Semiotics:
- Death of the author- the object itself whether it be an image, photograph, sculpture ect.. it is what we the audience constructing the meaning of a piece
- Everything is a 'text' everything we see and read everything around us
- Structuralism
- Post-Structuralism
It's the relationship to what we cant actually see but what we know-interextually
With visual communication
- We make assumptions constructed many years ago and agreed on a meaning ( such as pointing somewhere and that meaning 'over there')
GRAPHIC DESIGN:
A sign is
"Something which stands to somebody for something in some capacity." Charles Sanders Pierce 1977
"He thinks that the customs of his these are the laws of nature"
'Western Perspective' when you see things that are smaller the further you look into the piece
Arnold Hauser quote basically says you can tell what point in time due to the design and the fabric it was produced with.
South America:
The Cave markings:
We don't actually know when or how they were made. The human figures are very flat, block like and are very simple where as the drawings or animals are very detailed.
The Marking on Stones (Petroglyfs):
There types of communication, very simple and almost child like drawings
In the Landscape drawings:
Seems strange as the people who where making this mark would have been able to see them from the ground, motif like? Do they represent land mass?
The oldest type of writing is communicating with Chinese writing. There is roughly 4750 characters. Each a different word. Pictures are to be represented 'pictorally'. Each individual character was contained in square blocks which was very specific.
Calligraphy
This is a very important trade
It made the writing have a hand made quality
Cuneiforms:
It was the first form of written language
This type of writing influenced the Romans greatly
Also influenced the fonts Serif and Sans Serif
Cuneiform in Latin means wedge shapes which is there the tool they used went into the clay or rock to make a mark.
They wrote standard from left to right
Hyroglifics:
They created and communicated through small pictorial images
The Rossetta Stone:
This contains all types of form of graphic elements and type
This is seen to be very sacred to the graphic industry
You can see the start to letter forms
Romans created the 'Baseline' influences the printing press and griding.
Books took many years to produce and they would be produced by a person rewriting the book and spending many hour re-writing page after page.
This method was very labour intensive
This is why we find most ancient books are religious
Heavily detailed books and much detail to each individual letter- most people would never come across a book.
Illuminated manuscript means text heavily decorated and illustrated with gold and silver.
Printing press was quick, could print many off in one run and was cost effective
The Renaissances:
Humans where considered as special, unique, precious and considered as individuals
Da Vinci
Included text and image together on one page and merging them both together
Breaking the grid:
Type was set in lines for legibility sense.
Type had to be set in a grid
The grid dictated how the type was set
Lithography
End of the 18th century
The term lithography allowed you to write and draw an image and a wash over the top
This changed the way type was
Type used to express
Constructivist:
Looking at different forms to communicate
Informed by economical and political forms the images took
EL LISSITZKY 1890-1941
Has now influenced graphic design
He bought along his ideas as graphic was on its shift
Artist where now able to fundamentally able to change society
Artists working back in 1930 when actually looking at things today you can clearly see that they are actually very similar. They seem to be very contemporary. Such as collage and photomontgue which is also influenced by politics
Futurism:
Demonstrating position of every available media and seen as really challenging, embracing all methods.
Dada:
This movement was very much connected to the World War.
This was a response to a political movement.
Automatic writing and really braking all sense of logic and sometimes not really making sense and unclear messages
Moderism:
Description of time influenced the modern changes, car design, furniture design
Contemporary culture
Very hard looking medias used such as metal, steel, glass all solid looking materials.
Science had also influenced this
Swiss Style 1950's
Clean particular type of design
Post Modern Era:
Making networks clear in turns of chaining them from something cyber into something visual
Shows movement, used in fashion magazines
Its very abstract-visual information
Brodvitch:
He's a graphic designer who worked and influenced fashion and fashion photography
He designed layouts in the fashion magazine
The Solid Role of Graphic Design:
What is graphic design for?
Visual inventions
Ascetics of visualisation
Legability in graphic design
If it doesn't communicate visually does it work?
Frascara:2005:46
Some work is about selling something- the purpose, marketing, publishing, it's meant to make people want to buy the products.
Purely marketed to sell a product
Purposefully to effect peoples view point. (politically)
It effects peoples beliefs/ actions
Communicating an image:
Public communication
Control ?
Social Purpose?
Not ascetic or pleasing about communicating images
Particular circumstances legibility is crucial such as road signs
Information design: Function, easily communicating by pictorial (bike signs, toilet signs)
Global dominate by instructional design, simple and easily communicating instructions however someone else may not be able to understand it for example Chinese
Graphic design needs to engage and audience
Quality in graphic design is measured by the changes it produces in the audience?
- A piece which communicates a message well
- The function/context for example is it supposed to be understood?
- Whether the audience gets your message across
HUMAN COMMUNICATION
SEMIOTICS - VISUAL LANGUAGES
The art or profession of visual communication
