Friday, 23 March 2012


  • Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers Steven Heller and Lita Talarico, Thames & Hudson, 2010

  • Obey the giant: Life in the image world                                                      Rick Poynor, Birkhäuser, 2007


  • Drawing on the right side of the brain                                                       Betty Edwards, J.P. Tarcher, 1989


  • Mythologies                                                                                        Roland Barthes, Paladin, 1973


  • Practices of looking                                                                                             Marita Sturken, Lisa Cartwright, Oxford University Press, 2001


  • www.designobserver.com


  • www.wgsn.com           

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Brief 5


An opportunity has arisen, Herbert’s Bar in Huddersfield have an outdoor space that they would like to be made habitable.

Following discussions with the owner they are open to our students putting forward proposals to make the outdoor area more interesting.

You are required to produce and submit proposals for one of the following;

Lampshades,

1. A body of research into outdoor areas of bars
2. Decide how many and what size of lampshades would be effective
http://www.fredaldous.co.uk/craft-shop/lampshade-making.html
3. Respond to the title “Herbert see’s the light”
4. Present all research and development work
5. Present final artwork for your chosen amount of lampshades (these can be reduced down in scale for ease of presentation.

Wall space,

1. A body of research into outdoor areas of bars and murals
2. Respond to the title “Herbert looks to the stars”
3. Wall space 9x5 meters approx.
4. You can work in any medium.
5. Present all research and development work
6. Present final artwork for your chosen wall designs (these can be reduced down in scale for ease of presentation.


I decided to choose the wall mural.

Friday, 16 March 2012

Bruno Maag

Today we had a guest lecturer in, Bruno Maag.
He informed us on the history of typography

  • 5000BC cave drawings - record of events
  • Egyptian Hieroglyphics - evolved
  • Greek script - Rosetta stone covers three stages: Egyptian, Phenetian, Greek 
Boustrophidon - writing changing direction
                       - lasted about 100years

Roman Empire built over around 600years - 100AD
Introduced branding - Trojan column
Said to be the best lettering ever produced - evenly spaced and harmonious

Implanted roman script everywhere they landed so people knew they were in the Roman Empire.

450AD Book of Kels - Original in Dublin written by four people in the Alps - 2 Italians (More flourished) 2 Germans (more precise) - same lettering style.

42 line bible - Gutenberg - industrialized information - helping knowledge spread - original in Bridge Library in London.

Friday, 2 March 2012

Semiotics continued

Saussure identified 3 areas to consider in deciphering how meaning is formed;

  1. Signs themselves
  2. The way they are organised into systems
  3. Context in which they appear.
Meaning they can vary depending on the reader/ viewer. Interpretation isn't fixed - it can be changed.

Pierce 3 levels for signs;
  1. Firstness - a sense of something, feeling/mood. (subjective)
  2. Secondness - level of fact/ literal/ fundemental
  3. Thirdness - level of general rules (culturally specific) that bring two levels together in a relationship

Signifier - the word 'Open'
Signified concept - open for business.

In order to understand the meaning from a sign we need to consider the structure.
Pierce's model identified 3 categories or signs.
  • Toilet Signs - Iconic- signifier is perceived as imitating the signified
  • Footprints - Indexical - signifier is not arbitrary but directly connected
  • Road Signs - Symbolic - signifier does not resemble signified. It is fundementally arbitrary or purely conventional so relationship must be learnt.

Semiotics - study of signs


Everything that we see has a place in culture.
Everything in some sense is a sign.
Truth? Don't look for it anymore.


Signified - conceptSignifier - thing that carries the meaning (Material thing)Cannot have signifier without signified.Concept - tree  - signifiedSound pattern   - signifier - thing you can see/hear
  • Roland Barthes - mythologist book - used semiotics to examine popular culture artifacts.

Language - denotation - literal meaning, 1st order signification, visibly present
Myth - connotation - rhetorical meaning, 2nd order signification, suggested by the image/idea.

Daniel Chandler - very inciteful (use for essay) http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem06.html

"an image is a sight which has been recreated or reproduced" - Berger
"Seeing comes before words. The child recognises before it can speak" - Berger

  • Charlie Parker - graphic designer - nature
  • Abram Games - graphic designer - A lot of clever metaphors and signs.
  • Grayson Perry
Linguistics - study of language
Semiotics - science of signs

Meanings that are made through 'theorema' meaning to view, observe and reflect.
Semiotics derives from the study of linguistics.
Language is both constructed and inherited, culturally specific, a system of signs, organised in codes and structures.