Travel Posters

I find this poster intriguing because it appeals to women.  Most posters asking you to join the forces are geared towards men and men only.  Most people would say that joining the service is risky business and should not be taken lightly, it is something that changes your entire life, you do not know where you are going next or if you will be alive the next day. 

This poster looks a lot like something you would see in a fashion magazine, something for a clothing add. Her hair is blowing in the wind with a smug smirk on her face when really she should be feeling anxious or proud! It also looks like she is modeling off Navy attire.  This add says nothing about the Navy.  This add could also appeal to men, she is posed in a bit of a sexual stance and the poster reads "I want you" I don't know what else could be more suggestive.  This poster is successful only because it has the potential to grab the attention of both sexes.  

This poster is successful because it grabs peoples attention from all over.  It makes them feel that they can be there too and that people from all over the world are going to be there.  It also makes traveling look exciting and new because at the time it was new and everyone likes new. Eastern airlines is using the world fair to their advantage in order to gain business and that is successful advertising.   

Cubism

Cubism was one of the most influential visual art styles of the early twentieth century. It was created by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973) and Georges Braque (French, 1882–1963) in Paris between 1907 and 1914.  Cubist painters felt that art should not resemble nature or life in it's true form.  Cubism was no model of traditional techniques used for painting such as perspective and three dimensionality.  Cubist paintings often looked like something you would cut out of a magazine and place back together but in a non traditional sense to where you could hardly recognize what the image was originally. Cubism paved the way for geometric abstract art by putting a completely different emphasis on perspective, in renaissance art especially, perspective was what made a flat image look like real life. Cubists artists wanted nothing of the sort they made their images look completely dismembered.  

Homage to Picasso by John Nolan 

Fineartamerica.com

Pablo Picasso 1971 Getty Images

In the four decades from 1870-1910, western society witnessed more technological progress than in the previous four centuries. During this period, inventions such as photography, cinematography, sound recording, the telephone, the motor car and the airplane were the start of a new age. The problem for artists at this time was how to reflect the modernity of the era using previously trusted traditions that had served art for the last four centuries. Photography had begun to replace painting as the tool for documenting the age and for artists to sit illustrating cars, planes and images of the new technologies was not exactly inventive. Artists needed a more radical approach that expanded the possibilities of art in the same way that technology was extending the boundaries of communication and travel. Picasso and Braque were the ones to get people to look at art in a new way.

Braque, Photographed by Arnold Newman 1956

Purple tablecloth, Braque

The infamous Nike swoosh

It was nearly 40 years ago that Carolyn Davidson designed the infamous Nike logo.  Davidson was a college student at Portland State University where the co-founder of Nike was a track coach.  Her first paid "design" job was to pasint signs for an accounting professor in which she was paid $2 an hour.

As almost everyone knows Davidson was paid a measly $35 dollars for her design of the Nike logo which now has a value of $643,000 as of 2011. In an interview about her design she states that she was paid what she charged for her design and at the time it was quite a bit of money.  Spite the fact that the general population claims she was "ripped off" for receiving so little for her design, she worked with Nike for years after and received 500 shares of Nike stock.

Soon after the logo was designed the company started designing shoes with the name Nike after the Greek goddess of victory. Today Nike employs more the 30,000 people and has more than 19 billion sales every year.  The Nike logo is known worldwide recognized on hundreds of sports products.    

Ars and Crafts Movement

The arts and crafts movement was all about quality.  The leader of the English Arts and Crafts movement William Morris called for purpose and truth to the nature of the materials and methods of production and individual expression.
John Ruskin inspired the philosophy of Morris' movement.  According to Ruskin there was a severance of art and society caused by industrialization and the development of technology.  His claim is that creativity took a hit due to these factors, basically people just wanted to make products quickly in order to make money.  Ruskin believed that beautiful things were useful simply because they were beautiful.
Morris rested well to the beliefs of Ruskin and suggested that art and craft needed to be looked at a bit closer.  Mass produced goods lack this "honest" craftsmanship that needed to be applied when making all goods, from fabrics to buildings.

William Morris, Rose fabric design, 1883

Cabinet design for Morris and Company, 1861. Paintings by Ford Madox Brown, which illustrate the honeymoon of the fifteenth-century Italian King Rene of Anjou, grace this cabinet. Meggs' History of Graphic design 5th edition

Printmaking

In the early 1300’s pictorial designs were being printed on textiles in Europe. Card playing became popular and even though it was outlawed many people still played.  Since people were still playing cards, cards were still being designed which allowed block printing to still develop.  

