Great Ideas Magazine Ad

This project was an uphill battle for me. Last week my initial thumbnail sketches were thought by Judy to have a weak link between my quote and image. I didn’t think I agreed with her until I brought my thumbnails home and my husband shared her exact sentiments. So half-way through the project timeline, I had to scrap my idea and start over. I decided to even scrap my first quote, because I had discovered that someone else in the class was using it as well. I ended up choosing Gloria Steinam’s, “The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.” I thought it fit really well with our program, because we are taught to constantly see things in a new way, and doing so also gives us more freedom in our art. However at the same time, it is often a frustrating challenge to get there. With this project being a perfect example!

I knew I wanted my poster to use the elements of collage and use of black and white photography that was common in graphic design in the 1950’s-60’s.

 

While the above image is a perfect example of collage and stock photography, it is also one of the busiest ads that was used in the Great Ideas campaign. I wanted my poster to channel a more simple use of graphics, as is pictured below.

 

And so here is what I came up with.

I’m hoping this poster has a crystal clear link between text and image, but just in case it doesn’t I will detail it for you: the bird represents the truth setting you free, and the gun represents you being pissed off by it! Overall I’m fairly happy with the result. All of the feathers on the bird’s wings were regretted the instant I began cutting them out, but now that I’m done I’m glad I did it. Now the real question remains- do I currently feel pissed off, or set free?

Meggs Chapter 21 Commentary

In the same fashion as my last chapter commentary, I will just list things that I find interesting or that jump out at me.

– After WW1, narrative illustration wasn’t cutting it. Graphic designers turned to developing conceptual images, conveying not just narrative information but also ideas and concepts.

– I hadn’t thought about the fact that information becoming more readily available would change the way graphic designers were able to gain inspiration. The entire history of visual arts was available! What an impact this would have had.

– Fauvism: the style of les Fauves- a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational of realistic values rained by Impressionism.

– More of a focus on personal development of style evolves.

– Testa inspires graphic design by combining elements in a surreal fashion, and making the image of an ad the central (and sometimes only component).

– WW2 devastates Poland, including its graphic design industry.

– Now communist, Poland establishes the Poland Union of Artists. Graphic designers, filmmakers, writers, etc., must complete a program at either Warsaw or Krakow Academy of Fine Arts for entrance.

– Tadeusz Trepkowski is the first poster artist since the war. He reduced images and words to their simplest forms.

 

– Posters were important to Poland. Tomaszewski takes over as “spiritual head of Polish graphic design” after Trepkowski dies.

– In 1964, the Warsaw International Poster Biennial began. Muzeum Plakatu, in Wilanow, was devoted entirely to posters.

– Poland travels through bright and cheery cut paper posters, to dark and somber work focusing on metaphysical surrealism.

– Franciszek Starowieyski works with Jan Lenica and Waldemar Swierzy to achieve vision.

– Improvements in photography in America saw the death of traditional illustration as the dominant communication form.

– Conceptual illustration began with Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Reynolds Ruffins, and Edward Sorel, who all lived together in a loft in New York.

– In August 1954, Push Pin is formed. Chwast is still the director.

– The philosophies of Push Pin had global influence. The studio unified image making with layout and design.

– Glaser is hugely diverse and widely imitated. He is so innovative, however, that it prevents him from being copied.

– The famous Bob Dylan poster was seen by a photographer in a hut in an Indian village!

– Chwast and Glaser both develop typefaces, which come of individual lettering for assignments.

– Barry Zaid joined Push Pin. He is Canadian! He worked in London and Toronto prior to Push Pin.

– James McMullan also passes through Push Pin, reviving watercolour.

– Richard Hess and Paul Davis were both painters informally associated with Push Pin.

– Arnold Varga reinvents newspaper advertisement. People wanted to buy the ads to hang on their walls!

– Designers begin combining two images to convey one idea.

– Psychedelic posters emerge, showing the social movement of the time.

– Many artists in this period were self-taught.

– Sister Corita Kent must be mentioned, because she is a WOMAN! She combined childlike forms and saturated colours, suggesting optimism and innocence.

– In Europe in the late 1960s, a poetic approach to graphic design is introduced.

Mind Mapping

For our last assignment, we were given a new brainstorming technique to use, called “Mind Maps.” It is essentially brainstorming without editing, and writing all of your ideas down on a piece of paper, and putting things into sub-categories and generating more ideas for all of the categories. I found it extremely helpful, even though I didn’t follow the method exactly. I used it as a technique in keeping my pen moving, no matter what. It has helped me incredibly in generating ideas, and with thinking beyond the ordinary solutions for problems.

We used this technique for an in-class exercise last week as well, in developing ideas for Valentine’s Day cards. We were broken into teams with the greater theme of “love,” and our team got the sub-theme of “ways,” as in, ways people fall in love. Our brainstorming session got a bit ridiculous, but nonetheless creative. Because of the mind mapping, we went off on many tangents. We talked about people getting drunk and monkeys picking lice off each other, to name a few examples.

Our favourite category was “unlikely ways” people fall in love, and we decided to execute our Valentine’s Day cards from there. I was assigned “Stockholm Syndrome” as an unlikely way that people fall in love, which I think is just hilarious. We gave all of our cards the tagline, “What are you doing Friday night?” for an added touch of humour, and also to give all of our cards a unifying quality. I’m quite happy with all of our results.