Since watching the film Helvetica in class I have thought considerably about text design and typeface insofar as the the meanings that they convey. Typeface gives an impression about the material it is used for, and there are different kinds of typeface for different kinds of material. Academic material today is typically in Times New Roman, while Helvetica still dominates corporate logos.
In the 1960s text designers saw a need for consistency with typeface and thus came about the creation of Helvetica. This typeface is well-balanced in every aspect. Traditional text designers see it as the industry standard for typeface. Other nonconformists see it as the typeface of corporate hacks. Regardless of where anyone's opinion stands, it is obvious that Helvetica is the predominant typeface in American culture of the past fifty years.
Personally, I never thought about Helvetica at all, never used it as my choice of font. After watching the film, however, I began to see Helvetica everywhere. I would point it out to friends as we passed street signs, or where I saw it used in commercials. I don't see it as a font I'd use, but learning more about typeface as the cultural movement that it is, I do think more critically about the fonts I use with my own writing.
Typeface is a reflection of your personality.
I think that typography is a fascinating thing. So does the website http://ilovetypography.com/ a blog all about typography. I found many of the articles quite useful and interesting while I'm learning about typography as a movement.
read more.
Tuesday, February 23
Snow shmow
After two snow storms, there was a lot of ice and accumulation to worry about. While I was out during the week, I took photos on my cell phone. In doing so, I feel I employed the lomography method of photography, since I didn't think about composition before I shot, rather I just shot what immediately compelled me.
Here's some of what I saw in my travels.
My younger brother Dylan and I went to Chipotle on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore. I guess everyone else in town also wanted to eat there so all the parking spaces in the front lot were taken. I parked around back and after we got our grub on, we saw the week's weather extremes and their effect on the back of the building.
I really enjoy taking pictures with my cell phone since I always have it with me. It's only 2 pixels but the photos usually come out clear. A friend actually commented on the oddities I capture, but I think that my gallery is full of what I see in my every day life. Understanding more about the lomography method of photography, I know now that I've been a lomographer before I ever realized that I was, only further proving that art is in fact all around us.
read more.
Here's some of what I saw in my travels.
Monster truck parked on top of a snow mound on Main Street, Manayunk. This was taken from my car while I drove.
My younger brother Dylan and I went to Chipotle on Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore. I guess everyone else in town also wanted to eat there so all the parking spaces in the front lot were taken. I parked around back and after we got our grub on, we saw the week's weather extremes and their effect on the back of the building.
Dylan with a giant staff-like icicle.
This rogue shopping cart received no shelter from the storm. Talk about being snowed in...
The largest icicles I've ever seen in my life. They hung from the roof of the building, about 15 feet high from ground level.
Over the weekend I was in Manayunk again. My friend who lives in the neighborhood pointed out a car in the middle of a side street. She said that it stalled out while the driver tried to rev it up the frozen-over street. The driver must have been revving pretty hard since after the truck stalled out, the engine caught fire and the truck's front actually melted down to the frame. I wish there were more light on the street, but you can see that the front of the truck is lopsided and gnarly.
Meltdown.
I really enjoy taking pictures with my cell phone since I always have it with me. It's only 2 pixels but the photos usually come out clear. A friend actually commented on the oddities I capture, but I think that my gallery is full of what I see in my every day life. Understanding more about the lomography method of photography, I know now that I've been a lomographer before I ever realized that I was, only further proving that art is in fact all around us.
read more.
Monday, February 8
The Creation Complex
We can be our own supreme beings. This statement supports the beliefs of experimental filmmaker and artist Maya Deren. Though she worked in the late 1940s and 50s, her essay "An Anagram of Ideas on Art, Form and Film" claims that there was a shift in the artistic ideology of men in the 17th century.
Deren herself claims that to the artist, the ego is the "most precious of man's qualities," (p. 12) and it was the vanity of man's ego that made artists see themselves as creators absolute, their creations serving as extensions of their intelligence and vision.
