Issues 1-4 of Migrant Journal a self-published periodical documenting the concept of migration across a wide-array of subject matter. — Issues 1-4 of *Migrant Journal* a self-published periodical documenting the concept of migration across a wide-array of subject matter.

GDE730 W5 | Lecture Review

July 4, 2020

The Collaborative Mix

Reflecting on Classic Models for Graphic Design Working

This week’s lecture included three unique interviews and discussions:

Part 1: ‘Design to Change the World’ at the global design Forum, London Design Festival 2018. Chaired by Susanna Edwards.
Part 2: ‘Graphics That Engage’ at the global design Forum, London Design Festival 2018. Chaired by Susanna Edwards.
Part 3: Havana Club 3 and Jamieson Ltd Edition: collaborative projects by Pearl Fisher London

A CONVERSATION WITH OFFSHORE STUDIO’S CHRISTOPH MILLER AND MORAG MYERSCOUGH FROM MYERSCOUGH STUDIO

Make happy all those who are near and those that are far will come”
— Morag Myerscough

I found the conversation between Susanna Edwards, Morag Myerscough, and Christoph Miller from Offshort Studio to be the most enlightening of this week’s lecture. As a creative director for the University of San Francisco (USF), I lead a team of creatives that work on a wide array of projects throughout the year. This work is designed to attract prospective students, retain current students, and engage our alumni. We produce two different magazines: one for the entire USF community including our alumni and one for the School of Law which is more narrowly focussed solely on the law school community including alumni.

The big lightbulb moment for me in this week’s lecture was hearing from Christoph Miller’s approach to setting up the Migrant Journal periodical. He said their desire was to create a truly collaborative endeavor: one wherein writers, designers, editors, and contributors whole the entire process together. They collaborate from the very beginning to determine not only the content and creative direction, but the way these parts come together. For our process on our magazines at USF, we collaborate when it’s time to do so, but design and content development act more like relay runners than dance partners. This was a very illuminating experience for me. I’ve since approached our editor to suggest that we rethink our process so that design and editorial are thoroughly engaged for the entire development of each issue. She is all in on this which is very exciting. Stay tuned!

REFERENCE:

Carter, M., Mandani, S. (2016) ‘Tune out, dive deep, read on’, [online] Eye Magazine, Summer. Available at: http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/tune-out-dive-deep-read-on (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 29 March 2019]

It's Nice That, Danielle Pender (2019) Nicer Tuesdays: Riposte magazine, [online video]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOWyVOy7JwMM (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 4 June 2019]

Penny Stamps Lecture Series, MoragMyerscough(2018) Belonging, [online video]. Available at: Morag Myerscough: Belonging (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

It's Nice That, AnnaLomax and Jess Bonham (2016). Nicer Tuesdays,[online video]. Available at: Nicer Tuesdays: Anna Lomax and Jess Bonham (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

It's Nice That, Liv Siddall(2016) Nicer Tuesdays: Rough Trade magazine, [online video]. Available at: Nicer Tuesdays: Liv Siddall (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

BBC News (2019), ‘Photographer Trevor Keys album sleeves go on show’[online]. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-41331715 (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

Hari Peccinotti, https://showstudio.com/contributors/harri_peccinotti (Links to an external site.)

O'Brien, K. (2019) ‘Director Tony Kaye happy to be working and out of “Hollywood jail”’, [online] The Drum, 17 April.Available at: https://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/04/17/director-tony-kaye-happy-be-working-and-out-hollywood-jail (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 4 June 2019]

DesignBoom (2019) Interview with graphic designer Vaughan Oliver,[online]. Available at: https://www.designboom.com/design/interview-with-graphic-designer-vaughan-oliver-12-19-2014/ (Links to an external site.).[Accessed 4 June 2019]

Falmouth University (2020). The Collaborative Mix | Reflecting on Classic Models for Graphic Design Working | Lecture. Studio and Entrepreneurship GDE730 20/21 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

GDE730 W5 | Workshop Challenge

July 4, 2020

WORKSHOP CHALLENGE: COLLABORATION

What are the essential components of the collaborative mix?

Find one example of collaboration past or present that has led to an exemplary and historically significant piece of work.

Analyse the relationship of the collaborators and the roles they played;
Research any documented history of the challenges they faced and the outcome they produced;
Explore and analyse any specific approaches they took to their creative process or recording of their ideas that facilitated a successful outcome.

Design as an editorial piece (300 words), along with accompanying imagery.

