Saul Bass

Saul Bass

Saul Bass who was born in 1920, was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed leading of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. After apprenticeships with Manhattan design firms, Bass worked as a freelance graphic designer or a commercial artist as they were called. Chafing at the creative constraints enforced on him in New York, he moved to Los Angeles in 1946. After freelancing, he opened his own studio in 1950 working mostly in advertising until Preminger invited him to design the poster for his 1954 movie, Carmen Jones. Saul Bass's work touches people, not just designers, or students, or spectators of design, or those who know and can explain what a designer is and does, but simply people many people.  

He left New York for Hollywood in the mid-1940s to find a way to combine his restless and imagination and a few years of New York experience working in graphic design, into a career. Before anyone in the film industry, Bass recognized the importance of a movie's first moments. Saul Bass and his firm have created a fair measure of what we now observe as the modern business and commercial world.

Saul Bass available at: http://www.aiga.org/medalist-saulbass/

Saul Bass available at: http://www.saul-bass.com/

Saul Bass available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=saul+bass&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=hxQsYpMJuXGADM:&imgrefurl=http://annyas.com/saul-bass-vertigo-movie-poster-design/&docid=i7MqlEOB4p4BOM&imgurl=http://annyas.com/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/saul-bass-1958-vertigo-three-sheet-movie-poster.jpg&w=480&h=914&ei=dyeXT-3zJILS0QWC3dSgDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=649&vpy=130&dur=1199&hovh=310&hovw=163&tx=82&ty=129&sig=106774014291588732655&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=73&start=0&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:4,s:0,i:141

Paul Rand

Paul Rand

Paul Rand born in August 15, 1916 was a well-known American graphic designer that is best identified for his corporate logo designs. Rand's education involved the Pratt Institute, the Parsons School of Design, and the Art Students League. He was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design. From 1956 to 1969 and beginning again in 1974, he taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as being inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. He designed numerous posters and corporate identities containing the logos for IBM and ABC. By the time that Paul started working out of his Weston studio he was well known as a designer of trademarks.

He had completed designs for some companies including Esquire, Coronet Brandy, and Robeson Cutlery, the destinies that continued as casual roles in directing the Rand talent toward critical areas of design started to set the stage for his third major design career corporate identity. Thomas J. Watson, Jr., had come recently to the presidency of the International Business Machines Corporation, and his search for a graphic designer to create the corporate image led to Paul Rand.

Paul Rand available at: http://www.areaofdesign.com/americanicons/rand.htm

Paul Rand available at:http://www.iconofgraphics.com/Paul-Rand/

Paul Rand available at:http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=paul+rand&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=VRSuQajEH0ZN1M:&imgrefurl=http://benstanley00.blogspot.com/p/paul-rand.html&docid=GkYzfWIgSFUCTM&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ZySLR443z0c/TDxlQYHDnWI/AAAAAAAAAa8/ApRzl65dyu4/s1600/subway.jpg&w=800&h=1122&ei=HQqXT_LHPNO08QOsitX7CQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=306&vpy=262&dur=2752&hovh=266&hovw=189&tx=97&ty=150&sig=106774014291588732655&page=3&tbnh=151&tbnw=108&start=56&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:8,s:56,i:275

Babra Kruger

Barbara Kruger

American conceptual/pop artist Barbara Kruger was born in Newark in 1945. Early on she established an interest in graphic design. She studied with fellow artists/photographers Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel, who presented Kruger to other photographers and fashion/magazine sub-cultures. Not long after she started to work at Mademoiselle magazine as an entry-level designer. Further on she worked as a graphic designer, art director, and image editor in the art departments at House and Garden, Aperture, and did magazine layouts, book jacket designs. 

Her period of background in design is marked in the work for which she is now renowned.

Kruger was influenced by her years working as a graphic designer. In recent years Barbara Kruger has extended her aesthetic project, creating public installations of her work in galleries, museums, municipal buildings, train stations, and parks, as well as on buses and billboards around the world. Walls, floors, and ceilings are covered with images and texts. Since the late 1990s, Kruger has incorporated sculpture into her on going critique of modern American culture. Much of her work engages of found photographs from present sources with aggressive text as well her imagery and text including criticism of sexism and circulation of power within cultures.

