5 Design Interests

Gallery:

E. McKnight Kauffer "Civil Aeronautics Administration" (1943)

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Civil Aeronautics Administration” (1943)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Flowers of the Riverside” (1920)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Stonehenge, See Britain First on Shell!” (1932)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Shop Between 10 and 4” (1921)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Reigate” (1915)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Now the Pine Tree’s Waving Top” (1932)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Museumo of Natural History” (1923)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Metropolis” (1926)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “Oxhey Woods” (1915)
• 
• 

• 
• E. McKnight Kauffer “You Can be Sure of Shell” (1931)
• 
• 

Part 1:

About the Works:

The works selected above are a selections of works created by E. McKnight Kauffer. A large majority of these are from his time spent in London working for either Shell or the Underground transport system, and just an example of the near 140 posters he’s known for. The range of color used is limited due to its age, however the designs were fairly progressive for their time; including large bold shapes, scattered text, and clear images. Also in this gallery is a few of Kauffer’s artworks which hold a clear almost impressionistic style, which was likely picked up by Kauffer during his time studying in Paris.

Part: 2

About the Designer:

Edward Kauffer is an American born artist. He born in 1890, Great Falls, Montana – however he lived most of his life in England and elsewhere overseas. At the age of 20 Kauffer began to study at the California school of design where he worked both for his studies and independently. In 1912 a professor from the University of Utah took notice of Kauffer’s work and offered to mentor and sponsor him, and spent money to send Kauffer to Paris to further his studies. He studied at the Académie Moderne in Paris for about a year, until he met a textile designer, Marion Dorn. They fell in loved and they decided to reside together in London. There he began to complete some of his most famous works of art. Kauffer was most well-known for his work for the underground transit in london, in which he made 140 posters. These designs were fairly broad as Kauffer dabbled in various styles such as futurism, cubism, vorticism, and impressions from Japanese woodcuts.

Later he returned to American with his wife, however due to the perplexing advancements European styles had over the American art, many saw his art as being too much. In other words, as put by Frank Zachary “America was not ready for him”. This shows how rapidly graphic design changes and alters its borders as the culture around it does. While Kauffer was highly successful and well known in England his work was considered to be too progressive for American culture.

Part 3:

Main Points:

• – Kauffer’s designs took much influence from European and British style arts
• – Though he was born in America, Kauffer’s designs were considered too progressive for American culture revealing a cultural tendency in graphic design.

Part 4:

Sources:

MoMa Collection of art

AIGA Award

London Transport Museum

I am interested in Graphic design because I love being able to edit photos and videos and draw attention to certain details within them. Recently this summer I started hiking and exploring many of the mountains here in good old New Hampshire, and some of the sights that I saw were incredible. I loved tinkering in Photoshop with these photos and cropping them, burning the edges, changing and altering the exposure and doing things to them that distorted what the viewer saw. I also love to draw and I would take a sketchbook up on top of those mountains and sketch the areas around me so that I could later bring it back down and create something on my computer. Personally, I am interested into any kind of animated design elements. I love magazine designs that really pop off the page, and I think they are examples of utility designs.

Part of the reason I love Graphic Design so much is because the possibilities are endless. The term “Graphic Design” covers such a wide arrange of areas itself and there is a vast array of concepts. Graphic Design is the new era. The age of painters and sculptures is slowly losing its’ appeal because we are entering into this wave of technology. There is so much that is being made possible in terms of art because of technology, and I’m looking forward to exploring those boundaries within this class.

I love this image because it represents the new wave of art that is upon us. Technology is exposing artists to new concepts every day, and allowing them to take their creations to new heights. This picture is an example of that height.

http://peterharriscreative.com

I think this website also helps to represent the new age that we are in and the importance of Graphic Design.