Once artists began to realize their own power to create, and how this act of creation elevated them to possess a "pride of newfound, individual consciousness" (p. 18), there was a "shift of emphasis from self-expression to self-evaluation." (p. 19) Deren also argues that this shift was a phenomenon of nature. Since this ideology spread into form, then, art itself is a form which creates or manifests emotion; rhetorically, this is an emotional sensation.
Artists began to see their craft as more than a reflection of reality and earthly representations, and rather their creations were natural renderings of their own experiences. Art is not art for art's sake, but art is a form for human synthesis, because it is a creation of man, and man must be revered for his elevated abilities.
Personally, I think that Deren treats this topic with an edge of sarcasm, and rightly so, because why should we as humans begin to value our creations above natural creation? The point she makes is clear though: artists want to equate their art to any other natural occurrence, since artistic creations are forged from the intellect and will of man.
The universal motivation for all artists remains to recreate experience with originality. This theme is evident in Deren's experimental films, whose aims are not only to cause viewers to reconsider their relationship to a piece of art in the way they receive it, but also to diversify the subject matter and visuals in film themselves. In Deren's film "Meshes of the Afternoon" there are various objects/images that may or may not double as symbols; each viewer's individual experience causes them to process the objects/images differently, and they may or may not attach a symbolic meaning to these objects/images. For example, let's consider the knife and the key. At points throughout the film they are seen alone, then they interchange. Is the knife meant to cut bread? Or does the knife, when it is mirrored as the key, offer something eternal, the very means by which a person receives redemption?
The knife, a key to salvation. I just made that up. But my ultimate point is that we as artists cannot deem our work better than this or that piece of art, and rather we should focus on the act of creation and rely more on our audience to attach meaning. The creation of art can be an isolating experience, but the final product should serve as an experience unto itself.
read more.
Deren herself claims that to the artist, the ego is the "most precious of man's qualities," (p. 12) and it was the vanity of man's ego that made artists see themselves as creators absolute, their creations serving as extensions of their intelligence and vision.
Once artists began to realize their own power to create, and how this act of creation elevated them to possess a "pride of newfound, individual consciousness" (p. 18), there was a "shift of emphasis from self-expression to self-evaluation." (p. 19) Deren also argues that this shift was a phenomenon of nature. Since this ideology spread into form, then, art itself is a form which creates or manifests emotion; rhetorically, this is an emotional sensation.
Artists began to see their craft as more than a reflection of reality and earthly representations, and rather their creations were natural renderings of their own experiences. Art is not art for art's sake, but art is a form for human synthesis, because it is a creation of man, and man must be revered for his elevated abilities.
Personally, I think that Deren treats this topic with an edge of sarcasm, and rightly so, because why should we as humans begin to value our creations above natural creation? The point she makes is clear though: artists want to equate their art to any other natural occurrence, since artistic creations are forged from the intellect and will of man.
The universal motivation for all artists remains to recreate experience with originality. This theme is evident in Deren's experimental films, whose aims are not only to cause viewers to reconsider their relationship to a piece of art in the way they receive it, but also to diversify the subject matter and visuals in film themselves. In Deren's film "Meshes of the Afternoon" there are various objects/images that may or may not double as symbols; each viewer's individual experience causes them to process the objects/images differently, and they may or may not attach a symbolic meaning to these objects/images. For example, let's consider the knife and the key. At points throughout the film they are seen alone, then they interchange. Is the knife meant to cut bread? Or does the knife, when it is mirrored as the key, offer something eternal, the very means by which a person receives redemption?
The knife, a key to salvation. I just made that up. But my ultimate point is that we as artists cannot deem our work better than this or that piece of art, and rather we should focus on the act of creation and rely more on our audience to attach meaning. The creation of art can be an isolating experience, but the final product should serve as an experience unto itself.
read more.
Tuesday, February 2
What is Visual Rhetoric? A Towering Question...
Garnered from readings for class last week, and the presentation of the 6 perceptions of aesthetic engagement (sensory, representative, appreciative, formal connection, emotional connection, and individual connection) I define visual rhetoric as follows: a strategic blending of visual aesthetics with a concern for the needs and wishes of a target audience that operates within one or more cultures. Visual rhetoric also must involve an understanding of the cultural forces that shape the production and reception of a certain document or visual material.
