modular and Scalable” (PMS). Under the motto of “Everyone is a maker” and the design quality is to allow all households, no matter on their scale, to have the ability to develop product prototyping. My belief in these principles is based on technological “downsizing”. Examples on how workstations have evolved from bulky desktops placed in office cubicle to slim laptops stuffed in 14 inches sleeve pouch to interactive smartphones held within one palm. The ideology of “downsizing” has made the impossible to be achievable. The art of “downsizing” would let me boldly define and predict it to be the next design movement over the first half of the next decade. Under the term of 5th Industrial revolution: Prototyping development on your table.

The key factors that revolves around downsizing largely fall on PMS. A prime example of current prototyping development products in the market with added on features to improve its efficiency and effectiveness is the widely known 3D printer. Invented in 1983 for rapid prototyping by Chuck Hull. Since then, it has become the phenomenal of developing prototypes without the presence of workshop tools and heavy machineries. (Flynt). Below are photos to show an example of how 3D elevates the efficiency and effectiveness of prototyping anywhere for our own personal convenience.

Fig 1. First 3D printer on top of a desk

Fig 2. My 3D printer – Ender 3

Fig 3. Perspective view of Ender 3

Fig 4. Printing book cover

Fig 5. Final product

Fig 6. Final assembling

Secondly, with the increasing trend of maker spaces with prototype developing machines as classroom for students globally, they are exposed to the usability and importance of the machines to understand the foundation of prototyping. Thus, these greatly pinpointed the opportunity and reliability of a portable workstation, that has the feature of modularity compartments to scale the product up and down accordingly to the complexity and size of production. Thus, the term of 5th industrial revolution that emphasizes on homebased workstations where conventional central manufacturing plant and workshops will see the less relevance as more and more individuals can have the luxury to create their own products.

Fig 7. School makerspace

Fig 8. School makerspace with screw saw to represent a mini bandsaw and mini drill press

Fig 9. Me with my prototype developed in the maker space using.

Comparing the references to traditional industrial product prototyping lab with large and huge machineries that are huge and bulky, we can see how innovation has downscaled the machineries to cater to individual needs without being detrimenting the original function of the machineries.

Fig 10. 3D printing spectacle prototype

Fig 11. Finished prototype

The design movement that I would want to term is the “PMS movement”. Going along with the guidelines – “Portable, Modular and Scalable”. In the future, the “Portable” aspect focuses on the ease of keeping and setting up of the workstation on the study table at any time. Secondly, the “Modularity” allows users to focus on space efficiency as they can keep the part of the work station that they do not require and lastly, “Scalable” which is to allow users to increase the output of the prototype at low cost. Soon, people will be building products in their home, ranging from making clay, acrylic jewelleries and leather pieces to be turn into a product producing business by taking it to a newer level.

Bibliography

Flynt, Joseph. “History of 3D Printing Timeline: Who Invented 3D Printing.” 3D Insider, 2 Feb. 2018, https://3dinsider.com/3d-printing-history/.

Bowyer, Adrian. “The first 3D printer ever created was made in 983 by Chuck Hull.” “History of 3D Printing Timeline: Who Invented 3D Printing.” 3D Insider, 2 Feb. 2018, https://3dinsider.com/3d-printing-history/.

“Design Trend: Makerspace.” Demco, https://www.demco.com/shop-by-space/design-trends/design-trend-makerspace.

November 17, 2019

To Bauhaus and Beyond reflective journal

This week lecture is an interesting one as it points out the aspect of Bauhaus. splitting it down into three periods as mentioned by Desmond into Weimar, Dessau and lastly in Berlin. Curiosity got the better of me as I went to further research onto why there were the three periods of Bauhaus. During the first phase, it was deemed that the art direction taught were too liberal by the community in Weimar, which causes the shift to Dessau, following in the period of the time in Dessau, the rise of the Nazis political party forced them to relocate to Berlin as the school does not share the same idealism of Nazism. However it did not get to reestablish in Berlin mainly due to the Nazis faction taking over the whole of Germany and Germany were involved in World War 2.

