Context of Practice: Introductory Lecture

For our first C.O.P. lecture all of the Graphic Design, Illustration, Animation, Creative Advertising and Photography students were put together. This was because there is a lot of cross over between these disciplines in the context of there history. 

After Explaining the structure of the lecture timetable in the weeks to come our lecturers went on to introduce us to a piece of design from each of the disciplines previously mentioned with a large amount of background/contextual information as well. We were asked to find the parts that were relevant to our discipline and strive to understand why. 

The first piece we were shown was a couple of documentary photographs taken in Bolton in 1937 as part of a project called The Worktown Project. This was undertaken by a number of aristocratic gentle men who wanted to see how the working classes lived.

This project took place during great political and social turmoil; the great depression was in full swing, Hitler was just coming to power and the soviet union was forming. Te main thing that stands out about this project is the way we automatically perceive documentary images to be factual and objective, yet when we examine this closely we see it is most definitely the perspective of an outsider and that of someone who thinks them self better than the working classes, as seen by the condescending angle of the shot. Not only does this apply to graphic design directly in the sense that we use photography day to day in our designs, but also in the sense that perspective is a huge part in any design and we must be aware of it in order to effectively communicate what we intend to.

The examples of illustration we were shown were Norman Rockwell paintings, one from The Saturday Evening Post and a few more from America propaganda posters during the war.

It was incredible to see how the style of one painter became the defining artist of the traditional american culture, all in the face of large scale depression and national socialism. A way for America to mythologies its self if you will.

The Graphic Design examples were three different typefaces, all being used politically at the same time in different places. Starting with Times New Roman being adopted by The Times as its major font. This was an attempt to link the greatness of the Roman empire with that of the British empire, projecting the image of social and cultural dominance, possibly hinting at political unrest beneath the jingoism. 

At approximately the same time Universal was being created by Herbert Bayer. The idea behind the typeface being one of international out look and unification. It was intended to have no connotations, either political or historical and be completely neutral. 

However, also at a similar time the Nazi party had decided of Fraktur Font for all of there branding and promotional/propaganda material. Once again the connotations were of dominance because of the links it had to the german conquerers the Goths. This parallel in design concepts found in the east and west just before the outbreak of war gives an insight into the politics of the time in a surprising way. These examples show us how graphic design can act as a form of visual documentation of historical events and how some fo the most memorable design is a response to the social and political events of the time.

Our lecture finished with a quote from Socrates-

"An unexamined life is not worth living"  

In short we will find motivation and inspiration from the deep visual and contextual analysis of design texts, and I for one, can't wait!