In brief, visual rhetoric is a careful arrangement of visual aesthetics that considers the cultural scope under which a target audience operates in order to create for said audience an engaging and persuasive physical presentation of ideas or materials.
How a viewer will receive and process the visual materials is unique to each person. If you are to employ visual rhetoric, then you must be aware of this, but must also realize that you have no control over individual experience.
Let me share some of my individual experience with (personal and emotional) sensational images.
Standing is Bridget's dad, and from left to right, my little brother, our family friend, and Bridget's sister.
Both photos have something in common: The Twin Towers.
That's my Dad, an American hero, patrolling downtown Jersey City's streets on 9/11/01. The entire Jersey City Police force was on duty to provide medical aid and the safe transport of victims from New York into Jersey City. Someone snapped this photo without Dad knowing; he only received the print two years ago, since it took the photographer that long to locate him. As you can see, Tower One is burning, while Tower Two had already collapsed. I know this because its view would not have been obstructed from behind the building on the right in the photo.
Since 9/11, the New York City and its surrounding Metro area (which consequently includes Jersey City) has received mass attention. However, almost a decade after the most devastating incident in the Northeastern United States, we all have mostly forgotten. May this meager post serve as a point of reference for all who will always remember.
read more.
In brief, visual rhetoric is a careful arrangement of visual aesthetics that considers the cultural scope under which a target audience operates in order to create for said audience an engaging and persuasive physical presentation of ideas or materials.
How a viewer will receive and process the visual materials is unique to each person. If you are to employ visual rhetoric, then you must be aware of this, but must also realize that you have no control over individual experience.
Let me share some of my individual experience with (personal and emotional) sensational images.
Meet 14-year-old me. I am sitting with my friend Bridget in a closed-to-the-public area of Liberty State Park in Jersey City, the Hudson River shoreline only feet away. Both of our Dads work for the JCPD and this was the site of their annual summer barbecue. Thank you Mom for taking these photos.
Both photos have something in common: The Twin Towers.
That's my Dad, an American hero, patrolling downtown Jersey City's streets on 9/11/01. The entire Jersey City Police force was on duty to provide medical aid and the safe transport of victims from New York into Jersey City. Someone snapped this photo without Dad knowing; he only received the print two years ago, since it took the photographer that long to locate him. As you can see, Tower One is burning, while Tower Two had already collapsed. I know this because its view would not have been obstructed from behind the building on the right in the photo.Since the attack, Ground Zero is still a gaping hole and the New York City skyline is without its most trademark. In an effort to acknowledge and pay respect to the victims, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the people of Russia donated the little-known Teardrop Memorial to The United States. Educate yourself: read the full article.
On September 11, 2006, Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli unveiled his work in Bayonne, NJ (the town next to Jersey City, which is also the town that The Statue of Liberty was in fact gifted from Bayonne, France). The Memorial is positioned so that the teardrop hanging from the center would align with the area between the two Towers were they still erect. A polished marble slab encircles the base of the Memorial; on it is etched the name of every victim from 9/11. When I visited, I located one name, Mary Melendez, the mom of three boys who attended my grammar school. She worked in Tower Two; she phoned her husband after the plane crash and told him she was helping a handicapped coworker to escape; neither survived.
It saddens me to learn through Google search that The Teardrop Memorial has become a thing of urban legend. I have visited the site and can vouch that it does in fact exist. But, I can understand why some may question its existence. Since the Memorial sits on the river's edge, there is only one access point from the land, via Route 440. You then proceed through unfinished labyrinthine dirt roadways, making this and that turn until you reach the site. There are no instructions on how to get to the Memorial, you just have to know.
Since 9/11, the New York City and its surrounding Metro area (which consequently includes Jersey City) has received mass attention. However, almost a decade after the most devastating incident in the Northeastern United States, we all have mostly forgotten. May this meager post serve as a point of reference for all who will always remember.
The images featured above are ones that I personally and emotionally relate to, though I sincerely feel that those who have read this post will feel as deeply moved as I do.
read more.
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