Alexey Brodovitch *genius

Alexey Brodovitch (Алексей Бродович; 1898 –April 15, 1971) was a Russian-born photographer, designer and instructor who is most famous for his art direction of fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar from 1938 to 1958. I truly admire his work, I love the imagination that goes into each one of his layouts and photographs. His play of form is so delicate and the way that he translates and mirrors the form and shape between the text and the image is absolutely beautiful.

The Bal Banal poster on the streets of Paris

An ad for Athélia by Brodovitch

Brodovitch spread 1

Brodovitch spread 2

Brodovitch spread 3

Brodovitch spread 4

Brodovitch spread 5

ERNST BEADLE, October 1947

Astronauta Alexey Brodovitch’s Ballet, 1945

Brodovitch spread 6

First Editorial Magazine??

The Gentleman's Magazine, first published in 1731, in London

The Gentleman’s Magazine, first published in 1731, in London, is considered to have been the first general-interest magazine. Edward Cave, who edited The Gentleman’s Magazine, was the first to use the term “magazine”, on the analogy of a military storehouse of varied materiel, originally derived from the Arabic makhazin “storehouses”.

The oldest consumer magazine still in print is The Scots Magazine, which was first published in 1739, though multiple changes in ownership and gaps in publication totaling over 90 years weaken that claim. Lloyd’s List was founded in Edward Lloyd’s England coffee shop in 1734; it is still published as a daily business newspaper.

** information taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine

Renovations Articles

I thought of him while reading a recent press release sent out by publisher John Wiley & Sons, creator of the iconic black-and-yellow For Dummies series of reference books. Pitched to “those frustrated and hardworking souls who know they’re not dumb” but lack technical knowledge, this hugely successful series of books—150 million in print; more than 1,000 topics—has ventured deeper into the realm of eco-building with Green Building and Remodelling for Dummies, written by Eric Corey Freed, a LEED-accredited architect.

This useful book helps navigate the reader through the onslaught of “green” building materials and systems, covering everything from water and heating to energy conservation to selecting “green financing experts.”

up in Canada, more than $17.3 billion was spent in 2007, with 39 per cent of all homeowners taking on a renovation project in 2007, according to Statistics Canada. Across North America, homeowners are staying put and fixing up, not moving on.

Selected 2009 Cost vs. Value Report Statistics – Average Nationwide Return on Investment:
Deck addition — 80.6%

Major kitchen remodel — 72.1%

Bathroom remodel — 71.0%

New roof — 60.5%

Family room addition — 65.3%

** taken some details from:

http://blog.homerenovationguide.com/renovating/home-renovations-for-dummies/

Factors Affecting Home Equity on Remodels

* Emerging energy-efficient technology
* Sustainable, green building products
* Economic environment
* Seasonal/availability prices of construction materials (for example, a few years ago the price of concrete spiked while China was experiencing a construction surge.)
* Time of the year (remodeling contractor fees can vary; outdoor projects in the winter vs indoor projects during the summer, etc.)
* The cost of electricity, natural gas, and heating oil

** taken some details from:

http://homerenorepair.suite101.com/article.cfm/home_remodeling_investment_cost_vs_return_value

Opy Zouni Gallery of Optics

The Gallery of Opy Zouni,  his work is extremely interesting to me. He does artwork in both 2D and 3D and his use of geometric form is quite interesting. His play use of color is very consistant and he doesnt explore too much out of the box but his use of line makes your eyes play all over the place as it manipulates and you attempt to find where the lines meet and end. I personally love illustrations that play with optical illusions and his structures are really something else with the added color use.

autoCAD

These are some videos showcasing the works of autoCAD…just some thoughts and ideas about virtual travel.

Char Davies – Osmose

Osmose, a virtual reality created by new media artist Char Davies. This is a walk-through video of the interior environment that she had created 1995 for the purpose of virtual experience. Below is an explanation of the project Osmose.

