Here are some great examples of lettering from the 19th century. You’ll find it to be heavily stylized, decorative, and ornate to the point of extravagance. It’s not the sort of thing we see much of anymore, but occasionally it pops up even in contemporary design and illustration.
The Nature of Type Design in the 19th Century Part 1
The Nature of Type Design in the 19th Century Part 2
Some examples…
(you can see larger examples by clicking the links above)
ASSIGNMENT #01: SYMBOL TRANSFORMATIONS
STEP 01: Sketch / brainstorm / experiment with images and ideas that you could use to represent YOU. It should at least be something that interests you.
STEP 02: Choose an image from your sketches to work with, this will become your icon. It should be an actual object or concrete thing, rather than an abstract concept or idea.
STEP 03: Draw your icon in Adobe Illustrator using only black and white (no color, no gray). You want clean, crisp lines and solid shapes. It should have mass, rather than being completely linear. Your goal is for the image to be as simplified as possible, yet recognizable.
STEP 04: Perform the following transformations on your icon:
Each of these transformations should be a separate 6″x6″ artboard, within the same document (10 total).
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Mon/Wed Class:
Begin: Monday January 23
Critique: Monday January 30
Due: Monday February 6
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Friday Class:
Begin: Friday January 27
Critique: Friday February 3
Due: Friday February 10
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By the way..
You can see examples of Paul Rand and Saul Bass’s work here.
So we recently discussed this potential re-design of the DC brand in Graphic Design II. I hesitated to make to big of an issue of it, as it was not yet official. Well, apparently that has changed, and it is now living and breathing and Brand New has followed up.
The design of the new DC Entertainment identity uses a “peel” effect — the D is strategically placed over the C with the upper right-hand portion of the D peeling back to unveil the hidden C — symbolizing the duality of the iconic characters that are present within DC Entertainment’s portfolio.
— DC Press Release
Hmmmm. What do you think?
The Machine That Made Us (1/3) by xSilverPhinx
The Machine That Made Us (2/3) by xSilverPhinx
The Machine That Made Us (3/3) by xSilverPhinx
(If you don’t want to shell out the $75 to attend the opening reception, the exhibition runs from January 16 – February 3, 2012.)
Facebook info here.
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Art Now, the annual exhibition and event formerly known as Cafe City Arts, is City Arts Center’s biggest fundraiser of the year. Proceeds from Art Now enable year-round visual arts exhibitions in the Eleanor Kirkpatrick Gallery to remain free of charge to the public.
For the first time ever, Art Now features a guest curator, Oklahoma City artist and independent curator, Romy Owens. Twenty Five of Oklahoma’s finest artists have been selected from a variety of mediums to participate in this exciting exhibition.
Patrons of the event will have the opportunity to purchase amazing works of art and meet the artists themselves while indulging in a selection of food and drinks from the metro’s finest restaurants. Tickets can be purchased at www.cityartscenter.org, in person, or via phone at
(405)951-0000.
Opening Reception: Friday, January 20, 2012
Preview Sale tickets $100 – (5:30 – 7:00pm)
Event tickets $75 – (7:00 – 11:00pm)
Your 2012 Art Now Artists:
Tara Ahmadi, Stuart Asprey, Sarah Atlee, Ruth Borum-Loveland, Shane Brown, Heather Clark-Hilliard, Jason Cytacki, Whitney Forsyth, Shan Goshorn, Eyakem Gulilat, Aaron Hauck, Sarah Hearn, E.K. Jeong, Curtis Jones, Margaret Kinkeade, Donald Longcrier, Paul Mays, Brandon Reese, Liz Rodda, Klint Schor, Denny Schmickle, Holly Wilson, Eric Wright, May Yang, Mark Zimmerman.
Participating Restaurants:
Harry Bear’s, Hideaway Pizza, Kaiser’s, Iguana Mexican Grill, La Luna, LOCAL, Ludivine, Picasso’s Cafe, Rococo, Stella Modern Italian Cuisine, The Melting Pot, The Metro, and West.
Entertainment: Greyhound Fiction
For more information about Art Now and City Arts Center or to purchase tickets online please visit our website at: www.cityartscenter.org
Watch this piece about the show by Channel 4 from OKC.
Love it, hate it, or never heard of it… craigslist.com is an internet mainstay. So classic, in fact, that when you go to that site you are instantly transported through time back to 1996. This site is heavy on function, and more or less ignores form.
Your job is to re-design craigslist. This means you will use Photoshop and/or Illustrator to build a new visual appearance for this text-heavy, visual wasteland of a site. You will need to consider not just the function, but also the appearance. Craigslist, like other utilitarian sites, relies on efficiency of communication. But as a designer, you can make the site function better by virtue of the aesthetics. Therefore, you should consider layout, color, typography, etc. Everything is up for grabs, and your design is not at all reliant upon the current appearance (or functionality) of Craigslist. You could even consider changing existing feature, or adding new features that could improve a visitor’s experience with the site.
You will need to create a new aesthetic for the entire site, this means you are required to build four separate pages:
main page
the “for sale” page
a category within “for sale”
and a single item for sale
Each document should be 1485 x 939 pixels, and I want you to include the “chrome” for a browser window so we can get the full idea of what this re-design will look like.
Critique: Tue Jan 24
Due: Tue Jan 31
It’s going to be quite a while before CDs and other forms of “tangible media” fully disappear. However, it cannot be denied that they are certainly on the way out. With that in mind, I didn’t want to do another run-of-the-mill CD packaging project. This time around, I want you to design something that is really interesting and unique.
We talked for a bit about the Flaming Lips and their gummy skulls. You can read more about them at Pitchfork, SPIN, and watch this video from Rolling Stone:
I’m certainly not asking you to embed a USB drive into gummy… stuff. However, I am asking you to re-define the concept of music packaging. Maybe it’s a traditional CD, LP, or whatever. Maybe it’s a USB drive packaged some other interesting way. But in a world where music packaging is already reeling and on the rocks, this might be an opportunity to start from scratch.
Here’s another non-traditional approach by Eric Carlson, even if it utilizes a traditional format:
And as usual, we can look to David Byrne for an interesting point of view.
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Project parameters:
• You may choose the artist, tracklisting, etc.
• This artist may be fictional or real, but should bear no resemblance to any existing music packaging.
• Whatever form the packaging takes, it should still include any and all details that one would expect to find in music packaging including, but not limited to:
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Start: Thr Jan 12
Critique: Tue Jan 24
Due: Tue Feb 7
Here are the Steven Heller presentations on racism in advertising and design:
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Here are the other videos in the series:
SVA MFA Designer as Author: Paul Rand Lecture Series
Hey everybody! We’re back! And it’s 2012!
Here are the syllabi for each of my classes this semester:
Graphic Design II
Artistic Web Design
Applied/Package Design
History of Graphic Design/Multimedia
And here is my schedule of classes and office hours.
I hope you all had a great winter break and are ready to hit the ground running. There is a ton of great stuff happening this semester, so buckle up!