The reason I am taking graphic design is for another passion. I wish to become better at communicating. I want to learn to communicate and express my ideas and thoughts more clearly to those around me, which can be used in any field or major. I am a nursing major, which does not really have much to do with graphic design. However, being expressive and well at communicating is greatly important in this field, and by learning the ability to express my ideas, I will be better equipped for my major. I also have always had a desire to be more artistic, but have never followed up on it. So, this class will also be helping me with increasing my artistic abilities.

Motion Design
I thought motion design was interesting. It is not only deciding how a picture should be designed, but adding sound and movement to the picture to tell a story. As an example of why motion design is interesting to me- I often think the trailer to a movie is more interesting than the actual movie, which shows how motion design advertises the movie well. This video, in the link below, shows how many different ways motion design can be used, and how long motion design has been used for (I thought that using it in a 3-D way was the best one). I have always wanted to create a short film from animation, so this was very interesting to me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzGXSpmNHzc

Type Design
I also thought that type design was very interesting. I thought so because I had never thought of fonts and typeface as graphic design. Fonts are always needed for anything and everything on a computer, and would be incorporated with basically every type of graphic design that has any word or number involved with it. I was interested to know how the designer would think of a font and write it out, so I searched for it. This is what I found: http://www.fastcompany.com/3028881/most-creative-people/what-its-like-to-design-a-font-from-scratch

This article explains one man who designed famous fonts, such as Times New Roman and Ariel. In the pictures on the side, it shows how they write out each letter, scan it, and get as close to the outline of the letter as possible. My aunt actually does calligraphy, which is another reason I thought this was interesting! My handwriting can be really nice (when I try…), so this would be a good design for me to work on.

I also found a few typeface design that I thought looked cool.

Paul Rand
Design and the Play Instinct part of the reading caught my eye. It was in the first question that really spiked my interest when the question was answered by stating that there are no formulas in creative work. Design is something that must be made up from your inner artist. It has to come from with in and be original and I believe that this specifically is a huge part in design that an artist has to display in their work in order to be original and successful.

The article called Failure by Design was another one that interested me. The title was a little strange to me and honest I clicked on it because I was born in 1993 and I saw the year and immediately went to it. There is a quote that says, “Why is the average graphic design effort today merely average at best?” and I partially agree with it. Art will only get better and will change it’s path constantly over time. That’s what I like most about art. If art was at it’s peak pack in the 80’s then there would be no chance for artists of this century to prove themselves. That’s why art is by opinion and every piece attracts a new crown which I love about the job. It gives each artist to make it their own.

What draws me into graphic design is just that I’m a very visual person and I absolutely need to have some form of career where i can get involved with visual things of any kind. I thought about numerous academic routes i could go down to fulfill this passion. At first i decided to major in computer science as i have always been interested in making videogames, but then the realized the amount of nitty gritty technical stuff i had to learn before i could get to anything fun like working with computer graphics just wasn’t worth spending four years in college. After leaving computer science, i flip-flopped between architecture, product design, and studio art. I eventually landed on graphic design because i figured that as a major, it would have a nice emphasis of on working on visual things, while being balanced out by the fact that it is a fairly transmutable skill, unlike probably studio art. Also the notion of taking images and repurposing them for other motives is a really appealing one to me. It’s always entertaining for me to think about what something means if taken outside of its natural context. Like what if an Olympics took place underwater, or inside of a department store, or at my house. It would completely change people’s perception of the event. The ability to play on perception and expectation is a pretty intriguing prospect to me.

Two of the graphic design fields that have peaked my interest would be environmental design and advertising. I might be able to appreciate environmental design because I like the restriction of designing for a physical space. I enjoy thinking about how to cater to demands of a facility while keeping a consistent and appealing aesthetic motif. As for advertising design, i admire the tight interplay between text and image. I feel like making a good advertisement might be like making a comic that tells it’s story in the course of a single panel. One of my favorite things about advertisement is how it’s never just about what is there, but what isn’t. A good advertisement should instantly grab your attention and afford the viewer space to continue thinking about design after they’ve looked over it.

