So Saturday 26th November starts off with a trip to the house from my partners home. Cold hungry and alone. My children are at they dads and I intend to draw and paint, while cleaning relaxing and the thousand other things I have buzzing around in my head......You know you should do, yep need to do this should be doing that!
Life eh!
Breakfast, the bread is out of date and the eggs! Part baked rolls and bacon it is! So I can cook the rolls in oven, I decide to fry the bacon! Yes unhealthy as it is in modern day lifestyle to actually fry the bacon, I'm freaking hungry, cold and in need......MMMmmmm I forgot how salty the bacon can taste. Fat dripping over everything as it melts into the butter giving a shiny contrast against the dark crispness of the bacon. I'm taking back to a time of a younger me. I feel good so good I'd recommend it to everyone.
I sit down to watch Apples, Pears and Paint that I had downloaded days before with the intention to watch but just never seemed to have had the time.
Within seconds of watching it I start to feel something like empathy and begin to experience an overwhelming sense of emotion. I smile as tears round down my face! As they are now writing this blog. While I'm only 18 mins into the programme and have paused it to begin to note my thoughts down here I still am not sure of what is happening. I think if honest I'm probably tired. But if I think to 15 mins ago the feelings I found in relation to the bacon and a memory of childhood or young adolescent, I can't help but wonder if somehow I have also paused that person and only now and again bring it out. I like having time to myself. To let go and be STILL...........
The word rhyparagraphos comes from the Italian author Pliny the elder in this writing on Natural History. The word describes the artist Peiraikos's work on still life as being distasteful or of low class style of painting. This I liked and could really look into more as I felt an interest with it.
I just got a text asking for my time at 12 to help someone! Its gone the openness I was feeling shut up shop within seconds (that vulnerable part ran back into its safe place, boom like lighting) then my heart sank as I got the pull to do or be again..... Its tiring and never ending the demand we have on our time. For now I will watch some more of my programme and hopefully again be able to tap into the enter part of my self I just seemed to find.....Who have thought what impact a bacon sandwich (and lack of sleep) could have had .
Saturday, 26 November 2016
Friday, 25 November 2016
My First Still Life (watercolour) contains images of dead birds!
My First Still Life
After been offered these birds, I've took some photos that I intend to paint but also incorporate into a still life with other things I have around the house.
I have many other picture but you get the idea.
Sunday, 20 November 2016
Bauhaus - little about movement
Bauhaus was a school of art, architecture and design established by the architect Walter Gropius at Weimar in Germany in 1919. This became a radical modernization of arts.
Researching Bauhaus!
Paul Klee was the first teacher I came across,
‘An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal…?
Lesson one lines...... Basically this lesson was ultimately about going back to the start and finding out what line can do! For me as a student I find this is underestimated. Without stripping back and research, testing and reviewing your findings how can you begin to move forward.
Sounds simply right, wrong! To try and forget what you think you know and learn again can be hard to do... To rewrite what has already been programmed in, I've found this difficult because it means letting go and trusting it very little! Control freak me vs unknown me! In truth I'm not knowing much so you'd think it would be easy to just explore line or tone or form.....but its not because I have ideals embedded deep within the cortex's of my brain that tell me it must be or look a certain way. Why would I just draw some random lines to see what came of them?
Klee’s was really trying to step back and look at what underlies the way we do that, and the whole way an artist makes a composition. It’s about understanding what you’re capable of and what those things mean. This would have been a crazy idea and inapprotraite waste of time to many teachers of art. Mainly because people stuck to ideals also.
Klee’s approach of going back and addressing the actual mechanics of mark-making was totally revolutionary, and it definitely has parallels in the other teaching of the bauhaus school at the time.
Klee wrote in letters to his wife how he’d visited Johannes Itten’s (another teacher) first year classes and seen him make the students do exercise to loosen up the body before drawing, and ask them to draw emotion rather than objects. Something we also did week one of our course.