Playing cards were the first printed pieces to be available to people that couldn’t necessarily read.  Laymen could now play card games that were originally only played by nobles.  Since almost everyone had access to cards that had all types of symbols on them, these symbols created a new way for people to communicate. 

Since these illustrations were typically quite simple they were used for religious instruction of illiterates.   

Woodblock print of Saint Christopher, 1423. The unknown illustrator depicted the legendary saint, a giant who carried travelers safely across a river, bearing the infant Christ. The inscription at the bottom reads, "In what so ever day thou seest the likeness of St. Christopher/in that same day thou wilt at least from death no evil blow incur. -Megg's History of Graphic Design 5th edition

Greek Alphabet History

The oldest known inscriptions date back to the 8^th century but the Greeks made major advancements in graphic communication when it came to their alphabet. 

            The story goes like this, Cadamus, King of Phoenicia set out to find his sister.  During his journey, he killed a dragon and planted its teeth like seeds and an army sprouted from them.  And in his return he brought the alphabet to Greece.  The stories main point is that Cadmus used the alphabet to bring his army to power.  He used the alphabet as a communication and information tool. 

ww.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Cadmus.html

            The Greeks applied Geometry to the structure of letters to the Phoenician alphabet to make them into their own art form.  They first adopted the style of writing from right to left which soon turned into alternating every line so that one could read continuously.  Eventually it became the way that we read English today, left to right.     

            The Greek alphabet was adopted as Athens standard in 400BCE.  Around 700BCE the Greek alphabet became crucial because they developed a representative government.  When citizens voted they used tokens with inscriptions on them so they could vote in secret, instead of raising their hands.  They were also now able to authorize documents with a seal, which would typically be stamped into wax.  This also allowed for personal identification because you would be able to have your own seal.

http://athenianowlcoins.reidgold.com 

             The growth of oral communication to written began to grow in 350 BCE.  This led to the development of libraries.  These libraries contained papyrus scrolls, some of which we still have today.  Without the development of the Greek alphabet we would not have other languages like Latin, which also means English. 

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali was born an incredibly shy and anxious child with the ability to draw at a very young age.  He was raised off the coast of Spain which gave him a mass amount of beautiful things to paint a draw.  Dali’s father being a lawyer was reluctant to send his son to art school but his mother encouraged him to go. 

  When Dali moved to Madrid to study fine art he quickly came out of his shell.  He began to dress in lavish clothing and was eventually expelled for claiming that his teachers where not good enough to teach him anything.   He decided to traveled to Paris to continue to learn about art.  Dali worked on his art no matter what and knew that he would make an impact.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Dali

Dali being born in 1904  allowed him to discover the Surrealist art movement that was flourishing in Paris, in his early twenties.  Surrealism was a cultural movement that began in the early 1920’s. The goal of surrealist’s were to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super reality.  Surrealism was inspired by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's theory of the unconscious, the thoughts in the mind that occur automatically.  According to Freud all of us have an inner unconscious world in which all of us have emotional and sexual repressed feelings and the only way to express them was to release them without censorship.  Salvador Dali quickly took to the ideas of surrealism, he was able to express his anxieties through his artwork however he wanted.   

Lobster Phone, Dali

Dali had a paranoiac critical method that he contributed to surrealism which said that what we are paranoid about is what we see in reality.  He believes that we see what we want to see, not what is actually physically there.  Everyone’s own perception helps create an alternative reality, a reality in which you feel most comfortable. 

The Persistence of Memory, Dali

  If Dali was not born at a time where he could discover Surrealism as a fresh new thing he probably would have not been able to become such an important figure. His ideas were the new face of surrealism.    

Dali’s ideas were beyond just painting. His surrealist ideas consumed him and everything that surrounded him which is how he surpassed the rule. He used surrealism in, cinema, jewelry, fashion, design, advertising and comedy.

During World War II Dali moved to the United States.  Dali moved to New York which is where he used surrealism to sell ordinary products such as chocolate and alka seltzer and stockings. The art of a great salesman is they don’t have to sell.  They can get you to feel something about the product and not question why you feel that way and Dali understood that.  He used element of surprise and was able to influence cinema based on his passion for surrealism. 

The Face of War, Dali

Dali took whatever was new at the time and used surrealism to make it popular.  Just like he used Freud’s theories about the unconscious in his art he used the influences of nuclear physicis in his work.  He would rework some of his old pieces to fit the time period.  He was determined to always stand out and be new.      

Dali became so committed to surrealism and getting a reaction from society that he believed he was surrealism. Dali was one of the few artists that wanted publicity.  He created things that make you think why and his answer is always why not?