Osmose (1995) is an immersive interactive virtual-reality environment installation with 3D computer graphics and interactive 3D sound, a head-mounted display and real-time motion tracking based on breathing and balance. Osmose is a space for exploring the perceptual interplay between self and world, i.e., a place for facilitating awareness of one’s own self as consciousness embodied in enveloping space.
Immersion in Osmose begins with the donning of the head-mounted display and motion-tracking vest. The first virtual space encountered is a three-dimensional Cartesian Grid which functions as an orientation space. With the immersant’s first breaths, the grid gives way to a clearing in a forest. There are a dozen world-spaces in Osmose, most based on metaphorical aspects of nature. These include Clearing, Forest, Tree, Leaf, Cloud, Pond, Subterranean Earth, and Abyss. There is also a substratum, Code, which contains much of the actual software used to create the work, and a superstratum, Text, a space consisting of quotes from the artist and excerpts of relevant texts on technology, the body and nature. Code and Text function as conceptual parentheses around the worlds within.

Through use of their own breath and balance, immersants are able to journey anywhere within these worlds as well as hover in the ambiguous transition areas in between. After fifteen minutes of immersion, the LifeWorld appears and slowly but irretrievably recedes, bringing the session to an end.

The user-interface is based on full-body immersion in 360 degree spherical, enveloping space, through use of a head mounted display. In contrast to manually based interface techniques such as joysticks and trackballs, Osmose incorporates the intuitive processes of breathing and balance as the primary means of navigating within the virtual world. By breathing in, the immersant is able to float upward, by breathing out, to fall, and by subtlety altering the body’s centre of balance, to change direction, a method inspired by the scuba diving practice of buoyancy control.

The public installation of Osmose includes large-scale stereoscopic video and audio projection of imagery and sound transmitted in real-time from the point-of-view of the individual in immersion (the “immersant”): this projection enables an audience, wearing polarizing glasses, to witness each immersive journey as it unfolds. Although immersion takes place in a private area, a translucent screen equal in size to the video screen enables the audience to observe the body gestures of the immersant as a poetic shadow-silhouette.

*** information cited from:

http://www.immersence.com/osmose/index.php

Unethical vs. Ethical

AXE Effect Shower Gel Unethical

AXE Effect Shower Gel Ethical

I took a course about ethics & advertising and had to reproduce an advert that unethical into an ethical advertisement. The Axe Effect company has tapped into a market that will surly continue to bring a continuous cash flow, they’re product aims to achieve one thing, how to bring sex to the viewer. If you think about it, when they first came out with they’re products, the focus was “ this smell will attract the ladies” and ironically everyone bought into it. The streets and highschool hallways stunk of Axe Effect spray for months. And by the time people figured out this smell wasn’t attracting anything but stinging in the nostrils, Axe had realized what they will always be known for; commercials and adverts that consist of sexual innuendos and metaphors.

Again, ironically they achieve this very well, they’re adverts are very inventive and have a signature to them which instantly make you realize that your watching an Axe Effect advert and even have a laugh by the end from the 30 seconds airtime. Most adverts that attract you are unethical; they showcase something inappropriate or politically incorrect and so on to grab the audience attention. Where some are more creative, the others are truly raunchier and it looks like its 50/50 in the commercial industry. In the end, the aim is to sell what you are told to sell and at that point your ethics are thrown out the window.

While looking for ads that I could potentially redesign to be more ethical, I found it extremely difficult to want to butcher any particularly image, what would be the point of advertisements if they did not provoke me. But after a while I realized that Axe is a perfect candidate for this assignment, even though they have moments where they’re ads aren’t too much to take; the majority of them have become unrelated to the actual product. So, in result I have chosen this advert in which a woman who is willing to get dirty to smell like Axe Effect Shower Gel; that’s you. From a feminist point of view, this adverts is a disgrace to women kind and this girl is showcasing herself like a piece of meat. Although, I somehow feel a thought like that wouldn’t even cross a man’s mind, maybe eventually, but defiantly not at first. And some of us just don’t care; an advert is just an advert doing its job.

I found a series of photographs taken; where the models faces were covered in dirt while underneath they’re make-up was also done to accent the eyes. These images are both of men and women and the ethical version of the same advert has completely changed its message; apart from getting clean and smelling like Axe. It still maintains its sex appeal aspect of marketing by the same straight on look into the camera, meeting their gaze with yours, without the exposure of any unnecessary skin or any other suggestive gestures; instead a playfulness in the eyes. The re-designed advert is more suitable for commercial purposes, this ad now says “ lets rough house and have a good time” instead of  “ explicit explicit explicit “. And finally, it maintains its use of girls within the adverts, but not in a demeaning way, they look natural, healthy and great in dirt.