For me the story behind Paul Klee is a very interesting rad and definitely worth a read. http://www.tate.org.uk/
This example of how nature has the answers gave me the first real way of understanding abstract art in an easy to describe format. Brilliant
In a lecture he gave in 1924, Klee talked about the tree as a symbol, and how nobody expects the canopy of the tree and the roots of the tree to look identical, but we can all understand that there’s a relationship between them. And he uses that as an image for abstract art – that what lies behind the work is related but different to the work itself.
Part of the Pedagogical Sketchbook which is a book by Paul Klee. It is based on his extensive lectures on visual form at Bauhaus Staatliche Art School where he was a teacher in between 1921-1931. Originally handwritten – as a pile of working notes he used in his lectures – it was eventually edited by Walter Gropius, designed by László Moholy-Nagy and published in 1925 as a Bauhaus student manual.
Creativity and manufacturing were drifting apart, and the Bauhaus aimed to unite them once again, rejuvenating design for everyday life. Fine art and craft were brought together with the goal of problem solving for a modern industrial society.
Johannes Itten
Swiss expressionist painter and color theorist Johannes Itten was an influential teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar Germany. See http://www.worqx.com/color/itten.htm as a great example of his findings regarding colour theory.
At the Bauhaus he designed an innovative introductory course: he let students explore form, color, rhythm and contrast. Itten, a vegetarian with a shaved head (remember, this was 1919!) who wore homemade monks' robes, led the students in meditation and breathing exercises, and urged them to forget their learning and use only intuition. Itten’s principles were of tremendous influence not only on art education, but also on Kandinsky and Klee. I do like how teachers as well as students were learning from each other and can understand why some people rejected its principles.
Although the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci contain writings on color theory, most color theorists point to Isaac Newton as the developer of color theory. Johannes Itten expanded upon the work of Newton and others to develop his theory of color. Itten’s theory takes into account not only a color’s contrasting properties but also its emotional ones.
Learning more about this subject/school I already feel inspired to learn everything but also saddened at just how little of the terminology I know.
key factors -
Experimenting with new materials and forms entailed a whole new living environment. Bauhaus artists began creating prototypes for industrial production, their rational designs based on simple geometric shapes and primary colors. Also Herbert Bayer's universal typeface (1926) was a perfect embodiment of Bauhaus ideas: simple, economical of form, legible and clean, and international — no umlauts or capital letters to declare its German-ness!
Many Bauhaus designs have become a part of modern households, both the original designs and their derivatives, such as the cantilever chair (inspired by bike frame) the Wagenfeld lamp or the Bauhaus wallpaper.
Some people, however, do not like the radical ideas and applications of the Bauhaus artists. From the very beginning, opinions differ strongly with regard to the items and buildings, which are something completely new for the society of the 1920's. Conservative circles have always been annoyed by the leftist and internationalist members of Bauhaus. When the National Socialists seize power in 1933, the Bauhaus is closed immediately. The leftist politics and Jewish persuasion of many Bauhaus artists made it a prime target for the Nazis, who furthermore saw the school's internationalist philosophy as "anti-German. Many of the renowned artists emigrate to France, Great Britain, Switzerland and the US.
I think this a very interesting movement and subject matter. I may do this in more detail for my essay as I feel I've only brushed the surface.
Quotes I enjoyed!
There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination.
man's greatest powers', are the regents, and the engineer is the sedate executor of unlimited possibilities. Mathematics, structure, and mechanization are the elements, and power and money are the dictators of these modern phenomena of steel, concrete, glass, and electricity. Velocity of rigid matter, dematerialization of matter, organization of inorganic matter, all these produce the miracle of abstraction. Based on the laws of nature, these are the achievements of mind in the conquest of nature,...
The school is the servant of the workshop, and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be no teachers or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and apprentices.
other sources http://www.bauhaus-movement.com
 Walter Gropius | ||
| The German architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school of art and design in Weimar Germany. Along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, he is regarded as one of the pioneers of modern architecture. | ||
Researching Bauhaus!
 |
| paul klee burdened children, line drawing |
‘An active line on a walk, moving freely, without goal…?
Lesson one lines...... Basically this lesson was ultimately about going back to the start and finding out what line can do! For me as a student I find this is underestimated. Without stripping back and research, testing and reviewing your findings how can you begin to move forward.
