Characteristics of Victorian Era: - Ornate Style - Symmetry: everything is centered - Many Different Fonts, usually all packed in - Curved Typography or Typography in cloth banners - Framed images that are based on gothic/classic architecture - Decorative borders - Theme is: nostalgic, romantic, sentimental, flowery - Use of flowers, leaves, columns, etc. - Page is full with type and pictures
- These three images are great examples of flowery imagery and ornate borders.
- Everything, even font, is elaborate and ornate
It is important to also research the Gothic era since the Victorian artists were so heavily influenced by this time period:
Many of the borders and designs are based on Gothic architecture.
1. Type- Typefaces 2. Image- Notation, tone, pictorial, representational 3. Layout (Arrangement): - Balance - Rhythm - Size, Width, weight of elements - Contrast/Comparison - Alignment - Coherence between all elements - Color Combination (scheme) - Warm, cool, muted - Analogous, complementary - Value, intensity, gradient - Chromatic, monochromatic 4. Clear Communication - The quality of conveying messages
Victorian Style was the aesthetic response of society to industrialization.
The Industrial Revolution brought mass production system, complex cities, technological revelations, destroyed urban, the rise of ‘nouveau rich class.’
The surpluses created by the Industrialization Revolution led to increased competition in the marketplaces. It generated ‘Advertising,’ a new medium.
As the desire for unlimited comfort spread from the wealthy to the middle class, popular aesthetics were increasingly devoid of any critical standards.
They are mass producing so many items that the beauty and individualism decreased.
They borrowed elements from Gothic (in completely different context from the original culture).
-Ornamentation as a visual evidence of social status.
-Ostentation
-Corpulent (fat)
-Exaggerated embellishment
-Aberrant lusts (too much desire; greedy)
-Decorative excesses
Gothic style- Cathedrals
They bring the style from windows and patterns from cathedrals.
Characteristics of Victorian Style
Advertising:
-Image: Crude and rough images drawn and engraved.
-They have some illustration, although, because of technology, the quality of the illustration is not good.
-Type: distorted, larger, and blacker typefaces. Bastardization= Fat Face.
-Layout: Extreme variations of typeface, size and weight crammed within a single headline. (they use many different fonts, all kinds)
-Really packed, lots of text and different typefaces.
Before 1870s
Before the end of century, however, type designers working with foundries like the American Type Founders Co. began to teach printers how to make type more readable.
American Victorian:
-Mixture of text and image
-Stuck in boxes: vertical or horizontal
-What they want to emphasize is in the center
Sutton’s Compound Cream of Ammonia
French Victorian:
-Poster revolution that involved the marriage of text and image and supplied the basis for French Art Nouveau.
Digital 1980s~ USA, England, Europe
Destruction
Émigré
Fontism
Controlled Chaos
Rave
Kinetics
New Simplicity
William Morris created the “Arts and Crafts” Movement
Characteristics of 1990s; Digital
Post-Modernism was not unified movement based on utopian ideology.
In the early eighties, as a young generation’s genuine rebellion against the rigidity of cold, corporate Modernism.
Late-Modernist ideals of clarity and logic
Counterpart, supplanting, fading out and in or After a style
-Simplicity is to Minimalism what complexity is to chaos, a whole component, not the whole.
-It is rooted in the Mies van der Roos dictem
Project 01
Design posters in order to commemorate Victorian and New Simplicity Styles.
Size: 5.5x7.5
DUE: SEPT. 17TH
- Should have text “Victorian” or “British Victorian” and “New Simplicity” on page
Friday, August 21, 2009
The Victorian Age 1840-1900
The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 1837 to January 1901, the longest reign in British history.
It was characterized as a long period of peace, known as the Pax Britannica.
Gothic Revival architecture became increasingly significant in the period, leading to the Battle of the Styles between Gothic and Classical ideals.
Gambling at cards in establishments popularly called casinos was wildly popular during the period: so much so that evangelical and reform movements specifically targeted such establishments in their efforts to stop gambling, drinking, and prostitution.
Photography was realized in 1829 by Louis Daguerre in France and William Fox Talbot in the UK. By 1900, hand-held cameras were available.
Although initially developed in the early years of the 19th century, gas lighting became widespread during the Victorian era in industry, homes, public buildings and the streets.
The Victorian Era was a time of strong moral and religious beliefs.
This was a time period when people appreciated sentimentality, nostalgia and idealized beauty, all displayed with ornate complexity.
Women's fashion displays this love for the ornate.
The Eiffel tower is an example of the ornate in architecture.
Transportation design was also very decorative in its approach.
