A Handmade Web talks on the intimacy of smaller websites. It focuses
on the flexibility when it comes to formatting in comparison with
printed matter (Like books, zines, pamphlets, etc.). A website allows
certain formats, like those that run in a loop, that can’t be fully
executed by physical prints to be able to be created and fulfill the
intention of the artist/designer/author.
I found it very interesting that she brought up the nostalgia of the
older more intimate websites. It feels as if it was a overall trend
of this generation as seen in fashion, photography, and recently
popularized designs. Why is it that the more advanced we are the more
we long for the styles of the past?
Because the internet (and majority of the capitalist world) has become
so commercialized, why is it considered an act of rebellion when we
default to creating the way we started?
“Vertical Reading” is about the Roma Publications and their website, compared to the books published through them. According to this article, their main website has a list of all the books they’ve ever published in a list form, in what seems like an odd order to them. Because it is such a long list of book titles, dates, and authors, it makes it quite hard to read. We automatically separate these into columns, but since there is so much information, it’s quite hard to go through everything. He separates them into different categories of language, repetition in titles, artist(s), pages, size, collaborations, and year.
I think if the Roma Publication website had these categories that allow people to shift through a most digestible amount of information it would make the website more successful. I think this article is a good reminder to think about the amount of information that is put into a page and how to separate them for readers to have a more digestible read.
Karl Gerstner talks about a way of thinking that I think is important to apply to every form of artistic practice. He mentioned that in order to solve a problem, which is something we constantly will have to do as graphic designers, we will have to be able to describe the problem, and the ability to do so is the first step to solving that problem.
He also brought up a series of windows form a cathedral that I thought resembled our first project, where though the integral and general structure is similar, none of the windows have the same ornamentation. This reminds me of when we were assigned to build html sites, the result being that everyone in class ended up with a site unique to themselves.
He goes on to talk about swiss design, which is very grid-oriented, and discusses some of how they solved their design problems. He discussed how they processed layout with different dimensions.
"integral typography strives for the marriage of language and type resulting in a new unity, in a superior whole. Text and typography are not so much two conseecutive processes on different levels as interpenetrating elements."
I think I definitely fall under the catagory of people effected by societal pressures when thinking about what I want my personal website or my portfolio website to be. I currently depend on wix because I've been using it for a while already, but also because it seems most convenient for me to keep up with. I relate to her students when they asked how to actually make a website, because it seems like there is a lot more behind a successful site under the design and coding process of it. I love that she compared a website to so many rooms of the house and their functions. I think that's a very useful way to think of a website's purpose visually. I think that it's quite cool that a website can be so many things and that keeps you thinking about what you can achieve. In many ways, it's so much more flexible than a canvas.
It's quiet evident with the progression of camera and photography gear development that people now demand more in quality and resolution in an image. With the perfection of monitor quality, picture and video recording quality, and the increase in pixels that are able to be projected or shown on a screen, a low resolution image become increasingly more noticable. However, this comes with the increase in file size as more information is being recorded in that file. In order for a website to run fast, the file size in which it hosts can't be too large. The larger the file the slower it will run. It's quite ironic that there is a demand for both a quality of image and also the speed of the site, but the designer must find the equilibrium between them. The 35mm film is the standard of quality now-a-days, and anything before that seems to be off as the reading suggests. Though pixelated images have their beauty, it's quite subjective to the eye.
Moniker touched on a concept in which I practice quite often. They focus more on the process rather than the final outcome. From that, they allow experimentation between many different mediums. I personally don't like to close in on a specific medium. I started my artistic career with a foundation in fine arts. Like many others, I took art classes while in high school. Every project I would pick a medium in which I was unfamiliar with in the art room and challenge myself to create something in which I liked. I think this pushed me to think creatively and more conceptually. After practicing many of these mediums, they allowed me to think more critically about concepts and how each medium would apply to each concept. I think through this I was able to be a quick learner in the different mediums I've been exposed to which I am very thankful for. This allow me to be able to experiment without much barrier. If I come across something I'm unsure of, I tend to want to try to figure it out for myself. Though sometimes the learning curves are quite steep, I still push myself to explore something new.
The quote "A young artist who doesn't have a website is no artist" holds quite true today as the website took over the place of the business card: It is a space that allows an artist's work, personality, and existance to be shown as a whole. I think its quite interesting that we upload more photos in two minutes than a collective existance of them in total 150 years ago. I'm excited to see the change in which this brings and the effect it brings to the artistic world because of this huge library of inspiration. This article also talked a lot about the difference between a gallery and a website, along with what a website allows one to do. I think this is interesting because it challenges me to think about how I want to create my own website online. His thought of artist websites being the pinnicle to how we change our perspective towards art and images online is quite interesting. This drives me to think more about different ways I can challenge others while presenting my work.