Sounds simply right, wrong! To try and forget what you think you know and learn again can be hard to do... To rewrite what has already been programmed in, I've found this difficult because it means letting go and trusting it very little! Control freak me vs unknown me! In truth I'm not knowing much so you'd think it would be easy to just explore line or tone or form.....but its not because I have ideals embedded deep within the cortex's of my brain that tell me it must be or look a certain way. Why would I just draw some random lines to see what came of them?
Klee’s was really trying to step back and look at what underlies the way we do that, and the whole way an artist makes a composition. It’s about understanding what you’re capable of and what those things mean. This would have been a crazy idea and inapprotraite waste of time to many teachers of art. Mainly because people stuck to ideals also.
Klee’s approach of going back and addressing the actual mechanics of mark-making was totally revolutionary, and it definitely has parallels in the other teaching of the bauhaus school at the time.
Klee wrote in letters to his wife how he’d visited Johannes Itten’s (another teacher) first year classes and seen him make the students do exercise to loosen up the body before drawing, and ask them to draw emotion rather than objects. Something we also did week one of our course.
For me the story behind Paul Klee is a very interesting rad and definitely worth a read. http://www.tate.org.uk/
This example of how nature has the answers gave me the first real way of understanding abstract art in an easy to describe format. Brilliant
In a lecture he gave in 1924, Klee talked about the tree as a symbol, and how nobody expects the canopy of the tree and the roots of the tree to look identical, but we can all understand that there’s a relationship between them. And he uses that as an image for abstract art – that what lies behind the work is related but different to the work itself.
Part of the Pedagogical Sketchbook which is a book by Paul Klee. It is based on his extensive lectures on visual form at Bauhaus Staatliche Art School where he was a teacher in between 1921-1931. Originally handwritten – as a pile of working notes he used in his lectures – it was eventually edited by Walter Gropius, designed by László Moholy-Nagy and published in 1925 as a Bauhaus student manual.
Creativity and manufacturing were drifting apart, and the Bauhaus aimed to unite them once again, rejuvenating design for everyday life. Fine art and craft were brought together with the goal of problem solving for a modern industrial society.
Johannes Itten
Swiss expressionist painter and color theorist Johannes Itten was an influential teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar Germany. See http://www.worqx.com/color/itten.htm as a great example of his findings regarding colour theory.
At the Bauhaus he designed an innovative introductory course: he let students explore form, color, rhythm and contrast. Itten, a vegetarian with a shaved head (remember, this was 1919!) who wore homemade monks' robes, led the students in meditation and breathing exercises, and urged them to forget their learning and use only intuition. Itten’s principles were of tremendous influence not only on art education, but also on Kandinsky and Klee. I do like how teachers as well as students were learning from each other and can understand why some people rejected its principles.
Although the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci contain writings on color theory, most color theorists point to Isaac Newton as the developer of color theory. Johannes Itten expanded upon the work of Newton and others to develop his theory of color. Itten’s theory takes into account not only a color’s contrasting properties but also its emotional ones.
Learning more about this subject/school I already feel inspired to learn everything but also saddened at just how little of the terminology I know.
key factors -
- form follows function - functionality comes first, but with industrial mass production.. Motto of "the needs of the people instead of the need for luxury".
- the idea that design is in service of the community, and a belief in the perfection and efficiency of geometry
- encouraged everyone to collaborate
Experimenting with new materials and forms entailed a whole new living environment. Bauhaus artists began creating prototypes for industrial production, their rational designs based on simple geometric shapes and primary colors. Also Herbert Bayer's universal typeface (1926) was a perfect embodiment of Bauhaus ideas: simple, economical of form, legible and clean, and international — no umlauts or capital letters to declare its German-ness!
Many Bauhaus designs have become a part of modern households, both the original designs and their derivatives, such as the cantilever chair (inspired by bike frame) the Wagenfeld lamp or the Bauhaus wallpaper.
