typography lecture - part 2

Type - production and distribution

• Bauhaus started to feed through all areas of practice, textiles, jewellery. New ideas emerged about the connections between form and function
• the idea emerged that form follows function as opposed to the decorative. Key principle of modern design
• reductionist view, less is more. On the left here is a Bauhaus fashion piece and bowie on the right shows the influence they had on mass culture
• focused on the clarity with which something can communicate an idea - this is counterpoint to any argument  we have as designers
• the first time graphic design/illustration was applied as a promotional tool
• first time the industrial age had a visual language
• commerce started to drive design, birth of modern graphic design
• 1933 - Hitler shut down Bauhaus because they had too many ideas
• 1957 - Max Miedinger, created helvetica. The epitome of the modernist idea of type. designed for mass production, mass communication, focusing on the function of type. So simple it can be interpreted by the viewer it doesn't have to offer its own narrow interpretation. The most dynamic type face ever created,
• Arial was released exactly 25 years later after Helvetica by Microsoft. 25 years is the amount of time before a type face goes into the public domain, you still cant copy it but Microsoft did the bare minimum to change it into Arial so they wouldn't have to pay for helvetica.
• post modernism = anything goes, anything can be a type face, language is fluid and in a state of flux.
• 1977 - Jamie Reid created the visual culture that surrounded punk, anti graphics, the reinvention of type, a completely destructive approach to modernism
• however punk didn't just appear it was evolutionary it ha its influences in, John Heartfeild (30s) Hannah Hoch (20s)
• the language of protest started to arrive, social critique within a fine art context
• 1992 - David Carson, Ray Gun often described as post modernistic but he was actually redefining a modernist view of typography, still about communication, about appealing to an audience
• 1990 - Steve Jobs, the first apple mac made available for under $1000, creatives could now own their own computers. also the first computer to have a mouse. First small computer that designers could have in their own personal studios, it freed up the individual to create type faces. First time we had digital type design and development, the computer became a design tool.
• 1994 - Vincent Connare, created comic sans. Nothing more needs to be said..
• 1990 - Tim Berners Lee created the world wide wed and gave it to the world for free!
• 1995 - Bill Gates introduced the first globally accepted browser, Internet explorer. He restricted the web into a series of rules and templates using only 6 fonts which included arial and comic sans.
• today even SMS text messaging is dropping off because we use twitter, instagram, facebook. We have started to replace letters words and ideas with emojis. It is a global language
• we have almost gone full circle back to the first hieroglyphics 
• so what is our role today as the designers of the future? its not just about making a type face or designing a page. The role of visual culture is not about can or cant but should?