Graphic Design History :: Visual Lineage

Art History is like Mushrooms, there's an invisible root system connecting seemingly independent works. They're interdependent and interconnected, linked inextricably if not visibly. Our assignment was to compile over 140 images gleaned from art history from pre-history to present day (and location!) and then find a way to display them -- a book, a deck of cards, view-master slides, or any other idea that could accommodate the number of images and proper citations.

At the beginning of the quarter, we learned about the ancient Buddhist tradition of placing prayer scrolls into small pagoda-shaped containers called Dhāraṇī.

I've created a scroll containing all the images that have influenced my aesthetic sensibilities to date, interspersed with botanical illustrations of mushrooms, and have inserted it into a mushroom-shaped Dhāraṇī.

A reflection of my tastes and styles, the mushrooms are naturalistically colored (rather than opting for the tempting psychedelic palate) but are whimsical in shape and proportion, and, of course, have been dusted cap to base in extra-fine glitter.

I'm not sure how much money I spent on supplies, I don't really want to know--and I can only give you an estimate of the hours invested in these 'shrooms ... measured in episodes of TNG that ran almost continuously in the background while working: approximately 28 x 45-minute episodes, although there was Christmas music sometimes too...

Assignment :: Interpret a work of art into the style of another era or school of thought.

ORIGINAL IMAGE - Gustav Klimt's Secessionist Poster

Imagine it had been created by Frank Lloyd Wright...

And you get something like this: 

Take the same Klimt poster and run it through a comic book lens...

Again, run the same Klimt poster through Bauhaus style:

Yields something like this:

And finally, if you bounce that back on itself through the lens of postmodernism and these:

You get this:

Poster Art :: an extremely brief, white, male-centered snapshot

Completely decontextualized excerpts from a presentation I gave on the historical influencers and descendants of Polish Poster Art movement.

Assignment :: Counterfeit a Print with Liz McCarty for History of Graphic Design

Overview: Recreate a Book of Trades woodblock print depicting your work as a student of Graphic Design.

Objective:

To study and replicate graphic systems from select eras. Assignment Work in groups of two to recreate a series of 4 block prints in the style of Jost Amman ’ s Book of Trades (1568). These should document your experience as graphic design students at SCCA. As always, analyze the reference prints and recreate them using the tool s discussed in class. In addition, consider the block printing technique used to create these images. Recreate the style as much as possible. Your final .pdf should be a counterfeit Jost Amman block print indistinguishable in style, only recognizable as a contemporary piece in content.