Some people, however, do not like the radical ideas and applications of the Bauhaus artists. From the very beginning, opinions differ strongly with regard to the items and buildings, which are something completely new for the society of the 1920's. Conservative circles have always been annoyed by the leftist and internationalist members of Bauhaus. When the National Socialists seize power in 1933, the Bauhaus is closed immediately. The leftist politics and Jewish persuasion of many Bauhaus artists made it a prime target for the Nazis, who furthermore saw the school's internationalist philosophy as "anti-German. Many of the renowned artists emigrate to France, Great Britain, Switzerland and the US.
I think this a very interesting movement and subject matter. I may do this in more detail for my essay as I feel I've only brushed the surface.
Quotes I enjoyed!
There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination.
man's greatest powers', are the regents, and the engineer is the sedate executor of unlimited possibilities. Mathematics, structure, and mechanization are the elements, and power and money are the dictators of these modern phenomena of steel, concrete, glass, and electricity. Velocity of rigid matter, dematerialization of matter, organization of inorganic matter, all these produce the miracle of abstraction. Based on the laws of nature, these are the achievements of mind in the conquest of nature,...
The school is the servant of the workshop, and will one day be absorbed in it. Therefore there will be no teachers or pupils in the Bauhaus but masters, journeymen, and apprentices.
other sources http://www.bauhaus-movement.com
Thursday, 17 November 2016
print towards typography - Bodoni
Bodoni - Transitional Typeface
It is a series of serif typefaces following the ideas of John Baskerville, It was of increased stroke contrast and a more vertical, slightly condensed, upper case.
Some characteristics of Bodoni include the square dot over the letter “i”, and a double storey “a”. The capital “Q’s” tail is centered under the figure, and the uppercase “J” has a slight hook. Also, there are two versions of the uppercase “R”, one with a straight tail and one with a curved tail.
While its closest and likeness is Didot and Baskerville they is slight differences (see below)
Bodoni has been used for a wide variety of material, ranging from 18th century Italian books to 1960s periodicals. In the 21st century, the late manner versions continue to be used in advertising, while the early manner versions are occasionally used for fine book printing. However, this typeface is generally not suited for setting big bodies of text, as the verticality of the letter forms interferes with the text’s horizontal rhythm (we read left to right, but Bodoni leads our eyes up and down instead)
Here are some examples of the font. As you can see it's up there with the big names in fashion as well as a starring roll in the movie scene.
The characteristics of this font being the fact it takes the eye up and down as well as across makes it an easy choice for a classy type of project that calls for a more sophisticated style of work. The unbracketed serifs and even geometric styling has made this a popular font seen in almost every kind of typesetting situation. The list does seem endless.
WHATS NOT TO LIKE ?
It is a series of serif typefaces following the ideas of John Baskerville, It was of increased stroke contrast and a more vertical, slightly condensed, upper case.
Some characteristics of Bodoni include the square dot over the letter “i”, and a double storey “a”. The capital “Q’s” tail is centered under the figure, and the uppercase “J” has a slight hook. Also, there are two versions of the uppercase “R”, one with a straight tail and one with a curved tail.
While its closest and likeness is Didot and Baskerville they is slight differences (see below)
Bodoni has been used for a wide variety of material, ranging from 18th century Italian books to 1960s periodicals. In the 21st century, the late manner versions continue to be used in advertising, while the early manner versions are occasionally used for fine book printing. However, this typeface is generally not suited for setting big bodies of text, as the verticality of the letter forms interferes with the text’s horizontal rhythm (we read left to right, but Bodoni leads our eyes up and down instead)
Here are some examples of the font. As you can see it's up there with the big names in fashion as well as a starring roll in the movie scene.
The characteristics of this font being the fact it takes the eye up and down as well as across makes it an easy choice for a classy type of project that calls for a more sophisticated style of work. The unbracketed serifs and even geometric styling has made this a popular font seen in almost every kind of typesetting situation. The list does seem endless.
WHATS NOT TO LIKE ?
Wednesday, 9 November 2016
picasso linocut - thoughts
We were asked to review the prints by Picasso for part of our homework for Printmaking
Here is mine
Firstly I haven't looked at the name of this print or the others, nor the story behind them.
