Thursday 7 January 2010

Critical Text Essay Final

Summary of text

Samantha Lawrie is Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Auburn University. Her article English Language, appeared in: Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education Volume 6 Number 3: and the intended audience is art and design students in higher education.

This journal informs the reader of Lawrie’s understanding of the meaning of what the ‘direct experience’ is, and the issues and themes dealt with are designed to inform the reader of the author’s proclivity towards a return to the ‘direct experience’. The real, physical, lived world as apposed to their present understanding of graphic design which is a conceptually restricted, technology led way of thinking. Lawrie’s argument centralises itself around contemporary inabilities to embrace and Interact with human senses due to the interference of technology and the multitude of its hybrids. Lawrie also argues that graphic designs practitioner’s way of thinking in the contemporary world is also constricted, business focused, and biased towards a world of wasteful consumerism.

In my opinion, this journal is an academic article as Lawrie uses many examples of critical theorists essays from, Eisner, Hollein, Descartes and Merleau-Ponty, to clarify her understanding and endorse her arguments. These examples use post-structuralist and postmodernist theories to underpin their arguments towards a return to the direct experience and the reader requires academic understanding of these theories in order to decipher the text.

Lawrie’s belief is that communication produces interaction and design relies on the complexities of reaction and interaction, and is not purely conceptual or learned.

Lawrie has attempted to apply the teachings of these theorists in her own classroom in an effort to apply ‘direct experience’. Lawrie’s aim is to re-educate and inform her students through exploration of the real, physical and lived world, in contrast to the explanation, information and technological approach.

Lawrie attempts to deal with issues such as deconstruction, analysis and conceptual development through education and goes into great detail to explain the synaesthetic nature of perception and how we have unlearned to see, hear and feel.

Critical analysis of text

As a designer and educator Lawrie’s objective in this journal is to not only teach the importance of communicating between business and consumer but also between groups of scientists, activists, citizens and other social groups. She stresses the importance of graphic designers being mediators between human relationships.

The works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2007) are drawn upon to emphasis the, ‘something more’ that is vibrated and resonated through work generated from a willingness to experience through exploring the senses rather than solely from hierarchy and colour. Lawrie believes that the personal sympathetic touch gives ‘something more’. The pre-occupation with concept due to the experience of communication and language dulls our senses to the surrounding world.

The complexity of culture, language and education are outlined as encouraging linear mathematical thinking, which is in contrast to the life world of creativity.

Lawrie’s quest is to identify why her students behaviour and preoccupation with

computers and technical gadgets, has caused a lack of passion with form, ideas

and experience. The author believes this has created an uncertainty, concerning the purpose of graphic design, and the desire to make a difference in the world, within the work of her students.

Lawrie recognized the previously mentioned critical theorists and writers that have embraced the subject of ‘the direct experience’ as the main protagonists that may hold the answers to a shift back towards the real, physical, sensible, lived world that allows design to evolve in a more natural self-generating way. The diversion away from the real world appears to be Lawrie’s main trepidation and Lawrie shows a malevolent attitude towards technology because it isolates the student and designer from the real, physical and the visual.

An example Lawrie uses, the ‘TransForms’ exhibition, to underpin that ‘direct experience’ and that its downfall and lack of use had been recognized as early as 1976. The cultural trend of wasteful consumerism and technological malaise was being challenged and criticized as far back as then.

Lawrie qualifies that experience is active and personal as opposed to the conceptual, passive and generic origins that are reflected through the technically produced cold, bland, dispassionate and shallow. Lawrie maintains the importance as an educator that the world of ‘direct experience’ deserves considerable exploration. She backs up her argument by suggesting that through ‘direct experience’ there is to some degree at least, an element unmediated by cultural and conceptual conditioning.

Through reference to the texts of Hollein and Nelson (1976), Lawrie infers that through our basic human understanding of the real, physical and lived world the design world interacts with “Whether on a primitive level or highly sophisticated one, design – and designs – evolve very often in a self-generating way, instigated by demand or desire” (Hollein 1976).

Hollein and Nelson contrast experience with terms such as ‘didactic’, ‘explanation’, and ‘information’. This suggests that experience is active and personal.

In my opinion this is a cathartic and important expression and Lawrie further qualifies texts by Maurice Merleau-Ponty who developed an extensive theory of the direct experience in his book, Phenomenology of Perception (2007). Merleau-Ponty describes that it is the interaction between the human being and the living world that allows graphic design to flourish and connect with its intended audience.

Lawrie moves on to explain how she is drawn to graphic design that resonates within her “sympathetic vibration, a bodily response and not just the hierarchy of information and eye-catching colour or careful use of typography”.

The author attempts to enlighten her audience and further pushes the question of how she can get the message across that analysis and conceptual development can only be informed by an emphasis on form, exploration, mood and feeling.

The ideas Lawrie explains were new to her, and in her quest to understand how to get the message of the ‘direct experience’ and the ‘something more’ across to the students when she discovered the ideas of Merleau-Ponty and others that she had acquired a vocabulary in which to frame the problem.