READING 6

The reflective pracitioner: how professionals think in action
By Donald Schon

preface
– exploration of professional knowledge stems directly from my working life as an industrial consultant, technology manager, urban planner, policy analyst, and teacher in a professional school.
– universities are not devoted  to the production and distribution of fundamental knowledge that fosters selective inattention to practical competence and professional artistry
– many use the term “academic” in its pejorative sense
– complaints about the elitism or obscurantism of the universities tend to be associated with a mystique of practical competence
– university’s familiar dichotomy between the “hard” knowledge of science and scholarship and the “soft” knowledge of artistry and unvarnished opinion.
– gain better understanding of the practical uses and limits of research-based knowledge or to help scholars who wish to take a new view on professional action
– practitioners themselves often reveal a capacity for reflection on their intuitive known in the midst of actions and sometimes use this capacity to cope with the unique and conflicted
– heart of this study is an analysis of the distinctive structure of reflection-in- action

the origins of technical rationality
– technical rationality is the heritage of positivism, the powerful philosophical doctrine that grew up in the nineteenth century as an account of the rise of science and technology and as a social movement aimed at applying the achievements of science and technology to the well-being of mankind
– institutionalized in the modern university, founded in the late 19th century when Positivism was at its height
– scientific world-view gained dominance so did he ideas that human progresses would be achieved by harnessing science to create technology for the achievement of human ends
– the scientific movement, industrialism, ad the technological program became dominant in western society, a philosophy emerged which sought both to give an account of the triumphs of science and technology and to purge mankind of the residues of religion, mysticism and metaphysics which still prevented scientific thought
– late 19th century, positivism had become a dominant philosophy
– early 20th century, in theories of the Vienna Circle, its epistemological program took on a beguiling clarity
– 2 kinds of propositions ; analytic and essentially tautological propositions of logic and mathematics or the empirical propositions which express knowledge of the world
– empirical observation, all disagreements about the world could be resolved, in principle, by reference to observable facts
– positivists became increasingly sophisticated in their efforts to explain and justify the exclusivity of scientific knowledge; empirical knowledge in irreducible elements of sensory experience
– began to see laws of nature not as facts inherent in nature but as constructs created to explain observed phenomena and science became hypothetico-deductive system.
– the success of the medical and engineering models a great attraction for social sciences (education, social work, planning and policy making, social scientists attempted to do research and apply it
– between 1963 and 1982, both the general public and the professionals have become aware of the flaws  and limitations in the profession

the importance of problem setting
– technical rationality, professional practice is a process of problem solving
– must be constructed from materials of problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling and uncertain
– a conflicts of ends cannot be solved by the use of techniques derived from supplied research
– when someone reflects in action, he becomes a researcher in the practice context, non-dependent on the categories of established theory and technique
– reflection in action can proceed, even in situations of uncertainty or uniqueness, because it is not bound by the dichotomies of technical rationality
– the dilemma of rigor or relevance may be dissolved if we can develop an epistemology of practice which places technical problem solving within a boarder context of reflective inquiry; may be rigorous in its own right

Semiotics: a primer for designers
By challis hodge

– “semiotics is important for designers as it allows us to understand the relationship between signs, what they stand for, and the people who must interpret them – the people we design for.”

Overview
– semiotics can be described as the study of signs
– not signs as we normally think, instead signs in a much broader context that includes anything capable of standing for or representing a separate meaning
– “semiotics tells us things we already know in a language we will never understand”
– semiotics is important for designers as it allows us to gain insight into the relationships between signs and people who must interpret them, the people we design for.
– science of semiology seeks to investigate and understand the nature of signs and the law governing them
– semiotics adopted by disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, anthropology, literature, aesthetic and media theory, psychoanalysis and education

origins of semiotics
– Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure is considered to be the founder of linguistics and semiotics
– American mathematician derived similar theories at the same time, first to use the word semiotics
– semiology therefore aims to take in any system of signs, substance or limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects and the complex associations of all these contents

language of language
– structuralism is an analytical method used by many semioticians
– structuralists seek to describe the overall organization of sign systems as language, search for the deep and complex structures
– social semiotics has taken the structuralist concern with the internal relations of parts within a self-contained system to the next level
– semiotics is a branch of linguistics known as semantics; common concern with the meaning of signs
– semantics focuses on what words, semiotics concerned on how signs

other traditional branches are:
– semantics: the relationships of signs to what they stand for
– syntactics (or syntax): the formal or structural relations between signs
– pragmatics: the relations of signs interpreters