Moving towards the concept of Bauhaus, it has the curriculum of a basic foundation year where everyone get to study and learn every process of arts and crafts before transitioning and specialising in the years. This is very similar to the concept of ADM where we get to learn every different aspect back in foundation year from sketches, graphic to product making. Personally I felt that it was a good experience as we get to understand and touch on different aspect of the art so that we are able to view art from the view of a maker and not an end user.

The Bauhaus period was also largely linked towards war propaganda based on the posters that were shown in class. For example,

This posters touches on the aspect of image cropping method derived from Laszlo Moholy-nagy to show the plane wing and the use of colour wheel to show the complimentary colours s derived from Jan Tschichold.

In today’s perspective, we can see how Bauhaus influence has left a big impact on our art scene with the usage of colour wheel theory and image cropping to show the main message of the poster.

References

Unknown. 2011. The Three Locations of Bauhaus. Retrieved from http://www.designhistory.org/Bauhaus_pages/BauhausLocations.html

November 11, 2019November 11, 2019

History of Design Industrial Revolution and Graphic Reactions Reflection

In this week class for history of design under Industrial Revolution & Graphic Reactions. I was exposed to the evolution of poster design, from the traditional typography to graphics.

It was an interesting approach to know the flow of the evolution. Especially on the Japonism. How the west actually favoured the Japanese art style so much they incorporated that into their design and it even became a movement on its own. I was even surprised that the poster below, actually has a history of more than one century as I always had the misconception that it was actually a modern piece of art made in recent years. This proves that the foundation of poster design was already very strong since the early days and the basic fundamentals and foundations are sought after by many graphic artists today.

The great wave of kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai, 1829–1833 (Retrieved from Desmond’s Slide in Industrial Revolution & Graphic Reactions)

Moving on, the man, Alphonse Mucha, who was known to create the design and pattern of curvatures in poster design, which also influences further onto future posters designs and even for art nouveau. The extension of the curves has made a huge impact into the evolution which became a primary part of poster design today.

Nevertheless, this is an eye opening lecture that I have gone through, knowing how much did poster design evolved along with the industrial revolution. I personally felt that in terms of the typography, it had shifted from the primary focus of the design to secondary as the main attraction is the graphic, whereas the words are simply a complimentary for the art to direct the gaze of the audiences with the flow.

I am looking forward to see how will graphic form in 2d be manipulated in further lectures to cater towards human expectations in our modern era.

September 8, 2019

Reflection on History of Design – Interactive Media

This week lecture on Interactive Media features Marshall McLuhan, the great visionary, Vannevar Bush and Hypermedia. The man who envisioned the current 21st technology that we used now back in post war period.

Medium is the message. From McLuhan, is a questionable yet agreeable quote to me, as my understanding is that the medium determines the outcome of the content. I did not understand this at first as it seems vague but after researching, I realised that it could be the type of medium, eg. watching a video of a man eating food on phone screen and home TV. The phone screen is more personal and stick closer to me which makes me feel more connected interpersonally connected to him and i will be hungry while the home TV is larger, it makes me feel more of looking at him and it seems that I am sitting in front of him and feeling his presence by my side. I guess this is what it meant?

From the idea of the current pin hole camera, usb memory stick, portable smart phone and computers. Everything were envisioned, this is an interesting and bold prediction in the 1940s and he even published an article, he was not afraid of getting shot and shunned by the public opinions considering that back in the days, a double digit computer RAM could easily be the size of a classroom in ADM.

But here’s an interesting thought, what if secretly they were a team who were funded by him or others with resources over the decades to develop his ideas, which meant that the inventors of his envisioned products were all directly or indirectly linked or related to him? Who knows?

Hypermedia, from the traditional hyperlink, its the hypermedia. As per what was shared, a letter “A” could be derived as picture “Apple” and it could result in the GIF of “adam and eve eating the apple” and essential relates to “life” showing a piture of a baby and more and more. To my understanding, it is an endless loop of assumption and meaning in mutlimedia format, like what you type in google search “Apple” and it can come up with alot of possibilities, a way that the computer is trying to predict what you want. Similar to the Bush concept, where the brain is link to the usage of tech, now computer is the brain who is trying to figure out what you want thus the hypermedia displays and mimics the brains that link the Apple to anything and everything it could do.

Picture Reference.

Unknown. (n.d.). [Picture]. Retrieved 8 September 2019. https://www.ibiblio.org/pioneers/bush.html.