Post modern design theory

Postmodern has lost its meaning in that people were constantly changing and that there isn't any set rules to be exactly the same, I basically understood that people are trying to come up with what they want and go against being the same as everyone as Richard has mentioned with the Bauhaus. People would take the simple ideas from the postmodern and deconstruct everything about it to make new ideas where there would be multiple designs of an item or product, such as a chair. This allowed multiple people to create their own version or interpretation of how it should look like and function.

Another example would be the underground train system map, was changed and made easier to understand because someone interpreted simple enough for people to understand.

We are now in a world where people are connecting together all around the world, exchanging ideas with each other, without changing each others culture. We all have different ideas and with a variety of interpretations of the basics we come up with different ideas to suit everyone's needs.

modernist design theory

Modernist design theory follows a series of same rules, producing a utopia defined as the perfect world, which is to provide a clean balance of everything, creating a better future. Functionality is also a main necessary, aiding everyone (If everyone were a passive audience).

The modernist theory also considers bringing everyone together to have a universal culture.

The main focus of modernism lies on the following rules:

-needs to be simple

-needs to be functional to everyone

-being the same 

It seems like a good idea but it will make everything boring, people being people like uniqueness, so it wouldn't work in a society that had different mindset. For example a whole land full of the same apartment buildings with boring symmetry, that caused many to just leave.

"Move away from realism and look at the realistic world" where everyone does not live in the same culture. and that there is not an idealistic world where everyone is equal.     

study task 2

Postmodernism has many factors to it such as, it's against grand narrative of looking at the past and picking styles from the past to use in the modern era. It's been explained as a blank parody with no politics.

Jameson talks about what Pastiche is. "Pastiche is like parody" he then further explains it with"speech in a dead language" which is a very humorous yet makes sense to the audience as to how to think about the word.  furthermore, he states "Return of references" which clarifies pastiche being defined as using references from things that don't matter anymore, Referencing for no reason.

Hutcheon talks about what Parody is. "Critical or iconic re-reading of the plot" and that parody is "representation rather than recycling" of the plot/story.  from this, we can identify that parody is defined as a way to make fun of something by referencing it.

Both Pastiche and Parody can be used to make fun out of postmodernism, as postmodernism was explained to be a "Blank parody" suggesting that both Jameson and Hutcheon definitions help make an understanding of Postmodernism being a "speech in a dead language" and an "iconic re-reading of a plot".

Research and Epistemology part 2

Not knowing something, leads to going about and researching about the "something"

but in order to get the knowledge of "something" you have to go through an approach that allows for the best kind of research, the process is more important than the outcome. Similar to last week lecture we were shown the cycle of research and how we should go about it. The process should include all the methodologies you've obtained from the last research and should interrelate with the new research making new links, these new links should also be researched. Making new connections can also be done by using what other people know.

The more research/information gained helps with linking new connections and helps to find a solution from the practice you undertake.

the process of research has been informed by previous blog.

Research + epistemonology part 1

Research practice and learning is never ending and is a cycle we have to go through when approaching subjects to research.

Two types of research include the following:

Primary Research: Researching and gathering your own data.
Secondary Research: Gathering and researching Existing data.

The research can either be quantitative or qualitative data. and can be gathered from a variety of different sources.

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing" which happens everywhere around the world.

We then need to take this research and put it into practice, the practice involves checking the data and putting it against the theory/question being placed, this process will most likely fail and fail which is good as it will give you a better understanding of what works with the data. "In order to succeed,  you must fail" this helps with finding the solution to the problem.

Data/information can be obtained from anywhere and could be just opinion, which needs to be analysed, is it good enough to generate knowledge that is relevant to the research, Does the author know what they are talking about.

From practice, we then learn and evaluate what could have gotten better and what should be done next time when researching a similar subject.

The flipped classroom

Don't be reliant on others and take charge of your own work, Hardd Blu invented the concept of Flipped classroom where the traditional methods of teaching was limited, and since the concept came about Students in the 60's wanted this change, and the result from this made a revolution new way of teaching allowing it to be a way for students to be a collective. it wasn't about the teachers anymore, it now becomes a focus on the students, allowing them an exploration of deep learning.

