User:ThomasW/Notes Graphic Design Theory

Armstrong, Helen (2009) Graphic Design Theory: Readings from the Field (Design Briefs), United States of America, Princeton Architectural Press

El Lissitzky The printed sheet transcends space and time. The printed sheet. the infinity of the book must be transcended. The electro-library. p28

Jan Tschichold The method of new typography is based on a clear realization of purpose and the best means of achieving it. No modern typography be it ever so "beautiful" is "new" if it sacrifices purpose to form. p37

Herbert Bayer The Bauhaus urged the contemporary artist to take part in the issues of his time by solving those problems that only the artist can, that is giving form to our environment, to the space we live in, to the goods we use, to communication. p 45

the more we read, the less we see. constant exposure to visual materials had dulled our sense of seeing. overfed with reading as we are, the practice of reading must be activated. a new effort is needed to recapture and retain freshness little known is the fact that the act of seeing is work, that is demands more that a quarter of the nervous energy that human body burns up. p 46

the storage of books will be replaced by microfilms, which in turn will change the design of libraries computing machines can already substitute for printed matter by storing knowledge. p48

Paul Rand The expression "good design" came into usage circa 1940, when the Museum of Modern Art sponsored the exhibit "Useful objects of American design under ten dollars" p65

In some circles art and design were, and still are, considered effeminate, something "remove from the common affairs of men" Others saw all artists "preforming no useful function they could understand. "at one time, design was even considered a woman's job. "Le men construct and woman decorate," said Bennn Pitman. p67

Design no less than business poses ethical problems. A badly designed product that works is no less unethical than a beautiful product that doesn't . p68

Wolfgang Weingart I was motivated to provoke the stodgy profession and to stretch the type shops capabilities to the breaking point, and, finally, to prove once again that typography is an art. p79

Steve Heller Criticism is important because it gives us a language (indeed a lens) by which to discuss and view design p100

Today its called "culture jamming" but in the twenties modern avant-gardist usurped the fundamental forms of commercial advertisement by making art into into advertisement. What were Dada,futurist, and constructivist master-works if not advertisement for their new ideas? p100

Outsiders are, after all invariable marginalized until the mainstream celebrates them as unsung geniuses. Outsiders ma choose to join the mainstream on their own terms, but join they must to be able to make an impact larger then their circumscribe circles. p101

dmitri siegel When the music industry made the shift to compact disc in the late 1980, many designers complained that the smaller format would be the death of album art. Fifteen years later those predictions seem almost quaint. The MP3 format makes compact disc packaging seem like the broad side of a barn. p117

jessica helfand Space on the screen is just that: on the screen, Not in it. Not of it. Design tools are mere control mechanisms perpetuating the illusions that internet space is made up of pages, of words, of late screens. p121

lev manovich Everybody who is practically involved in design and art today knows that contemporary designers use the same set of software tools to design everything. p130

ellen and julia lupton Post-modernist expose the ideal of universal communication as naively utopian at best, and oppressively colonial at worst p 134

consider the template, which offers generic solutions to common problems in a lame bid to automate design. Designer Dmitri Siegel has criticized what he calls the "template mind," which searches for blanks to fill out, wallpapers to customize, and products to rank and rank. The dismal template of Power Point serve more to control production than to empower it users with tools for agile thinking, yielding wordy, gimmick-ridden documents. p135