Saturday 31 March 2012

Sorenzo's Pulse Article Analysis (Exercise 8)

First of all I'd like to summarise the article briefly in point form and follow up with a paragraph.

The article deals with:


  • The application of rationalism
  • technocentricity, our dependence of technological devices
  • the innate ability of technology to 'possess' humans, and the ghosts in the movie are compared with that ability
  • facts, the 'Western' method of thinking involves facts numbers and logical conclusions
  • justice and meta narratives, absolute truth
Loytard's article "Thematising the ugly side of sublime technological development in Sonzero’s Pulse (2006) as an inadvertent critique of the ‘technocentricism’ of postmodernity” deals with technocentricity using a b grade movie as a comparison. What I gather from this article is that technological advancement isn't progress any longer, but has become self sustaining, we are not in direct control of the technology any longer. The system runs itself, take for example the internet which is self sufficient and we have ourselves to thank for it. Once information is out on the net there is no way to stop it from spreading, and this goes for anything from text to images, books, and any other user created content. The article points out the irony of the antagonists, the 'ghosts' that come from another dimension and kill you through your technological device - which is exactly what we are doing to ourselves, we are the antagonist. Capitalist technoscience is compared to the ghosts' ability to send technology out of control, again the manufacturer of your device more than likely has measures to prevent you doing something that goes against the 'terms and conditions' take for example 'bricking' a term used to describe the process by which mainly Apple renders your device unusable should you attempt to hack or 'jail break' the device. 'Jail Breaking' refers to the process by which a user is able to unblock the device and allow the user full control over their purchase(something that I personally think should have been a standard, but because Apple are a bunch of greedy cocksuckers, this is not the case) While there are several safe ways to unlock your device, there are hundreds of scams that will inevitably lead to your device being locked up. And you can't sue apple because you broke the terms and conditions.

Sunday 25 March 2012

Magazine Analysis : One Small Seed (Exercise 2)

So this time I picked up an older issue of One small Seed from the college library to answer the question for the blog requirement. Unfortunately they didn't have a newer version and I was sort of short on money at the time I I figured this one will have to do. I can say straight away that not much has changed for o\One Small Seed. Last year I looked, albeit briefly at a newer edition of the magazine and there was not a lot of changes in terms of it's overall design.

Now for anyone that does not know, One Small Seed is a contemporary South African pop culture magazine. The racial and cultural diversity of our South African people almost forces this magazine to adapt a multitude of writing styles as well as design elements. I actually thik that this exact clash of elements is one of the difining points of our country, there are so many different people living in this country that it would be extremely difficult for a magazine like this one to have to appeal to just one or two specific audiences. One Small Seed does have a target audience, however I would say it's more the demographic rather than a particular group of people. Because the content is so different it's bound to have something you like, but hang on a second, like most popular culture publications this one basically says 'You must be this tall to ride', yep, it features a lot of imagery which the older generation might raise an eyebrow at. There is some form of nudity on at least one page but this in most cases due to photographer profile showing their work, and One Small Seed likes to take a slightly edgy approach to imagery and the writing is less formal, both attributes that appeal to me as a young reader.

The one thing that we spoke about in calss just recently that has caught my attention is the depictions of people in photographs. The vast majority of magazines, adverts, billboards feature as many varied human expressions as the amount of fingers I have on one hand. They can easily be counted, how many of the really go out of their way to show that we humans have more than just the generic 'sexy' pose or the ridiculous pout of the lips? One Small Seed does not disappoint in this department, I give a lot of respect to the photography featured on the pages for its natural qualities. A lot of the photographs are just regular people, doing regular things, not being forced into one expression all the time, the photographer is most likely surprising the people, I'm sure we have all felt at some point in our lives that one guy that wants to take a photo of you but you refuse since you just got off your daily job as the school janitor and require immediate make up in order to appear in photographs. It's not true for this magazine, people of all sorts appear here, be it toothless, dirty, nude, painted, whatever you can think of that is not considered 'conventional' magazine photography graces the pages of the magazine. Of course a magazine would not be complete without it's share of the usual dolled up pretty skinny girls, but that is instantly forgiven since those type of images are typically forgotten and only appear on two or three pages at maximum.

Photography is great, but one thing that sets this magazine aside is the featured art. It's great to see so many different styles merge together to create something that I have only seen in design publications. One Small Seed caters primarily to the youth and the art speaks for itself. Anything from Japanese Kawaii to African sculpture and beyond can be found here and the articles themselves are very down to earth, it seems that the authors just wrote town exactly what they heard from the artist rather than having a piece of forced edited dialogue stuck on the page.

