Early, Late, Swiss

Antonio Gaudi

Gaudí's first works were designed in the style of gothic architecture (in worship of god) and traditional Catalan architectural modes, but he soon developed his own unique sculptural style. French architect Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, who promoted an evolved form of gothic architecturewas a major influence on Gaudí. The student went on to contrive highly original designs – irregular and fantastically intricate. Some of his greatest works, most notably La Sagrada Família, have an almost hallucinatory power.

<----------- La Sagrada Família

Gaudí studied for ten years to form the design of La Sagrada Família and to develop a new method of structural calculation based on a model built with cords and small sacks of lead shot. The basic scematics of the church was traced on a wooden board (1:10 scale), which was then placed on the ceiling of a small house next to the work site. Cords were hung from the points where columns were to be placed. The sacks of pellets weighing in at about one ten-thousandth part of the weight the arches would to support, were hung from each catenaric arch formed by the cords. Photos were then taken of the resulting model from all different angles. When the photos were turned upside-down, the lines of tension formed by the cords and weights revealed the lines of pressure of the compressed structure. This is one of the ways that Gaudí obtained natural forms in his work.

The same expressive power of Gaudí's monumental works is presented in his oddly graceful chairs and tables. Gaudí's architecture is a total integration of materials, processes and poetics. His approach to furniture design exceeded structural expression and continued with the overall architectural idea.

Viewing some of Gaudi's work one can conclude that his work also had a very enviromental/ organic feel to it, this was because Gaudi had a huge apperication for Art Nouveau. Gaudi did attend school he had periods where he had to miss lessons due to the rheumatic illness and so would use this time to observe plants and animals. It is these organic shapes of nature that became prolific in his later architectural works. Gaudi also used a lot of colourful tiles within his work, this was also linked back to the organic feel.

Gaudi Tile Lizard at the park ------------------->

In 1868 Gaudi moved to Barcelona in order to study architecture at university. Gaudi also took classes on Aesthetics, history, philosophy and economics. He had a strong belief that the various architectural styles did not necessarily depend on the aesthetic ideas but instead were heavily influenced by political and social affairs. Gaudi had a strong belief that the different architectural styles did not necessarily rely on the aesthetic ideas but instead were heavily influenced by political and social affairs.

Week 4

This week's post is a poster advertising one of James Brown's concerts presented by Winstar Casino for May 6, 1963. I found this poster while looking for some of James Brown's music.

The design style of this poster falls under the Psychoedelia period as the artwork seems to be very wild and the typography is very bold and curvy (very common for the Psychedelic period), the use of the colours and shape formation give the impression of a drug induced trip.

I like the text as it forms the image of the image using the negative space of the black background to form the basic shape of the hair and head and the text to form the facial features as well as shape the outline of the image. I like the text, even though it can be at times hard to read because it’s very bold and playful, however the light blue of the text makes the image seem almost calm. Overall the text conveys 2 types of messages, one is the straight forward information one reads (if you really focus) and two the formation and colour of the text which tells the viewer what to expect when listening to his music.

The eye is drawn to the bottom left of the poster after viewing the main image of the head because of the bright warm colour contrast of the words "James Brown". Although the text is not big it seems to draw the attention quite well by contrasting cool with warm, the text also seems more noticeable as it seems to be the most legible text on the entire poster. the rest of the text underneath doesn't really stand out but would still be read as the text follows the hierarchy structure downwards

What really attracted my attention of the poster was how smart the design was, using negative space of the words, background and foreground to form the image. I like the colour contrast used on the poster as it draws the attention to aspects of the poster we should be viewing in order of the hierarchy.

Interesting Adverts

Back of the bus!

Coffee anyone?

Mmmm Beer

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Suicide Watch
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Week 3

This post is about an advertising item I found while looking at the website http://www.hellodigital.net/

This post is about an advertising item I found while looking at the website www.hellodigital.net advertising the first festival held in Birmingham in 2008.

With its interesting use of hand gestures and electronically cables it seeks to inform the viewer of the new "Hello Digital World" event held at Birmingham, UK and will be containing items of interest such as computers, technology, animations, robotics, digital film, music, games etc.. The focus of the event is to display the latest in its field and what is and will be coming in the future.