Visual communication could be used as a weapon, using this, people started to police and make rules which gave wrong impressions to others, for example, "them clothes are not cool" clothes show's the identity of someone and this caused many problems.

We all learn so much when we are young (anyone can learn anything) you just have to go and learn. we learn from different experience implying that teaching is not teaching, which can be expected, it's what is learned. everyone learns from each other.

We take inspiration from many things but there is stuff that needs to be learned. the more experience you have in an area the more likely you are going to do better, an example of this would be an artist and athlete were challenged to run 100m, of course the athlete is going to do better. Same also happens when challenged with drawing a subject, the artist is going to do better.

We as a viewer should not be passive and should always think about what we are told

Evaluation

COP Evaluation

From the start of the year I dint have much knowledge of the history of art, by going to the lectures every Wednesday I started to learn many things that I’ve never seen before. Each lecture had so much information that made me think about different aspects I did not think about previously and I’ve discussed this through my blogs of the lectures I attended. One of my favourite lectures this year was on colour theory, this was because of the way we look at colour as a form of visuals that we see in our everyday life.

The seminars we had were also very helpful in terms of how we should go about writing our essays, using a structure that allowed us to explain what we would be discussing and finding evidence that proves our knowledge of the subject. I really like the way Richard explained how to keep the essay interesting and come to a conclusion which sums everything up.

The essay was challenging at first because I only had a rough idea of what I wanted to write about, I started with an introduction that was explaining what id research in order to answer the question for my essay, but finding research was very difficult because I had a bit of trouble with Harvard referencing. But gradually after having my tutorial with Richard about my essay I knew what I needed to do and found so much information that supported my point and this made it very easy to write and discus information that worked with answering the question.

The practical side of things were also challenging at first, trying to come up with a concept that response to my essay in an animation had me thinking for a while. I came up with a rough Idea of showcasing the evolvement of technology and how we became animators from the start but then I reversed the process so that we could see where we are currently with animation and how did we get here, this worked really well because I could prove the point I was trying to get across which was “the technique (drawing) didn’t change but the technology has improved” so I created a story board that showcased someone drawing and going back in time to how animation all started by using a bunch of papers, All he did was do the same thing which was just drawing.

Going through the process of animating this story board was a bit difficult at first because I didn’t know how I would transition between each scene, so I researched for inspiration and I found some animations that showed modern transitions which gave me many ideas to transitioning between typography and the animated sequence of the person drawing, each scene took a while to make because of the process I undertook in Flash of making my own perspective lines to ensure each scene was similar but only a few things changed, but I enjoyed the process and was able to complete it.

This year was great and I have gained a lot of knowledge through CoP which I hope I can benefit from in the future.

triangulation & Harvard referencing

1.

All three manifesto's raise the point up about how as designers we have been been placed a side or rather been working in the industry doing pointless things such as creating advertisements which limits our creativity. Ken Garland, Adbusters and Tibor Kalman point this out by saying

'The work of those who have flogged their skills and imagination to sell such things as: cat food and stomach powders'(ken Garland)

'Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits and designer coffee.'(Adbusters)

'Individual passion, and have been relegated to a role of corporate servitude, carrying out corporate strategies and increasing stock prices'(Tibor Kalman)

As you can see by their quotes above, they all formulate a connections as to designers are not able to make their own things and are made to work with companies doing basic things, this as said previously stops their creativity and places them to be as nothing more then a designer in the industry. 

2.

A generic animation which industries do to get a simple advertisement across always try to convey basic things. One example of this is Qantas Ad- typography which showcases a the earth and a plane and talks about traveling. this simple little ad works with the Tibor Kalman manifesto because the animation is simple but lacks imagination which the manifesto talks about in the quote above which is for designers to carry out plans to increase in stock prices.

3.