A COLLABORATION 60 YEARS IN THE MAKING

I chose to focus on Christo and Jeanne-Claude for the subjects of my Workshop Challenge editorial design. Their partnership spanning from 1963 to after both of there passing (Jeanne-Claude in 2007, and Christo in May of this year) brought to life some of the most prolific art installations and exhibitions from all over the world.

Their unique approach to artistic expression was immersive, unexpected, at times resented, and often embraced by the communities in which their art resided. They never took a penny for their work, always choosing to self-fund their art. Christo would make detailed sketches documenting not only their approach to the artwork but also to reconcile any regional, geographic, architectural considerations and to serve as the proposal content to garner the necessary approvals to proceed.

I chose to leverage the bountiful sketches and images that well-documented their 2005 installation called The Gates which inhabited the entirety of New York’s Central Park for two weeks for my editorial design for this week’s Workshop Challenge. The color palette was chosen to emulate the saffron color pop this installation created against the dulled greyscale background of a New York in winter.

Further, I chose three typefaces: Garamond to nod to the history of New York and the legacy of these prolific collaborators; Roboto to acknowledge the progressive and contemporary approach of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and finally Eddam and Louren, a hand-tooled face that mimics the handwriting of Christo. I found it charming that the typeface name was also a partnership.

The layout starts as their art does, with sketches and notes. The reader is teased with a photograph of the installation as well. Moving into the second spread, the sketches are used to further illustrate the amount of thought and consideration went into the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Finally, the last spread showcases the photography of the installation including a panoramic shot, an aerial as well as a portrait of the artists tucked in the center of the photographic grid.

The layout is completed by a bespoke icon of a saffron gate to indicate the end of the article.

“Our works are temporary in order to endow the works of art with a feeling of urgency to be seen, and the love and tenderness brought by the fact that they will not last.”

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REFERENCE:

Penny Stamps Lecture Series, MoragMyerscough(2018) Belonging, [online video]. Available at: Morag Myerscough: Belonging (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

It's Nice That, AnnaLomax and Jess Bonham (2016). Nicer Tuesdays,[online video]. Available at: Nicer Tuesdays: Anna Lomax and Jess Bonham (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

It's Nice That, Liv Siddall(2016) Nicer Tuesdays: Rough Trade magazine, [online video]. Available at: Nicer Tuesdays: Liv Siddall (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 11 June 2019]

Hari Peccinotti, https://showstudio.com/contributors/harri_peccinotti (Links to an external site.)

Gupta, A. (2013, October 22). Artist Collaboration Fuels Creative Exploration. Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/artistic-collaboration-_b_3763586

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Gates (article). (n.d.). Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/global-contemporary-apah/20th-century-apah/a/christo-and-jeanne-claude-the-gates

Lemisch, J. (2019, January 15). Art for the People? Christo and Jeanne-Claude's "The Gates". Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://newpol.org/issue_post/art-people-christo-and-jeanne-claudes-gates/

Christo and Jeanne-Claude. (n.d.). Projects: The Gates. Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/the-gates

Dalela, S. (2019, May 15). Why Collaboration Is The Way to Grow As An Artist. Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://blog.dextra.art/why-collaboration-is-the-way-to-grow-as-an-artist-58f17bc4e918

Podder, A. (2018, October 19). Performa Reveals Program to Honor Groundbreaking Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude at Performa 2018 Gala on November 1 at New York City. Retrieved August 01, 2020, from https://mysocialgoodnews.com/performa-reveals-program-to-honor-groundbreaking-artists-christo-and-jeanne-claude-at-performa-2018-gala-november-1-new-york-city/

GDE720 W5 | Workshop Challenge

March 1, 2020

DISSECTING A WRITTEN GENRE

This week’s challenge had us generating a written and visual content that explores the relationship between content and form.

Among the six genre’s of writing offered, I chose “love letter”. One of my favorite writers of all time is Ernest Hemingway. I knew he had written numerous love letters. With Hemingway as a starting point, I set off to find the love letters of the other prolific writers: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, and Johnny Cash.

To emphatically profess emotion is a key element of any love letter. It seems a sense of madness or being besotted also tends to have a starring role. Writing is meandering and wild. Forms are broken and reassembled. The tone is passionate, desperate, and undying.

I cannot love
you less...?

*That* is a doubtful phrase. And
I cannot love you more…
…is doubtful too, for reasons I could give. More or less, I really love you, but it does not sound right, even so, does it? I know what it ought to be, and will put it into the 'seal' and the 'paper' with the ineffable other things.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning married her husband, Robert Browning by eloping much to the dismay of her father. They wrote many love letters to one another throughout their lives together. And collections of these letters have been published many times over. A love of the ages.

John Keats ends his bachelorhood by deeply slipping into a heart-struck madness for his paramour, Fanny Brawne.