I like the colour (orche) and how in travels down through the image. It seems to have areas of bright yellow also. This seems like an under painting as it's not highlighting areas as such,
I do like how some of the underneath colours overlap or shine through. Im not sure if this was intended?
This one is interesting as a still life...For me these styles seem to have an tribal expressive nature about them. The contrast in colour I also enjoy. Something to consider in my own print is also an Analogous colour scheme, choosing one color to dominate, a second to support and the third colour used (along with black, white or gray) as an accent.
Surrealist and cubist and fauvism could all play maybe or identified and be connected...Almost like a mix of everything he has ever done! Compared to the photography style of Tom Davidson's work, I feel a more personal connection in the way the light/colour makes me feel when viewing Picasso's. While Tom's work looks very good it is very linear in landscape and difficult to say which deserves more appreciation. Tom for me, has a great ability to create light, shadow and detail but the free expression that Picasso's brings give in to a freedom I'd love to find within myself. Its not easy to let go of how you think something should look...and actual give yourself to something .....If that makes sense.
I'm not sure if it the colour, pattern that makes this print above to me look Spanish?
What a later found out about his linocuts surprised me in the facts that he was 80 when doing some linocuts and that he was the first to print from one block! The fact that every block was always printed individually from a number of blocks before I find a time consuming and complex wayof printing and can't believe a build up of printing hadn't been done before?
Facts
Picasso's linocuts were made by gouging out a sheet of linoleum which had been fused onto a harder block of wood. (Linoleum, softer and lighter than wood, allowed Picasso to work more quickly than would have been possible by working from woodblocks alone.) Using gouges, he would cut out the areas of his intended image that were to be absent of color (and therefore appear the color of the paper when printed). The relief areas that remain would be inked, usually with a brayer. Paper would be put on the inked linoleum block and pressure applied, after which the inked image is transferred to the paper. If there were to be multiple colors, Picasso would create a separate linoleum block, each corresponding to a different color, each printed in succession. This is how he worked since his first linocuts were created in 1958.
In later years he become more economical and ingenious, inventing the technique of printing multiple colors from a single linoleum block by printing the linocut, cutting out more of the block, inking it again and printing it a second time in a second color on the earlier printed single-color example, successively adding colors while continuing the process.
Here is mine
Firstly I haven't looked at the name of this print or the others, nor the story behind them.
- I wanted to view it in terms of my own personal opinion
- I didn't want to be influenced by the meaning or terms behind it/them
- Its fun to guess, (usually I'm totally wrong)
I like the colour (orche) and how in travels down through the image. It seems to have areas of bright yellow also. This seems like an under painting as it's not highlighting areas as such,
I do like how some of the underneath colours overlap or shine through. Im not sure if this was intended?
This one is interesting as a still life...For me these styles seem to have an tribal expressive nature about them. The contrast in colour I also enjoy. Something to consider in my own print is also an Analogous colour scheme, choosing one color to dominate, a second to support and the third colour used (along with black, white or gray) as an accent.
Surrealist and cubist and fauvism could all play maybe or identified and be connected...Almost like a mix of everything he has ever done! Compared to the photography style of Tom Davidson's work, I feel a more personal connection in the way the light/colour makes me feel when viewing Picasso's. While Tom's work looks very good it is very linear in landscape and difficult to say which deserves more appreciation. Tom for me, has a great ability to create light, shadow and detail but the free expression that Picasso's brings give in to a freedom I'd love to find within myself. Its not easy to let go of how you think something should look...and actual give yourself to something .....If that makes sense.
I'm not sure if it the colour, pattern that makes this print above to me look Spanish?
What a later found out about his linocuts surprised me in the facts that he was 80 when doing some linocuts and that he was the first to print from one block! The fact that every block was always printed individually from a number of blocks before I find a time consuming and complex wayof printing and can't believe a build up of printing hadn't been done before?
Facts
Picasso's linocuts were made by gouging out a sheet of linoleum which had been fused onto a harder block of wood. (Linoleum, softer and lighter than wood, allowed Picasso to work more quickly than would have been possible by working from woodblocks alone.) Using gouges, he would cut out the areas of his intended image that were to be absent of color (and therefore appear the color of the paper when printed). The relief areas that remain would be inked, usually with a brayer. Paper would be put on the inked linoleum block and pressure applied, after which the inked image is transferred to the paper. If there were to be multiple colors, Picasso would create a separate linoleum block, each corresponding to a different color, each printed in succession. This is how he worked since his first linocuts were created in 1958.