The First things first manifesto by Garland mentions numerous amount of times as to how designers work with limitations to what the company or industry tells them to do 'working in the advertising industry are wasted on trivial purposes' and we should not be wasting our skills said here,' We think that there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on.' basically we are in a time that we want to use our skills of design for our own purposes which we can go about using our imagination to create what ever we want.

4.

All of these manifesto's are all arguing about how the industry works and that we need imagination to do what we want rather then follow an industry that limits our 'imagination' to 'increase stock prices' by making things such as 'cat food' or 'sell dog biscuits' and that in the future there will be a place for design which stops 'gimmick merchants, status sale men and hidden persuaders.' Designers should be free to imagine and create for them selves. 

Semiotics

Semiotics the study of "meaning"

People would apply semiotics in culture, "it's a tool to read a culture" Understanding the code to underline a system of symbols or signs we recognize, for example we understand different clothing and put them into classes such as someone with dark ripped clothing with instruments will sign a rock band. What we see is what it is represented as, for example a suit shows a smart professional.

To understand anything we need to go deeper into codes and conventions, codes are relied on shared knowledge withing the cultures, for example the statue of liberty, we automatically think of New York which is the culture its from. and there are many other codes we recognize that represent New York such as yellow taxi's.

We have reached a point where we can recognize a lot of symbols that we can point out things that we understand whereas some one else has a different understanding.

Many words are linked to things we see but this is denotations such as a dog is white with 4 legs, whereas the connotations which we link to something such as a dog is its royal, walks and companionship. And we do this on a daily basis which makes us unique in terms of having different words to describe something.

A theory From Ferdinand de Saussure, explains that the signifier is the sound of the image and the signified is the mental concept which we understand. By understanding these key terms we understand that it makes the signs which is a thing that gives meaning.

Not every object gives a meaning for example a stone or apple, people start to give meanings to objects and this is because of analyzing the object to give a meaning. such as a red apple can mean delicious, evil and power but this red apple can mean of something else such as a reference to Snow white and this proves that we all do have different meanings that we as people produce a meaning.

By looking and trying to identify the meaning of something we can understand the culture and this gives us more input as to how people live by this culture.

colour theory part 2

Natural colours are produced by primary and secondary colours mixing together to make a chromatic value of 0.

We don't see pure colours, its based on chromatic values:

-Juxtaposition, balancing lights and darks with the colours.

-tonal perception, high and low contrast.

-Weight, colours do have weight which we see visual.

The amount of any colour effects how we see colour, for example, the slide we saw had yellow and violet which changed the way we viewed both colours depending on intensity of stripes of both colours. we either see yellow more but if a lot of purple strips were placed over the yellow strips, it will hurt our eyes.

There are temperatures to colours, like cool and warm. we can produce really interesting effects by controlling the temperatures such as making warm shades and cool highlights. colours can control what happens when different colours can make gradients from temperatures of cool and warm colours.

There are a lot of ways to mess with colours and produce interesting concepts which allows us experiment on how colours are applied to objects in a scene, also what is needed to change a colour by placing another colour besides it.

one example from my experience is giving an extra shade which is the opposite tertiary and this add a highlight which either can be cool or warm. Most of the time manipulating colours to make it look like another colour is difficult. By doing so you can add colours which dont belong with the colour. For example making an orange colour can be done by using highlights of yellow and shadows of red with another shade of purple tricks you eye to believe the object is orange but is actually a mix of colours, and this also produces depth from these colours. Where as if you want to showcase orange by just using light oranges and dark oranges and grey's makes it less interesting and unattractive because the hue is not changing.

The neutral colours come when you want to change from one colour to another from values. to go from Red to Blue you need the neutral colour which is a dark grey and this will allow the transition into the other colour and will make the colours complementary.

Colour theory part 1

colour is defined as a single wavelength that generates monochromatic light.

Light reflects and changes the way we see colours. for example shining blue light on colours will change how the actual look of the colour. we can use colours effectively to make something interesting and that means you need to mix the right colours to generate shades or highlights without entering the grey scale.

we see colours through our eyes which has rods and cones.

-Rods, convey black, grey and white which is grey scale.

