Session 4

Didn't realise but there is a playlist on B.O.B. for CHI1! So I'm deffo gunna take a look at that when I have a spare moment.
In this session we discussed what graphic design is. The definition of a sign is "something which stands to somebody for something in some capacity".
Signs, images, etc are entirely relative to the culture, time etc, that they were produced in. Looked at some another view or culture. it can be interpreted in an entirely different way.
The arts and crafts movement saw a separation between hand made and machine manufactured. Machine made art was seen as soulless ad not a craft if it wasn't made using human talent or skill.
Thinking of graphic as not just an aesthetically pleasing but being able to communicate ideas.

We were asked to discuss how you can judge the quality of graphic design. In my opinion you can't. Even if something like a road sign in our culture is understandable, take it to a German person and they won't understand it because culturally, different signs mean different things. Even hand gestures mean different things in different culture so there is not way that we can assess whether that art is good or bad.
Even fine art has no way of calculating, as it were, whether it was good or bad. In Japan, there are lots of ancient erotic paintings that are treasured for their quality but in Britain those sort of paintings would be considered inappropriate.

We were also asked to read two things but I could only find the piece on Vivienne Westwood. Here is a symbol that CAN be recognised over all cultures that have a knowledge of fashion or even just an appreciation. As with  Louis Vuitton's famous print, Vivienne's Orb can be recognised the world over, so is it possible, that through branding, Graphic design can become cross-continentally relevant?

Also, I watched Planet Word and how language, a form of graphic design, has become recognised across the globe and understood. English is a language that is spoken in a lot of different countries and can be expected to be  taught in schools as a second language. It was interesting to listen to the man who basically used the Roman alphabet to make mandarin Chinese, easier to learn as only 20% of Chinese people at that time could actually speak and/ or understand Chinese because it was so complicated.

Finally, a word about the 2012 logo. The only thing I heard about why there was such an outrage is because of the image, in some peoples eyes, looks sexual. Now, if you look a the image straight away, being told that it was just 2012 written in a strange font, then you wouldn't have cause to see it sexually, but because I have been told, I can see nothing else now. However in the lecture, I couldn't see it any more because I was told that it was 2012 in a strange font. The outrage is entirely based on who shows you the image first.