The Obscene Typography Machine

• Designers who overcome their computer phobia are mesmerized by the possibilities.
• Organizations with small budgets have easier access to better design.
• The ease of computer use put design in the hands of people who don't have any experience with typography.
• Powerful new software give the designer the power to flip, rotate, stretch and bend typography.
• Type is being distorted in violation of everything that has been learned in the past 500 years about making beautiful letter forms.
• Type designers optically adjust each letter form they design
• One reason a typeface is considered a masterpiece is because the designer achieved optical harmony, not mathematical.
• Suddenly in 1988 anyone with a Macintosh and the right software could wreak havoc on beautifully crafted forms.
• The impact of new graphic software is being called destructive typography.
• Tremendous capabilities are being put into the hands of people who dont know an ampersand from a hole in the ground.
  
• Though some equipment manufacturers and software developers have made efforts to to teach design many stay ignorant.
• The Obscene Typography machine can also be the sublime typography machine.
• It allows designers to explore concepts that would have taking much more time to accomplish.
• The obscene typography machine needs to be controlled or unimaginable atrocities will be among us.

In middle school print artist was my canvas and comic sans was my paint brush. So many possibilities were open to me, If I wanted to stretch my type to fit the page I could. If I want a justified column of 10 point type and 25 point letterspacing I could. The revolution of computers in graphic design is a great one it opened up so many possibilities for designers that would have taken them months to accomplish beforehand. I could not even imagine trying to design without a computer, I could not imagine what designer had to experience before the computer was invented. However, with the good there is an overwhelming amount of bad. Anyone who decided to call themselves a designer could. Moms, children, students, and the average joe took design programs and wreaked havoc. What many average people don't realize is that a type face takes many precious hours to design. Typographers adjust everything optically so it is nearly perfect to the eye. With people not realizing how precise a type design is they don't think twice about stretching and warping type. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. This bad type design is referred to as the obscene typography machine. As long as people stay ignorant about good design us who are educated will have to suffer. The computer is an amazing design aid but it needs to be used in the right way.

• De Stijl
• Gerrit Rietveld
• Theo van Doesburg
• El Lissitzkyy
• Peter Oud
• JJ Oud
• Bauhaus
• Herbert Bayer
• Walter Gropius
• Moholy Nagy

The Bauhaus next to Dada is one of my favorite movements in Graphic Design, I feel if I lived in Germany in that time I would have been a student at the bahaus. The pure function and design is truely inspirtational and so many modern designs are based off of the pieces that came out of the Bauhaus. It always makes me wonder what would have happend to the Bauhaus if it wasn't shut down by the Nazis during world war two. Would we have designs that we have yet to think of? Its turley and amazing thought.

Constructivism and De Stijl

• Kasimir Malevich
• Supermatism
• Rodchenko
• Constructivist
  
• El Lissitszky
• Photomantage
• Salomen Tellingater
• Prouns
• The Steinberg Brothers
• De Stijl
• Theo Van Doesburg
• Gerrit Rietveld

El Lissitsky is pivitol graphic designer of the period. His painting style known as Prous established modern enviormental design. He Formulates environment based on 3D
communication experience the way he worked and drafted with photos was truely amazing. The steinburg brothers were also amazing, the build on constructivist ideals and made the russan movie poster. They projected films and drafted from them. Its so creative and they embraced the fact that they drew and no longer photography. It was photography inspired but they were proud of them. Art movements change so easily with one persons ideas, its amazing how one idea can bring enire art movement into swing.

Unit 2 part 1

• Plakastil
• Cubism
• Lucian Bernhard
• Allie posters Vs. Central Powers
• Ludwig Holhwein
• Structural Linguistics
  
• Typographic Materiality
• Stephane Mallarme
• Similtaneity
• Synthetic Cubism
• Futurism
• Marinetti
• DADA
• Duchamp
• John Heartfeild
• George Grosz
• Kurt Schwitters
• Surrealism
• Max Ernst
• Rene Magritte
• Man Ray

I have always loved the art from DADA movement. It was really awesome learning how it started and the motivations behind the works. I never knew that the work was so political and they would even turn away artists who werent making a big enough statement. The exploration of expressive typography is also wonderful as a Graphic Designer myself I love seeing those sorts of posters and Typographic Materiality. I almost wish that I could be alive durning that period so I could experience these things first hand. I love experimenting with type in my typography class so I feel almost as if I belong in these sorts of movements. What would typography look like now if DADA never happend would someone else think of it, or was it the poltical rebellion the feul?

Class 1/27

• Victorian Graphics
• Chromolithography
• Lithographic Naturalism
• Louis Prang
• John Gamble
• Ottmar Mergenthler
• Editorial Design
  
• Political cartoons/ Thomas Nast
  
• Rise of Ad Agencies
  
• Arts and Craft Movement
• William Morris
• Total Design
• Kelmscott Press
• Art Nouveau
• Pre-Raphaelite Painting
• Ukiyo-E wood blocks
• Cheret and Grasset
• Aubrey Beardsley
• The Beggarstaffs
• Toulouse Lautrec
• Alphonse Mucha
• Will Bradly
• Gustav Klimt
• Koloman Moser/ Gesamkunstwerk
• Alfred Roller
• Joseph Hoffman
• Modernist Era
• Glasgow School
• Peter Behrens
• Railway Type/ Edward Johnson

It would have never had occurred to me that all of these artistic movements lead up to what graphic design it as we know it. Art Nouveau is one of the farthest things from graphic design that I can think of. Its so interesting to see the trace into color printing and how editorials can basically change the world. Or how one man could possibly create the concept holiday cards it all amazes me . The beginnings of what led to Design is truly amazing and lends to so many contributors. It makes me think how much one mans idea can change the future.

Unit 1 Part 1 & 2

Key Points

• Earliest pictorial markings Africa 35,000 BC
  
• Ideographs and Pictographs
• Invention of writing brought about intellectual revolution
• Cuneiform is the first phonetic writing system
• Egyptian Invention of Papyrus and first “Illustrated Manuscripts”.
• Logograms
• Invention of printing 860AD
  
• Movable type 1045AD
• Phoenician Greek and Latin Alphabet
• Uncials 3rd Cen. AD
• Latin Alphabet 1st Serifs on Trajan Column
• Square Capitals and Rustic Capitals
• Codex
• Celtic Book Design, first drafting tools used
  
• Black Letter
• Block Book
• Gutenberg's Printing press and Textur
• Albrecht Durer
• Renaissance type prototype
• Aldus Manutius, Italics, pocket book
• Claude Garamond
• Transitional
• Louis Simonneau’s master alphabets
• Modern Type Bidoni and Dibot
• Monster Type, Slab Serif
• Fat Face Letters novelty of type
• San Serif William Caslon the IV

Its very interesting to think about where the written alphabet has come from and how advanced that it has gotten. I can simple understand the symbols that I am typing right now. It really boggles my mind to think about the progression of type and all the thought that must have gone into creating a very first language and not simply learning it. After a concrete alphabet is established it can not be left at that, designer's push boundaries to see far they can take the alphabet and that is when something so basic as communication becomes art. It makes me wonder where I would be right now if there was only one typeface out there. Would graphic design still exist? Or would the alphabet just be a form of communication?