-Cones, have 3 different types which convey the rest of the spectrum of colour which is red green and blue.

there has to be light for us to see colour, without light we just dont get anything but black.

primary colours cant be made by other colours, the two types of primary colours are RGB and CMYK.

-RGB is used for many things such as computers, films and magazines. this is because our eyes see these colours through our cones.

-CMYK is used for print, like newspaper or billboards.

Whats the difference with RGB and CMYK?
RGB and CMYK make additive and subtractive colours, making white and black. RGB primary colours make secondary colours which is Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and key (black) and the same goes for CMYK being primary makes RGB as its secondary.

So why do we use CMYK if we have RGB?
Its mostly to do with print, which is best with CMYK because of the subtractive colours.

Alongside colours comes chromatic values, which are hues, tones and saturation and this is important when it comes to colouring in objects.

-Hue, changes of colours between all the primary, secondary and tertiary colours.

-Tones, adding grey colours into the hue colours and this makes each colour toned down and can mix colours with each other.

-luminosity, brightens or darkens the colours. Darks convey shades and lights convey tints.

colours mix with each other which gives us our primary and secondary colours but our view is not bright primary or secondary colours, we mostly see tertiary colours of greens, blues and grey's and it is pretty much impossible to define the exact colour of something from something that is taken from a camera and this is why we mix colours to produces something that resembles that colour.

Post modern

In this lecture i didn't have much written for notes but i did learn something about post modern.

1960's modernism sticks by rules, this was essentially started around about WW1, when technology started to improve the way life was.

Some words that associate with Modernism.

-individualism, making something which you do independently and have your own ideas.

-Purity, making everything pure from self  ideas and simple design.

-Originality. making an original idea which no one has made which is very rare nowadays because many people are just replicating the first idea.

which explain how people go about making things modern.

Post modernism came after modernism but more optimism and not sticking to the rules of modernism, which made the world more free to thinking in unique way instead of staying to generic rules to build a building for example.

Post modernism could be used to describe different styles all bunched up to stop following the standard rules of modernism back then, but now we apply modernism and mix it with post because that's how life has changed, people stick by either rules or just improve on an already made idea.

Most of the industries started to change the way they think, for example modern fashion started to develop and this introduced many designs we view on a daily basis, and people got tired of the rules that they wanted to change the way you look at somethings, one example is a book that did not follow the rules as to how to layout everything and just decided to make random texts and images on the pages.

Modernity and modernism

modernism as a term is to explain the present modern age which in our time we see the 21st century to be modern. but this can be used in many ways as i learned in this lecture.

John Ruskin was one of the first people who started to state the word modernism, he changed the way we think about the world we live in and what is meant by modern.

Paris is the 1900's were at the time of advance technology, Trottoir Roullant built the first electric moving walkway in France. this walkway is a modern aspect of our present time and became modern at that time because advance with technology is working with the way we live our lives. this introduced the word urbanization which came about when urban structures started to come about and started mixing with modern structures.

life started to change because of cites getting bigger, now starting to follow a routine to work and have pleasure which made the term modernism come into play.

What is modernism?

A way to improve something many times to make it look modern, like an update to a website to material design.

Colouring started to progress the way modern things started to look like, there are many building that stand out because of their colours which is the whole movement with where art was going to be a more modern aspect as to how things look in the modern time. along side colours, science to understand how light works with colours (an example is placing rgb together to make white).

Paintings started to start to compose like photography at that time and now has become modern in terms of looking at in the way a photographer looked at taking pictures, such as making sure that the rule of thirds apply to make things look interesting and balanced in a painting.

In the modern age we are reliant on technology, without technology i would not be able to write this but this shows that its come to a point where technology is taking over our lives. for example many people nowadays have a smart phone and without it we wont be able to contact people or entertain ourselves which is something we need and hard to grasp that before phones it used to be letters which took a long time to receive in other countries.

New technology gives us new ways of doing things such as taking pictures from high up. before technology came into play as to how we view scenery around the world we now see it in a more beautiful way. we also are able to take time-laps and be able to see what happens in a day recording in 1 hour which is outstanding.