Untitled

Illustration 1. (The example above By Katherine McCoy, Is a poster for the renowned postmodern, Cranbrook Academy of Art, “The Graduate Program in Design”. Undoubtedly a fine example of “the direct experience” through the use of deconstructive tactics). (Poynor, 2003, pp.50)

In the pursuit of ‘something more’ Lawrie outlines a problem that is, a graphic designer is primarily concerned with only the visual. For this reason in this essay themes by Merleau-Ponty such as sensory perception, ‘direct experience’ and the use of our senses are presented to be far more important than reflective analysis and the author provides a relevant extract By David Abram from his book The Spell of the Sensuous.

According to Abram and Merleau-Ponty, we are unable to recognise the synaesthetic nature of how we perceive, we have become estranged from our direct experience (Abram 1996) no longer are we able to see, hear and feel (Merleau-Ponty). In my opinion this is pertinent within the framework of this journal.

The issue Lawrie finds most complex is how culture and language shared by communities influence those members within the community to how they perceive their visual world. This theme is particularly recognised by the author in indigenous cultures and how they visualise the world, in contrast to our mechanistic, scientific teaching and its influence on our contact with the real living world.

Using the authors understanding of the teachings of Descartes the mind is disembodied and the essence of human being has nothing to do with our bodies. Descartes believes our popular culture and educational structures disassociate embodied perception and continue to satisfy our needs and not the emotional aesthetic in our culture. This, in my opinion, could be considered to be a postmodernist theory because it emphasises the influence of popular culture and educational institutions, which is, recognised as postmodern theory.

Lawrie then moves on to inform her audience through the teachings of Elliot Eisner that schools emphases restricted thinking and tend to mediate by words and numbers, although many of the most productive ideas are non-verbal. This artistic mode of thought Eisner believes is neglected due to the lack of good quality education within the arts in American schools. Lawrie suggests that these modes of thought are latent at best as education moves forward ever more detached from creativity and intuition through the isolation and non-reliance on imagination due to technology.

Lawrie further argues that due to the concern of communication, graphic design is increasingly more and more influenced by the visual. This anxiety Lawrie explains, comes out of the lack of understanding of the importance of meaning that comes directly from experience, the ‘direct experience’; communication can come only from the ability of the intended audience already having a concrete experience of what the design intends to communicate. Designers, Lawrie implies, must be able to adopt and understand the meanings already experienced by those we intend upon communicating with. She further qualifies that for the last twenty years designers have tried to build a theory based on the post-structuralist theories of language, thus privileging them to be the producers of meaning. Lawrie uses the text of Conklin to qualify this as she writes; Because the signification of a text ‘cannot be resolved in advance… what matters is not the intent of the…source…but the interpreter’s meaning at the point of application…to a concrete context (Conklin 2006). Convention, Lawrie adds, within American graphic design is aligned with the interest of business, and it is the author’s belief that a better balance of communication is paramount.

Samantha Lawrie uses many examples and touches on many critical theorists texts to underpin her argument. There are many themes Lawrie engages with in her quest to find a better balance between conceptual thinking and the ‘direct experience’. Lawries vocation is that the reader is informed of the importance of keeping an open mind and he or she is capable of understanding the importance of the real, physical and lived world.

Word count: 1611

Bibliography:

Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education Volume 6 Number 3. Article English language, Lawrie, 2008

Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty, 2007

The Spell of the Sensuous, Abram, 1996

Quotations

Man Transforms, Hollein, 1976, p.12

Lon Fuller’s Phenomenology of Language, Conklin, 2006, p. 117

Wednesday 6 January 2010

Elastic Band campaign

Concepts for Elastic band campaign.


As part of our christmas holiday period we have been given a brief that is designed to deter post staff from dropping elastic bands in our streets. Here are some of the ideas i have come up with to try to solve this social blight.





































I used a graphic approach and created the type using postmans elastic bands.


orion Books H.G Wells book covers

Designs i am looking at to influence my design choice for the book covers are included here.
I intend on producing the covers using the mono print process, silkscreen and maybe to include some illustration and photography for a real mixed media approach. I will be exploring this idea as so to appropriate the correct balance. Here are some examples of designs i find interesting and influential.

A Type Specimen page, 1950, Elaine Lustig Cohen.

7th Annual Purim Ball, The Jewish Museum, 1963, Elaine Lustig Cohen.

A Voyage of Discovery, by Claudia Schmauder; Johann Jacobs Museum, 1996


Museum of Geneva, 1975(?)














This design style by Bruce Mau for zone books 1976 i find
particularly interesting and postmodern in its approach to
eclecticism although subtle. Its bold and time proof.



















This is fantastic use of appropriation by Paula Scher (right).
A clever blatant copy of Herbert Matters' travel poster
from, 1934.


















Strange vicissitudes, Willi Kunz, poster 1978. Again timeless,
gives swiss style feel but on closer inspection postmodern
devices are in use including the locking in of the images with
the black bars and the typographic organisation.

