Field Journal: Final

Final

The following is a final summation of my class, GID 01, “History of Graphic Design” for the Fall Quarter at Foothill College. As a brief background: each week following my readings of lectures and the book, “Meggs’ History of Graphic Design,” I published a field journal demonstrating critical thinking and divulging what struck my interest in my assigned readings. There were 10 field journals that I published. My fellow classmates submitted field journals about their reflections and I was able to read, learn and comment on them as well. Here is my final field journal for the class. Hope you enjoy my prior field journals and something strikes your interest as well.

My reflections about the “History of Graphic Design” take me to a funny analogy on how a human develops. We crawl, using pictures to communicate on cave dwellings and we develop alphabets. We cruise, by developing paper and ways to make print. We walk, using better paper and using graphic artists to create beautiful manuscripts. We are finding ways to reach larger audiences. Alas, we are still slow. We run, using movable print and artists feel like their jobs are becoming not so desired, obsolete. We sprint, using faster methods of mass printing, the world is communicating more and more, typography innovations and photography are becoming increasingly advanced. We fly, with technology; we are no longer on the ground. We are air-bound and in cyberspace, using every invented medium, computer age/digital age is boundless. We find excitement about new developments, yet we can fear change and fear that we might be obsolete with our skills set. Yet, we want more and more inventions. We want attention from certain people and find ways to get the most attention. We fight for audiences. With so much different ways to communicate, how do we find and keep our audiences? How do we get our messages across and be understood when there is so much competition? Does the one with the most money get the audiences (probably and unfortunately)? We want to make an impact and to be remembered and graphic design is the way.

After really analyzing and thinking about the gestalt of this course, which I have a difficult time doing generally anyways. I’ve discovered that I’ve learned a tremendous amount, but barely scratched the surface. There is so much more to know that I do not know. I think that if we just had a course on the subject of Peter Max that it would have taken the entire quarter or year.

My future aspiration is to be involved in animation. I would like to eventually animate in the field of Japanese Anime with my high shooting goals as to be in the animation house of Studio Gainax (see link below) or somewhere similar.

An example of poster art from Studio Gainax

http://axolotlburg.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/evangelion.jpg

This class helped me to gain insights as to various methods to visually communicate by using everything from simple symbolic representations, abstract depictions, to very detailed pictorial artistic pieces. This will be of great help to my future in animation by being exposed to this valuable overview. Graphic design enabled history to be recorded and had a huge impact on history as people or groups relayed information to the masses (global communication) for example, as in wartime communications depiciting how our troups needed food, the tragedy of the holocaust, or the other extreme, as in the joy of the recent news of Prince William and Dutchess Kate expecting their first baby. By knowing the past, I may understand the future better in knowing how the world interacts with each other.

The future of Graphic Design will be consumed digitally, more and more digital and less and less paper. It is a shame. I love books. I love rendering things on paper. In my future field, I may be rendering less and less on paper and eventually drawing solely on a tablet. Just thinking of the art of handwriting, I know that people in general do not write very much in cursive anymore. My mom told me that in a “back-in-her-day” type of story that in third grade they were painstakingly drilled and drilled in cursive letter writing. It had to be neat and well executed. I know today, at times, I can barely read someone’s cursive writing and barely write quickly using cursive. It seems to be a dying art. Though, maybe one day it will come full circle and people will greatly admire a person that has impeccable, stylish penmanship. Fine art will at be spared as it is rendered on canvas, and paper. Graphic Design will continue to flourish and record our history. It will always be our way to communicate and be understood.

Hope you enjoyed my summation for the course.

Here are some of my favorite anime posters.