Babra Kruga available at: http://www.barbarakruger.com/biography.shtml

Babra Kruga available at: http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/feminism/kruger/kruger.htm

Babra Kruga available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=barbara+kruger&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=uShuBHXdvF0frM:&imgrefurl=http://www.barbarakruger.com/art.shtml&docid=wsri0Xi7eusjSM&imgurl=http://www.barbarakruger.com/art/yourbody.jpg&w=250&h=254&ei=rr6XT-KNE8nY8AO3trnzBQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=3&sig=113999270934398709108&page=1&tbnh=134&tbnw=132&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:72&tx=39&ty=31

Franklin McMahon

Franklin McMahon

Franklin McMahon born on September 1921 was an artist reporter, that his work took him around the world for more than half a century. His work incorporated on journalism preferences for photographs to make a renowned career of drawing historic scenes in beauty, as well as emphatic lines. He sold a cartoon to Collier’s magazine while he was still in high school, after working for Life at the Till trial, McMahon a freelance artist, covered almost every national political convention from 1960 to 2004. After working for Life at the Till trial, McMahon a freelance artist, covered virtually every national political convention from 1960 to 2004, the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, the Nixon-Kennedy debates and the Second Vatican Council.

He made a number of films consuming his pictures, and the presenting of one, about Chicago at Christmas, became a tradition in the city. Life magazine hired McMahon to make courtroom sketches of the trial, held in Sumner, assuming most on what you would think he was a print reporter doodling. He later redrew the sketches in his hotel room, and again in his studio. One of the most celebrated of the trial sketches published in Life captured Mose Wright, Emmett’s uncle.

Franklin Mcmahon available at: http://www.zimbio.com/Sonia+McMahon/articles/1zgk4PTNzxw/FRANKLIN+McMAHON+1921+2012

Franklin Mcmahon available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/us/franklin-mcmahon-who-drew-the-news-dies-at-90.html?_r=1

 Franklin Mcmahon available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=Franklin+Mcmahon+work&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=Wcpu5CEXRZhSoM:&imgrefurl=http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/work-by-franklin-mcmahon/Slideshow%3Foid%3D5779840&docid=kXlRjrJCvxvMrM&imgurl=http://www.chicagoreader.com/imager/drawing-of-the-1960-kennedy-nixon-debate/b/slideshow/5779842/59ce/1960-Kennedy_Nixon_Debate_final_Art__jpeg_FA.jpg&w=600&h=447&ei=2uSZT-2RBo-s8QPQnsmxBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=368&sig=110899913075993879480&page=1&tbnh=153&tbnw=194&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0,i:77&tx=150&ty=48

Alan Kitching

Alan Kitching­

Alan Kitching Born in Darlington in 1940, is a graphic designer, typographer, letterpress printmaker and teacher. Alan Kitching is best known for his expressive use of letterpress type, process and materials in creating typographic designs for publishing, advertising and his own limited edition prints. Alan found his own design practice, he taught at the Central School of Art, and was invited by Derek Birdsall to join the Omnific Design Partnership. He became visiting lecturer in typography at the Royal College of Art in 1988 and established his workshops there for students of all disciplines. In 1989 Kitching decided to go back to his letterpress roots and launched The Typography Workshop in Clerkenwell London with the first of his A1 ‘Broadside’ sheets an occasional publication devoted to the typographic arts’.

As well as compositions for corporate identities, magazine and book covers and illustration. Alan’s work has also included; postage stamps, theatre posters, shop windows, billboards, signage and a typographic mural for the Guardian Newspaper’s London office. Kitching did not have a style in his work, he had his own style taking every opportunity. In terms of his work that consisted on letter pressing works out as a nice effect in terms of texture of the text and the layout which appears at angles with some letters overlapping each other as well as visual shapes merging in.

Alan Kitching, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=1o7mm_T6iOxNAM:&imgrefurl=http://magculture.com/blog/%3Fp%3D5142&docid=CvLMki_z8x4bjM&imgurl=http://www.blanka.co.uk/i/products/3270.jpg&w=740&h=1110&ei=qnmYT9GLCIfqOfXnhMgG&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=983&vpy=148&dur=2110&hovh=275&hovw=183&tx=118&ty=138&sig=110899913075993879480&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=101&start=0&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:93

Alan Kitching, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh9s2oBLaK1qh6012o1_400.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fontsoup.tumblr.com/post/3551439632/benbrazier-alan-kitching-genius&h=500&w=400&sz=113&tbnid=hLatdu8Kf5e4XM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=72&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dalan%2Bkitching%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=alan+kitching&docid=-g4tVpvlHAlRtM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HduZT6b4Bq7S4QT08M3gDA&sqi=2&ved=0CFgQ9QEwBw&dur=1943

(accessed on 28^th April)

Willis O'Brien

Willis O’Brien

Willis O’Brien was an excessive artist pioneer of American stop motion, who was born in California in 1886. O’Brien held a number of jobs and hobbies during his developmental years. His careers that consisted of serving as a guide to studying the forms of life in Creater Lake region as well as being a sculptor and illustrator. One day, while constructing models with his colleague O’Brien thought idea that he recognized that he could animate the prototypes on the same techniques that cartoonists used to animate drawings by constructing a prototype then moving its part frame by frame at a time to create the illusion of movement, he could give the prototypes a cinematic life. Through this method of stop motion animation had been invented and used already.