In later years he become more economical and ingenious, inventing the technique of printing multiple colors from a single linoleum block by printing the linocut, cutting out more of the block, inking it again and printing it a second time in a second color on the earlier printed single-color example, successively adding colors while continuing the process.
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Phoenicians -typography history..
For my typography brief to print towards my first outcome along with my work on culture and beginning of a language, Sumerians, Egyptians etc ..
Canaanites - fearless sailors who for hundreds of years dominated the sea trade.
In many examples they said to be vigorous traders and sailors, but little is known about these people. Historians refer to them as Canaanites when talking about the culture before 1200 B.C. The Greeks called them the phoinikes, which means the "red people"—a name that became Phoenicians—after their word for a prized reddish purple cloth the Phoenicians exported.
Their writings, mostly on fragile papyrus, disintegrated—so that we now know the Phoenicians mainly by the biased reports of their enemies. Although the Phoenicians themselves reportedly had a rich literature, it was totally lost in antiquity. That's ironic, because the Phoenicians actually developed the modern alphabet and spread it through trade to their ports of call.
The reign ended after being defeated. Greece and Rome then used many of they key elements of their cultures. This led to a new way of writing. While the legacy of this new system spread many of the cities were destroyed and build over. Hence why little is left.
Standard weight and measure were passed down to the Greeks as well as the use of the alphabet. So the letter/symbol representing a sound continued. After some years the Greeks added vowels A,E,I,O,U by doing this made it closer to they spoken language and sounds.Also letters were given names and they also adopted the right to left Phoenician direction of writing.
Later they experimented with lines that alternated first in one direction then the other. They had to alternate the direction in which the character faced. This style was called boustrophedon.
Finally they settled on writing left to right as it proved more natural (many being right handed)
Romans later (100BC ) adopted it, while changing it slightly it still looks similar to ours we use today.
See below
Interesting factor.....
Look up the adjective "purple" in a dictionary, and one of the first meanings you'll see is a distinction of royalty. The association of royalty with the color purple stems from the ancient reddish-purple dye made from the glands of murex mollusks. The most famous example of this dye is so-called Tyrian purple from the Phoenician homeland along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
Archaeologists today still find huge piles of murex shells near the ruins of ancient Phoenician settlements—usually downwind from where people lived, as heating sea creatures in salt water for days during dye extraction was bound to have been a smelly process.
Eventually, after the Punic Wars when Rome emerged victorious, the Roman state took over production of the purple dye, and under Emperor Nero the wearing of purple garments was restricted to the emperor alone. The color has remained popular for VIPs ever since.
Canaanites - fearless sailors who for hundreds of years dominated the sea trade.
In many examples they said to be vigorous traders and sailors, but little is known about these people. Historians refer to them as Canaanites when talking about the culture before 1200 B.C. The Greeks called them the phoinikes, which means the "red people"—a name that became Phoenicians—after their word for a prized reddish purple cloth the Phoenicians exported.
Their writings, mostly on fragile papyrus, disintegrated—so that we now know the Phoenicians mainly by the biased reports of their enemies. Although the Phoenicians themselves reportedly had a rich literature, it was totally lost in antiquity. That's ironic, because the Phoenicians actually developed the modern alphabet and spread it through trade to their ports of call.
The reign ended after being defeated. Greece and Rome then used many of they key elements of their cultures. This led to a new way of writing. While the legacy of this new system spread many of the cities were destroyed and build over. Hence why little is left.
Standard weight and measure were passed down to the Greeks as well as the use of the alphabet. So the letter/symbol representing a sound continued. After some years the Greeks added vowels A,E,I,O,U by doing this made it closer to they spoken language and sounds.Also letters were given names and they also adopted the right to left Phoenician direction of writing.