Even telephones were designed to fit the times.
This age is defined by elaborate font, symmetrical layout, decorative borders, and framed images, and usually fills the entire page with type (appearing often in a cloth banner, or hand-drawn on a curve) and pictures.
Major Events during this time period:
1850
Restoration of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Britain.
1851
The Great Exhibition (the first World's Fair) was held at the Crystal Palace, with great success and international attention.
1851
The Victorian Gold Rush. In ten years the Australian population nearly tripled.
1854
Crimean War: The United Kingdom declared war on Russia.
1859
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, which led to various reactions.
1861
Death of Prince Albert; Queen Victoria refused to go out in public for many years, and when she did she wore a widow's bonnet instead of the crown.
1867
The Constitution Act, 1867 passes and British North America becomes Dominion of Canada.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
08.20.09 Lecture What is Graphic Design? Books Grandmother asks her grandson: - Did you take these photographs? No. - Did you write this essay? No. - Well then what did you do? * He is a designer. He compiled all of the sources.
Many Areas of Graphic Design: - Photography - Illustration - Text - Typography
• We integrate these materials: - Image and Type
Gestalt: The Laws of Closure - 12 dots in the shape of an H • Implied line connects the dots
The shape creates a symbol: - Typical STOP sign (octagonal shape) will make us stop - Heart-shape with curly “stop” wouldn’t work
El Lissitzky- Russian Contructualist
- Wrote a Russian poem about the sun • Red dot represents sun - Designed the red dot on left and poem on right
There is a process to how we perceive things: - Information source • Color • Shape - Encoder - Signal (in channel) - Noise Source - Decoder
Signs fall into 4 categories: - Icon: resembles the thing it represents. A pictoral representation. - Index: has a factual or casual connection that points toward its object. Smoke signifies a fire. - Symbol: has an arbitrary relationship between the signifier and the thing signified. The interpreter understands the symbol through previous knowledge and experience. Spoken and written words are symbols. - Meta Symbol: a symbol whose meaning transcend the tangible realm of simple one to one relationship. History, culture and tradition all play role in creating metasymbol, such as the dove with olive branch as a symbol for peace.
GRAPHIC DESIGN is a type of language used for communicating with people: Audiences, viewers, readers, users, receivers, visitors, participants, interacters, players, passers-by, experiences, members of the public, communities, subscribers, inhabitants…
How to integrate type and image? 1. Juxtaposition • Giacometti: tall man and tall, vertical letters • Spread of a fashion magazine: Glasses look like the “B;” colors are similar 2. Words within images • “O” with middle being pulled back like a page to reveal the ceiling of the Guggenheim 3. Fusion of type and image • Image as letter o The head of a shovel can be a “u” o IBM • Letter as image o “K” has feet- it’s a shoe company’s logo o Fingerprint with “Chicago” in the font • Word as image • Text type as image o The whole essay/text resembles an image/shape 4. Type as environmental image • Macy’s sign • 3D letters on wall o War Monument in DC
Design Process: - Problem definition • Define what you are going to research, what the program is - Information Gathering • Research - Idea Finding - Synthesizing solutions - Implementation
Practice: Pick any object around you, 1) Draw four kinds of sign of the object 2) Draw six different images: notation, pictogram, contour drawing, silhouette, line as a tone, representation of the object • Size: 8.5 x 11 inches • Supplies: Sketchbook, pencils or pens • Due: Tue.
Practice: This practice will help you understand the nature of paints and a way of painting gouache with brush. All projects should be painted by hand. • Size: 5.5 x 7.75 in
* Both Practices are due Sept. 1
Start Reading p. 14-39 and p. 235-257 Start researching “Victorian and Digital style” Scan the interesting image on your text book blogging images strikes you.
The purpose of blogging is to understand and get familiar with style. After lecture you will keep researching and sketching two styles in class.
![[vic1.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQgvg-A9yUmIVt-On_CYO8Ms7AWlneeM-1GFqbbPctvP2E2AWVcXlOAx7rgg-yCNc4BIvBXd0I99sV_gT30755I9eXxuROPROw9WXCCxN2hNDxPh05VQOxgHCj6R4gTPZdzA1dqfuhgfBt/s1600/vic1.jpg)
![[vic2.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7yYCoksLFvUlMvZAawwJq10NGTu2fs3Xb85tXORkHk0rAy_pxOXsUXpICNJvNrZ6SR5nfrPuU5EZcNBP-V5Ms4gmAh7L79O98Uf4oUlWYX8VA3SohZTqtp6F64QtSAtkOIBGjYK4tBxEf/s1600/vic2.jpg)