My History With Graphic Design
Design in general is something I have always been interested in and loved doing. Whether it be moving the furniture around in my room and redecorating the house or designing a poster for a class, I’ve always gravitated towards the aesthetics of life. I enjoy making and appreciate good art of any form. I have loved technology and computers since I was as little as I can remember so it only seems right to combine the two! I have always gone above and beyond when assigned a poster or brochure or illustration in school because I always have so much fun making them. As I’ve gotten older and artistic assignments in school became more rare, I haven’t had a reason to create graphic art so I have lost my love for it. For this reason, I am excited to dive back into it and learn how it can become a part of my everyday life possibly as a major and then as a career!

Type Design
After reading the chapter, I was surprised by how many different paths a graphic designer can take. One path in particular that I found to be intriguing was a type designer. I had never thought about how the fonts I’ve become so familiar with came to be. I would be interested in learning more about what it means to be a type designer and what kind of work would be available. I think the psychology behind how and why font affects the way we percieve something is fascinating. Linguistics and written language is something I’ve always questioned and been interested in so I’d love to learn more about the process of creating fonts.

I always doodle things like this in my notebook:

Advertising Design
Another field of graphic design I would find interesting is advertising design. I find the way our brain can be persuaded simply by colors and shapes fascinating and I would love to learn how to use that information to make someone feel or think a certain way. Advertising and commercials are such a huge part of todays world. There are so many famous logos and commercials that everyone has seen or heard of and could recognize as belonging to a certain company. I would love if something I designed ever became that well known. Again, the psychology behind the design and the reasons for the shape and color and whatever emotion the ad is trying to portray is something I would love to learn more about.

Here are some ads/logos that I think are particularly effective/inspiring:

I think this is very shocking and not normally socially accepted to illustrate something so evil and therefore it really gets the attention of the viewer. It makes you think of smoking much more seriously and maybe this image will be stuck in the viewers head when they smoke because its so harsh. Its a very honest approach to anti-smoking ad, its not sugarcoated at all, and therefore very effective.

I think this is cute and creative. It makes Heinz seem less of a factory and more of a fresh farm. Whether or not thats true is a different story but this makes the viewer feel like Heinz ketchup is as fresh as a tomato itself.

I think this is so exaggerated that its actually funny. A man is supposed to look at this and think that if they use this cologne they will develop these great muscles and veiny arms and be super strong and tough. It’s so ridiculous that it actually works. I think this ad is funny and effective for giving Old Spice a very “manly man” reputation.

I want to be a graphic designer because ever since I was younger, art in general has been my passion. It’s what I’m good at when it comes to school. It’s the only subject I will actually willingly pull an all-nighter for. I want to be a designer because it’s what I think that will bring me the farthest in life when it comes to art fields. I enjoy drawing and painting, but the digital part of art intrigues me. I like the freedom of taking something so simple as a shape and turing it into something epic and beautiful. This past summer I got a job at the #1 day camp in Massachusetts called LINX as a camp counsellor and absolutely loved my job! At the end of the summer it ended up turning into a graphic design job through out the year and I’m excited to see where that takes me!

The most recent magazine that I’ve been subscribed to is called “Racer X.”

Graphic Design has been a subject of interest to myself for quite some time. Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by some people’s ability (or inability) to create art. I was always someone who loved to draw and was often praised for it as well. I always believed that artistic ability was something that you had to be born with, and since I seemed to be blessed with this gift I thought that it would be wrong of me not to embrace such a unique trait in my future career. The problem was that I never really knew what to do with my talent, or how to commercialize it so I slowly stopped practicing what I loved so much.

Entering college, I decided that I would be doing myself a disservice if I were to not embrace my ability and I narrowed my goal down into two paths, art teaching or graphic design. The aspects of graphic design that have been of interest to me are publication and advertising design. These two types of design are of particular interest to me because people may not think or even realize how much work goes into those pages, that billboard, or even those commercials. I have never been one who likes to gloat so I feel as though the satisfying perfectionism , while still being able to not draw too much attention to my work, will be perfect for me.