Oscar Wilde fell in love with a man named Lord Alfred Douglas, whom Wilde affectionately called "Bosie". To be in love with a man in the time of Oscar Wilde was not unheard of, but it was not publicized. His letters to Douglas were passionate, full of love and desire to remain with his sweet Bosie knowing full well it was never to be. The advent of the typewriter allowed Wilde to profess his love and admiration in two ways as shown below:

Hemingway, a prolific writer, was also a prolific lover. Married four times and having countless lovers both during his marriages and apart, Ernest could not keep his loving thoughts to himself. He often used his passion for his beloveds as a muse for his work. His use of pacing, type, and punctuation underscores the degree of his love.

The love between Johnny Cash and Rosanne Cash was like none other. A love so big and so deep it lifted them up, broke into pieces, and brought them together several times over. While their love was shared in song after song — lyrical love letters — it was also shared through written love letters.

Working on this assignment reminded me of one of my own passions for type: the typewriter. I happen to own a 1937 Remington Noiseless portable. And it served as inspiration as I drafted my final piece. I chose to write a love letter to Palatino, the serif typeface created in 1948 by type designer Herrmann Zapf.

I chose both handwritten typography (my own) and typewriter courier elite type called Special Elite, which is the closest facsimile of my own typewriter. After digging it out, I realized the space bar cable has snapped, so my approach to actually type my own letter was thwarted. Luckily, there is a typewriter repairman not too far from my house and it will give me the opportunity to geek out with the repairman over typewriters. :)

I then moved the piece into Procreate to create a watercolor and alcohol ink wash around the letter forms to increase the emotion of the piece. Lastly, I placed it into a mockup of a deckle-edge piece of paper. My hope would be if this were to be a collection of love letters, it would be a part of a handcrafted book like the example shown below.

My final piece can be found below:

REFERENCE:

Biguenet, J. (2015, February 12). A Modern Guide to the Love Letter. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/a-modern-guide-to-the-love-letter/385370/

Dorning, A. M. (2009, November). Letters Show Hemingway as 'Besotted Lover'. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/newly-discovered-letters-show-hemingway-besotted-lover/story?id=8990222

Element Talks (2017) Adrian Shaughnessy – The graphic designer as writer, editor and publisher, [online video]. Available at Adrian Shaughnessy - The graphic designer as writer, editor and publisher. [Accessed 31 January 2019].

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Written Communication | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

It’s Nice That (2015) Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books, [online video]. Available at Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books [Accessed 31 January 2019].

Jones, L. (2011, October 22). Bosie's love letters point to cover-up in Oscar Wilde trial. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/bosies-love-letters-point-to-cover-up-in-oscar-wilde-trial-2254136.html

Palatino® Font Family Typeface Story. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/palatino/story

Popova, M. (2019, October 28). John Keats's Exquisite Love Letter to Fanny Brawne. Retrieved from https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/02/19/john-keats-love-letter-fanny-brawne/

Smith, R. I. (2018, March 6). Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Immortal Literary Love Affair. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/03/elizabeth-barrett-browning-birthday/472377/

Smith, S. (2007, March). 'I Want to Kiss You Forever'. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2989920&page=1

TOC (2011) Anna Gerber and Britt Iverson, Visual Editions: Part Revolution, Part Reinvention, Part Making it Up Along the Way, [online video]. Available at TOC 2011: Anna Gerber & Britt Iverson, "Visual Editions: Part Revolution, Part Reinvention..." [Accessed 31 January 2019].

The great many works of designer, Paul Rand

GDE720 W5 | Lecture Review

March 1, 2020

VISUAL WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

This week’s lecture discovering and analyzing the relationship between written content and form. We explore the importance of structure, pacing, and tone of voice. We research the outputs of designer authors making contributions to publishing for visual consumers. We analyze the intersection of type, layout, color, materials, and format and their impact on aiding communication.

PRE-1920s

What drives the visual designer or artist to write about visual culture? We are asked this as our lecture begins in the early nineteen hundreds, the first World War, and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism, published in 1910 in Le Figaro. His commentary was to defy and let go of the classics and look only to the modern, future world ahead.

I suddenly felt that all the poems, articles, and debates were no longer sufficient. A change of method was absolutely imperative: to get down into the streets, to attack the theaters, and to bring the fist into the midst of the artistic struggle.
— Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

We are introduced to Wyndam Lewis and Vorticism. The vorticists were a British avant-garde group formed in London in 1914 with the aim of creating art that expressed the dynamism of the modern world. Influenced by the Futurists, they favored urban, industrial subjects and promoted a hard-edged, angular style.