On the day he got back the first printed footage of King Kong 1933 in motion he noticed that the fur covering the puppet moved because it was disturbed by his fingers during filming. In my opinion, Willis O’ Briens work stands out great in terms of usage of techniques and movement which takes a lot of time moving a figure frame by frame, it’s also interesting the way the figures move to give it an illusion of movement.

Willis O’Brien, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grMo5-2Y5oc&feature=related

Willis O’Brien, available at: http://silentmoviemonsters.tripod.com/TheLostWorld/LWOBIE.html

Willis O’Brien, available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0639891/bio

(accessed on 26^th April)

Charles Bowers

Charles Bowers

Charles Bowers was an American who was born on 7^th June 1877 and was a cartoonist and a slaptstick comedian. His life led an astonishing life earlier to getting involved to motion pictures, He did all types of work over the years containing circus jobs, theatrical work, bronco busting and cartooning. Bowers was a talented cartoonist, and used his skills in a extremely creative mind to get into the animation fields. In 1926 he started to give serious thought to live action filmmaking and he also created a photographic method by using a camera by which he could achieve truly amazing stop motion based special effects, joining them into a non animated context. In terms of his work, it was completely silent, his films showed an exceptional filmmaker who varied animation with the purest form of slaptick, where imagination transmuted ordinary features of everyday life into fantastic scenes using the creative method of surrealism.

In terms of his work, in my opinion his work has a sense of visual and a creative style verified by his work and how it was constructed together. The animation works out good in terms of movement of frame by frame, and also makes you think imaginative relating it to slapstick animation.

Charles Bowers, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSqvBuouM7E&feature=related

Charles Bowers, available at: http://festival.curtas.pt/1993-2/authors/charles-bowers/

Charles Bowers, available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0101038/bio

Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren is a Scottish animator and a film director, who was born in Scotland in 1914. His filmmaking started early in his life after he came known with works by great Russian filmmakers and German animators. While a student at the Glasgow school of fine arts his fascination with dance led him to make much artificial documentaries. McLaren immigrated to the United where he made an amount of abstract films and then he joined the general post office film unit, where he worked in London using the method of filmstrip In the same year. McLaren used to see abstractions in his mind as he listened to music. With film, he realized he could make these abstractions visible. His mind was made up and he joined a newly formed filmmaking club at the art school. He became the mainspring of this club, and he displayed an original and indefatigably energetic talent. His student films were mainly live-action; he was fascinated by the movie camera and sought to exploit it to its maximum.

One of his work called spook sport 1940 a technique of film animation is a method where footage he produced consisting of drawing on film to create a sketch effect, on a blank film it enables him to pain, draw or tape objects. I admire his work in terms of the way the displays with a creative effect as well as it is abstract art that animation moves in time to the music.

Norman McLaren, available at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXTx9BKENs&feature=related

Norman McLaren, available at http://www3.nfb.ca/animation/objanim/en/filmmakers/Norman-McLaren/biography.php

Norman McLaren, available at http://www.mellart.com/2008/03/spook-sport-1940.html

(accessed on 24^th April)

Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper born in 1962 is a modern designer of motion picture title sequences. Cooper studied graphic design under Paul Rand at yale university. Early in his trained career he worked as a creative director at R/GA and advertising agency with offices in New York and Los Angeles, during this era he created the title sequence for the 1995 American crime film se73n. According to Cooper, at the time he made the title sequences for seven, main title sequences we behind of what was happening in print, music videos and commercials. He wanted to create main titles that were raising the bar creatively. Kyle Cooper has directed over 150 film title sequences, and has been credited with almost single handedly revitalizing the main-title sequence as an art form. His types of title sequences lies in the form of 2-dimensional animation, table top live action photography and digital aided emulation of pre-existing techniques

In terms of his work I chose his title sequence he did for Spiderman three, the title sequence consists of the film of the representative scenes. I admire his work because to me as looking at title sequences they go in the zone of it being visual as well as creative with text and imagery I also like the way of the shapes within the footage relating it to the content of the film.