Later they experimented with lines that alternated first in one direction then the other. They had to alternate the direction in which the character faced. This style was called boustrophedon.
Finally they settled on writing left to right as it proved more natural (many being right handed)
Romans later (100BC ) adopted it, while changing it slightly it still looks similar to ours we use today.
See below
Interesting factor.....
Look up the adjective "purple" in a dictionary, and one of the first meanings you'll see is a distinction of royalty. The association of royalty with the color purple stems from the ancient reddish-purple dye made from the glands of murex mollusks. The most famous example of this dye is so-called Tyrian purple from the Phoenician homeland along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
Archaeologists today still find huge piles of murex shells near the ruins of ancient Phoenician settlements—usually downwind from where people lived, as heating sea creatures in salt water for days during dye extraction was bound to have been a smelly process.
Eventually, after the Punic Wars when Rome emerged victorious, the Roman state took over production of the purple dye, and under Emperor Nero the wearing of purple garments was restricted to the emperor alone. The color has remained popular for VIPs ever since.
 |
| Example of alphabets |
Friday, 4 November 2016
H & M typography
H&M was working with a bespoke sans-serif typeface design called HM Ampersand – which was designed by Monotype.
The Swedish clothing brand – which is ranked as the second largest global clothing retailer – has over 3,000 shops in 61 countries around the world was in need of a custom typeface with a fashion expression for use in all contexts including advertising, editorial, catalogue, website, film, packaging, and in-store graphics.
It wanted to develop a fuller typographic language that it could use in a range of contexts around the world. The brand approached Monotype to commission a companion serif typeface. Toshi Omagari along with Monotype designed a new typeface that would contrast and complement the existing HM Ampersand design. .
Here I asked myself why if any would they need another design after the first one was already well established? My thinking was it was trying to fall in the same standardisation as maybe Vogue magazine or Elle..
I searched which company was ranked first to see it they was any connection or similarities in design!
Ranked first is a company Inditex which has several brands – Zara, Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Bershka, Stradivarius, Oysho, Zara Home and Uterqüe. However, in terms of annual revenue, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) beat out Inditex by a few hundred million dollars in the most recent fiscal year for each company.
With the Inditex group all of the shop's have different typefaces so can't really be compared...What I did notice when researching was the difference in Zara and Zara Home.... Zara being a serif, which tells me goes with the ideal of fashion, high class and important. Whereas the Zara Home is a more softer, homely sans serif typeface. This is something I'm becoming more aware of and will look into later.
SO ENTER
The typeface HM Amperserif - which was developed in three different size variations allowing for versatility of use in all contexts from the smallest caption size to the largest headlines on billboards as well as use in digital media while still maintaining the recognisable geometry of the letterforms.
The development of HM Amperserif allowed the company to reduce the number of typefaces used for communication which would eliminate the cost and complexity of working with licensed typefaces. The character set was developed in multiple languages to cover H&M’s 60 markets.
So that really what it came down to I the end? COST savings really surely not?
This is what they said
H&M’s position as an international brand, Monotype developed a multiple language character set that includes Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Thai and Arabic. The design team worked together closely to also develop Indic logos, for use in India, and Monotype actively updates the fonts with new currency signs and additional characters, as the business expands into new locations.
Expanding NEW LOCATIONS, defiantly about cost and investment to benefit its self......Think I'd buy shares now.....
Kannada logo for H&M
Devanagari logo for H&M
More information about the designers
Monotype is one of the world’s best-known providers of type-related products, technologies and expertise. Having a library of over 20,000 typefaces, the product of the world's most celebrated and gifted type designers. They library includes some of the most famous and widely-used fonts, such as the Helvetica®, Univers® and Frutiger® typeface families.
Toshi Omagari studied typography and typeface design at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, where he graduated in 2008, and went on to obtain an MA in typeface design at University of Reading in 2011. A staff typeface designer at Monotype UK, he has been involved in many aspects of multilingual typography and font development, including work on various scripts including Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Mongolian.
The Studio - combine marketing and design to help brands define their positions, create a unique voice and build sustainable value. Specialising in brand strategy, identity, packaging, digital design and retail environments, working with everything from small scale companies to global corporations.
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