Lewis’ Blast magazine arrives in 914 with a vitriolic tone and commentary on pop culture with short plays by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot's poems.

Sabon, typeface developed by Jan Tschichold.

1920s-1930S

In 1928, Jan Tschichold, a typographer, publishes Die Nue Typographie, a tome that will influence the graphic design community for nearly a hundred years. Influenced by the Bauhaus movement and Russian Constructivism, within Die Nue Typographie Tschichold set forth rules for standardization of practices relating to modern type usage. He condemned all typefaces except for sans-serif types, advocated standardized sizes of paper and set forth guidelines for establishing a typographic hierarchy when using type in design.

Tschichold slowly abandoned his rigid beliefs from around 1932 onwards. He also spent part of his career with Penguin Books and while he was there he developed a standardized practice for creating the covers for all of the books produced by Penguin.

MIDCENTURY

Swiss style dominates the midcentury of design. Central to the journal, Neue Grafik — published between 1958-65 — was the concept of the designer as an individual endowed with a great deal of social responsibility. With the authority to effectively communicate ideas, the founders held, came responsibility to uphold values and justice. The journal was also known for advocating the use of photography as a central element in graphic design. Antecedent to the globally popular Helvetica, Neue Grafik’s type and clean, grid-based system would influence graphic design for the foreseeable future.

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Paul Rand, a self-taught designer, one of the first American commercial artists to embrace and practice the Swiss Style of graphic design, developed unique identities for IBM, UPS, ABC Television and many more.

As a designer, it is our job to make things memorable…. To improve the design of the message, and often times, the product itself.
—Paul Rand

PRESENT DAY

Fast forward forty years and we arrive at the designer, director, and author, Adrien Shaughnessey, co-founder of Unit Edition, a book publisher of “design books for designers, by designers. For Shaughnessey, the impotence for starting his own publishing firm was out of frustration of wanting to write and being overly constrained by traditional publishers.

Designer and author, Craig Oldham’s foray into publishing was quite personal. His father, a third generation miner in the UK, was part of the year-long strike brought about when former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher abruptly closes dozens of coal mines, leaving thousands of families without work. So keen on telling the story of the miners expressions of protest and creativity, the author used pulverized coal from the site of his father’s former mine in the printing process for the book’s jacket. Brilliant.

REFERENCE:

Falmouth University (2018). Visual Written Communication | Lecture. History and Futures GDE720 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S2 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)

It’s Nice That (2015) Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books, [online video]. Available at Nicer Tuesdays: Craig Oldham on Books [Accessed 31 January 2019].

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GDE740 W5 | Lecture Review

November 2, 2019

COMPETITIVE CONTEXT

This week we learn from four new agencies who answer the question:

How do you research and identify new industry projects or opportunities that you’d like to participate in?

FELD

FELD is a multi-disciplinary agency that has two approaches to new work and projects:

Keep interested by pursuing projects of personal interest as it is very natural and the likelihood of commitment is high due to alignment
Take on subject where you have no knowledge. This is their preferred approach as it provides opportunities to learn new skills, subject matters and new ways of designing by conducting research.

They argue that pursuing projects of personal interest runs the risk of becoming “color blind” and that you need to refresh those eyes and brains with new experiences and opportunities which ultimately can yield great personal and professional reward.

ACCEPT & PROCEED

Accept & Proceed has decided in recent years that they really only wish to “design for good” and align themselves with creative partners and clients that share in this desire to engage in projects tackling subject matters are socially responsible such as climate change. A good amount of their work is self-initiated which in turn has generated the attention and respect of prospective clients. They have added strategy and project management units to their agency to enable their purpose and mission more effectively and efficiently. Research for their projects is spearheaded by strategy and project management teams, but the entire agency owns this process to fully engage in the work.

STUDIO DUMBAR

Being a subsidiary of a globally recognized and distributed digital agency, DEPT, has its benefits. While they do make new business partnerships by attending conferences, the majority of their work as a result of this recognition and brand affiliation “comes to them.” Must be nice. It would have been good to hear how it was before that merger and what they do differently now as opposed to when they were on their own.

EDENSPIEKERMANN

Most project like Studio Dumbar come to them. Unlike, Dumbar, EdenSpiekermann has been independently serving the design community and global agency stage for over forty years. They strive to get better at defined domains for them to dig deeper and expand their expertise across fewer industries versus broadly, and more shallowly serving their partners. Most of their work comes via word of mouth and repeat clientele.

REFERENCE

Falmouth University (2018). Competitive Context | Interviews. Application and Interactions GDE740 19/20 Part-Time Study Block S1 (Falmouth, UK: Falmouth University)