– a text is an assemblage of signs (words, images, sounds or gestures)
– text usually refers to a message; has been recorded in some way
– Saussure made what is now a famous distinction between language (langue) and speech (parole)
– Language refers to the system of rules and conventions which is independent individual users
– Speech refers to its use in “particular instance”
– meaning of a sign is not in its relationship to other signs within the language system but in the social context of its use
– a synchronic system of language may be to exist only from the point of view of the subjective consciousness of an individual speaker belonging to some particular language group
– the study of semiotics needs to account for the relationships of the symbols and the social context or context of use

understanding design as a dialogue
“ the study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the world of meanings.”
– the deeper our understanding and awareness of these factors, the better our control over the success of the work products we create
– becoming aware of these systems and rules and learning to master them is the true power of visual communication and design

READING 5

I come to bury graphic design
Kenneth Fitzgerald

– how to teach or theorize about graphic design?
– Ideally, that answer will be less abstract than the platitude, “to make the world a better place.”
– design behaves with such self-awareness, its essential impulse is to perpetuate itself
– Do we desire a society permanently estranged from its visual expression? Is mediation perfection? Do we seek to extinguish the vernacular?
– The design connoisseur will become a designer
– controversial architect was evidently so taken by Bruce Mau’s productions that he got into the game and formed his own design studio
– Interest in “undesigned” design has also increased recently, approach isn’t anti-design, as it doesn’t mock the field’s concerns
– an automatized design format has been widely adopted as a standard
– Hollis: “The world may yet dispense with the profession while designers are arguing about whether they are artists or not.”
– design shows design training isn’t necessary for someone to be considered a genius of information design
– Design culture is similarly blind to its motivations
– imagine graphic design as an individual, we must explain why it doesn’t affirm its desired identity, then breed wildly
– Decades of famous graphic designers have practiced, ones esteemed for their skills in communication and persuasion
– design also has a fascination with and frequently embraces the vernacular. It’s a bracing reality check for over-theorized design
– What is significant is that designers look outside their professional standard to a source considered pure and immediate. And, often—from hand-drawn and painted signage to ‘zines to desktop horrors no designer would uphold—distressingly effective
– The notion that design is an on-the-job learning experience continues to dominate
– design education is entirely about producing designers. It’s vocational training
– Designers need to convert the mass of people who have the economic means to hire designers
– Design constructed itself as professional service—formal speech to commune with industry
– Professionalism has reigned supreme throughout design’s existence

Why designers can’t think
Michael Bierut

– The first assignments are simple exercises: drawing letterforms, “translating” three-dimensional objects into idealized high-contrast images, and basic still-life photography
– the process schools trace their lineage back to the advanced program of the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel, Switzerland
– The Swlss-style process schools seem to have thrived largely as a reaction
against the perceived “slickness” of the portfolio schools
– the unspoken goal of the process school is to duplicate the idealized black-and-white boot camp regimen of far-off Switzerland, the portfolio school has a completely different, more admittedly mercenary, aim: to provide students with polished “books” that will get them good jobs upon graduation
– East Coast corporate identity firms love the process school graduates; anyone who’s spent six months combining a letterform and a ballet shoe won’t mind being mired in a fat standards manual for three years
– it’s possible to study graphic design for four years without any meaningful exposure to the fine arts, world literature, science, history, politics or any of the other disciplines that unite us in a common culture
– The pioneering design work of the forties and fifties continues to interest
and cite us while work from the intervening years looks more and more dated and irrelevant
-They [the clients] must be touched with communication that is genuinely resonant, not self-referential
– the passion of design educators seems to be technology; they fear that computer illiteracy will handicap their graduates
– educators find a way to expose their students to a meaningful range of culture, graduates will continue to speak in languages that only their classmates understand

Mad World – Gary Jules

The original video of Gary Jules’ and Michael Andrews’ cover version of Mad World, directed by Michel Gondry.

what’s our lesson?