I think that these 2 images are particularly powerful forms of advertisement, the message is quite clear and the images are simple yet aesthetically pleasing. People who see these images will clearly understand the severity of smoking, and that is exactly what graphic design is supposed to achieve, a clear message that is elegant yet powerful.

It did not start until two years ago that I started to fulfill an interest in graphic design. I was an artist all my life, starting when I was a baby, being able to draw in the lines with both hands; then later in the years chose to be a lefty. The way I draw is very unique because I believe that everything should have a story, hence why I always put hidden messages in my drawings. With this being said, it caught peoples attention in my high school; students wanted me to draw for them! So I would make a drawing that resembled the specific individual and draw their name inside the piece secretly to make the drawing more personal. It was basically like a horoscope. This is what started my career of art. As college started and I still thinking about a major to get into, my father recommended me to do graphic design. First I did not want to at all since I was forced to go to computer camp when I was young and terribly disliked it; thought to myself that I would never work with computers ever again! But changed my mind once I further researched what graphic design is all about. Hence, why I am here in this class.

Brand and Identity Design
This design concept is really cool, it gives you the freedom to create anything you want; it brings out the personality of the artist, showing what kind of work they are able to do with little rules. Brand and identity design is so important because you are making a logo become more than just a logo, it represents the whole company on which it stands on, or a restaurant, etc.

Now the first logo, everyone know about, but when you think of coffee, you think of starbucks or dunkin donuts. The second logo is my fathers new start up company, and it took them a while to figure out how they want to brand themselves since this logo is going to represent them for the rest of their careers. They finally perfected it and believe that this logo represents their company and is people friendly, thus you see the person as the dot of the last “i”.

Package Design 
Package design is similar to brand and identity design but I believe is further detailed. Such as a coca-cola bottle. the coke title is the brand logo and the surrounding art is the package design.

It is so fascinating being able to make a 3D design. I have always known that if I were to get into the field of graphic design, I would do package design because my mother use to work for Damen World Wide, which is where they make the package designing logos for foods at grocery stores such as Stop and Shop and Winn Dixie. I have met with the designers and they expressed how fun their job is, just drawing all day, making logos and designing packages for foods.

Christina Lyons
Graphic Design I
Design Interests

Graphic design has evolved into a newly discovered love of mine. I’ve always been in love with fashion magazines and fashion in general. I recently was accepted into the Graphic Design program after I made a huge change in my major from Secondary Education and European History to Graphic Design. The reason why? I have a huge love for fashion photography and recently just returned from Italy where I studied it. Before then I contemplated on Graphic Design seeing as I have been told I’m a very conceptual artist and I have a unique eye for visuals. This is a huge leap for me and I’ve been out of my comfort zone many times, but I enjoy it and I’m learning so much from this experience. I’ve also love creating collages and arranging photos from magazines in interesting ways. I’ve started to realize I would really love to work for magazines where I could combine my photography with my graphic design skills. One artist who is a very important role model to me is William Klein. He’s an amazing fashion photographer, film director, and graphic designer.

Design by William Klein

Photograph by William Klein

While I was in Italy, I took an art history class called: Avant Garde and Modernist Art. Where we got into a lot of modern and abstract art. I really enjoyed the work done in the Bauhaus in Germany, the graphic design was so ground breaking and simple. There were studio artists at the Bauhaus, like Josef Albers, who transitioned into graphic design. Albers even started the Graphic Design program at Yale.  I really like to draw influence from artists from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Design by László-Moholy-Nagy

I ultimately want to do publication design where I could work for magazines or publishing companies. I find I work really well with creating layouts and arranging images in appealing ways. Brand and identity design I would enjoy to pursue as well. I’m very fond of cosmetics and I always pay attention to the packaging on the products I buy and how they sell their brand.  I would like to do my brand and identity design for advertising. I really want to be versatile in my field and be useful in different departments. I really am excited for what the future holds for me in the industry.