I am very pleased with the overall aesthetic of the magazine, the semi-hard cover prevents it from flapping around that the paper quality varies as one goes through the magazine, sometimes it's to enhance an article by printing on special paper and other times it's to divide the magazine into portions each having their own stylistic feel. The typography is clear and unintrusive, easily readable sans serif type finds a perfect places amongs the plethora of imagery, which is in fact what the majority of the magazine is made up of. If you're looking for long-winded walls of text then this is not the place. Articles are relatively short contrasting with the large images with a nice variation of overall layout.

Overall One Small Seed is as interesting to look at as it is to read, definitely one of my favorite South African magazines, a lot of inspiration can also be found here as I sad the art is great and sometimes all it takes is that one picture to shift your brain onto overdrive and put yourself to work.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Are you an individual? An imposing question.

Am I an individual?

An individual huh, well I would sure like to think that I am an individual yes, does that answer the question? Of course there has to be more to it, why do I think that? Well I will just start by examining what an individual is. For me being an individual is simply about having substantiated beliefs, likes, dislikes, and opinions. I cant honestly say that I can give a reason for every single thing that I like or do, I don't think anyone can, and especially when it comes to likes, sometimes you like things just because right? Well I don't think that's entirely true, everyone has a reason for believing in what the believe and liking what they like, even if the reason is not their own. So why do I think that I am an individual, well to me it's simply because I can safely say that I am different from anyone that has ever lived, same goes for every other person out there. We are all different, and these differences are what makes humans such interesting creatures. I can safely say that everyone is interesting, no matter how "boring" someone might seem on the surface, there is something unique about each and every person's life experience that if shared makes for one hell of a story.

I think that one of the most important things that I have learned over the last three and a bit years is examination of the self. Yep, taking a step back every now and then and asking yourself what exactly it is that you are doing and why? This comes up often after something like a family dispute where accusations are thrown around and your individual self is put into a position of maybe having to accept that which is being said. Examining oneself is not easy  though, you have to take a "subjective" approach which really is impossible, but worth trying. Realising your flaws and mistakes I think brings you closer to yourself and makes you grow as an individual and allows you to discover yourself. One of the most difficult things about looking at yourself from another perspective is accepting your flaws - we all have flaws, for some they seem obvious, for others it takes very specific events to trigger these flaws to come out, changing your perspective of that person in an instant. I will use a conversation I had with one of my friends last year as an example, and I don't even remember what we were talking about but the sentence that he said really got to me, and then it got me thinking, he said "You know, you don't have to understand everything". This was a first for me, and perhaps without realising my friend pointed out one of my own personal flaws, trying to understand why all the time. This particular flaw of mine related more to the way people think and act, and I have always asked that, more so in my longest ever relationship I had with a girl, mind you this lasted for just over two years, and still I am asking questions to this day.

Life experiences are one of the things that grant us our individuality, help us grow mentally, that is if you can apply that self examination method once in a while and not disregard every experience as something that "just happened". Everything that happens you can learn from, you just have to be awake enough when things happen and take it in, take a step back and evaluate it. I am an individual because my past experiences have shaped me into the person I am at this present moment, and that person is different from everyone else in one way or another.

Saturday 10 March 2012

Modernism Postmodernism (Exercise 7)

 Modernism/ Postmodernism Table

Rigid and Defined by rules
No rules, do whatever you want, Nihilism
Geometric and often Symmetrical
Every which way
Primarily flat colours
Mixed, Colourful, Kitsch
The Grid
Breaks the Grid
Purposeful
Just for fun
Legible
Illegible, broken
Originality
Appropriated, Copied, Parodied
Objectivity, no emotional investment
Subjective, emotional investment from designer

Hedonistic
Single Meaning
Deconstructed – Not used as prescribed
Perfection of Forms
Distortion, Imperfection
Photographed
Illustrated, Caricatured, Collage
Typographic, ITS, Corporate ID, Cultured
Mixed
Cultured, European
Eclectic
Defined Purpose
Sensationalism, Emotion -Trigger
‘Normality’, Housewives on valium
Counter Culture, Hippies, Punks








That's pretty much the key differences, there are more but they all tend toward similarities with each other.
Modernism crossed over into post-modernism hence the 'post' to my understanding Post Modernism having so much encompassing it is just a paradigm shift, people changed their way of thinking when presented with something that wasn't seen before, or something that was considered taboo and became accepted.