This article highlights the UI of web design. It shows a lot of different ways in which you can challenge a 2D plane to illustrate a 3D perspective. They show examples of different effects that are intuitive to the users of today. A lot of the points this article brings up sound similar to those within typography; though a lot of them are rules, they are things that can be challenged and used many different way to illustrate an idea. However, similar to any design, a conscious thought has to be put into it for the design to stay strong. It's a good reminder to keep simple things such as surface, depth, and shadows in mind to enrich design.
I think the concept of time is quite facinating. I always thought about how people were able to live by a specific time without questioning its existance like they do with other things that exist in this world today. Everyone just seems to live by it and let it be engrained in them, and somehow it works with nature and all other systems that exist. When this article brought up the concept of time and how two points must agree to create the validity of this concept, I thought that it was similar to the internet. Both the internet and the concept of time are so ingrained in our lives (especially my generation) that we don't even quite question it much. However, both of them have a system, a starting point, someone who created it (though maybe unknown), and multiple "points" that work together to keep the existance of itself. Both of these things are part of such an intricate system that couldn't live without a single part missing from it. Like the gears of a clock, both the internet and time has a starting point, in which branches out to another point that works with it and gives it feedback. This loops over and over again to create a giant system of gears that all loop and give feedback to one another, creating the two systems that we live by today.
"We no longer have any desire for design that is driven by need. [...] If design is in fact the aesthetic refinement of an ivention, then there is room for debate about what the 'design problem' is." In the past, many of their designs were designed out of necessity and out of convenience. The first methods of transportation where build for quicker travel, the first tools were created so that harvesting and hunting became easier for us. Nowadays, many of our designs are focused on aesthetics and its look. From my understanding, the "design problem" used about the functionality and user experience of objects, however it is obviously different now. I agree that design is a added value, but I think it shouldn't add toward the problem of longing for luxury. I thought it was interesting that he defined the title of a designer as something negatively defined, that the vocabulary of a designer is to describe what they are not, what they don't do, and what they can't do. "Making art without making art, doing by not doing, contemplating without thinking, [...] add to this the long-term obsession with invisibility and absence." Personally, I do feel these things about my own progress of different projects I do, whether by commission or by assignments in Parsons, but most of the time I feel that way when I'm uninspired but still working with a deadline. I think it's interesting that he mentioned that because I think graphic design is one of the only majors that allow a designer to go on "autopilot" when completing assignments. Many other majors require you to be in full focus for the whole duration of a project. I think it's interesting that he's quite against the idea of a graphic designer, but I think his reason for it is understandable. I think it's quite easy to be a little full of yourself in a major that can be quite vague. I think this is a good reminder to check yourself and to still push yourself and your limits when it comes to mediums, skills, and of course, craft.
I've never invested much of my time into politics on a normal day basis, pre-covid. I've always had the mindset that as long as the general path of the world is going fine, I would turn out fine as well. However, after covid-19 started spreading around at the speed of which it is spreading, I've started investing my time into reading the news and looking into the different aspects in which will effect me. I think its very interesting that jokes have such a politial impact (especially today without current state of the world with the covid19). There definitely is an influx in jokes regarding the current presidency and the state of the world, which I think was created in the first place as a way to comfort ourselves from the fear that these things put into us. It distracts us from the political hiearchy and brings it down to the same level as us, which allows us to take that information better as it becomes more digestible as it becomes less serious. I think that these political jokes help me stay in the loop as well as it draws attention and still gets the point across. I find myself going to late night hosts like John Oliver when I don't feel like reading the news, but still know that I should hear it. It keeps people in check.
It isn't until recently that I've started to be interested in websites. I noticed some paralells when reading this article as when I was in the beginnings of coding my portfolio. I thought that a website was very much like an installation. I started thinking of it as a space from the readings from before, and depending on what is displayed, the layout of each gallery or installation will defer. I think that has helped me realize how to come about creating websites more. Miltos Manetas talks about the "Telic Spirit" a lot. I think that relates towards graphic designers/developers, as they code more conceptually, compared to those in computer sciences, which code for machines. Though both work with similar languages (to an extent), we don't seem to commuicate about code as I think the end goal for what we want to do differ. They help up be able to code and help us develop better ways to achieve what we want.