for the love of them: 14/02/2010

Friday, 19 February 2010

Nothing is created, everything is reinvented. Is it?

Today I was reading about one more accusation of plagiarism involving Harry Potter and his mother, J. K. Rowling. Apparently someone else trying to hitchhike the super-power brand that the narrative has become ever since its launch. This time, she is the one being accused of plagiarism. Well, I confess I have never read the books or watched the films what, I guess, will sound as blasphemy for some, especially here in the UK.

Anyway, the real truth is that I also was reading a post published on CR Magazine blog regarding the Constructivism Movement and its influence in the visual, in special, Graphic Design. The article is actually debating the endurance of the influence of such visual language along the years up to to present; questioning its appeal as a visual language in itself, detached from the political views associated to its origins.

Rodchenko photomontage,1924. She says: 'Books'

Franz Ferdinand album 'You Can Have It So Much Better'

As a former graphic design student it is very easy to understand the reasons why the movement is so intrinsic to the practice: on studying design, you train yourself to see everything around you in geometric shapes, 'deconstructing' everything to their basic forms. And those basic shapes are in the end the skeleton of a traditional graphic piece - grids, rules, shaped backgrounds. Any hue, images and typography — the organs and skin — tend to turn into chaos without the underneath structure. Obviously there are the practitioners of the antithesis of the movement, aka David Carson.

The question is: Do the images posted above (originally posted on the CR post) illustrate the influence of the movement on current graphic pieces or do they illustrate one of the greatest debates in the creative world: plagiarism. It is quite clear that the second designer 'inspired' his work on the first one. However I guess the album cover does not mean to bring the same political appeal of the Russian poster. Given the title of the album, can we take as an excuse the use of a certain irony? And if so, at what point is this irony clever?

And then I started questioning myself: all my posts are triggered by things I see and read around. I am scanning and browsing things all the time and my brain goes around working as a sponge. At certain point it starts making connections among all these things and there I go, a post. Am I being unethical at some point?

References:
http://www.answers.com/topic/constructivism
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2008/august/constructivism-the-ism-that-just-keeps-givin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(art)

Thursday, 18 February 2010

Oktavilla

Is a design agency from Sweden specialized in "functional design" for newspapers and websites. They develop concepts, structures and formats to make those medias easier and more fun. And with magazines, they make walls.

Wednesday, 17 February 2010

From the things I want to do when I grow up

Lots of people have personal projects. Lots of designers work in non-commissioned projects for the simply pleasure of being designing and creating. One of my personal projects is to design posters for my favorite tracks of all times. There are album covers, there are video clips and, nothing beats the power of the sound; but having Star Guitar or Desired Constellation illustrating the walls of my flat would be a plus and having a song framed on still canvas is a completely different challenge than making use of moving image.

A group of designers and photographers were invited to visualize the tracks of the first album of Heaven 17. Heaven 17 is a British band from the infamous 80's that I just got to know about the existence in the mid 90's. And because of a film. They play one of my favorite tracks in the Trainspotting soundtrack: Temptation. The song led me to get to know the rest of their work and now, 15 years on, I am very curious to see the results of the designers interpretation that I guess will be above all, very graphic.

The band will perform commemorative gigs and the visualizations will serve as backdrop during the tracks execution. The artists (photographers are also taking part) announced to be working with pure animation, lights and, as expected, typography.

Just a thought

New brand

I ve just seen the rebrand of the Central School of Speech and Drama. According to the principal of the institution 'we wanted something more flamboyant and theatrical'. Still according to him, the old identity was far academic.

Actual brand

I am a big fan of yellow anyway and especially this shade of yellow. It resembles very much "mimosa" that was elected by Pantone the colour of the year in 2009. And I do not have much issues with the stroked typeface that might cause nausea to some designers.

My only critique is the emphasis. I would tend to emphasise 'Speech and drama' instead of 'Central School'.

Trainspotting for kids

I can t imagine how fascinating might have been to illustrate such delirium. Guess Alice might be the dream of every illustrator. And that is proved by the number of those that adventure themselves in portraying the highest of all the children characters. And the figures surpass the hundred!

And with Tim Burton putting his hands on one of my favorites stories of all times, the buzz around Alice in the Wonderland just tend to increase in the next coming weeks. The British Library is throwing an event by next week and showing off the new display dedicated to the very own first copy of the book. The original was illustrated but nobody else but Lewis Carroll. He actually was a mathematics whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.