Merry Christmas, Muller-Brockman

Just a few days ago I received Josef Muller-Brockman's Grid Systems in Graphic Design in the mail. Muller-Brockman, for those who don't know, was, along with Armin Hoffman, among the first and most prominent designers to implement and propagate the Swiss Style (or International Style) of graphic design in the 1960s.

Having already read Willi Kunz's Typography series, I was initiated into some of the finer points of the grid system already, but Muller-Brockman's book has already hit me like a shotgun blast to the forehead. I know that there are those among us who raise their fists against the grid system for its stiffness and quasi-fascist adherence to rules and ideology, but there's a strange comfort and dare I say freedom in it for me, and also a bit of a wonder at the mathematical harmony in the way it all works. I was thinking about this last night at a Christmas Eve candlelight service.

The music for the service was a Gloria by Vivaldi performed by a chamber orchestra. Throughout the performance I was marveling at the ways in which Vivaldi's melodies and harmonies weaved through each other, separating, calling and responding, and finally joining back up, over and over again. Vivaldi accomplished all of this diversity in his music, however, within the constraints of rules and conventions. Granted, he and his contemporaries also did a lot of rule-breaking, but always with respect for what came before and in observance of what is worth keeping.

Such is the case, I've discovered, with this book. The Grid System is a thing of beauty in that it creates harmony and beauty from a set of mathematical principles and age-old conventions of layout. Like the baroque composers, there is a lot of personality and variety that can be infused into the work even when the conventions are observed; the rules and conventions themselves do not necessarily stifle creativity or vision.

A strange post for Christmas, perhaps, but there you have it.

Merry Christmas all!

BLOG DESIGN

A friend told me recently that my blog design is not befitting of a graphic designer and that a graphic designer having a plain and undesigned blog is a poor reflection on his skills/taste. Admittedly my blog is a Blogger template, and, though I don't think it's that bad, I have to agree with my friend that perhaps my blog should have a little bit more "design" to it.

Luckily I am taking a web design course this semester and learning a bit of CSS.

Therefore I will be working on a new template for this blog, hopefully making its premiere sometime before the new year. While I am learning a bit of CSS, I'm still relatively shaky with it so it may take a while before I come up with something that I'm really comfortable with presenting.

In the meantime, Robert, you'll just have to put up with what the Blogger template designer allows me to do.

ARP

I recently found this artist at the iso50 blog and promptly purchased their album "The Soft Wave." This song is definitely a highlight, and also the only song on the album to feature vocals. It has a Brian Eno circa "Another Green World" feel to it, I think.
Please ignore the picture and enjoy.

AWARDS

Back in, oh, early October, Versluis approached me about entering a few designs in AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) Nebraska's "The Show," which is their annual design show and competition. Upon his advice I entered a couple of book covers that I had done for the Dordt College Press and one poster. Weeks passed and, receiving no word on the entries, we assumed that my designs had not been honoured.

Then on Friday Versluis received a package in the mail from AIGA Nebraska. One of my covers received a Silver and one received a Bronze! This was exciting news indeed, and also an honour to be recognized by distinguished members of the design community.

Here are the two designs:

Left: "Sign of a Promise" — Silver Award
Right: "Ruth" — Bronze Award

MANNERISM & STRETCHING TYPE

Madonna with the Long Neck
by Parmagianino, 1534-40

lately i've begun to experiment with stretching type.
i know . . . i know . . .

it all started this summer when i read a piece by michael beirut about "the new brutalism" on design observer. in the article he wrote about a german magazine, 032c, in which the designer had, sin of sins, used stretched type as a major component in the layout. the article went on to discuss "the new brutalism" and other examples of ugliness in design. in the end, beirut was understandably hesitant about the whole trend.

after reading the article i decided to keep my eyes open for examples of "the new brutalism" and, sure enough, i've seen it popping up. in the light of the 80s revival of the past few years it hardly seems surprising.

i can't say that i disagree with beirut's hesitation to get on board with what was then a burgeoning trend. as he said in the article, stretching type is perhaps the last taboo in design. it's amateurish. it's disrespectful to the original design. it's just ugly, right?

yes, it sort of is.