Here are some visual examples:

Modernist Design :











Post-Modern Design Examples : 





















Thursday 1 March 2012

ITS Logo Discussion (Exercise 1)

Without further ado, let's discuss 5 of my favorite logo's from the previous list.
                                                                                     
1:  The London Underground Logo




I love this one, the pure simplicity and striking contrast are really what stood out for me (the typeface is a pleasure to look at also) I just want to quickly give my 5 cents on the origin of the logo and the speculation we had with a lecturer some time ago. Now I have not found any evidence of this apart from maybe some coincidence , but I believe that the overall shape of the logo was based on a relatively famous British invention called the Waterline or the Plimsoll line. Here it is :  






This line invented by British politician Samuel Plimsoll appeared on the hulls of ships indicating the maximum safe draft, and the legal limit to which that particular ship is loaded. His invention was for the most part targeting so called 'coffin ships' - ships that were heavily overloaded and insured by rich owners who put the lives of their crews at risk. How the Plimsoll line is connected to the London underground I still cant find out but there is definitely a resemblance between the two symbols.

The 'Underground' word is replaced with the name of the station and it helped identify your location and the location of the name of the station a midst the regular advertising. The real strength of the logo and the reason why it is so successful is be cause of how timeless it is, the British transport cervices have even adapted the symbol to use for other modes of transport, distinguished by a change in the colour of the disc.

2: The UPS Logo



Paul Rand is one of my favorite designers, just because of how he knew precisely how to convey a message and that to me is what design is all about. And even though in his late years he strongly rejected the move towards post modernism I think that he had a massive impact on how we think of modernist designs now and how we can use the tools that he gave us to better the world of design. Onto the logo itself, this is in my opinion the better version, this was designed by Paul Rand and it should have stayed that way, this is not really an exercise of comparing two things together so I am not going go on a rant about how much I dislike the re-branded UPS that we see today. Rand actually said that he found it quite funny to put a little package onto a kitsch symbol like the shield, and even though some might associate the shield with security and stability I think that the shield was never meant to represent those things, however we all find different meanings in logos. The reason I have this as one of my favorites is again because of it's timeless quality, even now the so called 're-brand' of UPS has retained the same typeface, just that tells me that it's timeless. The logo is also easy to read, and easy to remember, to me it's partly due to how random it may seem at fist and how the shield and package do not seem to belong with each other, but somehow the design is unified enough. Oh and the it works perfectly in black and white, something that was taught to us in 1st year.

3: International Paper Company

Lester Beall's logo has stuck in my head ever since we went through it in the Meggs History of Graphic Design. And the reason for this is it's solid geometric appearance that cements itself in your mind from day one. This logo was also one that had a specific set of rules applied to it in terms of spacing, angles and positioning much like most logos that were of ITS origin. The logo is in complete harmony and everything seems so balanced, this one was for sure designed to never be changed, and has lasted to this day. Seeing how the logo performed on various textures and materials was refreshing enough for me to choose this as one of my favorite logos of all time, it's just so simple and yet it says everything. Although the logo was quite controversial when it first appeared due to it's use of distorted type I personally think that in this case it worked perfectly, it took me a while to even find the type and I though the logo worked even before I found the letters "I' and "P".


4: Tupperware



The product that revolutionized food storage and the lives on many american housewives finds a good place in my book, especially the brand. I love how this logo speaks unity from the moment you glance at it. The main reason for this I think is the workforce that was and still is behind the distribution of the product. The majority of distribution happens via independent re sellers, you know those people that go from door to door trying to sell you stuff. This is not so prominent here is in South Africa, but takes on a whole new shape in the US. I can interpret the logo in many different ways, however this goes with my current knowledge, and so taking that into account for example even if I was to say now that it looks a little bit like a company that manufactures ceiling light fixtures, if I had no idea what Tupperware was all about, this might have been a viable opinion. However the company has been around since 1946, and for housewives needing something to do after World War II, selling plastic storage containers was seemingly not such a bad idea. I think the logo is successful because of this unifying message, the typeface is also very modern and clean, goes hand in hand with the message that Tupperware is ultimately trying to convey.

5:  The Medical Cross


Yes, it is supposed to be red, but remember that thing about black and white logos? well it applies here too. Just a simple symbol like this is known word-wide, what does it mean? Just from glancing it looks like a plus sign, well that is not where the original design came from, it was in fact the inversion of the Swedish flag (which is a white cross on a red background) and is now the prominent . Henri Dunant designed this logo as far back as 1863 to create a symbol of humanitarian aid for wounded soldiers. No mater the origin, we know what this stands for, it's found on just about every medical kit in cars and hospitals and signifies help.

And that is going to be the end of this post, I hope it was ever so slightly informative and someone somewhere learned something.