The typography that is being used here seems to be a custom rounded with its closest match being between a Franklin Gothic Heavy or a Leelawadee for the heading and maybe a Calibri body for the text under the heading. I like the proportion of the "Hello" and the block like text as it really bold in the way it draws the reader to view the main focus of the advertisement. With the Hello text being on different levels as if it’s being placed along with the hands and partial cutout of the "o" its seems very interactive, the shadowing and almost reflective text makes it seem very modern as well as 3d. Making the hello gives the advertisement a hierarchy structure in which we follow the most interesting being the hello down to the brightly coloured green world. the next to be viewed would be the date as it is the second biggest text under the headline as well as bolded, we are then finally drawn to the word "Birmingham" being the smallest text but still equally as important, aligned right so it seems more connected to the word world and to the rest of the text. One would be incline to remember this more because of the playfulness of the text creation and location.

I find the adding of the hands and cords give a real meaning behind the message as it tells us that the festival is going to contain something to do with technology and interactive media. It also makes the advertisement feel constructive as the hands (symbolizing construction) and cables (symbolizing technology) seem to be building the text, this again also adds meaning behind the message of what will be shown at the festival.

By viewing this I would conclude that this would be a contemporary/modern design (apart from the clearly stated Oct08) due to the use of advanced photo editing programs to place the text into the scene hands, cords and background. the use of the cables leading the eye to the focus points and the use of the photographic hands to entertain and finally the use of digital type posted on the internet would tie it back to the 1990-present era design period.

What attracted me was the bold text which really drew my attention straight away which then became very playful with the hands holding the text and fun following the cables as they led the eye around the advertisement. The rounded text in the heading made the advertisement friendlier and less aggressive with the rounded edges seems to make the text more inviting. The green around world seem to be refreshing and again seem interesting as the border around world seem to be slotting into the O. The alignment of all the images seem to fit well and didn't seem confusing at all even just glancing at it quickly I was able to get the message.

Week 2

This week's post is of a laptop cover I was looking at while I was browsing a computer store in the city. The picture itself was taken from the site (http://www.dell.com) this was the same as I saw at the shop.

This item serves two purpose, one is to spice up the look of ones laptop to make it more interesting than just a solid colour lid and two is to protect the laptop from scratches and other damage that may occur to the lid. The graphic itself also reflects the personality of the user of the laptop giving the laptop itself an identity which can be spotted amongst others that many look the same.

Although the design of this cover has not incorporated any typography in its design this does not deduct from its intended purpose, the design of the cover gives a very fresh and energetic feeling with its lime green colour used for the design as green is a reference to the environment. Also to mention the design of the flowers, leaves etc seems very spontaneous and playful.

This design seems to fit the category of contemporary/digital and judging from the purpose and the design I would say it would have been most likely done digitally. Again this does not take any value or quality from the artwork, its intended purpose it met with the highest quality. The target market is most likely for teenagers/young adults as the design seems to be very modern.

What attracted me was the contrast of colours of bright lime green on a white background, as well as the design which seemed very trendy and loud to me. In the design I like how every stroke or marking that was made seems to fit and nothing feels out of place. I also like the positioning of the design coming from the bottom left hand corner and how it also covers the points of interest (the golden mean).

Week 1

The object that I chose for my first week is a sculpture by John Baryke, it really doesn't have a working function but its intended purpose is to decorate a room and for people to admire. I saw this while I was at the city after class while I was heading over to my mothers work for a visit at Australia Square. The artwork seems to be contemporary because of the materials it seems to have been created from and the dotted paint structure. The quality of this artwork seems to be very good because one is lured in by its colours and unusual shape. This sculpture has different viewpoints and all of which tells a different story when viewed from different angles and heights. What lured me to view this work was the colour contrast of bright and dark and the colour contrast of black and yellow, yellow which seems to be very loud, energetic and warm with the contrast of black which is very formal and dark. I like how the white has been used in both of these projects, the white really contrasts both colour/shade and makes the sculpture stand out. The same goes for the shape, as it is very unusually bold it drew me in to view it.