Entombment
by Jacopo Pontormo, 1528

but then i thought of the mannerists.

for the uninitiated: "mannerism" was a period in art that came just after the high renaissance. it was characterized primarily by odd, unsettling proportions and poses, surreallist religious/allegorical imagery, and dramatic settings. if you look at the two paintings at the left you'll see these characteristics present.

in the madonna painting you'll notice her neck, but also the bizarrely elongated body of the christ child as well as his pale, deathly look, the strange perspective with regards to the figure in the background (who's doing what, exactly?) and also the woman's very long leg at the left. in addition, the setting is somewhat oddly lit, giving the whole scene a nightmarish quality, and the pillar in the background is supporting nothing, it's just there, and there are several points at which the perspective creates some damn near impossible poses (the madonna's legs).

in the entombment what's immediately striking is the lighting. it's unnatural, as though the scene is being played out on a stage. the figures in the painting, though vaguely descending a rocky hill, appear more stacked that in perspective. the circular structure of the composition keeps the eye moving around, unable to really rest on anything in particular. also of interest are the figure in the foreground and the figure supporting christ's torso. the kneeling foreground figure is bent at the back in an uncomfortably unnatural way, and the body of the figure in blue has a freakishly long torso.

in both of these paintings we've observed that the artist made particular stylistic choices which are contrary both to nature and to conventional wisdom as to how the human body should be portrayed. given the virtuosity of the paintings it's safe to assume that these artists did not portray their subjects in these unnatural ways because they didn't know any better or lacked skill; they chose to do it that way. the "why" isn't exactly clear, but it was a stylistic choice that, for better or worse, makes a distinct impression. though the style can be jarring, there is an mysterious elegance to it that cannot be denied.

if you present something foreign and strange, like the figures in these paintings, with care and the support of a solid base of knowledge and training, then i think that you can pull it off, like the mannerists, with elegance. such is the case, i've come to believe, with well-stretched type.

i could be over-playing my hand by drawing the mannerists into what could be considered a frivolous argument, so i'll make this clear:

i'm not talking about "word art" here, nor am i talking about the hipster irony of the urban outfitters website.

what i'm talking about is the ways in which type communicates visually. while stretched type may be jarring and, in many cases, ugly, that very ugliness is still communicative. if it's use is frivolous and in response to a trend then that's too bad, but sensitively stretched type can be useful for creating a mood. like the mannerist paintings, stretched type gives the audience pause and makes them feel like something's not quite right. in that moment the audience can decide if they're going to be annoyed or intrigued. it's about expectation.

in part, i see it as a response to the democratization and proliferation of design in recent years. the mannerists, perhaps weary of the strict naturalism of the renaissance, presented work that defied the public's expectations for what good art was. similarly, the likes of manet in 19th century france defied the dominant academic style of the time and did something that was considered brutal and disrespectful. beirut in his article called attention to the fact that the designer who employed stretched type in 032c is in fact a very good designer. he knows the rules, but he chose to break them. in a world where design is everywhere and you can't turn your head in a city without seeing gotham, archer, or trade gothic—good typefaces, all overused and often improperly used—maybe turning to ugliness to find new forms of expression is, if not admirable, at least understandable and a valid form of experimentation.

i probably won't be using a great deal of stretched type in my future work, but i have come to see that, like any non-traditional practice, if you know the rules you can break the rules, and in the case of stretching type some rule-breaking may occasionally yield interesting and intriguing results.