Orion Books H.G Wells book covers

Research for book covers: The History of Mr Polly

Alfred Polly is a quiet, timid and direction-less young man living in Edwardian England, in the town of Fishbourne, West Sussex (although the town in the story is thought to be based on Sandgate, Kent where Wells lived for several years). Polly enjoys reading books of knightly endeavours more than his jobs in a draper's shops, and several times his daydreaming mind loses him his job. After the death of his father, a man he had little in common with, he's left a little money in the inheritance and at the funeral he meets Miriam Larkins, a distant cousin. Although not really in love with her (Polly is in fact in love with Christabel, a girl he met whilst out riding his bicycle), he marries Miriam, they buy a shop and set out to make a success of it.

Fifteen years later, Miriam has become abusive and spiteful, Polly is still bored and dissatisfied with his life, the shop is in debt, and he hates all their neighbours. Polly is inclined to spark comedic arguments and slapstick calamity wherever he goes. When he knows his marriage is failing, and he is seen as a bit of a joke in the community and he's facing bankruptcy, he decides to set fire to his new shop and cut his neck with a razor, but the twist is that he fails to go with the slash because the fire surprises him by the speed with which it spreads. Also, saving his neighbouring shop owner's elderly mother from the fire (the fire station is opposite the shops, but the firemen are unable to act before the fire-engine's hose is molten as they cannot find the key), Polly is seen as a local hero. The events lead to Polly wanting to do something adventurous with his life and go out and see the world instead of keeping stuck with his wife in Fishbourne. Polly then leaves the insurance money from the fire with Miriam, and he disappears in the night to try to make a new life for himself.

After a month of wandering aimlessly in the Sussex countryside, Polly comes to a riverside inn, the Potwell Inn, and is offered work by the innkeeper, a widow who Wells never names -she is referred to only as the 'plump woman'. The relationship between Polly and the widow is friendly from the very beginning. Polly meets her young niece Nancy and also "Uncle Jim", who turns up regularly, usually drunk and demanding money. Jim demands Polly "gets off his patch", but Polly sticks around and is nearly killed by Jim on one occasion, but survives by pure luck and chance. Despite not being exceptionally brave, Polly stands his ground and Jim stops visiting - later his body is found drowned and he is identified as Polly by the name sewn into a pair of trousers which Jim stole from the inn.

Several years later, in a fit of conscience, Polly returns to the shop in Fishbourne, now a tearoom run by Miriam and her sister. He briefly meets Miriam, who believed him dead and is horror-struck, but tells her that he doesn't really exist anymore and that he is a ghost. Knowing that Miriam is now happy and content, he returns to the Potwell. The novel ends with Alfred and the innkeeper enjoying a sunset together by the inn.


Characteristics of Mr Polly

Nagging wife, Confused, Dreary job, Fakes suicide, Bankcrupcy, Hero?, Arson, Hope, Wants new life, Hatred, Bewildered, Frustration.

H.G Wells: Kipps

Kipps grows up with his uncle and aunt in New Romney, on the windy Romney Marsh, where he plays with his friend Sid Pornick. There were glorious days of ‘mucking about’ along the beach, the siege of unresisting Martello towers, the incessant interest of the mystery and motion of windmills, the windy excursions with boarded feet over the yielding shingle to Dungeness lighthouse. Many of us who have lived in the area for all or most of our lives are able to feel the same nostalgia for childhood spent in this very way.

Kipps moves to Folkestone at the age of 14 to work at the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar as an apprentice, and can be found walking along Folkestone’s beautiful cliff top walk, The Leas, or along Tontine Street to the harbour. One reader commented that 'best of all I liked the fact that the Folkestone that I know was still absolutely recognisable - the Leas, Radnor Park Pond, Sandgate Road, Rendezvous Street and the local aspect was so well captured in the dialogue' - an opinion shared by the majority of the readers of this book.

The groups also commented that the book was an interesting social document of the time - the class element is especially interesting, and poor Kipps’ struggle with observing proper methods of behaviour and dress when he is ‘elevated’ in the eyes of society by his large inheritance provides us with much amusement. One reader commented that his awkwardness in certain situations reminded her of the hapless Mr Bean, such as at the Royal Grand Hotel in London, where his terror of the dining room means that he goes without lunch. However, we feel more sympathy for Kipps, as he is always eager to do the right thing.

Kipps’ friend Chitterlow proved to be a more popular individual - he is certainly more colourful than the other protagonists, and possibly more of a ‘Dickensian’ style character, with his quaint mannerisms and his love of ‘old Methuselah’ whisky. We all felt that Wells was trying to mislead us where this character was concerned – Chitterlow frequently applies to Kipps for patronage of his various theatrical ventures and we grow to mistrust him and doubt his motives. However, he comes through for Kipps in the end, and the success of his play restores the wealth to Kipps that had been previously embezzled by his former fiancee’s brother, Walsingham.

The story ends very happily, with Kipps living an idyllic and uncomplicated life in Hythe, married to his childhood sweetheart, Ann, and running a little bookshop as “something to do”.