Kyle Cooper, available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQyl0R-H1uY

Kyle Cooper, available at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0178204/bio

Kyle Cooper, available at: http://www.watchthetitles.com/articles/00170-     Kyle_Cooper_interview_pt_1_2

Kyle Cooper, available at: http://abduzeedo.com/motion-graphics-inspiration-kyle-cooper

(accessed on 22^nd April)

Postmodernism

Post modernism


Post modernism is a long extending term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism. Postmodernism is a response to the acknowledged certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In principle, it stems from being familiar that realism is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is built as the mind tries to understand its own exact reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly doubting of details which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything, reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism depends on real experience over abstract values, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be making an error and relative, rather than certain and universal.

Postmodernism dues to be the successor to the seventeenth century. For over four centuries, postmodern philosophers have endorsed and protected a New Age way of theorizing and human life and progress. Since the end of the 1970s the majority os Post-modernbism artists and architects have taken a diverse tradition). Postmodernists are naturally atheistic or the view of the truth, while some choose to follow eastern religion thoughts and practices. Many are naturalist including humanitarians and philosophers.

Postmodernism image, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=in_QKw46uJ_t8M:&imgrefurl=http://www.jacketflap.com/megablog/index.asp%3Ftagid%3D5726%26tag%3Dmodern&docid=BWeSYcEZiaDevM&imgurl=http://grainedit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/paul-rudolph-rendering-4.jpg&w=470&h=330&ei=f5GYT6P3MNSU8gO9o9j9BQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=342&vpy=153&dur=3534&hovh=188&hovw=268&tx=166&ty=58&sig=110899913075993879480&page=1&tbnh=126&tbnw=180&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:67

(accessed on 20^th April 2012)

Identity

Identity

The subject identity is defined as the typical character, belonging to any given individual. The idea of identity covers some notion of human agency, an idea that we can have some control in making our own identities. There are constraints which may lie in the external world, where material and social factors may limit the degree of agency which beings may have. Lack of material resources decreases the opportunities we have as in the case of poverty and economic constraints. It is unbearable to have an identity as a successful career if one is without a job and if there are no employment opportunities. Other borders to our independence may reside within us. Identity is different from personality in important respects. We may share personality characters with other people, but sharing an identity suggests some active commitment on our part.

We choose to identify with a particular identity or group. Sometimes we have more choice than others. (Sociology seems to have a lot to say about identity. At the moment gender and ethnic identity seem to be at the forefront of the discipline concerns). Although as individuals we take up identities actively, those identities are essentially the product of the society in which we live and our relationship with others. Identity delivers a link among individuals and the world in which they live. Identity combines how people see themselves and how others see them. Identity involves the internal and the subjective, and the external. (Braib, 1998, pg 1)

Identity image, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=624&tbm=isch&tbnid=guasYZ7eYT7QZM:&imgrefurl=http://lanrefajumo.blogspot.com/2010/04/identity.html&docid=0orJYiSvBBM6VM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mCUE4ryMM2U/S9Q-9qBccoI/AAAAAAAAAE4/Lka6jwrUpQk/s1600/identity%252Bpic.gif&w=318&h=369&ei=M36YT-PHJY-UOvK3-dQG&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=197&vpy=156&dur=50&hovh=242&hovw=208&tx=122&ty=99&sig=110899913075993879480&page=1&tbnh=123&tbnw=106&start=0&ndsp=22&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:146

(accessed on 18^th April 2012)

Semiotics

Semiotics

Semiotics is defined as the theory of icons, signs and symbols, these can be found in the spoken or written words, in the art of cinematography, inside the shapes and curves of sculpture of dance or more particularly in the case and structure of a picture, whether as a painting or a photograph and how it is read. The Understanding of the image is the method of finding the significances inside the frame that occurs when the observer counters to the signs and symbols which constitute the picture. The process that occurs consists of some understanding of what the picture signifies. In this way audiences with diverse social experiences or different cultures may discovery different meanings in the same image. (Signs are always produced and consumed in the context of a specific society). This is not essentially a clue of the success or failure of the picture in question. It's only the change between translation and interpretation.

A vital thought in semiotics, is that signs and importance are limitless, which is called unlimited semiosis. This standard makes it clear that one sign or set of signs can take the place of some other sign or set of signs talking about a situation or a concept in an infinite method. (Laurence King, 2007, pg 5 & 6)

Semiotics image, available at: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=semiotics+structure&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=u6lCoB6iQNmmcM:&imgrefurl=http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/semiotics.htm&docid=-vQwpk6XGcKcBM&imgurl=http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/semiotics/semiotic_triad.jpg&w=299&h=260&ei=G1aLT-nlGtDZ8QOR4ejZCQ&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=608&sig=107553865346168159859&page=1&tbnh=144&tbnw=166&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0,i:92&tx=61&ty=65

(accessed on 16^th April 2012)