HATING ONE'S OWN WORK

i've started to compile material for my portfolio, which means that i've been going through a lot of my "old work" from, oh, last year. is it normal to hate the work that you've done in the past? i think it must be. while i in no way wish to devalue the experience i gained by doing that work, or somehow imply that i'm just the best ever graphic designer presently, i just—don't really like most of what i've done in the past. 


this proves to be problematic when trying to put together a portfolio.


so much of my past work seems really amateurish and "green" compared to the direction my work is taking now, but it kind of reminds me of that scene in "annie hall" when woody allen and diane keaton are on the plane back from los angeles, having their break-up talk and woody compares their relationship to a shark:


"a relationship, i think, is like a shark. you know? it has to constantly move forward or it dies. and i think what we got on our hands is a dead shark."


i think that's how it goes with work, too. the moment you think you've "arrived" and you no longer have anywhere to go is the moment when you may as well just give up and stop. so maybe for that reason i shouldn't "hate" my old work—well certainly i shouldn't be ashamed of it. that'd be like being ashamed of wetting the bed at the age of two or crying the first time you fell off your bike. 


so maybe the real problem would be if i got myself potty trained and off the training wheels and then said, "well now, i guess i'm an adult." 

POSTER

here is a poster i made recently for an on-campus event.

DUNNE & RABY

i recently watched gary hustwit's new(ish) film, objectified, which is a 90-minute documentary about industrial design. i would highly recommend it.

among the designers whom he interviewed for the film were dunne & raby, a pair of experimental designers based i london. their modus operandi is to use design as a means of intellectual exploration and discussion.

among the work of their discussed in the film was a series of hypothetical robots that they designed. one of the robots was an information storage unit. in order to access your information you would have to cradle the robot in your arms and stare into its electric eye for five minutes—the idea being that we don't exactly know the long-term effects of such a prolific cloud of information surrounding us at all times, so what if a technology existed that would require the user to have a "conversation" with it in order to achieve the desired result?

they also have a "product line" for people with irrational fears such as alien abduction and nuclear war.

anyway. i find their work to be interesting and worth at least a glance, so please—click here.

FOUND ITEMS 1

I found these items in our kitchen this morning.

A message taken down by one of our housemates. Although fairly straight-
forward, there is still something a little mysterious about those 7 words.

A map of the North and Central America, drawn from memory by one of our housemates . . . 

. . . and the accompanying map of South America.

NEW PHOTOS

so i've been experimenting a little bit lately with various features in photoshop—they're simple and basic, but effective. this came from what i can with an uncomfortable amount of cheesiness call a "personal discovery" about my desired style as far as photography is concerned. most often what i'm trying to communicate in photography is atmosphere, and it's hard to describe beyond that. here are some photos that i've been working on lately. i don't know if i'm through with tweaking the style yet, but i'm fairly happy with the results so far. unfortunately they're not super high quality so the full effect might not be there.

A cheese factory near where I live, built about two years ago. I was intrigued by how pristine is still is, there was something unreal about it—maybe a little bit sinister.

An outside wall at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. 

Also at the MIA. 

MIA again—that's MCAD in the background.

Field a few miles outside of Sioux Center, where I live.

This was taken this past summer in Winnipeg. The Queen was in town and a group of people were waiting outside the Lieutenant Governor's house for her to appear. It was a hot, hot day. I took several pictures of this group of people. 

 Wall of the Lieutenant Governor's house. 

JOSEF SCHULZ

i found this photographer via the iso50 blog. i'm not sure how to describe his work other than to say that it's sublimely beautiful but also frightening and challenging. please take a look.

iso50 also features a lot of really great music, in case you're interested.

here's a link to some of josef schulz's work.

WINTER 2009-10

Admittedly, I did post this image on my other blog last year, but I just came across it on my hard drive again and thought to myself that it was worth a second look.

Somewhat sadly, my wife and I no long live in this nice little house in Sioux Center—we moved this fall—but of the few images that I have of this house from this same angle this one is my favourite.

This one was taken just a couple of days after we returned to Sioux Center after being in Winnipeg for Christmas. While we were gone there was at least one big snow storm and we came home to discover that our entire property was a good 2 feet deep in snow and the pilot light in our furnace had gone out so it was, like, 35 degrees in our house the day that we got home. Not pleasant.

But this picture is.