At the moment I feel a bit like I am flying in all directions so I decided to blog about it as a means of journaling my process. On this basis it is probably more a stream of consciousness than it is fully formed reflections.
The books I’ve ordered have starting arriving; they include the recommended reading as well as a few others that attracted my interest. I’ve been skimming each of them as they arrive and noticing what captures my attention.
While on the one hand this is giving me a good introduction to Graphic Design I am conscious of skipping from history to theory to psychology to designers and back again. Now that I feel pretty immersed I need to refocus and concentrate on a few areas, this is not unusual for me and is an approach I found has worked in other courses. A number of interesting things have emerged to date:
- Much of the history both on and offline seems to concentrate on graphic design/visual communications in the west (accepting that most do include Russian Constructivism)
- As with other art historical texts I wonder where the women are (although to be fair some do bring in key female figures in the later periods). This blog on Central St. Martins Exhibition ‘100 years of women graphic designers’ is an interesting counterpoint and confirms my observations
- Graphic Design along with other human endeavours is contextual and has both influenced and been influence by its political, social, and economic environment
- I am starting to look differently at things around me, noticing with fresh awareness how ubiquitous graphic design is
- I am fascinated by the debates around ethics and authorship – I recently watched Century of the Self which seemed to me to highlight issues around the state’s involvement with visual communications and those who
My next steps are a very quick historical timeline, probably in my sketchbook and then on with my postcards.
